“Don’t try and tell me this is the first time you’ve encountered them,” Leesha said.
“Leesha’s right,” Fitch said. “You seemed really familiar with how to fight them. In fact, you kicked ass.” Jonah heard notes of admiration and gratitude in his voice.
“He saved our lives,” Emma said. “Give him a break.” She was sitting on the window ledge, knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around them.
“He did save our lives,” Leesha said, turning toward Emma. “But he knows more about those—about what attacked us—than he’s telling.” She refocused on Jonah. “What’s your connection to them?”
“Don’t make me sorry I intervened,” Jonah said. “The proper response when somebody saves your butt is to say, ‘Thank you.’ And ‘Is there any way I can repay you?’ But that’s mainliners for you.”
“Mainliners?” Fitch repeated, raising an eyebrow.
“Not you,” Jonah said. He pointed at Leesha. “Her. Look, I am not going to make up a story for your entertainment. You’re just going to have to live with being rescued by a savant. End of story.”
“You’re not going to even try to explain this?” Fitch said.
“Nope. The best way to thank me is to be more careful in the future. You’re not in Trinity anymore. Big cities can be dangerous.” Jonah pulled out his phone, his usual means of escape. He scanned the screen. “Whoa! Look what time it is. I have to be somewhere.”
“Hold on,” Natalie said, storm clouds gathering. “You’re not meaning to leave me here with—with—”
“My work is done,” Jonah said. “I’m about the furthest thing from a healer there is.” Scooping up his bundled weapons, he went out the door.
Jonah should have known that Emma wouldn’t let this slide one more time.
He was bone-weary and discouraged by the time he finally reached his room, his gut twisted into a knot. He wanted nothing more than to fling himself down on his bed and lose himself in sleep. He was so distracted that he was already unlocking his door when he realized that he wasn’t alone. Hearing breathing behind him, tasting a familiar scent, he spun around and saw Emma sitting on the floor against the opposite wall, her arms wrapped around her knees, eyes glittering in the light from the ceiling fixture.
“Emma!” he said. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone back to Trinity.”
“No,” Emma said. “We need to talk.” There was a hard resolve to her voice that said she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Jonah’s stomach clenched tighter. “Look, it’s been a long day, you’ve been through a lot, and we’re both tired. I think we should—”
“We need to talk right now.” Emma lifted her chin. “I’m going to dog you until you talk to me.”
Reflexively, Jonah reverted to his usual prickly style. “Good luck keeping up with me, then,” he said.
“I may be slower than you, but I’m persistent,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you eventually. And then you will talk to me.”
Jonah snorted. “This always happens when I try and help somebody. Next time, I’ll walk away.”
Emma didn’t budge.
Jonah eyed her, taking in her white-knuckled fists, the rigidity in her shoulders and arms, the stubborn set to her jaw, the anger smoldering deep within her. It would be easy enough to back into his room and shut the door on her. He was in no mood for a heart-to-heart. He’d kept these secrets so long that they seemed welded to his soul. And yet, at the same time, he was too tired to carry them around any longer.
So he took a step back, shouldering the door open wider. “Would you like to come in?”
Now she studied him, head tilted, suspicion clouding her eyes.
“Truth be told, I’m just as dangerous here in the hallway as I am in my room,” Jonah said. “But it’s your call.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Emma said as she limped forward across the threshold.
“You’re hurt,” Jonah said. “You didn’t say anything at Natalie’s.”
“She had a lot more important things to contend with,” Emma said. Two steps into the room, she stopped dead. She swiveled, taking in the view. “Whoa,” she muttered. “I thought my place was fancy.”
Jonah followed her gaze. “You’ve really never been here?” he said.
She’d never been here, and they both knew it. It was the kind of thing neither one of them would have forgotten.
“I’ve never been invited,” she said.
“I don’t entertain much,” Jonah said. He looked around himself, trying to see it through her eyes. The furnishings were simple, almost plain. Wood floors, a couch and two chairs around the fireplace, a flat-screen television, an unmade bed.
Once he’d noticed the bed, it couldn’t be unnoticed. He wished he could make it disappear. It looked big and lonely, the setting for dreams that wouldn’t come true. And the nightmares that Jonah lived all day long.
There walls were bare, with only the beautiful view to decorate the room. Nothing on the kitchen counter except a cradle for an MP3 player. The most important clues to who he was were the high-tech sound system and the wall-mounted speakers. If he moved out, there wouldn’t be much to pack.
“The studio’s through here, if you want to see it,” Jonah said, crossing the room to the doorway on the far wall, then standing aside to let her precede him into the room.
Where the first room had been plain, nearly empty, this room was where he did most of his living. Guitars stood in stands everywhere—Jonah’s idea of decorating. Also amplifiers, banjos, recording equipment, a piano, a workstation with a computer, cords snaking everywhere. Half-filled glasses and dirty plates spoke of late nights alone.
Emma closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose, as if tasting the air. Then swayed a little, as if she’d taken a long, intoxicating drink of Jonah Kinlock and it had gone to her head. Or maybe it was the scent of wood and shellac and music in the air.
Jonah crossed to his weapons cabinet and keyed in a code to unlock the doors. He swung them wide, revealing his personal armory—a glittering array of knives, battle-axes, and swords of various sizes.
Jonah unrolled his bundle of weapons and plunked them down on a side table. Standing in front of the open doors of the armory, Jonah stowed his weapons as he had a hundred times before. It seemed oddly intimate, having her watching.
Shedding his baldric, he lifted Fragarach onto its stand. He ran a rag along the blade to remove any last vestiges of gore, then followed with an oiled cloth. He did the same with each weapon, carefully returning it to the rack, meaning to give them a more thorough cleaning when Emma wasn’t standing there. Finally, he opened a small drawer, chose a clean pair of leather gloves, and pulled them on.
He sensed Emma at his elbow. She’d come up beside him and was looking over the array of weaponry.
Show, don’t tell, Jonah thought. Isn’t that what they always say?
“No assault rifles?” Emma said.
“They aren’t as useful as you’d think,” Jonah said. “Especially in the city. There’s too much danger of hitting civilians who stray into the line of fire. I have used them in rural areas, because—”
“I’m kidding,” she said. “You know that, right?”
Jonah cleared his throat. Emma always seemed to put him off balance. “I guess that’s way too much information.”
Shrugging, Emma reached out and tested Fragarach’s edge with her thumb. Too late, Jonah gripped her wrist and yanked her hand back. Her thumb came away bloody.
“Well,” Emma said, sucking at her thumb. “It sure keeps an edge.”
“It has to be sharp,” Jonah said, “to cut through flesh and bone.” Closing the cabinet, he turned and put his back to it. Stand-up conversations were always briefer. “So,” he said, “you wanted to talk?”
“Let’s sit.”
Emma stalked back into the main living area, crossing to the gathering of furniture around the fireplace. She perched on the edge of the couch and waited, looking like someone who meant to wring him dry before she left.
Reluctantly, Jonah eased into one of the chairs. He felt vulnerable, defensive, on edge.
“I want to know exactly what happened earlier tonight, in the Flats,” Emma said. “I want to know what you have to do with those—those—” She shuddered. “Are you fighting them or are you, like, allies?”
Jonah swallowed hard, as if he could swallow down the secrets he was about to spill. He was already second-guessing his decision to tell the truth. It didn’t come easily to him. And once you tell the truth, the consequences roll out and there’s no way to untell it.
“Just—just hear me out, Emma, before you react,” Jonah said. “This might sound crazy.” Maybe it would sound so crazy that she wouldn’t believe him.
“Crazy like magical guilds, savants, and murderous wizards? That kind of crazy?”
Jonah considered this. “Maybe a little more crazy than that.” Still...once you were able to entertain the notion of murderous wizards, that was kind of a gateway, right? Could a belief in shades be that far out of reach?
“It’s got to do with the massacre at Thorn Hill,” Jonah said. “As you know, thousands of people died, including all of the adults. Those who weren’t killed right away were damaged magically. Many of those have died since. The thing is, the victims of Thorn Hill don’t really die. They’re immortal, in their way.”
Immortal. He hadn’t really thought of it like that before. Immortal sounded like a blessing instead of a curse. Like something you might wish for. Plan for. Hope for.
Emma took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Drummed her long fingers on the surface of the table between them. Emma’s hands were restless, always moving, as if looking for something to do. Jonah loved Emma’s hands. You could tell a lot about a person from their hands.
“What do you mean, immortal?” she said finally.
“After their bodies die, they persist as shades. Spirits without bodies. They wander around, trying to find a body to take shelter in.”
“You mean—they possess people?”
“In a manner of speaking. They aren’t strong enough to possess a live person. So. They look for corpses.”
“And if they find one, they—”
“They occupy it for a while, until it decays so much that it’s no good to them anymore. Then they look for another one, the fresher the better, because it will last longer, see. Or they kill someone, in which case the corpse is super fresh.”
“So...you’re saying those zombies—”
“Like I said, we call them shades,” Jonah said, “because they are remnants of the people they used to be.”
“Those shades we saw by the river—they died at Thorn Hill? They’re like ghosts? Ghosts that can kill?”
Jonah shook his head. “Not exactly. Unhosted, they don’t have any mass. They can’t wield a weapon. Sometimes they can startle someone into falling, and like that. Shades are most dangerous when they have a host body, when they’re physically capable of overpowering and killing their next host. That’s their preference—because a new kill is going to last longer. If we deprive them of a body, they are forced to find a cadaver to inhabit—someone who’s already dead.”
“Why?” Emma blurted. Then added, “I mean, why do they want a body?”
“Having a body allows them to interact with the world,” Jonah said, looking down at his hands. “I guess—I guess they miss that. And a body serves as a kind of armor, protecting them from people like me.”
Emma rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, as if she’d heard one too many revelations. “Why do they need protection from you? Is that what Kenzie meant when he said you had a secret life?”
“Shades hunt humans, both mainliners and the Anaweir. I hunt shades—me and a few dozen other slayers.”
“A few other what?”
“Shadeslayers. We’re all Thorn Hill survivors. Gabriel established the Anchorage to serve the survivors of Thorn Hill—the magical mutants we call savants. He takes a broad view of survivors—he includes the living dead—the hundreds of shades still walking around. That’s where Nightshade comes in.” Jonah pushed back his sleeve, exposing the flower tattoo. “We’re named after the flower. Or the poison.”
Emma stared at Jonah’s tattoo. “I do remember that. Nearly everyone at Thorn Hill had those,” she murmured, her face clouded with memory. “Except me. I always wondered why I was left out. But...that means you’ve had those tattoos since way before the massacre, right?”
Jonah shrugged. “I guess so. Everyone at the Anchorage has them, whether they’re a part of Nightshade or not.” When Emma opened her mouth to ask another question, Jonah hurried on. “Our mission is to protect survivors and the public and to put the shades to rest for good. So one thing we do is locate hosted shades and evict them from their bodies. Basically, by cutting the bodies into bits. That renders them less dangerous to the public. Temporarily, anyway.”
“Why is that your job?”
“It’s the only grace we can offer the undead. And at least it gives us a purpose other than waiting around to go crazy and die. It’s an outlet for our most frustrated—and therefore dangerous—savants.”
“And if they kill one of you—?”
“We become shades as well.” Jonah paused, clearing his throat. “Don’t get me wrong. We’re all savants, but we’re not all slayers. Everyone contributes what they can—healers, metalsmiths, tech experts.”
“Is Natalie a part of this? Is that why she seemed so—so matter-of-fact about treating Leesha?”
Jonah gritted his teeth. “I’m not going to tell you who’s in and out, besides me. But our metal shop forges most of the weapons we use, and our compounding pharmacy produces the medications we use in the dispensary. Much of our funding comes from our iron and gemstone mines in Brazil, plus what we raise through the annual auction and concert. This way, Gabriel doesn’t have to submit to the kind of scrutiny charitable foundations require.”
Emma’s face sharpened again as she refocused on Jonah. “If they are really immortal spirits,” she said, “then what’s the point? If you destroy their bodies, don’t they just hunt up a new one?”
“They are hard to kill,” Jonah admitted. He extended his gloved hands, resting them palm-up on his knees, and looked Emma in the eyes. “For everyone but me.”
Emma stared at his gloved hands as if fascinated and horrified at the same time. “You’re the only one who can kill them?” she said, finally. “What does everybody else do, then—carry your bags? Sharpen your sword?”
“I’m the only one who can kill them painlessly,” Jonah said. “The others use magicked blades called shivs on free shades.” He licked his lips. “That death is extremely painful.”
“What do you mean, ‘free shades’?”
“Shades without bodies. See, it’s impossible to kill a hosted shade. Like you said, they just go hunt up a new body. So, first we need to evict the shade from his host body. Then kill it with a shiv—or my hands.”
Emma thought for a moment. “Why would the Wizard Guild use a poison that would kill some people and make others immortal?”
“You’ll have to ask them. Maybe they messed up. Gabriel says that wizards aren’t very good at poisons. I’ve been trying to answer those kinds of questions for years.” He couldn’t resist adding, “That’s why I went to Tyler’s. We’d figured out that he had a connection to Thorn Hill.”
Emma’s lips tightened. Clearly, she was not in the mood to entertain excuses. “So...you’re saying that if you and I...if we die, that’s the way we end up?” Her voice cracked.
“I have to assume that’s the case,” Jonah said, “based on what’s happened to the other Thorn Hill
victims.”
“How come nobody knows about these shades?” Emma demanded. “How come this isn’t all over the newspapers?”
“Free shades can move easily from place to place, without being seen. Most operate in remote areas of the world, where killing goes on all the time anyway. What’s one more murder during a civil war in a far-off country? And because they work alone, the killing is scattered and sporadic. Until recently. About six months ago, we found out that shades have been organizing under the command of a shade named Lilith Greaves. Now they’re hunting in packs. That makes it harder for us to fight them, because there are a lot more of them than there are of us. We’ve lost several slayers because of that. And it’s only going to get worse.”
Emma sat very still, just looking at him, her emotions a chaotic jumble. Jonah couldn’t tell whether she believed him or not, though what she’d witnessed in the Flats should go a long way toward convincing her. “Why haven’t you at least told the other magical guilds about this so they can defend themselves? Or help you.”
“Some of us would like to see that happen,” Jonah said. “Myself included. What’s stopped us is history. If mainliners found out about this, do you really think they’d partner with us? I don’t. They’ve killed enough of us as it is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just after Thorn Hill, mainliners slaughtered the most severely injured survivors. Some of us were visibly damaged, and we were all viewed as potentially dangerous mutants. They told themselves it was the merciful thing to do. It was also the expedient thing. If not for Gabriel”—Jonah took a quick breath—“if not for Gabriel, Kenzie would have been one of them. Gabriel has devoted his life to protecting us, to providing a haven where we can live, can go to school, can make a living. The last thing he wants is to have people know that savants turn into vengeful spirits when we die. And yet, he can’t allow shades to prey on the unsuspecting public who had nothing to do with Thorn Hill. So we’re committed to putting them to rest in the kindest way possible.”