Shadowlight

The goddess to his god.

A roadblock ahead made him press the air brakes and coast to a stop behind a long line of cars. The unmarked cars and the big men in the dark suits looked like feds, Lawson thought, but they might be working for Genaro. Then he saw the silver BMW at the very front of the line and smiled.

There she is.

Lawson put the truck in reverse, smashing into the car behind him, before he shifted gears and plowed into the one ahead. The force of the truck hitting the station wagon sent it skittering into the next. He crashed through both and turned the wheel, going around the others and hitting two oncoming cars, flipping one and rolling the other into the shoulder.

He saw Jessa and her boyfriend climb out of the car and run, and stopped the truck just before it hit the barricade of unmarked cars. A cloud of black dust wafted from him as he jumped down.

“Sir.” One of the big men came toward him and distracted him. “You’ll have to move—”

Lawson took hold of the man’s left arm, ripped it from his body, and used it to knock the head off his shoulders. He took a bite out of the arm before he dropped it and started after Jessa.

He had missed lunch and breakfast. Maybe he’d have Jessa feed her boyfriend to him instead.

The sky clouded overhead as Lucan’s driver came to a stop.

“The roadblock is in place, my lord,” the driver said. The sound of vehicles smashing together made him remove his shades and peer through the windshield. “There is a truck trying to drive through the stopped cars.”

Sam felt Lawson before he climbed out of the tanker truck, and grabbed Lucan’s arm. “That’s him on the other side of the roadblock. The one in the truck.” Her hand shook as she reached for her weapon.

“No, sweetheart,” he told her, tugging her hand away. “This is my work.” He took off his gloves and opened the door before he looked back at her. “If I fail, summon Richard. He will be the only one strong enough to stop him.”

“Wait.” She climbed out after him.

Lucan turned to thrust her back into the car; then they both heard the Kyn warrior cry out. Sam watched in disbelief as Lawson pulled off the Kyn’s arm as if it were an insect wing and used it to decapitate him.

Lucan’s eyes turned to chrome. “Stay here, Samantha.” He strode past a man and a woman fleeing from Lawson.

Sam called to the two mortals to take cover, but a blue sedan screeched to a stop between them and the couple jumped into the backseat. The sedan spun around and sped away from the roadblock.

She turned at the sound of smashing glass and saw the windows of every car Lucan passed explode outward. Lawson, who was covered in some kind of black soot, stopped a few feet away from her lover.

“You’re one of the old ones,” she heard Lawson say. “I’m your new god.”

“There is only one God,” Lucan informed him pleasantly. “You are not Him.”

Lawson lifted one of his hands, and a bolt of electricity shot out, hitting Lucan in the chest and sending him soaring backward to land on top of one of the cars, crushing the hood inward with the impact.

Sam pulled out her weapon and started to run.

Rowan looked back at them. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Matthias put his arm around Jessa. “How did you know we would be on this road?”

“Sarah called Drew. My cell phone’s history.” Rowan turned her attention back to the road, but glanced in her rearview. “Who the hell was the guy shooting lightning out of his hands?”

“Lawson,” Jessa said, her voice bleak. “He’s coming after me again. GenHance did something to him, made him like us, and like the dark Kyn. And something else. Something worse.”

“We passed a truck stop about two miles down the road,” Drew said. “We should change cars there.” He smiled at Jessa. “Nice to meet you at last, Ms. Bellamy. You’re even prettier in person.”

Rowan made a rude sound. “Save it, Andrew. She’s taken.”

“Yes.” Matthias turned to Jessa, who held his hand between hers. “She is.”

Rowan eyed him in the mirror. “Was that GenHance with the roadblock back there?”

“No,” Jessa said before he could reply. “They weren’t GenHance or the police. That woman who got out of the car was wearing a gun in a holster, but she didn’t dress like a cop. And that big man with the fair hair …” She gripped Matthias’s hand. “This is going to sound a little strange, but when I passed him, I smelled flowers.”

“Could be he was a florist,” Drew suggested.

Rowan chuckled. “Or he likes wearing perfume.”

Matthias knew the man and the woman had been dark Kyn, but he didn’t want to frighten his friends or disturb Jessa. There would be time later, when they were safe, to speak of such matters. “Drew, what happened to Lawson to make him as he is now?”

“Evidently he broke into the lab at GenHance and injected himself with the transerum,” the younger man told him. “He’s pumped full of it now, and if it works the way Kirchner predicted, he’ll be next to impossible to kill.”

“He had fangs,” Jessa said. “He also survived being electrocuted.”

“That would mean he’s mutated.” Drew rubbed his eyes. “They haven’t perfected the transerum yet. They were letting Lawson run around to see what effect it had on him.”

“It turned him into a monster,” Jessa said, shuddering. “He doesn’t even look human anymore.”

“What can kill him?” Matthias asked as Rowan pulled off into the truck stop.

“You have to separate the brain from the body to kill both,” Drew said. “My guess is by decapitation, dismemberment, or ripping out his spine. Burning might work, too, but he’d have to be incinerated to ash.”

Jessa stiffened. “He’s getting closer, Gaven,” she said in a low voice. “They weren’t able to stop him.”

Matthias scanned the parking lot. He spotted a welder’s flatbed truck, which was stacked with pipes, and an old fueling station that had been boarded up and appeared unoccupied. He measured the distance from the fueling station to the diner.

“Rowan.” He pointed. “Park the car over there.”

Lucan heard Samantha screaming his name, and the sound of a truck engine. He rolled off the ruined hood of the vehicle just before the tanker smashed into it, shearing off the front end. From the ground he leaped up onto the side of the truck, wrenching open the passenger door.

Lawson turned, kicking at his face, and screamed as Lucan seized his leg. Before Lucan could do more than shatter the bones in it, the wounded man hit him with another burst of power, which knocked Lucan out of the cab and onto the road.

Lucan rolled to avoid the back wheels of the truck and staggered to his feet. The burns to his face and chest throbbed painfully as he watched the truck knock aside the cars his men had positioned to block the road, and heard the roar of the engine as Lawson accelerated.

“Lucan.” Samantha reached him and grabbed his arms. “Your face.”

He could feel the wounds healing. “It will pass.” He turned to her. “Help the mortals who have been injured.”

“You can’t go after him.”

“My talent shattered his leg. I can kill him.” He bent and kissed her with his scorched lips. “Take care of the people here.”

He took one of the cars Lawson had not destroyed, and followed after the tanker, trying to gain on it before Lawson reached a populated area. Fortunately the only dwellings Lucan saw ahead of them were a gas station and a restaurant, which he was sure Lawson would pass.

Sure until the tanker slowed, and then turned.

* * *

“It has to be me,” Jessa said to Matthias after he told them about his plan. “I’m the one he wants.”

He shook his head. “Sarah and Paul will be here soon. She will cast an illusion over me—”

“He’ll reach us before they do.” She looked at Drew. “Are you as fast as Rowan says? Can you pull me out in time?”

As he nodded. Rowan walked over to Matthias and held out her hand.

“It’s my turn.” When he didn’t touch her, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Queenie, in case you were wondering.” Her body blurred, and when she turned around she was a mirror image of Jessa. “He really loves you.”

“Rowan, I can’t let you—” Jessa began, but the younger girl waved her hand.

“You don’t get a vote. No one does. Like I said, my turn.” Her gaze shifted as the sound of a truck braking drew their attention. “No more time to discuss it. He’s here. Matthias, you’ve got the car. Drew, you’d better not miss this time.”

“I won’t.” He sprinted off toward the welder’s truck.

Matthias caught the keys Rowan tossed to him. “You will be careful.”

“No.” She grinned. “But I’ll get him.” She jogged off toward the fueling station before either of them could say another word.

Jessa stared after her. “She’s one of the shape-shifters. I had no idea.”

He tugged her arm. “Come. We must go to the car before he sees both of you.”

The tanker slowly entered the drive into the truck stop, and coasted to a stop. Jessa crouched behind Rowan’s car with Matthias and watched as the tanker slowly turned toward the fueling station, where Rowan, still in Jessa’s form, stood between the pumps. The truck carrying the pipes backed in behind her, and Matthias opened the door to the car and started the engine.

Rowan walked forward until Lawson could see her standing in the sunlight. With a grand sweep of her arm, she lifted her hand and flipped him her middle finger.

The tanker’s engine gunned, and Lawson barreled toward her.

Lucan drove into the parking lot and saw Lawson driving the tanker toward a lone mortal female standing at the other end of the complex. He was too far behind to stop Lawson from running her down, and could only watch the woman die.