Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Shy and the Tracker

I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see Lily’s dead body hanging behind my eyelids. I can’t stop thinking about how similar her death was to Vera’s, how there’s a strong possibility Lily’s soul was exchanged with Vera’s. And right now, I’m pretty freaking sure Anora is the Eurydice.

But is she capable of killing Lily?

A better question: Is Anora in control of her power enough to execute something like an exchange?

It’s a question only she can answer. And since I’m still on leave from my knight-in-training duty, I’ll have to wait to talk to her until school.

I grab my phone and find myself scrolling through photos from digital albums my mom created. I’m realizing now I’m lucky Mom liked to take so many pictures of me and my friends growing up. I have a timeline of my friendship with Lily, Jacobi, Natalie…even Thane. There are photos of all five of us outside Rayon Elementary. My eyes linger longest on Lily, who is smiling so big, her eyes are closed. When we entered our freshman year, we all transferred to Nacoma Knight Academy for training. And of course, Thane followed us. Mom made us take the same photo but outside Emerson Hall. Lily has the same smile.

I have photos from birthday parties, dances, and school. I finally choose a photo of me and Lily to set as the background image on my phone. It was taken the night I got my Jeep. Once Dad gave me the keys, I drove to Lily’s to show her. She hopped in the passenger seat, leaned over the console, and snapped this photo before we went backroading.

She never judged me for wanting to do more and more “human” things.

“Hey.” I look up to find Mom standing in the doorway. “What are you smiling at?”

I turn the phone around so she can see. She smiles too, but it’s sad. Mom’s mourned Lily’s death just as much as me. She’s used to my friends coming over unannounced, hanging out for hours at a time. They’re just as much her kids as I am.

I clear my throat, mostly to make sure when I speak, my voice is clear.

“What’s up?”

“I came when I saw your light on to see what you were up to,” she says. “And to say I’m heading to the Compound for a few hours.”

“Are you being reinstated?”

She looks uncertain. “I’m meeting with Elite Cain to discuss reinstatement.”

“Oh.” I don’t know much about the process of being reinstated once a shadow knight is placed on probation. I imagine it has to do with how severe the offense is.

She crosses my room and kisses the top of my head before heading out.

I set my phone aside, stand, and shift into my raven form. At first, I think I’ll take a break, fly to the lake, and sit a while, but I find myself en route to Anora’s.

Questions only Anora can answer.

I’m ready for answers.

If I have to show up in her bedroom in my hybrid form just to get them, I will.

As I near her house, I know something’s off, because the usually snoozing hellhounds are sniffing the ground as if they’re trying to catch a scent. I fly in circles over their heads. The hounds look up at me, glowing red eyes like lasers, and gnash their teeth. One of the hounds lets out an ear-splitting howl, and at first, I think it’s reacting to me, but it darts down the road into the darkness. The other two follow. Something’s not right here.

My hand goes to my blade as my feet touch the ground. I take a step toward the house, but the air around me changes, and I twist to find Natalie shifting into her Valryn form.

“She’s not home.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Only a few minutes more than you. Seems we both had the same idea.”

I sincerely doubt that.

“And what idea is that?”

“To find evidence Anora’s exchanging souls.”

I glance at the house. “And how did you plan on finding evidence?”

Natalie shrugs. “We’re not bound by human law.”

“You can’t just break into her house, Natalie.”

“I’m a little beyond the point of respecting boundaries, Shy. Lily’s dead, and Anora was the last person to see her alive. We both know Lily didn’t kill herself. What else has to happen before you accept Anora’s responsible?”

I’m not sure, but I know something has to change…and maybe that’s Anora’s anonymity, even if I don’t trust what Roth’s planning for the Eurydice. At least the Order has the final say and might be able to help her.

“Shouldn’t you be a little more discerning now that you’re a tracker?” Natalie glares at the green threads on my suit. “Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?”

“No one gets promoted before training, Shy. Not even you. I’d think real hard about why Roth wants you as a tracker. Real. Hard.”

The thing is, I have been thinking real hard about it, and it bothers me just as much as Anora’s absence. A shrill cry sends my heart beating in my chest, until I realize it’s my phone.

Good thing I’m not hunting darklings tonight.

Fumbling, I pull it out of my pocket and answer.

“Yes?” My voice sounds more like a hiss than anything else.

“Shy, where are you?” I can hear the tap, tap, tap of Jacobi’s fingers against the keyboard. It sounds like heavy rain on the window.

“Home.” I would tell him the truth, but Jacobi’s on probation, and he would want to join us.

“Liar. You’re outside, 222 Foley… Isn’t that the new girl’s house?”

I pause a moment. “How did you know?”

“I traced your phone.” His voice is tinged with humor. Of course. Ever the tech, ever the hacker. The tempo of his fingers continues at a steady pace. “Just in case you were wondering, hanging out outside a girl’s house is no way to make her like you.”

“Uh, first, Nat’s here with me, and second, we were appointed—”

“To stalk her. I know,” he says.

“What do you want, Jacobi?” I ask quickly, in no mood for his commentary.

“I thought you’d want to know, I pinged Lily’s cell phone.”

My chest feels like it’s collapsed. I hadn’t even thought about Lily’s phone. I assumed it was with her body.

“And?”

“It hasn’t been used since Sunday,” he says. That was the day before she died. “And she was all over the place that day. School, the lake, June’s…”

“You said you tracked it, which I assume means it’s not at her house,” I say, growing impatient. “So where is it now?”

“The train yard.”

“What was she doing there?”

Jacobi’s still typing. “I mean, we used to hang out there when we were still friends with—”

“Thane.” Thane’s uncle, Malachi Black, owns the property, but being abandoned, it became a popular hangout for death-speakers looking to perform the occult. Thane and I had actually been there one night when we happened upon a séance, which aren’t always bad…except when we were caught, the kids chased us. One caught me and punched me so hard in the face, I blacked out for a moment. When I came to, a patrolling shadow knight had arrived and shut everything down, and I wasn’t allowed to go back to the yard.

Lily admitted she’d been hanging out with Thane again, so the fact that her phone is at the train yard could be coincidence. I’m not so sure she wanted it in her possession when her father or the other elites questioned her about her relationship with the human. Maybe she left it there on purpose until after she faced the Order. Still, it is worth investigating.

Jacobi continues, “I don’t know the exact location of the phone, but we can call it once we get there.”

“We? Jacobi, you’re on probation.”

“Exactly,” he says. “This isn’t patrol, so I can’t get in trouble.”

“Jacobi—” I start.

“I’ll be there in five,” he says, interrupting me, and before he hangs up the phone, I’m in the air. Natalie follows close behind.

The train yard sits against a curtain of dense wood, and a stagnant reservoir makes the place smell like rotten eggs. It is connected to a network of brick and metal warehouse buildings that once housed factories. Railroad tracks twine through the property, unused. I land atop one of several skeletal locomotives. The wind rustles the grass and the trees, carrying the scent of death: distinct, raw, and strong. I turn, staring off toward the warehouse. Two streetlights pour yellow light on the ground, and one warehouse window is lit. It’s that light—ugly, orange, and bright—that makes me feel uneasy.

Something’s wrong—I can sense it in the air. A strong current of energy is here, which means there are either a lot of souls or a few darklings about.

“You feel that?” I ask Natalie.

“Yeah.” She looks around.

“Stay alert.”

Jacobi lands beside us atop the locomotive. As he shifts, he pulls out his phone, staring down at a map where a glowing red dot pulses on the screen.

“I think it’s in the woods,” he says, and I follow his gaze to the tree line, a wall of solid black.

“Can you call it?” I ask.

Jacobi nods, and soon a low ringtone sounds from somewhere ahead of us. We jump from the roof of the train, swallowed by the overgrowth. I draw my scythe, hating the way the ground moves beneath my feet. It’s wet and marsh-like, making it difficult to move forward. It will also make fighting anyone out here harder and more dangerous.

“Do you smell that?” Jacobi asks.

Natalie coughs. “It’s awful.”

The smell of decay gets stronger as we move forward, invading my nostrils and spilling down my throat. Ahead I notice a disturbance in the grass—tall tendrils lying flat, forced down with weight. The ringtone goes silent just as I break through the wall of blades to find a pile of animal corpses in various states of decay.

“What the…” Bile rises in the back of my throat, and I swallow it down.

Jacobi kneels close to the corpses, examining them. There are a variety of species: squirrels and birds, cats and dogs, raccoons and opossums, basically any unlucky creatures that might live in the woods beyond or wandered onto the property. “No wounds,” he says.

There are too many corpses to assume these animals died naturally. No, their souls had been stolen.

“You think this is practice?” Natalie asks.

“I don’t know, but that seems like the only logical explanation,” I say.

“I don’t understand. If this is the work of a death-speaker, why would they leave the corpses out in the open? Why not bury their evidence?” Jacobi says.

“No one said we were dealing with a death-speaker.” I feel guilty for even thinking it, but I have to. What if this is the work of the Eurydice? Is this how she is gaining control of her powers? Practice?

“We should report this,” Natalie says at last.

“Uh, in case you forgot, me and Jacobi are not supposed to be here,” I say.

“If you want me to take the fall for it, I will,” Jacobi says, and in return, Natalie and I glare at him.

“Don’t be a martyr, Jacobi,” I say evenly. “I’ll report it. We can’t risk more time added to your probation.”

“It’s not so bad, Shy,” Jacobi says with a small smile. “Besides, it’s a waste if you get sidelined for even longer.”

“It’s just as much a waste to lose your talents,” I argue.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he says. “Besides, you don’t have to lie. I’ve seen my file.”

I stop myself from asking how, realizing he’s hacked the archive. I have no idea what his file says, but I can guess that his prospects for ranking as a shadow knight aren’t great. “Jacobi. You shouldn’t have done that.”

He shrugs. “At least I know their plans. It’s easier to make my own now.”

“Jacobi—” Natalie starts.

Just then, a light ignites in the darkness beyond the trees, small, faint. Jacobi steps toward it when a scream breaks the night—high, shrill, full of fear. My heart feels like it’s going to tear from my chest. Anora. The scream is coming from one of the warehouses a distance away.

Jacobi, Natalie, and I exchange a look.

“Go!” I command.

We race for the warehouse, and I try not to think about what will happen if we’re too late. We won’t have the killer at all, just another victim. One I don’t think I can live without.