The Dying of the Light: Legends of the Light-Walkers, #3

By Courtney Cantrell

Rafe Skelleran is losing his mind. Weird nightmares ruin his sleep and dog his waking hours. Even the booze doesn't help anymore. And the worst part of going crazy is he doesn't even know why it's happening.

In the midst of his descent into madness, a woman shows up on his doorstep, all curves and feisty foreign accent. This dream girl is real enough, but her babble about ancient wars and lurking enemies is the stuff of fantasies. Her rantings gain the weight of reality when an enemy arrives with an arsenal of otherworldly powers and tries to murder Rafe. Fleeing the destruction of his home, blood on his hands, Rafe realizes that if he wants to get out of this alive, he’s going to have to stick with a woman who’s possibly crazier than he is.

Besides, she knows about his dreams. She knows the green-eyed crone whose nightly pleas are driving Rafe insane. She says the old woman is real and that she can take Rafe to her. And Rafe can’t pass up the chance to find out the truth.

Hijacked to a strange world where he is surrounded by powerful, dangerous allies, Rafe soon realizes he’s no safer with these people than he was on his own. Every time he turns around, someone insists he’s not who he thinks he is. Every time he turns around, someone wants him dead. On the run with what seems the least of many evils, Rafe doesn't have a single person in this strange land he can trust.

Even worse, he feels a dormant, volatile power knocking from within, urging him to let his magic loose. He must unlock it before facing his darkest enemy, for without it he can't possibly survive. It's that or accept an allegiance that will give him the worlds...if he's willing to sell the last little bit of himself he has left.

156,000 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Faeddra Books
• Release date: Jun 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513092669

Courtney Cantrell

Courtney Cantrell is the author of epic fantasy series Legends of the Light-Walkers, paranormal fantasy series Demons of Saltmarch, sci-fi epic The Elevator, and oodles of short stories. She was born in Texas and grew up in Germany. At age 12, she penned her first novel, a one-page murder mystery. (The gardener did it.) By age 17, she had finished two full-length YA sci-fi novels. Three transatlantic moves, thirty years, and countless shenanigans later, Courtney writes full-time as a stay-at-home mom. As of 2023, she has survived the collapse of modern civilization and completed 16 novels and two short story collections in multiple genres. Courtney lives with her husband, their daughter, two cats, and an assortment of cross-cultural doohickeys. She blogs haphazardly at courtcan.com and connects with her adoring fans as @courtcan on Mastodon.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The crazy chick’s left hook caught Rafe square on the jaw.

Of course, he’d expected a right. Actually, after the tequila and six Hefeweizen at Deuce’s, Rafe’s head was spinning too much to anticipate a punch at all. So when the girl in skinny jeans and combat boots hit him, he didn’t feel a thing. Instead, he slammed against the wall outside his locked apartment door and dropped into the puddle he’d complained about to MacGregor just yesterday. Mildew spread a musty cellar scent through the entire enclosed stairwell. Groaning, Rafe rolled to his back and sneezed twice. Dirty rain water soaked into his shirt. Damn the Mac for not getting the damn roof fixed.

From his prone position, he squinted up at the unfamiliar girl. He was down here, might as well enjoy the view. She was hot enough he wanted to stare at her all night, and he was almost drunk enough to try. Too bad her left had knocked his vision blurry. Or maybe that was the tequila.

He tried to push himself up. What’d you have to do that for?

She flipped long, auburn hair over her shoulder. You were preparing to strike me.

Yeah, well, you attacked me.

I most certainly did not.

Rafe finally got his fingers around the door frame and pulled himself into a sitting position. The universe spun a couple dozen times. He moaned. Grabbing my arm and pushing me into the wall ain’t how I define ‘not.’

You weren’t listening.

Damn straight.

As I was trying to tell you, we shouldn’t have this conversation in this hallway.

He used the ball of his thumb to massage the space between his eyebrows. Right. Great. Couldn’t agree more. No conversation in the hallway. So go have a nice life or something.

Will you unlock your door, or shall I do it for you?

Knock yourself out. Please.

Well, at least you’re finally displaying some courtesy.

Either she was a master of veiled sarcasm or just too dumb to catch on. He stopped massaging and glared up at her past his hand. For the first time since she’d accosted him in the foyer downstairs, she smiled. A tiny but full-lipped smile. Pretty.

Aw, crap. One missed idiom, one sexy smile, and he flashed back to college and another unusual woman. Berenike zu Reckendorf, international student from Germany. Bossy as hell and twice as smokin’, especially with the accent. Beri had kept him wrapped around her pinkie finger for almost five semesters.

As he lay there recalling the exotic and overbearing, the new girl reached for the door knob above his head. A spark of blue light, and the latch clicked. The door creaked open half a foot and then stopped, blocked by a discarded sweatshirt just past the threshold.

Rafe twisted around. The motion did little to soothe his aching head. Hey, what was that? How’d you—

I said, not in the hallway. We will attract unwanted attention.

You’re so worried about attention, you shouldn’ta yelled at me all the way up the stairs.

Mouth closed, she took a deep breath. Her nostrils flared. Damn, that was sexy, too. She reminded him too much of Berenike for comfort.

I was not ‘yelling.’ Besides, your neighbors are not the ones who concern me.

Super. You a dealer or something? Worried about cops? I don’t need that, lady. I really don’t.

If you do not enter your apartment now, I will carry you in.

Blurry vision or not, he let his eyes wander down her body and back up. He grinned. If my head didn’t hurt like a mother, I’d let you try.

Her frown made him want her to say something for him in a foreign language. Parentage is irrelevant, she said. Get up.

Deadpan or dumb. Rafe rubbed his forehead one more time and snorted. Fine. You know, I don’t care. I’m gonna go in and crash, and ain’t nothing in my place worth stealing. You do see something you like, you just go right ahead and take it. But you look kinda vanilla, sweetheart. I don’t think this’ll be your taste.

At least he knew what she saw as she watched him. Before the booze kicked in, the sight of his own thin face in the mirror behind Deuce’s bar had hit hard. Light brown eyes muddy with exhaustion. Dark hair too tangled to be attractive. Skin the shade of a white guy after too much sun or a Latino guy after not enough. Black Label Society T-shirt made of wrinkles. Not someone a Beri or any other type of woman would wanna take home for the night.

So what the hell was this one doing here?

He got as far as his hands and knees and considered crawling inside, then thought better of it, God only knew why. Something about her tiny, full-lipped, possibly sarcastic smile. Between the door frame and the door knob, he managed to maneuver his body upright and his feet underneath him. Weaving, he kicked the sweatshirt aside and staggered into the apartment without checking to see if she followed. Light spilled in with him, showing him the way across the short hall into the living room. He waited until she’d shut the front door, leaving them both in near-darkness, before he flipped on the light.

From the center of the high ceiling, the bare bulb revealed a stained carpet, a rickety table and chair, and a sofa missing a cushion. A single, unshuttered window showed a dull view of late-night Oklahoma City, only a few pinpricks of light in the darkness. He couldn’t afford to turn on the air conditioner, so the humidity in the apartment matched the humidity of late May outside. Rafe made a beeline for the faded sofa—if the bee had spent the day at Deuce’s Dive, trying to eradicate thought by way of liquid braincell remover. He fell backward onto the sofa and didn’t know if the loud creak of protest came from the furniture or from him.

Like the decor? he asked.

Her eyes roved the walls from where she stood in the living room doorway. Would she note the absence of family pictures and souvenirs of happier times? It’d been so many months since he’d had anyone in the apartment, he couldn’t begin to imagine how she perceived what was here and what wasn’t. But what other people thought of his work hadn’t mattered in a long time.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder again and took a step inside. He followed her gaze. Now that he lay horizontal and not in a puddle, the world went back to spinning the way the laws of nature meant it to. Her eyes fixed on a large, vertical oil painting to his right. In the painting’s background, white light cascaded into red shadows into formless darkness, leaving the viewer with the sensation of falling. He’d worked for months to perfect the illusion. The foreground depicted a single, slender pillar jutting up out of the void. Atop the pillar stood a woman, her arms raised in supplication, her mouth open in a soundless scream. Tears poured from her eyes. He’d managed the perspective so the viewer looked down on her from above and she lifted her desperate face to her observer. Pleading for rescue from the hungry darkness below her. Shana, last in a string of inconsequential girlfriends, had told him the painting gave her nightmares. She broke up with him when he refused to take it down. He remembered laughing.

His current visitor only cocked her head and squinted a little. Her eyes shifted to another painting, Rafe’s attention moving with hers. This one was acrylic, the size of his front door, almost uniformly black. He’d left the gallery-wrapped edges white, letting the blue-black paint spill out in sloppy streaks. A few lighter brushstrokes toward the top hinted at a deep-sea setting. But the painting’s subject kept itself to the lower third of the canvas and tended to startle people. Rafe watched his guest’s face as her gaze found the image and lingered there. If she considered a spike-toothed anglerfish mermaid with a massive lower jaw and a glowing forehead-lure disturbing or weird, her delicate features gave nothing away.

She looked at the walls, and Rafe looked at her. The seven-headed dragon from the Book of Revelation, the Predalien from the movie Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, the Lovecraft illustrations, the gore-drenched man screaming at the moon, the giant set of razor-sharp teeth jutting out of the darkness, the mutant goblin children dancing in a playground—she took in every painting without a grimace or a flinch. She might have been studying the non-existent photos of his dead parents or his many unimpressed and unimpressive foster parents.

Rafe watched her serene profile, which blurred and sharpened and blurred again as he blinked. The graceful curve where her forehead sloped toward her nose refused to stay in focus. He grunted, irritated. Plastered as he was, he took several long moments to realize she’d turned impassive, heather-gray eyes on him. He stared right into them. Warm all over, he grinned. So?

I didn’t know you were an artist.

I’m not.

She gestured without breaking eye contact. These are not yours?

Oh yeah, they’re mine. But they’re not art.

Then what are they?

Therapy.

She frowned a little and shook her head. We’ve no time for this. You need to listen to me. I’ve come here to warn you and to aid you. And you should know that refusing my help is not an option.

Look, lady, what I need is to pass out in about half a minute. Ain’t nothing you can help me with. You want more, you’re gonna have to wait until the second date. Deal?

Her frown deepened. Calendars do not matter right now. You must take this seriously. You are in danger.

You ain’t from around here, are you?

She dropped her gaze and ran a hand through her hair. This is so much more difficult than I expected.

Yeah, me too.

She looked up again. What?

He chuckled, and it came out even more bitter than usual. "Oh, life. Being out on my own at sixteen. Crapping all over my own career. Moving to this dump. Getting fired from a corporate coffee chain first thing this morning. He tipped an imaginary drink to his lips. Cheers."

Her eyes widened, and she smiled again, but this time a smile full enough to stop his breath. Man, the unrelenting hawt of this woman. Crazy or not.

Fire. She nodded. Of course. I should have thought of it from the beginning.

Huh?

She reached her left hand toward him, palm up, fingers spread. Before he had time to imagine her spreading something else, a bloom of fire appeared in the air above her hand. The flames were blue.

Rafe sat straight up on the sofa. What the hell?

Blue light cast an eerie glow on her face. No, Raphael, I am not ‘from around here.’ I represent a people at war, and I’ve come to warn you and save you before that war consumes you.

The entire universe was skipping around in a way it definitely shouldn’t. Rafe dug his fingernails into the sofa cushions, took a deep breath, held it, expelled it through pursed lips. His ears rang. His heart raced—and not just from the daylong drunk. He let every shred of anger show in his face as he glared at her from beneath lowered brows. I ain’t in any war. And don’t call me ‘Raphael.’

Like his artwork, his anger prompted no change in her face. It is your name, she said.

Get out.

Please, Raphae—

Get out! He stood, shaking, pointing a trembling finger at the door behind her. I’m roadkill, and you just wore out your welcome. Shut the damn door behind you. Go.

No.

I ain’t askin’.

You’re not even curious as to how I know your name?

Without looking, he pointed toward the paintings on the wall. A lot of people know my name. You watched any news at all a couple years back, you know my name. You dig through the trash in the alley outside, you know my name. So how ’bout you head out there where you belong and dig out somebody else. I’m done.

I’m not here for anyone else. I’m here for you. You’re in danger.

Only danger I’m in is I’m gonna fall and smash my face on the floor when I kick your ass through the door. Out!

She shook her head. I won’t leave without you. I’ll strike you again.

Well, I didn’t feel it the first time, so I guess you better hit harder.

He took two unsteady steps forward—and at a flick of her fingers, the blue fire dropped from her hand to the floor. An instant later, it shot up higher than his head and spread halfway across the room. A wall of fire blocked him from touching her. And cut off his path to the front door.

Hey, whoa! For the first time, Rafe felt a tingle of fear. The fire burned so hot he had to step back, bumping into the sofa. He half fell, half climbed onto it and put his back to the wall. What the hell are you doing?

I am showing you what you could be up against, came her voice from the other side of the crackling, blue flames. The others who are coming for you won’t give you this courtesy.

You’re gonna burn the whole place down!

No, I won’t. Look at your floor.

What?

The floor!

He leaned forward just a little and peered over the edge of the sofa. Where the blue fire touched the carpet, he saw not a single scorch mark. He sniffed and didn’t smell any smoke. Frowning, he stretched a hand toward the crackling blue. The moment before his fingertips recoiled from the unbearable heat, the fire winked out. Overbalanced, Rafe tumbled off the sofa and hit the floor with a pained grunt.

Now are you more disposed toward listening? she asked.

Rafe rolled to his side and clawed for a handhold on the sofa, but the faded red cloth refused to oblige. No. You...talk about...war...people coming for me. Dammit! I don’t need drug dealers or cops or conspiracy theory nutjobs in my life, sister. Get the hell out of my apartment.

This time, instead of denying the order, she stuck a hand in his face. He flinched then felt like an idiot. The blue fire had disappeared. He wrapped his fingers around hers and let her help him up. Once he had his feet under him, she let go and stepped away. His palm tingled where she’d touched, and he rubbed it on his shirt. Shock had driven some clarity into his tequila-addled brain, but still he just stood there instead of booting her out the door.

A flicker of light caught his attention. The blue fire hung unsupported in the living room doorway about three feet above the floor.

Rafe swallowed. Okay. So that’s weird.

Please. She’d lowered her voice, somehow doubling the urgency in her tone. They’re coming for you. It’s a wonder I even found you first. If you’ll only come with me, I promise you answers to your questions. Just not here, not now. There is no time.

His eyes still fixed on the floating flames, Rafe shook his head. Problem for you is, I got no questions.

But you do. The way you stare at my Fire, I can see questions in every line of your face. She put a weird inflection in the word fire—as though she capitalized it in her head.

He faced her again. Those heather gray eyes were magnetic enough to make his next words a lie. "But I don’t care."

She pushed a length of auburn hair over her shoulder, shaking her head. If you would stop lying to yourse— Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened.

He didn’t like how easily she’d read him. What happened? You just remember what loony bin you escaped from?

Where did you get that?

Huh?

That portrait! She pointed with one hand, grabbed his shoulder with the other, and propelled him toward the doorway. Where did you get that?

Ow! What the hell?! What’s it to you?

This close, he caught a whiff of sweet scent from her for the first time. Like candy. He ignored the impulse to breathe in more deeply and shrugged out of her grasp. He only managed it because her fingers went limp and dropped away.

She rounded on him, and he took an involuntary step back. Bright pink tinted her cheeks, and the look in her gray eyes made him think, Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. He didn’t know if that should turn him on or scare the hell out of him. A dull pain set to throbbing in his jaw. Good reminder this was not a woman to tangle with.

She barely moved her lips. Where did you get it?

I painted it, okay? Finished it a couple days ago. It’s oils, so it’s still wet. He snapped his mouth shut on the babble. She wouldn’t care about details.

She turned back toward the living room door, above which hung the painting that had shattered her deadpan composure the way Rafe’s stubbornness and sarcasm apparently couldn’t. The enormous canvas boasted the only light background in his collection...and the only portrait. The eyes dominated it. Normal proportions, no oversized cartoon peepers here. But in their vivid green, undimmed even by the dull light of the bare bulb, the distinctiveness of these eyes stood out. Pallid, wrinkled skin only accentuated their brilliance. As clear and detailed as a high-res photo, each bright green eye shed a single tear that tracked down ancient, leathery cheeks. Toward the lower third of the canvas, wrinkled lips parted as though in mid-word. Long, silver-white hair fluttered out from the woman’s head as though she faced into the wind. Frozen in paint, she stared and called out silently from the canvas, pleading and beckoning. Compelling.

Just like his previous twenty-plus portraits of her.

How? whispered the much younger, flesh-and-blood woman at his side. "How can you have painted this?"

Her words stung—which surprised him. Look, just because I switched to horror doesn’t mean I can’t still paint other stuff. I know what the media said about me, but they got it all wrong. I ain’t some hack who got lucky with a few art shows. I just decided I didn’t wanna play their game anymore, okay?

She stared up at the painting, her lips moving soundlessly, as though he hadn’t spoken. "How could you have painted her?"

He folded his arms across his chest. You ever see any of my work before? The pieces that sold for fifty, sixty thou? This here’s kid scribbles.

You shouldn’t know her face!

What?

"Her face—hers! A dusky finger stabbed toward the portrait again. Of all the faces you could have painted, why in the bloody dust did you choose hers?"

Rafe squinted. "Wait a minute. Her.... You say that like...like you know her. He grabbed his unwanted guest by the shoulders, feeling muscles tense beneath her T-shirt. She’d probably hit him again—hell, she’d probably try to beat him senseless just for touching her, and he was still drunk enough she might succeed. But desperation suffocated caution. You know the woman in my painting? Who the hell is the woman in my painting?"

She didn’t hit him, and she didn’t try to twist out of his grasp, either. Instead, a sly smile spread across her face as she lifted her chin. So. There is something you care about, after all.

Damn right I do. That distracting candy scent drifted past his nose again, but he blocked it out. And if you know that green-eyed bitch in the painting, you damn well better tell me or—

She interrupted him with a gasp. Her smile turned to a wide-mouthed grimace; her eyes went huge. Oh, no.

Oh, yes. Spill it, sister, or I’ll—

No, there’s no time! With a casual gesture, she broke his hold on her shoulders then held out one hand. The blue Fire flowed mid-air from the doorway, across the room, and into her palm. You’re not ready. Bloody dust, I should have just bound you with air and carried you!

There, that funny emphasis again—like it was Air, not air. Lady, you ain’t makin’ a lick of sense.

Listen to me! She ducked her head to catch his eye. I told you they’re coming for you, and now it’s too late. You don’t even know how to Ward yourself. For the third time, that weird inflection. She really was foreign. I will have to buy us time, she went on. Is there another exit besides the front door?

Yeah, the bathroom fire escape, but—

Go there! Run!

Before Rafe could even open his mouth to refuse, the door to his apartment exploded.

Chapter 2

Dark red flames and bits of wood flew in every direction. Rafe ducked and flung up his arms to shield his head. The girl didn’t budge. He grabbed at her arm, but she only shoved him aside.

"Raphael, I said run!"

And I said don’t call me that! What the hell’s going on?

But she ignored him. Her eyes, hard as steel now, fixed on the entrance to the apartment—where the walls now burned with bright carmine Fire. And unlike her blue flames, these red ones charred anything they touched. A robed figure stepped through the near-halo of blazing carmine and into the apartment.

Rafe noted towering height, deep hood, and sharp glints from a pair of shadowed eyes. He looked at the girl. In her hands she held two basketball-sized orbs: one of blue Fire and one of clear liquid.

You made him too easy to find, halfwit, said the new intruder in a gravelly voice.

She didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Concentration narrowed her eyes. The ball of blue Fire launched from her palm straight at the intruder. Carmine Fire leapt from the walls and spread mid-air across the doorway. Azure hit carmine and flared white-hot for an instant. The girl let loose a tiny cry, her focused look twisting into a pained grimace. White-hot Fire faded to blue again and dissipated. From behind the deep-red flames came a high-pitched laugh. The carmine Fire roared into the living room, spreading left and right to cut off access to the doorway.

Rafe’s mouth went dry. Oh, shi—

Damn fool, muttered the girl. But she grinned as she watched the wall of Fire advance. She pointed up. His mistake.

Rafe’s glance followed. The intruder’s Fire spread the whole width of the room but didn’t reach as high as the ceiling. Rafe couldn’t begin to guess how their attacker had erred, but something else caught his attention. On either side of the living room, his paintings were going up in flame. Unexpected nausea invaded his stomach. He wanted to applaud, and he wanted to snatch every piece of art away from the greedy heat. Warring emotions froze him. Damn it! he yelled.

The girl’s focus stayed on the fight. In her hand, the orb of liquid—presumably Water—churned and frothed as it grew. She flung it to the top edge of the blaze, where the sphere flattened, thinned, and spread. The girl smirked. The Water rained down on the Fire with a furious hiss.

Steam filled the air. The carmine flames yielded a foot in height. Two feet. Three. From beyond came a shout of anger or pain. A fountain of super-hot deep red blasted straight at Rafe.

With a yell, he dropped to the floor. Fire shot over his head, recoiled, lashed out again. The girl shouted words he didn’t understand, but he followed instinct and rolled. His heart pounded. He gasped for breath, tasting heat in the air. Sweat rolled down his face and his spine. He abandoned any thought of saving his paintings. He needed to save himself first. Another carmine inferno fountained toward him. He heard then smelled the sizzle of burned hair. Yelling, he rolled again and hit the far living room wall.

This time the intruder’s Fire curved across the room, separating Rafe and the girl. She shouted, but Rafe couldn’t take time to wonder who she meant it for. He scrambled to his feet and put his back against the wall. A deep breath, and he launched into a dive over the still-low, carmine flames, hoping the psycho in the hooded robe couldn’t see him well enough to change the blaze’s trajectory.

Rafe hit the sofa, bounced off, crashed to the floor. Greedy, dark-red Fire licked after him, tasting and then igniting one end of the furniture. The girl kept shouting. Rafe looked up. Another sphere of Water seethed between her hands. She threw it at him.

He flung up his hands to protect his face. But instead of colliding with him, the Water spread out, encircled him, enclosed him in some kind of protective bubble. It looked like an upside down glass bowl with water running down the outside.

What the hell?

On the other side, Rafe’s paintings, the living room walls, and the carpet continued to burn. A new orb of blue Fire flared in the girl’s hands. Without catching a single spark, the cloaked maniac stepped through the wall of dark-red flame almost in her reach. She immediately launched a volley of blue Fire orbs. Each one exploded against him but left him untouched.

Another cackle within the hood. Light-Walkers stand no chance against Skardi Naertach. You should know that.

She bared her teeth, fierce and furious as a cornered cat cornered. And a Skardi shouldn’t commence combat with Fire, you fool. Don’t you know your own first rule?

The hooded figure didn’t answer, but Rafe saw the carmine Fire slow its advance. If the girl and their assailant were gonna have a real showdown out there, maybe Rafe would have time to find a weapon of his own. With a single, careful fingertip, he poked at the Water rushing in its bubble around him. His hand pushed right through, creating a gap in the flow. Good. If he could get out, maybe he could bring something else in.

He twisted around and thrust his whole arm through the Water. When his hand met the sofa, he angled down to reach underneath. His questing fingers found smooth wood. He wrapped his hand around the baseball bat and dragged it into the bubble with him. Water beaded on the barrel.

Outside, the two bizarre combatants faced each other down. A tiny whirlwind of broken door pieces and char swirled at the girl. Air and debris pummeled her. But as her Fire hadn’t touched the hooded nutcase, so his trash-slinging didn’t impress her, either. She shook her head. Why hold back, Skardi? she shouted over the crackle of Fire and the rushing of Water. You fancy yourself cruel? You fancy yourself vicious? Even for a Skardi, you’re pathetic!

The maniac—the Skardi?—didn’t answer, but Rafe saw tension in the set of his shoulders. The man clenched his fists. The whirlwind doubled in speed. The girl cried out and clapped a hand to her shoulder. Rafe couldn’t see what hit her, but blood ran down her arm from beneath her fingers.

Can you fight, little girl? The Skardi took a step toward her. Can you fight for your mewling prize with aught but words?

I don’t need more than words against the likes of you.

But Rafe heard the strain in her voice. He couldn’t wait any longer. He tucked, rolled, and came up dripping wet outside of the protective Water bubble. He checked himself for just a moment, but the cacophony in the room must have covered his splashing sounds. The Skardi didn’t turn around. And though Rafe hovered in the girl’s line of sight, behind and just to the left of the Skardi, not a twitch of an eyelid betrayed her awareness of him.

Good. Maybe she wasn’t dumb after all.

Rafe bared his teeth. He raised the bat over his shoulder, ready to hit the hardest home run in history—and a hand-sized piece of his front door smashed into the girl's chest. A huge splinter rammed itself into her neck. She screamed. Blood flowed rapidly from the wound. Even as he swung the bat, a pang of nausea hit Rafe deep in the gut. Her blood flowed; not running, not spurting. That was good, right? His swing arced toward the Skardi. Toward the maniac’s head. Rafe just needed a single, solid hit.

He hoped.

The girl yelled again. He heard rage in it, not pain. She dropped to her knees, clutching the splinter embedded in her neck. All at once, her Water bubble and the remaining blue flames flowed toward her and disappeared into her palm. The Skardi barked a high, triumphant laugh. But the girl glared up at him and smiled...the scariest expression Rafe had ever seen. The girl with the heather-gray eyes smiled...and the floor shook...and ripped wide open.

Rafe swung his weapon—but the shrieking Skardi slid into the gap in the floor. The bat swished inches above the hooded head. Momentum carried Rafe a single step too close, and his right foot came down hard on the broken edge of flooring. It gave way, dropping him into the hole on top of the Skardi. The maniac grunted, bracing himself against broken joists. Somewhere below was the ceiling of the apartment downstairs. If the cloaked maniac let go, he and Rafe would go crashing down on top of old Whip Brinkmeyer and his fifteen cats.

Raphael! cried the girl.

I told you—

The Skardi reached for Rafe with one hand. They both sagged a few inches lower. Rafe felt strong fingers at his throat. He reared back—

—not to—

—and slammed his head forward and down. His head connected with the Skardi’s with a loud smack! that left him dizzy. Pain spread from his forehead into what felt like every inch of his body. His ears rang.

—call me—

The Skardi didn’t go limp, but his grip weakened. He slumped against a ragged wooden beam. Rafe clawed at the robes, trying to get them out of his way and use the man’s body as a ladder at the same time.

—that. His hands finally gained purchase on the edge of the hole in his living room floor.

The Skardi dropped farther, and his boot punched a hole into the drywall below. Light and an outraged howl spilled up into the struggle. If Whip Brinkmeyer hadn’t called the police yet, he would now. A strong, slim hand shoved in front of Rafe’s face. He grabbed it. The girl yanked him halfway up out of the hole. A very different hand clamped down on his calf.

Heat. Rafe yelled.

Looking down, he saw the wicked gleam of teeth in a harsh grin, eyes that promised violence, and, farther down, the glow of dark red Fire. Flames shot out from beneath the Skardi’s fingers—not harming their owner but burning Rafe. The girl let go of his hand, and he landed half on the floor, half in the hole. Red-hot pain seared his leg, and his yell turned to a shriek.

A tiny blue inferno in each of her palms, the girl reached into the hole and clamped her hands on the Skardi’s head. The Skardi cried out and let go of Rafe. But Rafe’s damp jeans were on fire. His skin was burning.

He twisted around on his back and crab-scrambled the rest of the way out of the hole. Water smashed into his legs from nowhere. He yelled at the cold and the sting, but the Water put out the flames that burned him. That help must’ve come from the girl. Rafe twisted around, hunting for the bat. He didn’t know where he’d dropped it. But he would find it, and he would bash the Skardi son-of-a-bitch’s head in if it was the last thing he did.

A column of Water erupted from the hole in the floor. But instead of helping, this Water collided with the girl and pushed her across the living room into the wall of carmine flame. As though both Water and Fire were solid, they pinned her between them. She kicked and screamed, but she couldn’t get loose.

Rafe’s heart raced as though he’d run up all five floors of the building. Fear-sweat and heat-sweat prickled under his arms, along his spine, at his groin. The Skardi’s head appeared above the edge of the hole in the floor. His hood hung in charred tatters over fried hair. Even in the midst of panic, Rafe noted the long nose, the strong chin, the hollow cheeks. The sloping forehead spoke of something predatory at the top of the food chain. The Skardi sneered at Rafe, and Rafe felt his stomach drop. He couldn’t find the bat.

The girl. She’d opened the hole in the floor, hadn’t she? Couldn’t she close it back up? The Skardi planted both hands at the edge and pushed. The flooring beneath his left hand crumbled away and he slipped. Rafe shot the girl a panicked look. They still had time. She pushed with hands and feet against Fire and Water, to no effect. Rafe faced the Skardi again. His nemesis found leverage in a spot farther out from the hole and pushed up. Damn it, that hole had to close!

The Skardi clambered up onto the floor. Rafe strained to reach farther under the couch. His desperate fingers curled around the bat’s grip. He hauled it out from under the sofa just as carmine Fire sprang up in a ring around him.

Now I will finish this, said the Skardi, one leg still in the hole. I will finish it and secure my place at Nathanael’s table.

Gritting his teeth and groaning against the pain in his own leg, Rafe got to his feet. He hoisted the bat, which weighed about a thousand pounds. By coincidence or wholly on purpose, the girl let out a bloodcurdling scream. The Skardi looked at her. Rafe swung for his home run a second time.

The bat broke against the Skardi’s chest. He lost his balance and stepped backward into the hole, arms pinwheeling. He caught himself on the far edge and on a near joist. Rafe saw veins pop out on his forehead and muscles bulge as he strained to keep himself from falling through the ceiling below.

The ring of carmine Fire around Rafe flickered lower but kept burning. He reached over the flames and slapped a palm against the flooring beside the hole. The hole had to close. It had to. He couldn’t think about how it might happen, how the girl could accomplish it. He couldn’t think. Didn’t think. Only knew the damn hole in his living room floor had to close. He already owed enough on rent.

The Skardi’s head still peeked above the edge of the hole. Rafe looked the maniac in the eye. The Skardi frowned, lips parting as though in question. Rafe frowned back as he felt a tingling in his palms. The next instant, the hole in the floor snapped shut like jagged teeth closing on a soft, juicy morsel.

The Skardi let out a single cry. Then his head lolled to the side and rested on the cracked, wooden floor. His left hand jutted out of the floor from the wrist up. As Rafe watched, the fingers went limp. The Skardi’s bent right knee and booted right foot flexed once more, as though with a final impulse to lever their owner up into Rafe’s apartment. But the rest of the body remained crushed and buried in the floor. That lower leg and foot relaxed, dangling like a scarecrow’s. The Skardi’s wide, motionless eyes stared into nothing.

All around the room, carmine Fire vanished. The column of Water disappeared. Released, the girl fell to the floor. She pushed herself up on hands and knees, her T-shirt and jeans spattered with blood. Soaked. Rafe saw and smelled singed hair, scorched fabric, burned skin. The stench made him gag.

But he didn’t throw up. What are you? he whispered.

Across the room, the girl sat back on her heels. Red, swollen skin blistered in patches along her arms. Her back had to be a raw mess of burns, but she didn't seem to notice. She stared back at Rafe and cocked her head. Her lips didn’t smile. Neither did her eyes. He felt that stare like a knife to his throat.

Congratulations, she said, the splinter the size of his thumb still sticking out of her neck. You just killed your first Skardi.

Chapter 3

The blare of receding sirens stabbed into Rafe’s head as he ran. With each step, the impact slammed from his bootheel all the way up into the center of his brain. The Oklahoma humidity made for shorter breaths, and every heartbeat sent bolts of red lightning jabbing through the lower half of his vision. Damn the shots of tequila he hadn’t bothered counting. Damn his wet clothes and dripping hair.

Damn the crazy, unexpected fight against a magical, mutant, superpowered villain.

A yard or so ahead, the woman who’d just burned down his life in the space of fifteen minutes skidded to a stop at a corner. Rafe spied street signs above her head: 1st and Central, just south of his apartment building. Where was she headed? She grabbed his wrist and ducked around the corner of another building, pulling him with her.

Hey!

Shh! She squeezed his wrist hard. We’re not yet out of danger.

What does that mean?

She peered down the street toward the east. More of them will come.

Spiffy. So, how’d you do it? The thing with the floor?

She flipped her hair over her shoulder, slanting him a look he couldn’t read. I didn’t. You did.

Right. Because I just go around making fire out of nothing. On weekends I practice killing people with my brain. A tremor shook him.

With her hand still on his wrist, she turned to stare intently into his face. The light from a nearby streetlamp barely touched her eyes. That creature intended to kill you. He would have shown no mercy, and he would have taken pleasure in every instant of your pain. Remember that.

He snorted, pulling out of her grasp. Sure. Whatever.

You would have died, Raphael.

The hell of it was, she was probably right. Part of him wanted to frame the fight in his apartment as a crazy guy with a highly advanced flamethrower. But he remembered the unnatural deep red of those flames, the way they’d burned in mid-air and changed course as if directed. Flames that were Fire, not fire. If she hadn’t been there...if he’d faced that cloaked lunatic alone.... Baseball bat or no, Rafe couldn’t fight what he didn’t understand. And he for sure didn’t understand...

No. No freakin’ way. He would not think the word magic. Not acceptable. Just the idea shook him to the core. He’d stick with flamethrower before he entertained even the hint of magic.

He backed up and lifted his palms toward her. You know what? Forget this. I have no problem telling the cops some crazy bitch and her boyfriend broke into my place and torched it. I can still go back and tell them I chased you but lost you. So why don’t you just head back to whatever loony bin you broke out of? I’m done. He turned away to take the street leading back to his building.

From behind him, she made a disgusted noise. Raphael, you can’t simply walk away from this. Prophet’s sake, your life is in danger! If one of them can find you, so can the rest!

He rounded on her. Stop calling me that name! And the rest of who? And why should I care? I don’t even know who you are.

She lifted an eyebrow. My name is Jael. I am a Light-Walker.

Space opera nerd?

What?

You really ain’t from around here.

She took a deep breath and shook her head. This discussion is pointless. You are in danger. And if a Skardi attack in your own home isn’t enough to convince you, nothing I say is going to, either.

Got that right.

So, here is what happens now. She pointed across the street beyond a squat building. I am going home. Nathanael’s hounds will trail you from now on. Even if you somehow defeat the next one, they will keep coming until you are dead. And with no one to train you, your death will come far sooner than later.

Alrighty, warning taken. Go on and have a nice life.

I strongly recommend you come with me.

Hmm. Lemme think about it, no.

You have one reason.

I’m all ears.

For the second time since he’d met her, a sly smile touched her lips...and he knew what she would say. The throbbing headache doubled in strength, and his stomach clenched. When she spoke again, he thought he really would spew this time.

You wish to know about the woman with the green eyes? She leaned forward. "I have the answers you want. I have the solution to the mystery. I know her."

He swallowed. I don’t believe you.

She turned to look up and down the street as though checking for traffic. That is your choice.

Rafe shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. Images flashed through his mind: silver hair rippling in a cold, suffocating wind...wrinkled lips moving in silent pleas that filled him with terror and desperation...green eyes looming ever larger until he drowned in them. Months of restless sleep, weeks of waking up sweat-soaked with his sheet wadded in his mouth to stifle his screams, and he still didn’t understand these dreams or know how to deal with them.

Dreams. He snorted. The images felt more like nightmares, and he had no clue why. But the surreal, awful feel of them followed him into daylight. At work, coffee mugs dropped from his shaking fingers to shatter on the floor. Customers’ ordinary complaints made him explode. At home, even his sure-fire cure-all of oil painting did nothing to get the ancient, green-eyed woman’s face out of his mind.

Today, his manager finally had enough...and now the paintings were charred beyond repair. Rafe knew he’d never replace them.

He opened his eyes in time to see Jael sprinting across the street. As though the conversation were over, just like that. Dammit!

But he couldn’t help noticing she was fast...and light on her feet with a grace that put a hitch in his breathing. He grimaced and reminded himself he was angry and irritated. She reached the shadows of the squat building and disappeared into them. For a moment, he thought she entered a door there—when she said home, did she mean this close to where he lived? But then a silhouette materialized at the far corner of the building. She leaned out a little and looked left and right again.

Staring at her graceful silhouette, he took a step forward. And another. She moved a little beyond the building. He broke into a jog across the street.

He’d gotten halfway when she bolted into the open, heading south. Rafe blew out an irritated breath and picked up his pace.

On the south side of the squat building, he peeked out of the shadows and saw two cops heading away from him not twenty feet to his left. An empty black patrol car sat parked at the far end of the building.

Halle-freaking-lujah, it’s the cavalry, Rafe blurted, veering toward them. Sorry to bother you, officers, but I sure hope y’all are ready to do your thing!

Just passing beneath a street light, the cops turned as he approached. One female, one male. At the sight of Rafe, the woman stepped forward. Can we help you, sir?

Rafe could barely make himself slow down, much less come to a stop. His heart was racing. Adrenaline jolted through his arms and legs, prickled in the backs of his hands. You bet you can help me. You can go after those damn nutjobs with their flamethrowers.

The woman’s gaze swept him quickly from head to toe and back as he approached. What’s your name?

Rafe Skelleran.

And flamethrowers? That apartment fire was your place?

Hell, yeah. They burned down my apartment!

For the first time since bolting from his building, Rafe glanced down at himself, taking in the details the cops must’ve noted. Ripped jeans. Torn BLS shirt. Scorch marks. Soot smudges.

Blood.

He looked up and finally registered the tight faces of both officers. Concern for his safety? Or concern he might be a danger? Couple the reflection Rafe had seen earlier in the mirror behind the bar—wiry, hair-too-long, dishevelled, slouchy—with the arson couture, and these cops might see a suspect instead of a victim. The tremor in Rafe’s hands increased. Damn it. He had to get their attention in a good way.

The woman glanced over her shoulder at her partner. That’s the call we heard. Back to Rafe. Okay, keep talking.

He finally convinced his feet to stop moving and tried forcing his hands to do the same. It didn’t quite work, but what the hell. Okay. One more deep breath. These people broke into my place and torched it. I barely got out. They put a hole in my living room floor. 4th and Walnut. Here, I have ID—

We don’t need that yet—

But Rafe couldn’t make his hands stop patting his pockets. I have it. Wait. My wallet...dammit, I must’ve left it at Deuce’s.

Deuce’s? The woman’s hands went to her hips. Deuce’s Dive?

The male cop muttered something that sounded annoyed. Rafe groaned. Deuce’s was known, and not just in down-and-out artist circles. Of all the everloving fu—

Sir, are you intoxicated?

Her tone was just this side of sharp. Rafe rubbed his forehead with both hands. No, that ain’t it—

So you were at Deuce’s, but you have not been drinking?

Yeah, I was, I have, but that ain’t the point—

The woman half-turned to her partner. We got us a pissed pyro here, Chavez?

No, dammit! I didn’t burn anything! Those two psychos—

Damn firebugs, muttered Chavez, the male cop, now reaching for the radio clipped at his shoulder.

Yes! Rafe took a step forward. "Call it in, tell them to send backup. I’m tellin’ you, these people are crazy. Dangerous crazy."

Chavez’s radio spat static. He squeezed it and muttered into it.

The woman tilted her head so that the light from the streetlamp reached past the brim of her hat. A hard gleam hadn’t quite overtaken her eyes. "Tell you what. We’ll radio in that you’re here with us. Sit tight for a bit, and you can tell the detective