Sneak Peek: Shadows of the Fallen

My current work-in-progress will follow Petra’s story. Here’s chapter one to whet your appetite, with the usual disclaimer that it is unedited and subject to change.

Chapter One

The final TNC station has been destroyed. Mission accomplished, which was supposed to bring her peace. Instead, she’s running scared.

She mounts the steps of the public bus, too upset and distracted to even note the vehicle’s destination. It doesn’t matter. She just needs to get away from here, to clear her head. Her palms feel clammy, and she is oddly out of breath, though it’s been a good thirty minutes since she’s used her powers. Maybe she is coming down with something. Or maybe existential dread comes with cardio benefits.

A little girl at the front of the bus looks at her a little too long, her eyes too observant, too knowing. Petra shivers, and takes a seat at the back, far from the other passengers, but the little girl still stares. Petra slouches down, bracing her knees against the back of the seat in front of her, the way she used to as a teenager on the school bus. She half expects the driver to turn and yell at her in Portuguese for having muddy shoes. Just like old times.

The bus drones slowly through the darkness of the Portuguese countryside, its headlights casting weak beams over the crumbling bitumen. They pass beneath the occasional streetlamp but otherwise the vehicle seems to crawl through a vast darkness, the road a path through an abandoned universe. Petra looks out the window where there is nothing to see, and suppresses the urge to throw up. She sees her own reflection in the dark glass. It’s not happy—shadowy and distorted, her pupils too large, like a guilty cartoon character. Closing her eyes, she takes deep even breaths, willing her racing mind to slow. Jesse’s visage flashes in her mind’s eye: his smile, his dimples, his three-day beard growth making her palms long for his face. Jesse’s last message surfaces unbidden—warm, teasing, reverent.

“When this is over, I want to see what your hair does on a slow morning.”

Her throat closes. He sent that just two days ago, through an encrypted draft in their shared inbox. It had been half joke, half vow.

“I want to fight about where to keep the mugs.”

She supposes that is what normal couples argue about—hair and coffee mugs. He is planning their future. And here she is—on a bus to nowhere, no luggage, no explanation, no goodbye kiss. She wraps her arms around herself. The bus rumbles over a pothole, but the real jolt is internal.

“You’ve saved the world,” he wrote. “Now, just be my girl.”

He doesn’t just believe in her power—he believes in her goodness. Her humanity. The problem is… she’s not sure she believes in it herself. What if she was never meant for that kind of ending?

“I love you. Let’s finally live.”

Resting her forehead against the cold glass, she whispers, “I’m sorry, Jesse. You deserve someone who isn’t radioactive on the inside. Someone who is as good as you are.”

Getting onto a random bus outside of a small town in rural Portugal had never been part of the plan. But then, having a conversation with a demon hadn’t been part of the plan either.

While forging her destructive path through The Nakesh Corporation, she had, from time to time, sensed the presence of restless disembodied spirits, but it had always been in passing. They were defeated remnants. Inconsequential. Scavengers feeding off residual energies left behind in the wreckage. The powerful ones—the archons—had abandoned TNC long ago, after she and Jesse had dismantled the major installations.

It had been a brutish but effective mission, and she and Jesse were a partnership made for destruction. Team Annihilation. The Demolition Duo. Jesse hated that one. Said it made them sound like a pro wrestling team from the eighties. Yet it was apt, he couldn’t deny that. He’d done the research, pinpointed the locations, prepped her with anything she needed to know before hand, and did his best to minimize human casualties. He was a master at penetrating security systems and setting off red alerts that sent living bodies fleeing every which way, out of danger so that Petra could wreak her havoc without worrying. Body counts of zero were always their goal, but once in a while, there were those who hadn’t gotten out in time. She and Jesse weren’t omniscient. They could make mistakes. And they had. Petra regrets those, but she told herself that they would save a lot more lives by erasing TNC from the face of the earth than if they took no action at all.

Destroying this final field station—an abandoned facility in a remote stretch of Portugal—had felt like a victory lap. She’d moved through it with practiced precision. She had honed destruction into an art form: crushing, breaking, ripping apart everything still remotely functional. She’d even allowed herself a small smile—freedom was within reach. Her mind had wandered into the future, something that she’d allowed herself to do more and more as their mission neared its end. They were to rendezvous in Lisbon, celebrate their victory and allow themselves to finally, finally discuss their next move. They’d made a pact not to talk about their future until they were done. That was Petra’s favorite proverb at play: Let not he who puts on armor boast as he who takes it off. At the root of it, she hadn’t wanted to jinx the project. Nevertheless, Jesse had slipped in suggestions from time to time. A cafe in Paris, a villa in the Mediterranean, beekeeping on a tiny Greek island. All of his ideas were nice. Peaceful. Pastoral, even.

Yes, she’d let her mind wander, and was nearly finished the job when she’d felt it: a malevolent energy. She’d ignored it. She was on her way out. It would be on its way out too. No need to be concerned.

A low rattling hiss had filled the stale air.

She turned instinctively, knowing she’d see nothing. The little hairs on the back of her neck spindled to standing. Petra flicked her fingers. A wall groaned and twisted inward, sending racks of dead servers crashing to the floor. Satisfied, she walked toward the exit, clearing a path with the power of her mind.

Then a sizzling light had appeared in the air in front of her, tracing a shape before her eyes. She watched, intrigued, unafraid. This was new. When it was fully drawn, it formed a symbol she didn’t recognize.

No. Wait.

She did recognize it.

She had seen it before. Not often, but enough to register—a scratch on a cracked wall in Algiers. A black scorch mark on a steel door in Tangier. Once, flickering on a shattered monitor in a Moroccan desert base, there and gone again. It would always vanish when she did a double take, like static, like a whisper. Like something trying to get through to her but never quite making it.

She’d always dismissed it.

TNC had been a nest of occult-obsessed lunatics, and the glyphs they carved into walls had long stopped bothering her. Sometimes Petra would catch a familiar shape, but chalk it up to pareidolia—that harmless phenomenon where a tired brain sees meaningful shapes in meaningless crap. Smiley faces in pancakes, hell runes in dust. Clearly, her overworked mind just loved seeing demonic graffiti in rust stains and smudges of dirt.

But deep down, a quiet part of her had started keeping count.

Yes. She’d seen this mark—this strange geometry, somehow ancient and modern at the same time—five times now. This was the sixth, floating in the air like a drawn breath. Waiting. Not disappearing, but waiting for her to acknowledge it… finally. Except, if it was of demonic origin, as it seemed to be, she wanted nothing to do with it.

“Nice trick,” she’d muttered, walking straight through it. It dissipated like cheesy dance club fog. If she stopped to investigate every spooky thing that happened, she’d never get anything done.

She’d emerged into the cool night, feeling victorious. Even the crickets and night insects had begun to sing again—now that the whine of twisting rebar had finally faded—filling the air with an eerie serenity. She’d admired the view, taking a short break before the next phase; traveling in sandstorm form toward Lisbon where Jesse had stashed clothes and money for her. From there she would take public transport to the hotel where he was waiting.

The hiss had come again.

She’d turned. The symbol was back, hovering in the air to her left, crackling with dark energy. It flashed at her like an accusation, alight with some malevolent power.

“Still here?” She’d scoffed with a curled lip. “TNC is dead. Crawl back into whatever hole you came out of.”

I’ve been waiting for you, came the answer in a velvety purr, making Petra’s body stiffen with repulsion.

This one sounded different. This one sounded… smarter. More calculated.

“We’ve been through this,” she said with waning patience. “You can’t hurt me and I can’t hurt you. So why don’t you slither off and leave me alone.”

The symbol shimmered, its edges retraced by an invisible finger.

You mean to tell me you don’t remember this? There was something mocking in its tone. It’s your name, Euroklydon. The way it was first recorded by those who made you.

A chill slid down her spine, but she refused to satisfy it with a reaction. “My parents made me, demon whelp. Go peddle your lies elsewhere.”

Sure. The mocking whisper deepened into a chilling laugh. You think you were born special? That your power belongs to you? The voice dripped with sarcasm, curling around her like a sulfurous smoke. Now that you’ve destroyed TNC, you figure you can move on with your life? With that kind of power? It made a series of reproachful tsking sounds. You think that the ones who made you are just going to let you keep it?

She’d rolled her eyes. “If they wish to divest me of it, I’d like to see them try. Then again, maybe I’ll let them. You act like it’s a blessing.”

Ungrateful child. We made you for a purpose.

We? Petra cocked her head, mildly amused at the suggestion that she was the result of some dark collaboration. She stalked away.

Go ahead, run to Jesse. Lead us right to him. See how he likes the family you’ve been pretending doesn’t exist. The voice turned sneering. It’s about time he met his in laws. The Tindalls are going to love us.

At the mention of her partner’s name—not even his alias, but his true given birth name—she’d frozen in terror. Lead us right to him? No demon had never threatened Jesse before. They’d harassed her from time to time, but they’d never hinted that they knew anything about her, or her partner, or his family… whom, she herself had yet to meet. The Tindalls are going to love us.

Her palms began to sweat.

Start your life, pursue your bright future. But know this—you can’t run forever. You carry our mark in your blood. You are ours. It’s only a matter of time before you come back home.

“Lies,” she’d hissed through gritted teeth.

Though it had no face, she could hear the smile in its voice. Then why can’t you destroy me?

“Because you’re disembodied.”

Guess again, little tempest. It’s because we are bound by an ancient pact, agreed to long ago under different stars. You are of me, and I am of you. You’re one of us. You can only fight your destiny for so long.

Her hands trembled and she clenched them into fists. Great. Add “possibly demonic” to her bio. Right between “likes thunderstorms” and “can dismantle your lab with a glance.”

“I’m nothing like you. I don’t feed on suffering and chaos.”

But even as the last word had slipped from her lips, the hypocrisy gave her pause. No, she didn’t feed on suffering, but she had fed on chaos and destruction for the last three years. She shook away this thought as well. She was helping people, bringing an end to an organization that had covenanted with evil.

“Nothing like you,” she muttered again.

Prove me wrong then, whispered the voice as it faded away. If you’re so much better than us, prove it. Prove it.

The sigil, renewed by a snake of light retracing its shape over and over throughout their conversation, finally disappeared, though Petra was sure it would be burned into her memory forever.

She’d stood there until long after its poisonous presence had oozed away, her mind racing. Could there be any truth to its words? Demons were known for spewing lies. She’d learned that when she’d gone through a short research phase, trying to determine how they might be destroyed. She learned that she couldn’t destroy them because they were without physical form, but somewhere along the way she’d also learned that the most convincing lies were wrapped up in just enough truth to make them appetizing.

In the early days, she tried to learn about her abilities but the Euroklydon was only ever mentioned in one place, the Bible, and no information was given about it there other than it was a storm that shipwrecked the Apostle Paul’s boat—she’d felt actual remorse about that, which was ridiculous because she hadn’t been the Euroklydon at that time. She’d been identified as the Ghibli by the locals in North Africa, but researching that led nowhere too. The Ghibli was a seasonal wind—a strong one, sure, one that wreaked havoc on desert cities, filling their streets with sand—but there was nothing supernatural about it. The rest was local legend, undocumented, unreliable; a boogie man.

Now, sitting in the back of the bus, she presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, conjuring up the sigil in her mind’s eye, comparing it to her mental library of cuneiform and hieroglyphs. She’d abandoned her dream career in archaeology—of course, none of her professors or textbooks ever prepared her for sigils that talk back—hoping to one day pick it up again. But since then, her memory has grown a little rusty. The origins of the symbol are elusive, unfamiliar, unlike anything she has in her knowledge banks, but it will have an origin. Everything has an origin.

She lets out a frustrated groan, opens her eyes, and draws the sigil on the window—exhaling to conjure a small patch of condensation—dreading the idea that the spirit might have been giving her a tiny crumb of truth that would set her on a path she didn’t want to go down. Was it a door better left closed? Even if the answer was ‘yes’, it was not in Petra’s nature to leave doors closed. Not knowing where she came from was like standing on a cliff in the dark—she had no idea how close she was to the edge.

She thinks about Jesse, waiting for her at the hotel in Lisbon, waiting to celebrate, waiting to plan whatever was next for the two of them. What if she does lead a demon straight to him? It claims she can’t hurt it and it can’t hurt her because they are family…. But according to that logic then, Jesse could be hurt by them, harassed, tortured. Worse?

She thinks about Devin Nakesh, who was lured into making a pact with them, and when his end came, the archon he’d been in league with cared nothing for the man. The entity did nothing to prevent his human chattel from being swallowed into a crack and crushed by the earth. Devin had been used and discarded. Demons and archons had no empathy, no loyalty, couldn’t be trusted, could wreak only havoc and wickedness. She knows this.

But, who and what am I? Why do I seem specially made for destruction and chaos? What if I did spring from some demonic power? What does that mean for my future? What does it mean for Jesse?

If it is lying, if this is just psychological warfare, I’ll be leaving Jesse for nothing. But if there is any truth in it… if there is a chance that I am more monster than woman…

She has to make a call.

If she explains this to Jesse in person, she will lose her nerve, and she can’t afford that, because this is something she has to do. And she has to do it alone.

If I don’t know where I came from, how can I know where I’m supposed to go?

The bus rattles on, taking her away from the only place that’s ever felt like home—his arms.