The coordinates were for a place on the outskirts of the city. I’d looked them up on a map, a village called Gauntlet. We were maybe five miles out now, give or take a couple of hundred meters. I was shattered already. Lack of food and water, lack of sleep, it was all piling up to give me the mother of all headaches.
“Don’t react, but I think we’re being watched,” Tobias said.
I was instantly on alert, but my body remained loose-limbed and easy as I breathed into the panic and reached out with my senses using my peripheral vision to scope out our surroundings. Everything looked dead, but things were never as they seemed and a flash of light, like off a reflective surface, caught my eye. Three flashes, a pause, then a final flash.
A signal.
Someone was in the building up ahead to our left. Someone with a mirror and their own signal system. It wasn’t Morse code.
“What should we do?” Tobias asked.
“Keep walking, there’s an awning up ahead, we duck under there, you see the DIY shop?”
“Yeah.”
“’Kay.”
He knew what I was thinking—weapons. My fingers itched for the sword Dad had given me for my sixteenth birthday. Lightweight, wicked sharp, with a slightly curved blade, it’d had its very own playlist when it had come to combat against the Feral. Man, that blade could sing. I’d lost it when Angie had been taken. We needed to arm ourselves, because I had a feeling we were going to need to fight a different kind of monster very soon. One I’d heard tales of but never had the misfortune to meet.
We ducked into the long shadow of the awning, grateful for the growing darkness for once. Tobias tried the door to the shop.
Locked.
We’d have to break it and hope our watchers allowed us the few minutes we’d need to grab defensive supplies. Tobias shrugged off his jacket, wrapped it around his arm then cocked his elbow, ready to hammer the glass above the frame.
The air hissed, and Tobias jerked. His hand went to his neck, eyes widening, and then his knees gave way. My hands shot out to grab him. Too late. He crumpled to the ground before they could gain purchase. And then the skin just beneath my neck erupted in pain.
I reached up and pulled out the dart. It was a cocktail stick sized thing, tiny and innocuous in my hand, and then I kissed the ground with my face.
Grab your copy now!
Other books by Debbie Cassidy
The Gatekeeper Chronicles
Coauthored with Jasmine Walt
Marked by Sin
Hunted by Sin
Claimed by Sin
The Witch Blood Chronicles
(Spin-off to the Gatekeeper Chronicles)
Binding Magick
Defying Magick
Embracing Magick
The Fearless Destiny Series
Beyond Everlight
Into Evernight
Under Twilight
The Chronicles of Midnight
Protector of Midnight
Champion of Midnight
Secrets of Midnight
Shades of Midnight
Savior of Midnight
Chronicles of Arcana
City of Demons
City of the Lost
City of War
For the Blood
For the Blood
Novellas
Blood Blade
Grotesque – A Vampire Diary Kindle World book
About the Author
Debbie Cassidy lives in England, Bedfordshire, with her three kids and very supportive husband. Coffee and chocolate biscuits are her writing fuels of choice, and she is still working on getting that perfect tower of solitude built in her back garden. Obsessed with building new worlds and reading about them, she spends her spare time daydreaming and conversing with the characters in her head – in a totally non psychotic way of course. She writes High Fantasy and Urban Fantasy. Connect with Debbie via her website at debbiecassidyauthor.com or twitter @authordcassidy. Or sign up to her Newsletter to stay in the know.