DARKNESS UNDONE
A NOVEL OF THE MARKED SOULS
JESSA SLADE
To PopPop:
An engineer first, but an artist too. You gave me some good
material, genetics-wise, and some funny stories.
Miss you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My editor, Kerry Donovan, and agent, Becca Stumpf, have been with me from Chapter 1 to glossary, from cover art first-glimpse squees to back cover copyedits. “Thank you” is only two words (can I say anything in two words?) and doesn’t even begin to capture my gratitude.
The entire team at NAL brings my books to life—and to bookshelves—and I can’t thank them enough, especially Jesse Feldman and Kayleigh Clark; copy editor Jane Steele (who had to put up with all my beloved sentence fragments); and Gene Mollica and Adam Auerbach, who put a chest (if not a face) on my sexy hero.
Mwahs to my cheerleading beta reader, Delilah Marvelle, whose energy in her writing and in her life inspires me endlessly.
As I write this, Book Blogger Appreciation Week is coming to a close, but I want to give them a shout-out here too, considering how their delight in and ardent support of romance has contributed substantially to my to-be-read mountain. Extra special thanks to Bitten by Books, Night Owl Reviews, Errant Dreams Reviews, Romance Reviews Today, and Smexy Books Romance Reviews.
All families put up with craziness in their loved ones, but maybe writers’ families sigh more deeply, with a little extra angst. To my family and Scott, much, much thanks and love, love, love.
Dear new Bookkeeper,
Sucks to be you.
You’re probably flipping through these mostly blank pages where the notes for the last year should be, wondering why the archives of the Chicago league of demon-possessed male talya warriors haven’t been updated lately. Honestly, as the temp secretary, I’ve been superbusy. Mostly doing my nails.
Hey, sharpened nails come in very handy against the lurking evil of the horde-tenebrae.
Besides, calfskin, goose quills, and illuminated letters went out a long time ago. You Bookkeepers should try Twitter.
So here’re the past eleven months—since the demonic possession of the first female in a couple thousand years (that’d be me) and the return of the mated symballein bond—condensed to 140 characters with gratuitous emoticons and random misspellings:
More evul than evuh WTF? Djinn-man wants to destroy the world (X_X) But wait! T&A + witty repartee = True Love Saves the Day! <333 The End …?
Well, that pretty much covers it. I can’t imagine you’ll have any more questions. Now that you’re here, I’ll be out slaying bad things. Don’t worry; just regular ol’ bad things—like ratty little malice, huge stinky ferales, and burning salambes—not insanely powerful, straight-up insane djinn-men like Corvus Valerius, who had the nerve to open a portal into hell before we vanquished him three months ago. No thanks to our former Bookkeeper who betrayed us and helped unleash the repentant demon that possessed me and started this whole damn mess. We won’t hold that against you, though. Really.
We know the ranks of Bookkeeping masters frown on us pulverizing tweaking the traditions the London league has upheld for centuries, but—did I mention?—sucks to be you. Welcome to Chicago.
Sera Littlejohn, Interim Bookkeeper
CHAPTER 1
To human senses, the Chicago night was dark and quiet—at least as dark and quiet as a big city could be. But Sidney Westerbrook knew, somewhere beyond the stark neon and the shouts with the flattened vowels that grated on his merely human eyes and ears, the streets seethed with demonic fury.
And after coming nearly four thousand miles, he wasn’t getting the chance to experience any of it.
Sid stuffed his hands to the bottom of his trouser pockets, as if he might find a last kilojoule of warmth down there. His father had warned him London’s fog had nothing on Chicago’s wind.
Then again, his father had warned him of quite a lot, only some of which had seemed relevant. Sid hunched his shoulders, and his gusty sigh bounced off the upturned collar of his tweed jacket, fogging his spectacles.
Who would’ve guessed the Chicago talyan would be such contrary blighters? All his Bookkeeper studies had prepared him for the same old, same old: immortal, menacing warriors with preternatural fighting skills and tortured demon-possessed souls, et cetera. But these upstart Yanks—from one of the secondary leagues, no less—had blown apart the theories of generations of Bookkeepers before him. Yet despite their obvious need for objective guidance, they wouldn’t give him, their emergency Bookkeeper, even the time of day.
No way in hell were they giving him their nights.
Though Sid didn’t have a talya’s enhanced vision, the flow of demonic ethers was clearly unsettled in Chicago. He’d hypothesized as much from the sharply refracted energy in every talya iris—purplish glints even an unschooled human would notice. The borderline morbid array of close-quarters weaponry had been another hint. But Liam Niall, the leader of the Chicago league, had refused to let Sid accompany them on patrol.
“It’s your first night in town,” he’d said. “Kick the jet lag. Then we’ll show you … everything, as London requested.”
Sid hadn’t needed enhanced hearing either, to pick up that disdainful pause. Most of the world’s major cities had @1 leagues since demonic activity tied into population density and the sorts of upheavals that regularly made the evening news. All the leagues were distinctly autonomous and fighting to hold their burden of darkness at bay. But London, having inherited the position from Rome in the days of expanding empires, held perhaps a “first among equals” distinction, though the other leagues might not readily concede. Probably didn’t help matters that Niall had been a victim of the Irish potato famine, which had its rotting roots in British agrarian politics.
That quarrel, in case anyone wanted to consult a calendar, had been dead and buried for a century and a half. Although obviously “dead” meant something different to immortals.
Sid crushed his fists down hard enough to turn pocket lint to felt. Just what he needed; another old man unwilling to let him in.
He dodged across the street, avoiding a cab that had run the red. He responded to the unwarranted honk with an appropriate American gesture. In some ways, cities were all the same. Certainly he could find common ground with these big, taciturn talya males and their three smaller but equally unnerving females. London might have loaned him to Chicago while his last journeyman Bookkeeper thesis was under review, but if he wanted to prove his mastery—if he wanted all the sacrifices to mean anything—exposing, exploring, and explaining some heretofore unknown talya secret would certainly do the trick.
And the Chicago league had secrets to burn.
He passed an iron stanchion supporting the elevated train, turned the next corner, and came face-to-face with … fangs.
A squeak of surprise squeezed from his chest.
When his thinking forebrain caught up with his hindbrain, he winced at his instinctive reaction. The rubber monster mask in the shop window wasn’t coming for his jugular.
He let out a slow breath, calming the rush of his pulse. He straightened his spectacles and leaned closer to the window. The molded tusks were coated in frightfully realistic gore as if they’d just emerged from someone’s thorax. He’d forgotten All Hallows’ Eve was less than a fortnight away. Not that the demonic tenebrae scheduled holidays.
He walked on, suddenly thankful he was alone tonight. If the talyan had witnessed that squeak, he’d never earn their respect.