Shadow Stalker (Revenant Book Book 2) Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  World Castle Publishing, LLC

  Pensacola, Florida

  Copyright © Elissa Daye 2020

  Paperback ISBN: 9781953271242

  eBook ISBN: 9781953271259

  First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, December 21, 2020

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  Licensing Notes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  Cover: Melissa Davis

  Editor: Maxine Bringenberg

  Chapter 1

  When all is lost, there is still hope. That’s what everyone always said, but sometimes the hole was so deep that climbing out was damn near impossible. Years ago, hope might have existed for her, but in this day and age, the lackluster emotion was something that Caylin pitied in others. Hope, no. There was no hope. Only chaos and destruction, and mankind seemed to be the root cause of it all.

  Every year darkness seeped into her veins like a bitter oil, corrupting every inch of her waking moments. Caylin couldn’t seem to shake it no matter how hard she tried. Running from place to place in an attempt to find something brighter on the horizon had only made her life that much more difficult to swallow. She now lived her life hidden among the shadows that ransacked the world around her.

  The black abyss echoed in her ears like remnants of a past she was desperate to extinguish. Ignoring it seemed like the best laid plan, but the effort required for this process took its toll so quickly. Everything that seemed bright in the world turned to shades of grey, dulled by the limitless humdrum of malcontent. Her life was no longer her own, for her path was woven from the madness and misery before her. Her world was growing darker by the minute, and Caylin seemed to be the only one to translate its message. Death, decay, corruption.

  What one person thought was depression, Caylin knew it was something else entirely. She’d seen the madness work from its creation to completion with every day she walked on the streets. The shadows rose from the cracks in the ground, where water spewed, and mist repelled. They brought with them an energy so vile that the human body had no way to fight it. Caylin shuddered as she remembered the last time she’d seen the shadows rise into a prostitute named Shana. The poor woman had gone mad almost instantly, scratching her skin with her sharp nails and ripping her hair from her head. Her pimp had tried to calm her down, to remind her not to break the merchandise, but she had gone after him instead. Caylin still remembered the way the blood had pooled around her when she lay dead on the ground from the bullet he had put in her head. Caylin had been too late to stop it. The guilt ate at her even now.

  Evil incarnate. It filled the cracks and magnified the shadows’ world everywhere she had stepped for as long as she could remember. Was she immune to its icy lips? Apparently not, for its aftermath plagued Caylin when she wished for nothing more than absolution, for some sign that her blind faith that humanity would rise up against the shadows and do what was right to bring hope back to the world was justified. Instead, they had fallen prone to the darkness and let it control their base impulses. Crime rose, murder multiplied, and despair festered as the rich continued to ignore the root cause of injustices around them.

  Caylin knew her time on Earth may appear short to others, but for her, this life was one of many, something she’d learned at a young age. She’d yet to recover every memory from those before, but her purpose had grown clear with every year. She hunted the shadows that dominated the chaos of the living around her. It annoyed her to no end that someone would even think to stop her in her dreams, let alone the real world.

  This madness was like a reckoning that grew heavier each day, building as it encompassed one circle at a time until it exploded into mass chaos. Every year it pulsed around her world like a flock of locusts, devouring every inch of sanity right before her eyes. If only its victims had been able to see its path before it crushed them like puny little bugs under heavy trodden feet.

  Neglect, ignorance, spite? All of these things seemed the same to her in the end. The darkness around her seemed to feed on it. With her power came visions that she could not seem to avoid. Caylin’s sight made it impossible for her to ignore the way the world was slipping away around her, her curse for being born under the phoenix sign.

  Caylin watched a couple teetering from the doorway of an all-night bar. They seemed oblivious to the dangers lurking in the shadows around them. She shook her head in disgust when one of them bent over and emptied her stomach, where the street met the curb. They continued on without noticing her in the doorway.

  Lucky fools, the ignorant sheep that trampled the sodden grounds around her. Caylin had no such luck. She could see the darkness rushing into the living around her as it enslaved her city of lost angels. Caylin knew if she weren’t careful, they would be coming for her soon, a sacrifice to the beasts that harkened behind her.

  Creeping from the darkened doorway, she walked quickly down the alley behind her. Caylin found the perfect spot to stop and set her bag down on the ground. Pulling out her candles and crystals, she took a deep breath and said a small blessing in her mind before placing the candles and crystals in the correct order on the cement before her. She knelt at the makeshift altar, lighting each candle carefully. Each one had been scrimped and saved for with whatever money she happened to earn on the streets, doing things no man or woman should ever have to do. Caylin had forgiven herself long ago, but she knew she would never find absolution in someone else’s eyes. Pulling her long blonde hair behind her head, she rolled it into a tight bun and used her pencil to keep it in place. Caylin closed her green eyes and spoke from the heart.

  “Goddess, long may you reign and protect those that do not bear false witness to your love. If tonight they take me away, I shall live again. This, my promise. That the sacrifice of my life in your service would end my suffering until my soul is needed once more. May I remember my life before and discover a way to fight the evil that has caused my world to burn.”

  Caylin knew they were coming. She’d felt them waiting for her outside, watched their black trail of smoke as they gathered from the grates below her feet. That was why she had made a quick detour to this alcove below the bridge. At least here, she could draw them away from the rest of the people roaming the streets at night. Their power was growing stronger each day, and she couldn’t seem to lose their trail. Did they find her, or was she seeking them? Caylin didn’t know the answer for sure, and that bothered her. Trouble always seemed to find her.

  The lights before her extinguished as a silent wind ruffled against her face. The seething cold of its touch took her breath away. Caylin gathered up the candles and let the wax drip to the ground before shoving them in her bag. Shutting her eyes, Caylin waited for the shadows that wanted to take her away. She reached behind her back and pulled the sword from its sheath. Asodio, the beautiful athame that Remie had given her to protect herself while working, was sharp and ready. Remie, he was an entirely different story. Brave, beautiful Remie, who walked the streets much like herself, but taught her other ways to survive it. She was forever thankful to him and the protection he had provided for her and the other girls.

  Caylin rose as the first shadow came rushing at her. “Bring i
t!” She focused her energy into the blade, and its purple glow threatened the span of the darkness around her. Spinning around, she sliced the light into the shadow, and its disconnected halves fell to the ground. Another one came, and the athame ripped it apart with one swipe. The last one seemed to be weighing its options. When it tried to rush from the area, Caylin raced after it and ran it through with Asodio. The sharp, pitched shrieks as it dissipated before her were painful to her ears.

  Sheathing Asodio, Caylin pulled the pencil from her hair and let the strands fall across her face. If anyone had told her when she had left home at fourteen that she would be vanquishing shadows by the time she was twenty-three, she would never have believed them. While she’d had an affinity for the occult, having discovered early on that she could see lives that existed well before this one, Caylin had never known how much magic ran through her veins. She had known it was there but had very little control over it. It wasn’t until she’d found Remie that Caylin had learned how to harness the energy within to do so much more than she ever imagined.

  When she retrieved her bag, she heard the tinkle of shattered glass inside. “Damn shadows! They ruin every fucking thing.”

  She reached inside her bag to check over the damage and winced as her skin sliced against one of the jars. “Freaking fuck-tastic.”

  Even though the madness surfaced from the ground up, Caylin knew the darkness wasn’t isolated to just the magic beings below. Shadows were everywhere, in every crack and crevasse, hidden beneath the skin of people who had no qualms about destroying what little beauty was left in this world, and Caylin despised each and every one of them. She didn’t quite know yet how she would destroy enough of them to make a difference. Remie assisted from time to time, but for the most part, it was just Caylin. Her role was clear to her if to none other. She was a Shadow Stalker, reincarnated each time to restore the light wherever shadows dared desecrate. Tonight, Caylin-3, Shadows-0. Swinging her bag around her back, she made the trek back to her apartment to log her night into the journal, where she recorded all her encounters.

  Chapter 2

  Caylin rapped her secret code on the door and waited for the three knock reply. Stepping back from the entryway, she glanced around her to make sure she wasn’t being followed. The door swung open, and Caylin was ushered inside.

  “You’re late.” Remie locked the door behind her and peered outside the tiny window next to it. Tonight he had swept his black hair behind his neck. His dark, brooding eyes were scanning the street outside.

  “Relax, Remie. No one followed me.” Caylin smirked at him. Remie was always cautious where dark magic was concerned, and there was none darker than the shadows that rose from the ground.

  “What took you so long?” His tone would have been irritating had she not known how much he truly cared about her safety.

  “Were you worried about me, Remie? Isn’t that adorable. Asodio and I had a date with some black devils.”

  Devils that she knew Remie knew well. Remie walked between all worlds like the shadows she fought. He had found her years ago and swept her up from the dangers of the streets. Remie had sensed the magic in her and took great pains to help her bring it to the surface. His teachings had saved her from the life of prostitution she had been sucked into. He gave her other skills to help her survive. Thievery was perhaps not the most honest pursuit, but she never took more than she needed from her victims, and only what they could afford to lose.

  Caylin chose her targets well, though. With her ties to the prostitutes who walked the streets late at night, Caylin knew who deserved to lose more than just a little.

  “Shadows again?” His right eyebrow rose curiously. He shook his head in disgust and turned from the window. “Why didn’t you call me, Caylin?”

  “Because I didn’t need your help, Remie.” Caylin shrugged off his concern and moved onto the stairwell that led upstairs to the abandoned apartments where they lived. This was the Ghost District, a housing development that had been abandoned for several decades. When the city had deemed the buildings uninhabitable, they had turned their backs on them and watched as they became mere skeletons, and the wayward rebellious streets had taken them over as their own. The Ghost District was a dangerous place for a wholesome girl to shelter herself. It was a good thing Caylin had abandoned any hopes of regaining her innocence. Instead, she let her exterior harden like a cement shell and learned how to give whatever was dished out to her. Those who lived in her area had learned a long time ago to stay away from Remie’s building.

  “Someday, you’re going to need more help than you realize, Caylin.” Remie’s eyes were soft, yet cold as if he knew something he would not share.

  “I doubt it. Asodio and I are well matched.” She put her hand on the sheath and gave him a cold gaze.

  Caylin didn’t like anyone telling her what she should do or how to handle her business. The shadows, they were hers to deal with, her burden to bear, and she did so without blinking an eye. While other people her age might be finishing up college and starting the next phase of their lives, Caylin was resigned to her life. Darkness surrounded her wherever she looked, and she had become comfortable with its cold blanket.

  Remie followed her up the stairs quietly, as if he were in deep reflection. “Did you eat?”

  “No.” Caylin reached inside her bag, forgetting about the shattered glass, and felt it slice into her finger again. She let the bag slide to the floor and instinctively brought her finger to her mouth. “Damn it!”

  Remie pulled her hand to his and shook his head softly. He closed his eyes, and a soft glow of light leapt from his fingertips. Caylin felt his energy seep into her skin and took a deep breath in. She felt the ebbing flow of blood slow, and her skin tingled painfully as the cuts started to seal over.

  When he was done healing her, he shook his head at her. “You should be more careful, Caylin.”

  Caylin jerked her hand away from his and shook her head. “You’re not my master, Remie.”

  “No, but I am your teacher.” Remie ushered her into the doorway and gestured to the table.

  “Don’t be bossy, Remie. It’s not becoming.” Caylin’s brows darkened as she remembered where she had been all those years ago. Having run away from home, Caylin had landed on the streets unprepared for the challenges ahead of her. No one could have predicted her current circumstances—except for Remie, perhaps. He always seemed to know everything, which was damned annoying at times.

  He was a very resourceful man who walked between all worlds, like the very shadows she fought. Remie had taught them all the skills that kept them fed and away from strange men’s beds. Remie detested prostitution and had made it his life’s goals to arm the women of the streets with another profession that would help them survive. Thievery may not be the most honest profession, but none of them took more than their victims could afford, often so little it would never be noticed.

  “Eat something, Caylin. You’re almost skin and bones.” He waved his hands in the air above the table, and two bowls of soup appeared.

  “Show off!” grumbled Caylin. She had no idea how he made things appear out of thin air. Maybe he whisked them away from some unsuspecting person’s house. As she imagined the disbelief that the person felt, a giggle rose in her throat. She took Asodio off her back and placed it by the wall nearby before sitting down to eat. Caylin quickly swallowed the sound before it could be released from her lips. Laughter wasn’t something she experienced. Not any more.

  Remie winked at her as if he had read her mind, but he did not give a voice to her suspicions. “So, how many shadows does that make this month?”

  “Thirty-two and a half,” Caylin answered absently as she shoved a spoonful of soup into her mouth.

  “A half?” His eyebrows rose curiously.

  “Well, I cut one in half just as it tried to teleport away. I’m afraid the bottom half made it
back down to its origin. Wherever that is.” She continued to eat the soup, wishing she had some bread to sop it up with.

  “Almost forgot.” Remie snapped his fingers, and a bowl of bread appeared on the table.

  “Okay, now you’re just showing off.” She let out an angry huff.

  “We all have our gifts, Caylin. It’s how we use them that makes the difference.” Remie smiled mischievously.

  “Right. That’s what all men say.” Caylin made her usual slam against the male race.

  Remie seemed to take it in stride as usual. “I’ve always said if you want to know a real man, you have only to name the time and place.”

  Caylin ignored his wink and clutched the spoon tightly in her hand. She let out an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes. “It would never work between us, Remie.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m emotionally unavailable, and you’re…well, you’re….” Caylin struggled to find the right words.

  “Not worthy of you.” Remie smiled softly.

  “Why do you always say that? Who am I compared to you?” She shoved her soup away from her and looked away from him. Emotions swirled inside her. Asodio seemed to pick them up, as the sword glowed bright blue in its resting place. Closing her eyes, she tried to smooth the waves rippling inside her. The best defense was to never let someone see how much they affected her. She did care for Remie, but she was not attracted to him the way he deserved. She was essentially a shell of a person where men were concerned. Having been used and abused so often on the streets, she found little worth in her sexuality.

  “I know you think you’re damaged irreparably, but someday you will find the beauty inside yourself again, Caylin. I hope I’m there to see that day.” Sadness reflected in his eyes. He truly cared for her, even though Caylin would never return the affection.

  Caylin sighed. “You’ll probably die first.”

  “Doubtful.” There was a merry twinkle in his eye. “I plan to live forever.”