Shadows of Darkness

5. Blue Light

This is priority. Hector was Everett's right of way. This very vessel incarnated aggression—the initiation of destruction. These blue bolts that no one else in the Watts Clan had were the unfailing strikes, the end of this secret training hall. It was like shooting, except Everett himself was a rifle and his blood the bullets. The moment he wanted to wreck something, it disintegrated and the blue blaze flashing the score. Some disfigured statues, some pillars, and the ramparts of the room scattered in the dust. He even remembered the thrills of the previous training as Hector did. The diabolical avarice surged each release of the bolt while greed for fuel trembled in his veins.

"Not bad." Austin appeared behind the cloud of smoke. "But you missed one." He blew a fireball at a stone torso on the floor. Little flaming orbs were what he and most hunters could conjure. Cowen had to be embarrassed to have such an incompetent firstborn. No wonder Austin hadn't died yet.

"What do you want?" Everett wiped the sweat from his chin, struggling against the urge to tear the little pig into pieces. Hector wouldn't. The Watts Prince maturely destroyed people with his grace. A quarrel with a moron like Austin would raise suspicion.

"Your father wants to see you." Austin smirked and swaggered back into the cloud of dust. The only thing he was better than anyone was his ability to be a pretentious narcissist.

Everett knew what the pig did, but he should be patient. He tripped up the passage under the mansion, which he was once unaware of its existence. While the Watts boys got trained to fence and shoot on the third floor, their father practiced hunting underground.

Using his sweat to fix his hair and his shirt to clean his face, Everett stepped through the hidden door into the drawing room where Hector was waiting and greeting him through a mirror. Everett had yet to get used to seeing his own reflection. Those deep blue eyes were his now, and the dirt-covered elegance was his too. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm for playing a stallion's role was no longer on the rise.

In the poolroom, Everett saw ghosts. His heart fell to his stomach when he heard the apparition of Luke chuckled and the one of Simon spitting Latin into whiskey. Will's spirit smacked Everett's head, but the emptiness was cruelly undone. David hadn't contacted him. Everett started to think that the painful procedure to link him with his formerly crazy brother was for nothing. His heart ached, and he would do anything to know that Cyan still thought of him.

***

The Watts seniors gathered around a desk in the library lounge, Bill Watts in his throne monitoring them. The odor of rotten betrayal was more prominent than the warm amber musk of the room. Everett used to be terrified of this atmosphere, but now the ancient hall simply irritated him, filled with savages who didn't belong here—outsiders. The seniors rummaged through some convoluted puzzle, muddling in a pile of the old scripts, flipping and thwacking as some idiots hurrying through assignments due at five in the morning.

"Your brothers had disappeared from the radar," Bill Watts said. "But that will be dealt with." He glanced at the seniors. "Will you fail your first mission?"

"No," said Everett, his insides twisting. First mission.

"You found Rebecca Allen?" Bill Watts grinned proudly.

"No," Everett said again. "Rebecca Allen Wolf." The name was his key to leave the library, the mansion, Colt, and Bill Watts at once. He was suffocated and alone... and confused. Damn David!

"We need to shadow the grave," Cowen inserted. "Successfully."

Everett gasped. "But who do you—"

"Irrelevant," Bill Watts said, his voice absolute. "You do what I say, Hector. That is our deal."

Deal?

Cowen twisted his face through the combination of satisfaction and discontent. "Don't worry, Hector," he said to Everett. "Your brothers and the future bride will be here when you return with the marked huldreke, presumably. Say we put the wedding on the full moon, Cousin." He smirked at Bill Watts. "It'll be quite an emotional day."

"Cowen, I'm tired of your cheap cynicism." Bill Watts's glance hushed Cowen. He rose to his feet, his slow glide across the room a malevolent balestra. Bill Watts's, all of him, was also priority—the rigged triumph impossible to compete. "When is Constantine arriving?"