until Larsen’s yell snapped her attention back to the fountain where three more cloaked figures jumped from the marble base and scattered. Larsen pointed her flamethrower at the nearest one, but the pouring rain doused the fire before it could reach the fleeing target.
Autumn stared in stunned wonder until she realized the smallest of the three was headed straight for her! Her mind screamed at her to run. But as the creature passed within feet of her, some inner need to prove herself had her racing forward on frozen feet to tackle the slender creature to the ground.
As she struggled to catch her breath, she stared down into the face of a skinny, white-as-a-sheet teenaged boy peeking out of a coal-black cloak. Eyes that glowed as orange as her hair stared back at her in furious terror.
What had she done? The hair rose on her arms as she met the gaze of this inhuman monster.
The creature struggled against her hold, his face contorted with his futile effort. Either she was in serious need of a diet, or the kid had no muscle mass. His white face twisted in terror and bravado even as he blinked against the onslaught of rain.
“We’ll find the power stones,” he sneered. “All of them, as my king demands. You’ll not stop us even if you kill me!” His eyes flooded with moisture that had nothing to do with the weather.
Autumn stared at the creature beneath her. He was crying! She’d made a monster cry. This had to be a new low in her life.
“Stop it! I’m not going to kill you.”
Beneath her, the Esri youth stilled. “I don’t believe you.” He continued to thrash until she was sure he was going to give her a headache. “You’ll set me aflame as you did Baleris. You…dark blood. You human!”
She stared at the angry hopelessness that twisted the kid’s mouth and felt a sharp stab of pity. She’d told him she wasn’t going to kill him, but he was right not to believe her. She might not kill him, but Jack and Larsen would. This was war and there was no taking an Esri prisoner. Jack had tried that once. He’d locked up Baleris in the police station overnight. By morning, the Esri had managed to enchant the entire D.C. police force, turning them into his own personal hit squad.
They had to kill him. And yet…he was just a kid.
Her mind aimed a swift kick at her heart. She couldn’t be soft on this. If she screwed up now, Jack and Larsen would never let her help again.
“Autumn, hold him!” Larsen’s voice carried through the rain.
The Esri struggled beneath her. “Release me!” But the anger in his voice was crumbling beneath his fear. “I beg of you, release me. I do not wish to die.” The tears ran freely from his eyes, now. “Please, my lady. Please. I mean you no harm.”
Dear God, what was she supposed to do? He was Esri. Evil.
He was just a kid.
With a groan of despair, she knew she couldn’t be the reason he died.
“If I let you go, you have to go back through that gate. Right now.”
The boy stilled, his orange eyes widening with hope. “Aye. I shall go back. You’ll not regret it. I’ll make it up to you. I give you my vow.”
“Right. Just make sure you go back through that gate. If you don’t, my friends will catch you. And then you will die.”
She rolled off him into the muddy grass, knowing she was going to regret this. Jack and Larsen were going to be furious. The kid leaped to his feet and made a dash for the fountain as Larsen tried to intercept him with her flamethrower. But the kid was fast. Before Larsen could catch him, he dove into the fountain, his cloak billowing out behind him for one brief moment before he disappeared.
Autumn rose from the soaked grass, her shoulders heavy with guilt.
“Damn, damn, damn!” Larsen’s epithets rose in volume as she ran toward Autumn. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Do you know what just happened?”
Autumn cringed. “If you’re asking if he enchanted me, I don’t think so. I’m still wearing my holly.” She held up her arm, displaying the rough band of wood she wore around her wrist. Holly was the only thing they’d found that protected true humans from the Esris’ mind control. “I know I had him. I know I let him go.”
“Why?”
All her life Autumn had longed to be smaller. Now she felt about two inches tall. And it hurt. “Larsen, I’m sorry. He looked like a fifteen-year-old kid. And he was crying.” Even to her own ears, her reasons sounded lame.
Larsen looked around with a deep sigh, her expression one of frustration, her movements agitated. “All right. Well, it’s done.” Larsen dug in her pocket and handed Autumn a set of keys. “Go get in the car and lock the doors. The others may come back and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Autumn pressed her lips together, wanting to argue that she could help. But she’d just proved she couldn’t be trusted.
“Larsen, he said something that might be important. He said they came for the power stones.”
Larsen’s gaze jerked to hers. “Stones? Are you sure the word was plural?”
“Positive.” Autumn shoved the keys and her cold fists deep into her pockets. “He said they’d find them all.”
“We thought there was only one. We have only one.”
“Yeah. That’s why I thought it might be important.”
“I really wish you hadn’t let him go, Autumn.”
Autumn met her friend’s rueful gaze. “Me, too.”
“There’s Jack! Did you catch him?” she called to her husband, but he just shook his head.
As Larsen ran to join her husband, Autumn turned to make her way to the car, her heart heavy with the knowledge she’d finally gotten the chance she’d been longing for. A chance to make a difference. To be a hero.
And she’d blown it. Not only had she failed to be of help, she’d become something far, far worse.
She’d become a liability the Sitheen could not afford.
Two weeks later, as the sun set amidst painted clouds, Kaderil strode across the busy street near the D.C. waterfront to the squeal of brakes and the honks of impatient human drivers. He’d learned enough during his short time in the human realm to know he was expected to give way to the vehicles, but he’d spent fifteen centuries making others—powerful immortals—cower before him.
He refused now to submit to humans, regardless of the armor they wore, though he had to admit to a certain fascination with this armor. Cars, they called them. And trucks, minivans, SUVs, convertibles. The humans had a different name for nearly every one and he knew them all.
A cold breeze ruffled his hair as he stepped onto the curb and started across the parking lot to the low-slung building of the marina’s offices. The human world was not what he’d expected.
