Shade of Exposure (Three)

Shade of Exposure Hannah Graves Series Book Three Aria Storm Prologue: The lingering chill seemed to infuse bone deep. Penetration of all core warmth, hollow, sagging, and tired. The arcs of my blade katana strokes were like deep shadowy blurs in the night, sundering the frigid winter air deeper. Sub-arctic winds seemed to pour their mighty fury over New York. So much so, that even the Big Apple had closed down classes at the local schools, including NYU where I was attending now. Instead of having an Alaskan themed ragger with my classmates, here I was, battling for three full nights as winter dumped her full might upon me. Last month we had a terrible development in the stalemate of the Endless War. One of the least of the Architects broke ranks with his fellows, teaching a horrid, invented expression to human necromancers. Yes, we now live in an age where that is now a thing! Death and resuscitation expression are both things, and rune etching expressions carved across bone and flesh of the casters, transforming the once mortals into undead necro lord expression casters who siphon life-energy from people the way you would suck juice through a straw, only well, with their hand typically. So, skip to the current date a month later, despite managing to contain the one Architect calling himself “The Litch,” many of the undead scourge he and his followers let loose has been freed over New York. My new friend Spencer stopped him, but at the cost of the zombies scattering to the four winds in the process. I could hardly blame her! She is only two years older than me, and yet she managed to fell an immortal immeasurably older and more experienced. “Hey, shadow girl, watch your six!” One of the local royal guards roared. I might not be her favorite person, but I suppose Kerry had decided not to begrudge me my birth-right, considering I had been willing to overlook it when people declared her a blood traitors daughter. I dispersed, allowing my sword to plunge into the snowy cement, and I watched in my shadowy dark vision as the two zombies rushed through the black smoke that was now my body. It’s been over two years now since I discovered what I was, and I have begun to learn how to handle myself a lot better. I have the basic shade tricks on lock now. My hand rematerializes, and my entire left side after quickly, then my right side. I spool up a potent flash of silver flames as my physical existence re-enters the Four-D world of humanity. Best I understand, this is a trick I can use, mainly thanks to my father being a fifth-dimensional being called an Ethereal. I move my body through, dispersing so wide that physical matter of the normal space-time cannot touch me. I don’t know all the science behind it, that is more my male-bestie Clarke’s shtick. Two half-rotted animated corpses turn as the brilliant plume of flames pepper over them, searing them to dust in moments. Pure aether-flame, one of the more cosmically deadly elements. The echo of their cries reaches my ears as the dust washed over me. I close my eyes on instinct, and I still feel the filthy animated dead auras dotting around me. “They’re not letting up! How the f**k have they multiplied so god damn fast?! We’ve managed to prevent them mostly from freely roaming outside Brooklyn!” I ask no one in particular, and Clarke swears, I look over, and I see a silver fire doting the tip of a spear. I had enchanted my expressive flame on his spear, to protect him, even when I cannot actively babysit him personally. I hate him being out here, many immortals have already given their lives holding back the wall of the damned from reaching the hapless mortal populace. Even the god-forsaken reapers have been busy pushing back waves of zombies all around the city. Humans are on the verge of discovery. Such a profound revelation will reshape the balance of power throughout the entire world. While we wait for that sword to fall, we are busy swinging our physical swords at dead things. Needless to say, it has been a very fun time to be inducted into the immortal clubhouse! “Everyone, we need to fall back, now!” I roared, allowing my voice to carry on the wind. My throat was hoarse, and despite my extreme resilience against the elements, the super-cold chill of the night threatened my bones and made my movement a little stiff and sloppy. “We cannot allow them out of Brighton Beach! We have to hold this line child!” One of the larger magus men growled at me, and I flicked my violet gaze upon him. “We must live, or we cannot fight anything except one another!” I countered as I saw another wave of the dead on in the distance. My shadowy eyes could see far better than any other immortal I had ever met, aside from Spencer Kacey. We share similar versions of true sight. However, mine is wider spread and nearly three-sixty-degree. There were hundreds of dead, maybe more. They seemed to be drawn to expression like crack addicts with decomposing tissue. I realized that they fed not just on the tissue, but on the energy or chi as Spencer calls it. Life fueling their prolonged un-life. “You’re not in charge of us or did you forget that you are merely a guest of Hidden, welp?!” The magus snarled at me, and I sighed, and I retrieved my black blade from the snowy concrete of the street. It did not even seem to dawn on me that my show of strength was something no muscleman in the human world could achieve. I had truly forgotten the limitations of what I had believed myself tied to as a perceived mortal for sixteen years of my life. “Fine, we stay, but everyone should seriously tighten the f**k up. Throw whatever large expression you can into the waves coming in. Wind proficient, I need you to focus on snaring and rooting with the snow and ice we have. Fire and earth, I need you hammering all you can muster into the main column of the horde coming in! It’s hundreds of them, funnel them with earth and ice to the center, and create a killing-lane!” I roared so all could hear. My powers were vastly depleted from three whole nights of combat, but I roared, I fed the aether I could spare into my fellows around me, re-invigorating them all as much as was possible, readying our final stand for the night, praying we lasted for the Nix to come to our aid once more. While many seemed extremely reluctant to listen to the shade girl, no one seemed to think of anything better. As the first wave came into view, the wind and water shaping began to create slick walls of ice barring the zombie’s access to flank us. Funneling them further and further into the middle of the street. “Create some more cover, move some of these cars and trucks so we can further impede their movement forward as we lay siege!” I ordered, and the large magus growled at me, but finally extended his hand just beyond my side, punching the air next to my head. With it, the earth began to split open, and two SUVs parked nearby on the curb began to slide forward, plowing into the first wave, and the quaking divided terrain staggered the clumsy foes. Suddenly, screams pierced the night, and I felt my vision focused on the source. There was a slender female form shivering and slipping and stumbling in the ice and snow. She was close to entering my kill-lane. “Human, try not to hit her, but don’t let up or everyone on this block is dead!” I said in a very darkly honest tone, and the earth and flame casters seemed to obey me well enough. “Just don’t blame me if you get burnt trying to play the hero.” One of the magi sneered at me, and I gave him a wicked smile, and I snagged the black mask from my waistband. The Sleep alloy mask was Nix in design, it had feline traits like a panther-woman. It had been a gift from Skylar. One I had hoped never to use. It was made to obscure my identity from mortals since I was so insistent on protecting them these days. Jumping over one of the kinetically repositioned Ford sedans, and then side-stepping as flames plumed to life on my left flank, scorching a zombie coming into the money-lane. My blade spun in a wicked arc of sheer death, as I stroked my instrument like a well-seasoned veteran. I might not be the best in the entire universe, but my skills have vastly improved in two years of training. “Duck!” I roared, and the girl’s eyes were like saucers as she took in my death-goddess look. Yep, I probably looked like I was about to bisect her with my katana. It slashed into three zombies in a single cleaving arc, just narrowly missing her. I spun, and then kicked two my back. I extended my hand and I pushed with an invisible wall of expression. I could hardly call it telekinesis since I was mostly only able to push with it right now. I could not pull or use it to precisely move objects. I was still a very blunt instrument, still very green by the standards of my new community. I just happened to have a nearly bottomless well of energy to draw upon. “Behind me, now! Don’t stop moving for anything!” I roared at the girl, she seemed to be weather-worn, and I could make out the university logo on her jacket. She went to my school, which was hardly surprising since there were plenty of NYU students all over this city. “The fire…” She whimpered, and I stared into her eyes, my violet eyes likely glowing and not at all making me appear any more friendly right now! “Just go, I didn’t come out here just to let you die!” I snapped at her, not having time for a more well-argued point. She seemed to get the drift, and she began to run towards the throng of what must have been freakish people to her. Some dressed like medieval knights in titanium armor suits, and others bundled up in winter clothing and casting expression spells of many types. She was running towards the variable hogpog of impossibilities. “Go, go!” I shouted as I windmilled my blade splitting four more approaching zombies, and I reached out blasting another three with silver flames. I felt the taxation of my bone-deep exhaustion on my person. “Shadow girl!” I heard Kerry shout to me, and if I was not hallucinating, it almost sounded like concern. I heard the growls and the gnashing of teeth as I was suddenly amidst a full-blown wave of the undead. Freezing, burning claws raked on my flesh, and I grit my teeth, not wishing to distract my mortal charge just ahead of me. I was the gate between her and her death. I used my pure desire to safeguard this one human life from the claws of the dead, and I fueled my will to fight, despite the venom flooding into my system. I was not an enforcer, neither was I one of the royal guards. Yet my body was seemingly always between others and sure death. I was not trying to look like a hero or a martyr, or anything, I just couldn’t help myself! I blasted flames and kinetic energies like rapid-fire and I funneled every single ounce of my final dregs of expression into clearing the path, as I watched the terrified mortal. I traced her movement, and somehow my flames sputtered out just as she reached the line of the titanium-clad defenders. Spots danced in my vision as the burning bile of the venomous wounds ticked their death expression through my veins. I saw the brilliance of blue-silver and a deep wide cone of azure flash around me, bathing the pavement in dragon fire. I could vaguely make out the visage of Skylar, the Nix had finally come to reenforce this outbreak containment! “Hold the lines until daybreaks! Brothers, retrieve Hannah!” Skylar spoke in a smokey lizardy-tone in her massive dragon phase-shift.