Jupiter and I landed in a shadowy alley in the middle of the Buda side of Budapest. The city was divided by the Danube River and rose up into two great halves on either side. The architecture was all antiquated European with buildings on every corner that were older than the United States had been a country. Everything was gothic and beautiful, even in the darkness of night.

Lights from windows cast long, luminescent shadows onto the cobblestone walks. Laughter from nearby pubs created a rowdy soundtrack to the cool night. The speech was in a language I couldn’t understand, but, or maybe because of that, it felt musical and melodic sound.

At the same time I could feel the evil around us. Frost shone on the walls of the antique buildings and the faint scent of sulfur hung in the air.

We had landed in kind of an epicenter of Shadow activity, and we came out ready to fight. We’d followed Nate and Serena’s lights from our sky-high vantage but now, on the ground and with buildings in between, they were nowhere to be seen.

I pulled my two katanas from my crisscrossing back straps and readied myself to engage.

I had never fought in the middle of a city like this before. So far my field experience had been limited to actual fields, but I was excited to see how interesting this would get.

I followed Jupiter around a corner into a darker alley, across the road and further into the bowels of the Hungarian city. We ignored the Shadows that slithered along every surface around us. We remained intent on finding Nate and Serena; engaging the Shadows was only going to slow us down. But it just didn’t feel right, especially after today when I had been nearly choked to death by the world’s largest Shadow colony.

As we moved through the city the sound of swords crashing together could be heard clearly over the raucous city sounds. We could see an alley way that seemed to be….. glowing, of course.

We could also hear voices shouting or arguing, even laughing at times, coming from the same alley. We immediately converged. Jupiter gripped his sword tighter, the huge long sword that was honestly a struggle for me to hold.

There they were, with Shadows covering the building walls boxing them in on three sides and confining their space. Nate and Serena stood head to head with Seth, Seven and two Fallen that I didn’t recognize. The Fallen were deceptively exotic with their dark beauty and rugged features. One had chin length hair and seemed smaller than most of the other Fallen I’d seen, except for Jude. He was the skinniest man I’d ever met, yet somehow one of the most muscularly, too. One had a military style flat top that only highlighted his harsh bone structure and shining gold eyes.

They weren’t fighting now, so I didn’t know why we heard swords clanging before. But one of the henchmen did have a long gash down his exposed bicep. Now all weapons were held tensed at their sides and the only murdering happening was from the killer stares, and just figuratively doing the damage. When Jupiter talked to Serena earlier, they were heading out to investigate a threat. Apparently they found it.

Seth looked up when we entered the alleyway and our gazes clashed together and held. He became immediately on edge as soon as I walked into the alley.

But it wasn’t Seth that spoke first.

“What are you doing here?” Seven demanded. “Where’s Jude?”

I shrugged, not trusting myself enough to answer her with anything other than loud curse words and swinging swords. I rolled my wrists around my sides, moving my swords about in a smooth and relaxed way.

I remembered when these felt heavy and awkward in my hands. After countless hours of practice they were extensions of my body; they breathed with me, they bled with me, they fought with me.

“You’re not here to fight,” Seth specified coldly. It wasn’t a question, it was a bold statement.

So out of his split personalities, I was not meeting the one that wanted to make out with me. Shoot.

“I am here to fight,” I countered defiantly. Serena shot me a quick grin over her shoulder. At least she was proud of me.

“You can’t,” Seth argued. “It’s in the contract.”

That irked me more than it probably should have, but it also prompted me to say, “Sorry, I didn’t sign a contract.”

“Be that as it may,” Seven butted in, sounding more like an adult than I had ever heard her. “The contract includes you. You’re not allowed to kill any of us.” She flipped her long, golden brown hair over her shoulder with the tip of her sword, somehow managing it effortlessly without cutting even a strand of hair off.

“I didn’t sign the contract.” I took a step forward, proving I wasn’t afraid of them. “I’m not responsible to it.”

“Fine, you’re responsible to my brother, then.” Seven rolled her eyes, back to being the child.

I shrugged again.

“I would have stopped for a pint if I knew we were just going to talk all night,” Nate taunted.

“She can’t fight,” Seven glared us all down. “We’re not allowed to engage her. How is that fair?”

“Not my problem,” Serena growled. I had a sudden feeling that Serena was a huge fan of this contract. It was somewhat of an advantage.

“Alright, but what about my brother? If any of us dies at her hands, he dies at Aliah’s.” She crossed her arms, her hands still full of her two swords that were similar to mine, but more Samuri-ish.

“What about your brother?” Serena bit out. “From where I’m standing he looks every bit as Fallen as the rest of you.”

Which was very true, but I was also hoping she was bluffing some.

“I have a solution,” I gloated. Seth quirked an eyebrow at me. “We’ll play man to man tonight. Seth and I can fight each other.”

He let out a bark of laughter and shook his head at me. “That’s hardly a fair fight.”

“You’re scared of me?’

“Terrified.” He smirked.

“I can tell.”

Seven turned to face Seth then and leaned into whisper in his ear. She reached up with one hand and held her palm caressingly against his face. The hilt of her sword sat awkwardly in her grasp with the blade extending out at an extreme angle. She looked careless and irresponsible at that angle, but her fingers moved deftly across his cheekbone, so it was hard to tell if she was in control of herself or not.

“What are we waiting for?” I asked, genuinely wondering what we were waiting for, but also in an attempt to get Seven’s poison out of Seth’s head.

Serena laughed a little and then teased, “I’m not sure. Everyone is so very chatty down here.”

“Are you saying you don’t stand around staring at each other like imbiciles off planet?” Jupiter asked dully.

“No,” Nate laughed. “We do that, too.”

Then Serena raised her sword and brought it gracefully but skillfully down, slashing a line of destruction against the stone wall next to her. Shadows dissipated immediately at the contact and her ominous battle cry called us all to attention. And in a half a second we were engaged.

The Shadows swarmed around us like a tornado of death. The force of our Lights burned through the darkness, illuminating everything into a blinding shade of white. Our swords clashed through the brilliancy; the silver seeming dull against the pure color of raw Light.

And on the opposite side of the spectrum, the Fallen fought with their black auras that sucked our Light into their black hole of evil. Shadows fought alongside them, moving effortlessly- and able to stay out of the path of a flinging sword but still weave around the Light in an effort to cause pain. Seven was the only Fallen to still fight with her Light fully intact. She glowed brighter than even me. And for as crazy as she was, she fought with staggering talent.

But then so did Seth, so maybe it was a genetic thing.

Jupiter was the only one to escape letting off some kind of color effect. Except for his eyes. The dull red world-weary and exhausted eyes were now sparking a brilliant red. He could have been a vampire from the Twilight movies. I had the strongest urge to suggest a vegetarian diet.

But I refrained.

Mostly, because I was fighting for my life.

Jupiter stayed skillfully close to the Fallen and out of the burning rays of our Light. He was more resilient to the heat and power than humans, but we could easily still burn him. The mixture of Light and Dark mixed together to make a conducive atmosphere for his battle skills.

I hadn’t initially engaged with Seth, although that was the plan. But because of how quickly Serena initiated the fight and how we were standing, I was paired with one of the Fallen I hadn’t met before.

And damn, he was good.

I matched each of his blows with my two beloved katanas. These weren’t the practice swords I used with Jupiter; these weapons could cause some serious damage.

If only I could quit playing defense and get one of my own hits in.

“Play nice,” I mocked him. “Pretty sure your friend over there will cut your head off himself if you hurt me.”

The man leered at me. “But it would be worth it.”

He swung around with his broadsword- or whatever it was. It was heavy and made from some kind of metal not native to Earth. I heard a faint accent in his voice when he spoke.

He was old.

Bummer.

Warriors seemed to get stronger with age. And he was already kicking my ass in the brute force department. I had fifteen months before I received the fullness of my strength and while I was currently much stronger than the average human, I wasn’t exactly measuring up to Hulk Hogan standards when fighting my own kind.

It was in stupid moments like these where I understood Seth’s decision. I didn’t like it or agree with it, but I could understand it.

The good thing about the zealot giant I was fighting was that he wasn’t exactly a refined fighter. He relied too heavily on his brute strength and didn’t pay enough attention to his foot work or smaller movements.

I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving for Jupiter’s anal, over-the-top training and slid under one of his crashing blows using part instinct, part years of volleyball training. I looked like I was getting ready to dive low for a hard hit.

When I came to standing again I was at the Fallen’s back, my swords waiting to cross his neck like chopsticks with a difficult piece of broccoli. I was eerily resolved to cutting his head off, the only true way to kill a Warrior or Star. My blades pricked his skin to let him know I was there and give him an idea of what I intended to do. I would have to pull my swords back to give my body some momentum to cut all the way through his neck, but I had this really practiced, dramatic speech to give first.

It was my first Fallen kill after all.

He stilled under the touch of my blades, knowing he was caught. A string of curse words flew out of his mouth, realizing he wasn’t just facing death, but death by a Starling at that.

I was embarrassed for him.

And then I was flying through the air, but not by my own free will. I smashed into a stone wall. Bits of rock flew everywhere and Shadows scurried out of the rays of my Light. I had a sword to my throat, just the tip of a curved sword that looked like it belonged to a pirate.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Seth taunted. “You’ll make me jealous if you keep this up.”

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