Order Of The Shadow (Legacy of the Shadow’s Blood Book 5) Read online

  Order Of The Shadow

  Legacy of the Shadow’s Blood™ Book 5

  E.G. Bateman

  Michael Anderle

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2021 LMBPN Publishing

  Cover by Fantasy Book Design

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  A Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, January 2021

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64971-441-1

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64971-442-8

  The Order Of The Shadow Team

  Thanks to our Beta Readers:

  John Ashmore, Kelly O’Donnell, Larry Omans, Rachel Beckford

  Thanks to our JIT Team:

  Diane L. Smith

  Wendy L Bonell

  Dave Hicks

  Paul Westman

  Editor

  SkyHunter Editing Team

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Author Notes - E.G. Bateman

  Acknowledgments

  The Fugitive Legacy

  Other Books from E.G. Bateman

  Other LMBPN Publishing Books

  Connect with The Authors

  Dedications

  I dedicated the previous book to my brother, Steve and his cat, Alan. While Steve was appreciative, I received no such response from Alan. He didn’t call, he didn’t write, nothing.

  Therefore, I dedicate this book to my dogs Max, Scruffy, and Sparky. Dogs are the best.

  Woof!

  — E.G. Bateman

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

  — Michael Anderle

  Chapter One

  The plan had been simple enough, although not what Lexi would have preferred. Azatoth had insisted on entering the front of the building alone, which had immediately triggered all kinds of inner alarms.

  Still, she didn’t think her unwanted partner would kill their quarry now that it was daytime. For one thing, the werewolf would have changed and last night had been the final full moon of the month. The demon suggested that the were would sense her and be forced to escape out the back of the building where Lexi waited, ready to whammy him with a sleep spell she had learned from Scott, a pouch of wolfsbane, and failing that, her trusty katana. She had sealed all the other exits magically and the only way out was the door in front of her, yet it remained suspiciously silent.

  A little impatient, she leaned against the fence at the rear of the building and listened intently for signs that their target was running toward her position.

  Her attempt resulted in nothing at all and she sighed.

  Two minutes of staring at the door were long enough. She waved a hand over it to seal it and walked around the building. As she hurried along the side of the old office building, a loud bang shook the window when she passed. She settled immediately into a defensive stance as an arm slid down the inside of the glass and left a bloody trail. It was missing the body it should have been attached to.

  Her shoulders sagged. “Not again.”

  I hate working with Azatoth.

  The demon insisted on joining her in the field at least once a week but didn’t seem to understand or care that sometimes, their remit was to detain, not dismember.

  As she approached the front door, Azatoth emerged through it. Blood spattered the demon’s face and something hung from her hair. The dark sorcerer tried not to look at her gore-covered hands—which were, of course, her sister’s hands.

  Azatoth grinned. “All done.” She strode casually away from the building.

  While she hated taking the demon on jobs, Lexi was trying to keep her away from Kindred headquarters as much as possible. The death count at base had dropped significantly since Azatoth had insisted she take part in missions. A few other legacies had worked with her but had not returned in one piece—or at all.

  She hurried after the demon. “What happened?”

  “He tried to fornicate with me. I did consider it, but I’ve decided I’m not that kind of girl.”

  Startled, she barely registered that her mouth hung open. She highly doubted the were would have had the time to think of such things before the demon shredded him. Although she tried to think of a response, nothing came to mind.

  Azatoth pulled something red from her sleeve and looked like she might pop it into her mouth. Lexi’s stomach flipped.

  The demon paused and grimaced. “This vessel has such a weak stomach.” She dropped the morsel on the ground and turned to her. “Let’s get waffles.”

  “Yes. Waffles.” She despised socializing with the creature but it seemed like a great diversion from either of the conversations about sex or eating werewolves she thought she was about to have.

  “Come on then.” Azatoth took her arm and stepped forward.

  The air became heavy and humid and their surroundings gray and impenetrable. A moment later, they stood across the street from a waffle house in New York. Lexi shuddered. There was something creepy about the way the demon traveled. She seemed to translocate but it was as though she went through somewhere deeply unpleasant.

  “You have something in your hair.” She pointed vaguely at Azatoth’s bangs.

  “Oh, would you mind?” The demon remained still while she picked a piece of organic matter from her hair.

  It gave her chills to be this intimate with the being who possessed her sister. “Perhaps a glamour for the rest of it?”

  “I don’t need to glamour it.” The blood disappeared from Azatoth’s hair and face and ran in rivulets down the clothes. Finally, as she moved to cross the street, she left a small puddle of blood on the ground. “Thanks, sis.” She froze, then turned to her companion. “I didn’t mean to say that. How curious.”

  Lexi’s heart raced and she worked hard to not show her excitement.

  Is it Alicia trying to
give me a sign?

  The last thing she wanted was for the demon to realize Alicia was still in there. She kept the hope from her face.

  As they approached the eatery, a group of young men passed them walking the other way. One of them leered at Lexi and intentionally brushed up against Azatoth as he passed. “Sorry, sugar.”

  The demon froze. Her arm snaked out, caught hold of the man, and she stared intently at him. Lexi had seen the look before—this guy was about to be mincemeat.

  To avoid the inevitable fallout, she took one step closer and punched him in the face. He fell with a faint groan. “Sorry, sugar.”

  She grasped the handle and held the door open for her unwelcome companion.

  “Thank you, Lexi.” Azatoth stepped in and turned to give her a brief smile.

  They entered the restaurant, where a few people waited in line to be seated.

  Her companion sighed. She had a distinct aversion to waiting.

  “I suppose you must often find the…uh, vessel doing things automatically.” She hated referring to Alicia as a vessel, but she needed a distraction before all hell broke loose.

  The demon frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Lexi raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Azatoth’s hand and a shuriken that spun between her fingers. “I know many legacies who do that. I do it too.”

  The demon stopped spinning. “I have noticed these things. I don’t like it. It feels as though I don’t have full control of the body.”

  This conversation wasn’t moving in a direction she was comfortable with. She shrugged and tried to redirect it into safer waters. “I guess none of us have full control of our bodies. Did you expend effort and concentration on walking and breathing in your body?”

  “You mean before I crossed to your realm? No, that would be tiresome. I like you, Lexi. You make me think about things in a different way. It helps me to acclimate.”

  A young man interrupted. “Have you booked?”

  Azatoth frowned at the interruption.

  Lexi panicked. Something small like this could easily end in a waffle house full of corpses. She smiled and spoke quickly. “Table for two in the name of Lexi.”

  He went to the screen while she reached out mentally and convinced him he could see her name displayed on the bookings list.

  “That’s great.” His expression revealed no confusion. “It’ll only take a few moments to get your table ready.”

  “Great. We’ll sit at the counter and check the menu.” Lexi walked ahead and was relieved to hear Azatoth follow.

  They sat at the red-and-chrome fifties-style counter. She passed a menu to the demon and they ordered milkshakes.

  Her companion glanced at the greeter, then at Lexi. “You fascinate me. Your magic is inconsistent at best, but it quite often comes through for you when I least expect it to.”

  She shrugged. “I’m still learning. I trained as a legacy and sorcery takes a completely different skill set.”

  “But you used Scott’s magic before. What’s the difference?”

  “I didn’t have to source it before or balance it. It’s harder than it would appear.”

  “How is the handsome young Scott? Now he’s a male I could—”

  Lexi interrupted as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

  “But you’re bound to him. Surely you know if he’s well.”

  “You said you would tell me about my mother.” It wasn’t exactly subtle, but she needed to change the subject before it delved into all kinds of uncomfortable details.

  The demon tilted her head and smiled. “Ah yes. I did, didn’t I.” She paused.

  Lexi thought for a moment that she wouldn’t continue.

  “Caleb was interested in her.”

  She screwed her face up in revulsion. “You mean—”

  “No, not like that. He never physically met her. He had someone dig into the files when we met you in Palm Springs. All I know is what he knew—she appeared one day, pregnant and with no memory. She died six years later.”

  Azatoth slurped her drink, then opened her mouth to say something else.

  A waiter joined them. “Ladies, your table is ready.”

  “Oh, goodie!” The demon slid off her stool and followed him.

  Lexi swore under her breath.

  When they were seated and the waiter had left with their order, she decided to prompt Azatoth to continue, but the demon spoke first.

  “I have a surprise for you at the office. I can’t wait to see your face.”

  She coughed when her drink went down the wrong way and couldn’t help but think of the surprise the entity had left for Bryan at the chief’s house in New Orleans. She felt through the bond that Scott was okay, but this announcement of a surprise was unnerving. She wondered about everyone else in her life—Dick, Dolores, the Braxtons, and Bryan.

  “Smile. It’s nothing bad. I think you’ll like it.”

  Their waffles arrived and they began to eat, although Lexi had no appetite.

  “Would you prefer to call me Alicia?”

  “No. No, not even…uh, no thank you.” She began to wonder if the demon was trying to make her choke on her food.

  “Then I’d like you to call me Az.”

  “Az.”

  “I think we know each other well enough by now. Unless you think Azzy is better?”

  Lexi managed to plaster a huge smile on her face to stop the horror from showing. “Az is fine.”

  “I have a meeting. I’ll see you in the morning for your surprise.” The demon vanished.

  With the seat opposite her immediately empty, Lexi rolled her eyes. Azatoth had stiffed her on the bill again. She called the waiter and ordered a coffee, then considered the somewhat disjointed conversation they’d had. As usual, she moved her consciousness into her dimensional pocket and watched a video replay of their exchange. As it played, she stared into the demon’s face in search of any sign of her sister.

  She watched the screen as the demon asked about Scott but not Bryan. Did that mean she knew where Bryan was? The thought gave her a lump in her throat. She hadn’t heard from her sister’s husband and mage for a while. It was frustrating as he was central to her plan to contact Alicia, but Dolores insisted on giving him space.

  When the waiter asked if she wanted the receipt, she nodded. “Oh yes. I will be sure to expense this.” She shrugged mentally. A small win is still a win.

  With a smile, she realized that by mentioning the meeting, Azatoth had given her a useful heads-up. She wondered who the demon’s late meeting could be with and what it might be about.

  Lexi had begun to return to the office in the evenings to snoop around and try to discover the demon’s plans for the realm, and she still hadn’t located the mystery Kindred man who had watched them outside the Paris hotel in Las Vegas. She checked the time and decided she’d given the demon enough of a head start to the office. When the waiter turned away, she translocated.

  As planned, she appeared beside her desk. She was the only member of the Overseers team to have an office to herself. It was a corner office with an enviable view of the city if she’d been into that kind of thing, which she wasn’t. It had belonged to the team’s manager. She didn’t want to imagine what had happened to the previous incumbent.

  Before doing anything, she gazed around the room to make sure no gruesome surprises had been left by the demon. Finding nothing, she breathed a sigh of relief before she picked a marker up to update the whiteboard. She drew a line through the werewolf job, then put a red X next to it—which meant that a clean-up crew was required. The job disappeared from the list. She knew it would have appeared on one of the similar boards in the outer office.

  For a moment, she thought of Scott. She knew exactly what he’d say. What a waste of magic. You could do that with a computer.

  Lexi thought about his Star Wars magic trick and smiled. He was no stranger to wasting m
agic and she missed working with him. Of course, she saw him every day—which was more frequently than she would admit to Azatoth—but she was used to working with him, eating with him, and generally spending her life with him.

  She closed her eyes and focused on the bond. It gave her comfort. She’d see her team shortly.

  A quick scrutiny of the rest of the board reassured her that there were no other jobs Azatoth would be interested in, and she breathed another sigh of relief.

  She stepped out of her office and glanced around. The silence told her that everyone else had gone home. As she read the boards out there, the werewolf job went from Cleaning crew required to Cleaning crew at scene. She went into the hallway and headed to the executive level in the elevator. The moment she stepped out, she knew something was wrong.

  Chapter Two

  Nora sat with her head slumped on her desk outside Azatoth’s office.

  Lexi rushed over to the woman. “Nora? Are you okay?”

  The secretary jerked her head up. “It’s only water.” She stared glassy-eyed at her.

  Oh, man, she’s sloshed.