Daughter of Gods and Shadows by Jayde Brooks Page B

the passengers on that bus, and if she didn’t do something, they would kill her too. Eden willed her body to move but then realized that she was pinned underneath something … someone. She fought to turn over and looked into the face of the pregnant woman, lying lifeless on top of her. The baby, the little boy, was pinned underneath Eden.
    Eden had to get out. She looked to the back of the bus for a way to escape, but it was blocked by the truck rammed into the rear end. Eden had no choice. There was only one way out of here, and if she wanted to live, she had no choice but to take it. She didn’t remember freeing herself, but soon Eden pushed her way past bodies and debris to get to the front of that bus. They were like ants, crawling over each other to get to these people. Eden met them one by one with her fists, breaking faces; she grabbed heads and gauged out eyes.
    Fight! Fight or die, Eden! Yes!
    Eden was killing, but she had killed before. She climbed out of that window, stepping on these … these cannibals like they were insects, breaking them, stopping them. Eden kicked, breaking knees and forcing these things to the ground in agony. Things. They weren’t human. They were animals, worse than animals. They were monsters. And they deserved to die.
    Eden lost herself to the moment. She was drunk on adrenaline, and for the first time in her life, she let go and gave in to the nature of what she was, had always been. Eden was a warrior. But she wasn’t fighting alone. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him. A phantom? No. She turned and saw that it was the Guardian. He picked up grown men by their necks and tossed them aside like toys. As he marched toward her, he caved in chests with his fists and twisted heads, leaving bodies with broken necks in the path to get to her. He was coming toward her. He was coming for her. Huge wings, black and wide enough to block out the sun, spread from his back as he ran straight toward Eden; she stumbled back in awe and fear.
    â€œTukufu,” she whispered, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around him. But there was nothing she could do. The Guardian had her.

 
    FORSAKEN
    Kifo walked the streets of Raleigh, North Carolina, with the same disdain and disgust for what he had seen in Turkey, London, Somalia, Mexico. The curse had spread like fire, just like he knew it would, and the undoing of humankind had been at his hands.
    The media had called it a flu. A pandemic.
    In the Americas: “Tens of thousands have died.…”
    In Berlin: “ Tausende sind gestorben.… ”
    In Italy: “ Migliaia sono morti…”
    The first so-called resurrections were deemed miracles, and the masses celebrated, doctors were baffled, and common people became overnight celebrities, with microphones shoved under their noses, and cameras in their faces asking them about their experiences.
    â€œWhat’s it like to be clinically dead?”
    â€œIs there an afterlife?”
    â€œHow have you changed since you’ve been born again?”
    In the blind excitement to proclaim these miracles, reporters had failed to see the fear and trepidation in the eyes of these miraculously resurrected people. And they certainly didn’t see the hunger, a hunger that would make them monsters, an unfortunate side effect of Sakarabru’s will. Kifo had warned the Demon that human bodies weren’t like the Ancients he’d used to build the Brood Army on Theia. His mystics had performed the same spells on the humans, but the results had not been without consequences.
    Bullets whirred past him. Chaos swirled around him. Screams. Sirens echoed through the streets. Confusion. What had happened? Miracles quickly turned into nightmares. A city oblivious to his presence pressed on to try to stop the pandemonium, but Kifo knew that they would fail. They would stop this first wave, but not the second or third or fourth.
    â€œThe Seer Larcerta