Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) by Becca Mills Page A

who work for other powers have agreed to help us?”
    “I guess.” She looked up at me in the rearview. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
    “Well, the Thirsting Ground is dangerous times ten. We need more people, and it’s in their interest to help.”
    “Yeah,” Gwen said. But she didn’t sound convinced.
    Something wasn’t right. I sat there thinking about it.
    “Lord Cordus has more than two hundred Nolanders, and Yellin could only rustle up twelve? And what about the Seconds? Why aren’t Okeke and Wiri coming along?”
    “Okeke and Wiri are gone,” Zion said.
    “Gone … as in dead?”
    She studied her nails. “No, ‘gone’ as in defected.”
    “Defected?”
    “Lord Cordus used to have a lot more people than he does now,” Gwen said. “Both Nolanders and Seconds.” She paused, as though unwilling to continue.
    A strange feeling came over me, a pervasive sense of wrongness.
    “He’s never disappeared like this before,” Kara said. “People think he bit it. They’re jumping off the sinking ship, trying to make alliances with other powers.”
    Gwen nodded. “There’re a lot of numbers out there that’ve been going straight to voicemail for weeks.”
    I sat there, frozen. Then my head started shaking back and forth. Finally all that shaking knocked my voice loose from whatever thing in my throat had hitched it up.
    “That’s not possible. Dead? No way.”
    “What, you think you’d know if he died?” Zion said caustically. “Because of your special bond, or something?”
    “No, of course not!”
    “Well, do you think the great powers can’t die? ’Cause they can.”
    I realized my head was shaking again and stilled it by leaning forward and pressing it against the back of the front seat.
    “You all right, Beth?” Kara said, sitting forward and putting an arm around my shoulders. “Gwen, I think she’s gonna barf.”
    “I’m not sick.”
    My voice sounded weird and far away. I took a deep breath and tried to draw my thoughts together.
    “Look, he just can’t be dead. He’s so powerful. What could possibly kill him?”
    “It might seem that way to us,” Gwen said carefully, “but there are probably a lot of things in the S-Em that are stronger than Lord Cordus. If that’s where he went, something could’ve happened.”
    I tried to imagine a world populated by beings who’d make Cordus look weak. I couldn’t.
    “If he stayed here, well, some of the powers holding territory in the F-Em are thought to be stronger than he is.”
    “But his territory is the biggest.”
    Gwen shrugged. “Yeah, I know. It’s weird. There’s gotta be a story, there.” She paused, then said softly, “I don’t think he’d abandon the organization this way by choice. Everything’s falling apart.”
    The silence stretched out again.
    I sat there turning the idea over in my mind.
    Cordus dead .
    I started tearing up and angrily wiped my eyes. Why was I crying? He was a monster. You didn’t cry for monsters.
    Especially not in front of their victims.
    I glanced at Kara, expecting her to look shocked and angry. Instead she was all sympathy.
    “Beth, we’re all scared. We just have to stick together. We’ll get through it.”
    I nodded, letting her generous interpretation of my tears go unchallenged.
    “So, if everyone else is bailing out, why are you guys still here?”
    “We probably all have our own reasons,” Gwen said. “For me, it’s the place. I’m from the city, and I’ll stay here as long as I can. Some other power will take over. I’ll work for them.”
    “I’m staying ’cause Williams told me to,” Kara said.
    “I’m still entertaining offers,” Zion said.
    We all laughed, probably a bit harder than the joke deserved. If it was a joke. With Zion, it was hard to be sure.
    Well, I’d be staying too. For me, the reason was simple enough: even if I’d wanted to leave all my friends behind, I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t know any other Seconds. None that