Page 63 of A Spark in the Ash

Davorian shakes his head in shock. “I don’t think that even I could do that, and I’m the oldest of all of us.”

“I know,” I say with pride. “He…he might have struggled in the beginning, but now…” I shake my head again. “Jaxon has a whole different kind of control than the rest of us.”

“You saidispossessed with his mother,” Ascelin points out. “Andwaswith his brother.”

I nod and my mood falls. “He exorcised his brother this morning. The change was…astonishing. And immediate. But his mother…” Once again, I shake my head. “He couldn’t do it, at least not yet. And there wasn’t much of an opportunity. She was around the other family members pretty much the entire time.”

“I don’t know how he can fight it,” Davorian says.

“And he shouldn’t,” Ascelin points out. “It’s literally his entire reason for existing. He has to exorcise her.”

I nod, because I know this is the truth. But I can also understand. “She’s still his mother. Even if she was possessed from before he was born, she’s still the woman who gave birth to him and raised him. Can you blame him for hesitating in ending her life?”

They both stare at me, mulling that over.

This is black and white to Ascelin. But I think the look in Davorian’s eyes says he understands, at least a little bit.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, moving on from this subject. “For now, we need to focus on the Kindred. What do you want to do about that? They’re coming after Jaxon.”

Which means that I have to explain what happened with the resident ultralights.

“Obviously, we cannot let Jaxon leave the compound until they are taken care of,” Davorian says. “Once more, we have to figure out a way to keep peace while honoring his one request.”

That we do not make him a prisoner.

“We could just pull everyone into the compound, like you’re already doing,” I say. “And we could wait them out. They’ll never find us here. Eventually they will get bored.”

“They’ve already looped back around once,” Ascelin points out. “Obviously they want him pretty bad. I don’t think hiding from the problem is going to solve it.”

I know he’s right. But I’m thinking back to my most recent fight with a Kindred. It took everything I had to get out of there, and I barely walked away with Jaxon alive as well.

“It’s forty-seven darklings against two Kindred,” Davorian points out. “We just need to get them into the desert, isolated so there will be no witnesses and no casualties. Then we can take them out.”

We had hopes once that Jaxon could be the equalizing balance between us andanyof the ultralights, but especially the Kindred. He knows everything. He’s seen that we’re not just evil demon shadow monsters. Jaxon could change everything.

But when and how can we ever take that risk? When can we ever put them in a room together and hope he can change their minds?

I’m beginning to realize that maybe this was a foolish dream.

So long as we are in this verse and there are still ultralights in it, we, the darklings, will always be in danger.

“Once they reach the city, we will lure them to the desert,” Davorian moves on. “Not here, we’ll stay well out of range of the compound. But we’ll take them somewhere isolated, and we’ll take care of them.”

“How far out are they?” I ask.

Ascelin pulls out his tablet and opens the system. He lays it flat on the table so all three of us can see. He zooms in, narrowing in on their location.

“They’re in Tonopah,” Ascelin concludes. “But they haven’t moved in hours. My guess is they’re staying there for the night. There’s not much else out that way.”

Tonopah is only three hours away, if they were to come straight to Vegas. It’s still uncomfortably close.

“Keep in touch with the others,” Davorian says as he stands. “I want to make sure every darkling is gathered in the next hour. For now, we watch the Kindred. We make our move when they arrive.”

Chapter Eighteen

The Kindred don’t movethe entire next day. Which makes me more nervous than if they were to just head straight here.

What are they doing in that little town? What are they waiting for?

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