Black Fallen: The Dark Ink Chronicles - Softcover

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Elle Jasper spent her youth buried in the pages of Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Stephen King. Now a full-time writer, she lives in and continues to be inspired by the Gothic Revival and Georgian architecture, moss-draped squares, and ancient cobbles of Savannah, Georgia.

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Edinburgh, Scotland
Old Town
Late October

Blood. Holy Christ, there’s so much of it. Everywhere. Bodies. Human bodies. Crumpled, laying in distorted ways, jagged bones jutting through ripped clothes as they lay lifeless on the cobbled stones. Against the buildings. So many. My stomach rolls, and I look away. I breathe, carefully picking my way through. It’s cold. Windy. Now the streets are barren. Where did the blood, the bodies go? I’m not here alone. I feel a presence.

It’s behind me. Hugging the shadows. So fast, I can’t tell if it’s running, flying, or scaling the walls.

Doesn’t really matter. Either way, I’m being stalked.

And it’s one of the Black Fallen.

Hurrying along the sidewalk, I slip into a narrow alley and press my back against the aged stones. A dim streetlamp overhangs the eve above, and the shadows reach long and jagged toward me. I listen closely. The air suddenly shifts, and in the next second I leap over the alley to the opposite wall. I climb, and in seconds I’m on the roof. I crouch, my fingers curled around the ledge, peering into the pitch darkness below. Waiting.

I know he’s coming for me.

I want him to.

Leaning back on my heels, I find the hilt of my silver blade that’s tucked into the back of my jeans, and palm it tightly. My eyes search the alley, the street and shadows below. Then I lift my gaze to study the jagged rooftops. It’s here. Hiding. Lurking. Adrenaline rushes through me, and I draw a deep breath—

I’m on my back, rolling away, then I lurch up and crouch several feet from the ledge.

No one is there. My blade is drawn, my body rigid. Ready.

“You’re fast,” a voice whispers behind me.

I whip around, and slash my blade.

A figure jerks back, then a laughs darkly. “Almost too fast. But not quite.”

Suddenly, he’s in front of me, and strong fingers grasp my throat. I’m lifted off my feet as he walks toward the ledge. I try to slash at him with the blade, kick, throw my legs around him, but I’m paralyzed. I can’t even scream. The shadows fall onto his face, blurring his features together. I can do nothing more than stare.

“You’re powerless, my young mixed-blood,” he says. His voice is deep, his accent . . . old. “You can do nothing to stop me.” He swings me out and shakes me over the ledge. Nothing but air separates me from the stone cobbles thirty feet below. He’s using some kind of mind-power shit on me and it’s pissing me off. My gaze never leaves the vicinity of his.

“Oh. Strong-willed, are you?” he says. I can hear laughter in his voice, shaking me again. He’s only toying with me, amused. “Strength will get you nowhere with me,” he warns, and gives me anther shake. “See how you’re nothing but a weak mortal now? All those powers you’ve acquired? Gone. You’d be better off to join us.” He cocks his head. “Would you?”

I try to answer, but my throat is squeezed shut.

He laughs. “Oh. Forgive me,” he says, and loosens his grip on me. “Now, what was that?”

“Go fuck yourself,” I say in a hoarse whisper.

Instantly, my throat is released, and I’m falling fast, the cobbles reaching up to me, and his laughter resonating off the stone walls, and the broken bodies along the cobbles begin screaming my name—

“Riley?”

“What?” I jerk up, my eyes fluttering open.

“You were sleeping,” a raspy, familiar voice says. “Are you all right?”

I turn my head and look. It’s Eli. Relief washes over me. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Eli’s blue eyes narrow. Nail me to my seat. “Liar.”

I smile. “Just a dream, big guy. No big deal. Honest.”

Eli’s mouth tips at the corner. “You don’t have normal dreams, Ri.”

He’s right. I sure as hell don’t. “I just dreamed a Black Fallen kicked my ass.”

Eli sighs and closes his eyes. Frustration rolls off him in waves. “Riley,” he begins, and looks at me.

“I know, I know,” I finish. “Cross my heart, I will let you know if anything weird happens.”

His cerulean stare is disbelieving. I really don’t blame him, either.

“We’re almost there. Fifteen minutes, tops.”

I lean forward a little and glance past Eli at Jake Andorra. My new boss.

He grins. “I promise.”

The Rover pitches forward and my hand involuntarily tightens around the leather strap suspended above the door that I’ve had a death grip on ever since the vehicle left the parking lot at the airport. Our driver, Peter, is an old guy with a shock of gray hair covered by a tweed cap. Peter is clearly insane and lacks an updated driver’s license. Maybe he’s never even had one. Peter hits the gas and passes a slower driver. We all lunge forward. My stomach turns.

“Och. Sorry ’bout that,” says Peter nonchalantly in heavy Scottish brogue.

Jake chuckles.

“Ignore him,” Eli says, and leans close. His lips graze my ear, and I’m not at all surprised at the shiver it causes within me. “He likes to get you riled up.”

I glare at Jake, who shrugs. “It’s true,” he admits.

I turn away and ignore him. Eli’s right. Jake is one cocky ass. Hot as mess, but an ass all the same.

“Thank you,” Jake says.

I shoot him another glare. Mind readers suck. And I’m surrounded by them—including my immortal druid boss and the gorgeous vampire sitting next to me.

Staring out of the window, I can see my ghostly reflection in the glass. I finger my long bangs. Gone are the magenta highlights I’ve worn in my hair forever. My varying layers now hang straight in solid sheets of jet-black. Jake had advised me to draw less attention to myself. That almost makes me laugh out loud, even now. As if the inky angel wings tattooed at the corner of my left eye and the massive dragon etched into my back and down both of my arms aren’t enough of an attention grabber. I had agreed, though, to axe the highlights for now. Besides, they were work to keep up with. And they seemed to fit my lifestyle back in Savannah as master tattoo artist and proprietor of Inksomnia. Back when life was easy and uncomplicated. Greasy Krystal hamburgers and hot, melting Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Chick-O-Sticks and RC Cola. Boiled peanuts. Crabs and oysters.

Nothing will ever be that easy again.

Jake Andorra recruited me to join an elite task force known as WUP, or Worldwide Unexplained Phenomenon, a few months ago. Up until then I’d been a slayer of all things otherworldly and dangerous—until I became both of those things myself. Now everything has changed.

I study the Edinburgh skyline as it emerges through a hazy gray mist. The heavy, salty scent of the ocean—a smell that I’m very familiar with—seeps in through the cracks of the car and infiltrates my nostrils as it rolls in from the North Sea. A small slice of familiarity to keep me from missing home, from missing my little brother, Seth, or my surrogate grandparents, Estelle and Preacher. Or my best friend, Nyx. But this is my first task for WUP, and I have to give it my very best.

We’re in a steady stream of traffic as our convoy of four vehicles moves along the M8 toward Edinburgh. We’d landed in Glasgow and met up with a man named Darius, who now trails behind our Rover of Death, piloted by Peter the Insane, in another...