A Warlord's Lady (29 page)

All my life I’ve believed in this
, he thought bitterly.
And look where it has got me. My mother died for what? A prophecy? The belief that her son could somehow change the minds of the world? She was as big a fool as I am.

He took another sip and wiped the splashed bittersweet alcohol from his lips, and his fingers rasped against long stubble.

Sabra had not called, and weary as he was he wasn’t sure which dismayed him more. He had been so certain he’d made headway with her. He was certain that the prophecy referred to her, and that together they would succeed. As they’d walked side by side in the forest he’d felt himself bonding with her in a way he never had previously. She showed him she could be strong, and clever. Yet,
still
everything seemed lost. She hadn’t called him, and he was losing his hard-won allies, and the war for the compound.

His shoulders fell before he took a deep breath and looked up to meet the sombre eyes of Jürgen and Christy. Her crew, who were busy defending the boundary by sniping, were the only remaining staff at the compound.

‘It’s time you left,’ he said quietly. ‘Jürgen, you are to take Maggie South from the dungeon and kill her, fuck her, return her to that Mafia Monster, whatever. I don’t fucking care, just get the bitch out of here and get yourselves the fuck away. You too, Christy.’

Jürgen frowned. ‘No, I don’t think…’

Cain felt his head jerk up. ‘I wasn’t asking you a question. Do what the hell you want with her but just go.’

Hurt seemed to fill Jürgen’s pale blue eyes. ‘But, where should I go?’ Jürgen asked. ‘I don’t have anywhere…’

His words stabbed into Cain’s chest like a knife. ‘You’ll find somewhere,’ Cain said softly. ‘You’ll only die here with me.’

‘You’re giving up?’ Jürgen asked.

Cain sighed wearily. ‘What choice do I have? Look at the numbers of militia that are flooding through the jungle. They’re destroying everything in their path. I can’t sacrifice any more men than I have already.’ As if on cue, the piercing scream of falling sentinel trees wrenched through the humid air and split the silence of the jungle once more.

Jürgen fell silent.

‘But what about your little chameleon?’ Christy interrupted. ‘You dumping her like you’re dumping us?’

Cain looked up at her. Her words were like a punch to his guts. Sabra must have had time to think things through and to consider the prophecy by now. Still, she hadn’t rung him. It could only mean one thing. She did not love him.

The woman written in the prophecy should adore him as much as he adored her — and by the gods, he did love her. He had loved her since the moment he decided to save her from Maggie South in the Vientiane bar. His love was real — he had never been more certain. Yet if the prophecy did not refer to Sabra that could mean only one thing:
it did not refer to him, either
.

Christy had her hands on her narrow hips and was glaring expectantly.

‘If the prophecy were real,’ Cain began weakly, his words slightly slurred, ‘Sabra would want me, I’d be winning this battle, and things for magical beings would improve.
Fuck
.’ He ran a sloppy hand through his hair. ‘She didn’t ring me, even after all we went through in the jungle. What do you think that means?’ He slurped loudly and downed the remainder of his whisky tumbler. ‘She doesn’t want me. I’m losing to the horde of army men, and only last night some drunk militia men killed a Phaya Naga in the Mekong during a festival.’ He shuddered. ‘A Phaya Naga! They have festivals to celebrate them and no one even tried to protect it.’ He said a mental prayer for the enormous gentle magical snake. ‘What the hell am I supposed to think? What the hell can I do? Everything I have believed in is falling down around my ears.
I’m only one man
.’

***

It was her seventh night without hearing from Cain, and Sabra had woken to a long pained whistle in the apartment.

The air around her was cold and she shivered, peering through the dark. ‘Hexa, Peony?’ she said softly. She fumbled in the darkness, and surprised the lamp was turned off, she switched it on again.

As the light illuminated the room, she saw clearly in the gloom the rising figure of a Shadow Man.

Sabra felt her bladder nearly spill.

‘Get away!’ she cried, cringing back into her blankets and lifting them over her head.

How did he get here? Could he touch her through the fabric? She didn’t know.

‘Grey-eyed one, hush and rest.’

The voice was as ethereal and incorporeal as the Shadow Man himself.

‘Get away!’ she squeaked, not daring to even peep over the covers.

‘No, your thriae have given me as much as they can. It is you, grey-eyed one, you that I need.’

The pounding of Sabra’s heart sped up.
What did he mean? Had he been feeding off the thriae?

‘Sabra.’ It was Hexa; her whistling voice came from close to the sheet that covered her.

‘Hexa,’ Sabra whispered, ‘what is going on?’

She pulled down the cover and looked around. Her bed was bathed in light from the lamp, and the Shadow Man hovered at its perimeter.

The tiny bee walked over to her hand. ‘We have tried to keep him from feeding on you, Sabra, by offering our own lives. It has been prophesised that we shall die for you. We did this gladly…’

‘You shouldn’t have! Oh my goodness, how long has he been here?’ Sabra gasped, but she knew — the swaying shadows, the sense of being watched.

He’d come with the flowers.

‘I could feel your presence, grey-eyed one,’ the Shadow man said, ‘and so, I ordered the flowers and came in their shadow. You are mine.’

‘No, I’m not.’ Sabra shrank away, looking desperately for something to defend herself with.

But what?
Dawn was hours away and even if she turned on every light, there would still be shadows for him to lurk in.

Then she remembered the laser light on the key ring.

‘You must leave.’ Hexa whistled softly, close to her ear, ‘We are weak. We cannot sustain his growth. He wants you. Get out, and find Cain.’

The shadow was spreading, melting from its human shape and oozing into black mist.

She was going to die, unless she could think of a plan.

The shadow was inching closer and she threw a terrified stare at the small thriae huddled by the lamp. She wouldn’t leave them here to die, so scooped the tiny thriae into her palm. She was wearing a nightdress, a cotton slip thing, which she didn’t have time to remove to camouflage using chromatophores. If she could quickly get her SABRA ability working, she could get to the laser light. But would the Shadow Man still be able to see the thriae hiding in her hand? She didn’t know, but didn’t have time to wonder.

She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the clawing fingers of shadow that seemed to be making their way to her bed. She knew there was no one else who could save her.

I can do this!
She took another deep breath and concentrated on her breathing, not allowing fear and anxiety to shatter her concentration.

She had never been good at meditation, but within a second Sabra was concentrating so hard she felt her eyeballs might explode. Eventually, finally, she felt it. It started in her left foot and crept up her body. It was a nearly unidentifiable sensation and she froze, allowing her breath to be her only movement.

She opened her eyes and stared about the room. The fingers of darkness were licking the shadowed corner of her bed.

‘Where are you?’ the shadow whispered, then hissed with frustration.

It was then Sabra knew he couldn’t sense her, nor the thriae. Silently she slid from the bed, her toes touched the ground with a soft pad, and she paused. The Shadow Man was re-forming in the darkness beside the bed. It was crumpled, messy; she’d not bothered to make it all week.

The Shadow hissed again, and in semi-human form he loomed over the bed and raked a dark, misty hand over where she’d just lain.

Sabra flinched and sunk low to the ground; it was an unnecessary gesture, as she realised she had affected his mind, not his sight. Still she sunk to knees and crawled down the side of the bed, hugging the lamplight towards the kitchen. But as she did, her foot brushed past something underneath the bed. Her heart leapt and she struggled to continue to use her ability while very nearly losing her bowels. She turned slowly to see what strange smooth coolness had touched her foot. She brushed away fallen bedclothes and saw an intricately decorated sheet of paper sliding under the affected foot.

She hesitated. She could hear the Shadow Man hissing, and the shadows all around seemed to move and sway until she could no longer tell which was true shadow, and which was not. She needed that laser light.

Ignoring all else, Sabra skirted along the wall until she reached the apartment keys, which had been ignored on the kitchen bench. She grasped them quickly.

She had never paid much attention to magical beings lessons at school — and she bitterly regretted it at this moment. As her fingers closed around the laser light her neck prickled with unease. Exactly how did one kill a Shadow Man with a laser light? She knew it was possible, but was it a strike to the heart, or severance of the head?

Careful not to crush the thriae in her hands, she released the weakened creatures on the kitchen bench and they staggered away.

‘Ah, my delicious little honey bees. You have made a mistake, little grey-eyes,’ the Shadow whispered, and she could sense him close behind her. With a gut-squishing certainty she realised that she’d just given her location away. If he could trace her from Perth to Geraldton, and hide in a bunch of flowers, what kind of fool was she to think that he couldn’t find her in a small apartment?

She spun around and met the dark shadowed face — and her ability failed completely.

‘No!’ she cried, her hand flying protectively to her stomach — but too late, as the Shadow’s hand had reached forward and sunk onto her belly.

The weakness brought by a Shadow’s touch floored her, and she knew then he was sucking her life from her very skin and that of the tiny clump of cells she suspected grew in her belly.

‘No,’ she cried again and her hand tightened on the laser, but sweaty and stressed as she was, the keys and light slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor with a clatter.

The thriae screamed, and flew at the Shadow.

It took but an instant before Sabra realised what they were doing.

‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Not for me! Your prophecy is damned!’

Without a second thought, Sabra fought the hideous weakness and flung out a hand, which sent the two small bees careering from their path and across the room. They crashed into the blinds and fell to the floor with an angry buzz.

Sabra sunk down, feebly, into the Shadow’s embrace.

‘Get off.’ She groaned, weakly struggling against the hideous leaching the Shadow gave off.

‘You’re mine,’ he hissed, and she opened her eyes. His features sharpened as her life seeped through the shadows and filled his form.

She tumbled now, hazily aware that the thriae were whistling hysterically somewhere in the distance. As she crashed to the floor, her head banged into the fallen keys. The pain was abrupt and sharp but brought her, if only briefly, to her senses.

Her arms felt like lead, but she reached up and gripped the keys with her sweaty hands.

‘Relax,’ the Shadow crooned, his skin beginning to glisten with smooth grey flesh. ‘You can sleep soon.’

‘No, I won’t,’ Sabra moaned, ‘I will not.’ The small action seemed as difficult as running in lead boots, but somehow Sabra’s fingers found the small switch and pressed down.

A red beam split the looming darkness.

The shadow reared back instantly, hissing and recoiling from the fierceness of the light beam.

Through her dull, foggy mind, Sabra had the sense to raise the laser light and point it at the half-corporeal figure.

‘No,’ he shrieked, shrinking back, yet as he was only half corporeal, he seemed unable to slink
completely
back into shadow.

Sabra could feel her skin roar with colour and she struggled to find the strength to direct the piercing light at the figure now cowering in whatever shadows he could.

‘You tried to kill me,’ she heard herself saying, though the voice sounded nothing like her own. ‘How
dare you?
’

The impotent frustration and uselessness that had dogged her for so very long erupted into a hot burning anger.

‘God damn it, I’m not a damsel in distress, waiting to be saved. I’m not just a Chameleon.’ With her anger her strength rose. ‘I’m not just a girl who works in payroll and I’m not just a warlord’s plaything. I’m not just your way to find a corporeal body! I am
SABRA
, and I’ll be buggered if I’m going to be made extinct by a jumped-up shadow like
you
.’

Taking a deep breath, steeling her strength, Sabra lowered the laser ray and sliced off the Shadow’s head with one smooth slash of light.

The grey face exploded with surprised horror, his eyes flashing red under the rim of his broad hat.

Then the head fell.

Vomit boiled thickly up her throat as the realisation of what she’d done dawned.

As the head collided with the carpet, with a surprisingly soft but wet
thunk
, shadows and thicker, more viscous stuff exploded and smattered out from the headless torso, coating her in copious quantities of grey sludge.

The Shadow’s body writhed and swirled as it bled, then collapsed to the ground. Sabra’s hand started shaking wildly and her arm fell. She leaned against the wall unable to contain her panicked convulsions.

She watched, sick and horrified and amazed at herself, as the Shadow Man perished there on the carpet, oozing darkness and her own life’s energy.

As she lay there, Sabra could dimly hear the thriae whistling as they crawled over the Shadow-ooze stained carpet towards her.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked, as Hexa crawled over her bare foot and stared up angrily.

‘I am well but you should not have done that,’ Hexa whistled shrilly.

As numb as she was, Sabra felt a burst of irritation that the thriae wasn’t more grateful she’d saved
all
their lives. She took a deep breath, and steadied her shocked spasms. ‘Hey, I’m a big girl, I think I handled it well, actually. You should be thankful I saved you stingers. But I’ve gotta say, I don’t feel so good. I really need to lie down.’