Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell) (22 page)

I just couldn’t help myself.

Darkness fell. Sound turned in on itself. The blue pinpoint jumped into my line of vision.

I felt Darren slipping fingers inside my jacket, going for the red vial. But as his warm hand ghosted over my stomach, something changed. Something was cool against my skin. It started around my neck and washed over my breasts . . . my stomach. Like someone had spilled a cold drink down my shirt. He felt it too. His arm jerked away, as if he’d been burned.

He withdrew. Dropped his hold on me completely and backed up a step. I could see the blue pinpoint of light beyond him, overlapping where his heart beat inside his chest. And I probably should’ve been worried when the blue changed to bright silver, but I was distracted.

That thing happened again. Just like in Tambuku: something ran down my leg. Something cold and thick and smooth.

The elevator ground to halt, startling me out of my fear. Darren, too. His blue halo swirled as he shook his head like a dog that had just emerged from a rainstorm. He lunged at me again. Both hands were on my throat now. And any fear or doubt I’d been harboring just went up in smoke. I emptied my mind and focused on the now-silver dot. Internally spoke what I wanted, loud and clear.

Get off.

His big body flew backward. Slammed into the elevator doors. A second later, the doors opened. He lost his balance and fell outside, landing on his back. I felt the impact in my soles of my shoes. Felt something else, too—a growing pressure on my leg. Something moved there. My jean leg tightened uncomfortably. It was cutting off the circulation in my thigh. Throbbing. I limped out of the elevator, following Darren’s path as he crab-walked backward into the parking garage.

Before I turned to see what was hurting my leg, Darren reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. He was fumbling with something on the key ring. Pepper spray.

Big trust fund party-boy was going to mace me? Fuck that.

I meant to kick the mace away. That was definitely my intention. But something popped on the back of my leg. The pressure around my thigh released. And then, lightning-quick, instead of my foot, something else smacked the spray canister.

Something that came from behind me.

Something connected to me.

I felt the cool, jagged edges of his keys before they sailed across the garage. Felt them with what? Did my magick solidify and mold itself into some sort of weapon?

Darren shouted—I saw his mouth open and heard the sound in a distant, removed sort of way through the filter of my moon sight. He was on his feet way too fast, towering over me again. He had something else in his hand and was highly pissed off. His arm lifted. Metal glinted between his whitened knuckles. A pocketknife.

The jerk was going to stab me.

Anger and Heka got jumbled up inside me. Seethed. Boiled. Raged. I couldn’t even make any rational, focused thoughts. All I could do was let it out before I went crazy with it.

Energy ebbed from me. A gush of Heka. It reached out for something—moon energy, perhaps—and came back like a boomerang, charged and ready. I made no conscious decision about what to do with it. I just unleashed it.

A cloud of silver swirled around me. I pushed it out across Darren, expanding it. There was nothing but the fog. I was creating it, spinning it . . . and it was part of me. He was a bug on my web. I spun the fog around him, encasing him in tight circles of silver smoke.

I felt Darren’s heart pounding furiously, and his life draining away. I’m not sure how I felt it, but it was as if I had my hands on him and was measuring his pulse beneath my fingers. I was strangling him with the fog.

I was going to kill him.

The thing was, for a moment, I wasn’t even sure if I cared. God help me, but I think I almost
wanted
to kill him. And then some tiny voice of reason raised its hand inside me and waved—as if to say,
You sure you want to go this far?

I didn’t.

Straining, I tried to let go of the magick. It was so hard. Unnatural, even. But I kept trying, and my grip on Darren slackened. I felt him fall away and drop to the ground. The dark overlay of the moon magick lifted. My normal sight returned. I could hear a car driving on the parking level above us. It was gone. I’d done it. Pushed it away.

Maybe I really could control it.

And I never heard my mother. Not once. No whispering, no visions.

A small, joyous laugh escaped my lips.

My chest heaved with labored breath as I glanced down to check on Darren. His body lay crumpled at my feet, arms askew, mouth open. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

My silver halo was stunningly bright. Bigger. I could tell because it was outlining the sleeves of my jacket with a silver light. It shone like a spotlight behind my head, one that cast a long shadow over Darren’s body and the cement below. And I saw myself in that shadow: the curve of my hips, the shapes of my legs and arms, my hair standing around my head like it sometimes does when I’m channeling electricity.

And the long, rope-like shape of a tail.

A goddamn tail!

Like a reptile. Like a dirty rat.

I suddenly knew what had smacked the keys out of Darren’s hand. What had wrapped around his body along with my silver fog.

I panicked. Hard. Cried out in shock.

Without thinking, I called up the moon magick again. It came so fast, like snapping my fingers.

I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I just wanted to retreat—that’s all. Never in a million years would I have imagined what power a simple thought could wield.

The scent of cool, damp earth filled my senses.

A memory floated by: falling down a summertime grassy hill when I was five or six. Skinning my knees. My face pressing against the ground as I wept. And no one coming to my rescue. I remembered crying until I couldn’t cry anymore before I’d picked myself up and walked home alone. My mother had taken one look at me and said,
“Oh, le petit cochon!”
And after that, my father built a fence around our yard, and I wasn’t allowed to leave.

That’s where I thought I was for a moment. Then I smelled other things: intoxicating lavender and pine, pungent coastal sagebrush. The unmistakable, comforting scent of cool ocean air. And then I realized that the person calling my name wasn’t saying “Sélène,” but “Cady.” And there wasn’t anger and disgust beneath the voice, merely pained concern.

Strong, warm hands rolled me over onto my back. An indigo blue sky dotted with hundreds of stars came into view. I knew where I was from that alone. You couldn’t see that many stars in the city. The view here was as breathtakingly beautiful at night as it was in the day. And the best part about it was the man’s face hovering over mine.

“Cady!”

I was in Lon’s backyard—his lush Garden of Eden that looked out over the cliff across the Pacific. Behind me was the welcoming harbor of a redwood deck and his covered patio, where we drank jasmine tea in the afternoon. Where we watched Jupe play fetch with Foxglove. Where we ate dinner on warm nights and talked and laughed and made plans.

I was safe. Home.

I stared up at Lon for an extended moment, lingering over the long hollows of his cheeks and tight furrow bisecting his worried brow. He was shifted. The green and gold of his flaming halo flickered over his ruddy, spiraling horns. Usually when his halo was big and transmutated like this, it cast long shadows over his face. But his features seemed brighter than usual. Ah, my halo was doing that, lighting his face from the front with a silvery glow.

My halo. Too bright. The parking garage. It all snapped back.

Panicking, I reached a searching hand down my backside. No reptilian tail. But I hadn’t imagined it: my fingers found a gaping tear in my jeans where it burst through.

“Oh, God, no,” I whispered, the words drowned in a fit of uncontrollable sobbing.

Intense green eyes stared down at me, serious and commanding. “Show me,” he said in a low voice.

I’d never been so thankful for his ability. It was a relief to just remember everything, instead of trying to explain it. I didn’t have the strength to edit details, so I showed him everything—the conversation with Hajo, the man accosting me in the elevator, and the crazy details of what came after, tail and all.

If he was shocked, he didn’t show it. And I was thankful for that, too.

I don’t know if I killed him,
I said internally.
I don’t think I did, but I’m not sure. What if I did?

“Fucker deserved whatever he got.”

But
—

“Stop worrying and let me handle that. You’re not hurt?”

I shook my head, but I wasn’t totally sure. I didn’t feel like I could move. Like all my energy had been sapped. Lon sat on the grass and pulled me into his lap. He held me close and ran his hands up and down my back as I blubbered and sniffled. And when I was all cried out, I asked, “Is my car here?”

The bass of his voice vibrated through my cheek. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, God.” What the hell had I done? Slipped through time? Flown here? Beamed myself thirty miles to the coast without the help of the
Starship Enterprise
?

“I was starting to worry,” Lon said. “You weren’t answering your phone. I stepped outside to smoke, thinking I’d try to reach you one more time, and saw a flash of light on the lawn. You just . . . appeared.”

“How?”

“Dark yard. Flash of light. You were sprawled on the grass,” he summarized efficiently. “I couldn’t make out that it was you at first, but the house ward hadn’t been set off, so I figured it was okay. Then I recognized how you sounded. Inside. Your emotions,” he explained awkwardly before clarifying. “I shifted and heard your thoughts. I knew it was you. Your halo—”

“It’s so bright.”

“It’s . . .” He almost said something more, but seemed to change his mind at the last second. “It’s bright,” he finished simply in agreement.

“I wished myself here,” I whispered. “It’s not possible. Is it? Lon? How the hell is that possible?”

He smoothed a hand down my hair. “Don’t know. But I think you asked your bird-boy guardian the wrong question. If you mother’s alive, she’s on another plane. But whatever’s going on with you is happening here. You should’ve asked Priya to find out exactly what your parents bred into you during your conception.”

A rotting misery nearly pulled me under. He was right, of course. Maybe I could call Priya back, change the plan. But I was tapped out. Was there even a drop of Heka left inside me?

“Summon him later,” Lon said, surprising me. He was reading my thoughts.

He started to push himself off the ground, but I squeezed his arm. “I don’t want Jupe to see me this way,” I pleaded.

“Hush,” he said in a kind voice. “They’re all out at a movie together. We’re alone.”

A small relief. My hands were covered in grass stains. Hair was frazzled, like it got when I released Heka without a caduceus. A dull burning smell wafted from my clothes. “I need a shower.”

Without another word, he lifted me up with him and carried me across the wet grass and inside the house.

When he finally set me down, it was in the master bathroom inside his room. My legs were floppy, but he held me up, propping me against the vanity as he flicked on the lights. He unbuttoned and removed my coat. A large red spot stained the front; the vial had broken inside my breast pocket. So much for that. Not like I had any use for it, but still.

“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured, tossing the jacket in the corner on the dark gray slate bathroom tile. Using his forearm to bolster me across my stomach, he crouched long enough to take off my shoes and socks. Cool porcelain touched my back when he pulled my shirt over my head. I watched his long fingers unhook the front closure of my bra. Kar Yee was right: they were awfully nice hands. Good hands. Lean and muscular, like the rest of him. He made a small noise in response to those thoughts and freed my breasts.

My screwy brain thought of Hajo’s comments.

Lon grunted. “The next time I see that dowser, I’m going to bloody his nose.”

I was pretty sure I’d enjoy seeing that.

My jeans were trashed. I had a million pairs, so it didn’t matter. But as he tossed them in the pile with the rest of my clothes, I once again remembered the surreal feeling of the tail—a goddamn tail!—and felt panic rising again.

“Shh,” he said, reaching over his shoulder to pull off his T-shirt. Then he picked me up around the waist and walked me four steps to the shower.

Lon’s shower. Nothing better. Standing separate from the big tub in the corner, it was a spacious walk-in tiled in unpolished gray and brown stone, open on one end, no door. Hot water sprayed from both sides and above, the pattern and angles changeable into a billion configurations, but Lon kept it on a no-nonsense setting: steady streams from all directions. A low stone bench was built into the far end, and the alcoves above were always stocked with sandalwood soap and expensive shampoo.

If I could declare my undying allegiance to one shower for the rest of my life, it would be this one.