Shadowman (37 page)

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Authors: Erin Kellison

BOOK: Shadowman
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The car bumped off the road and she knew to release the gas. They bounced and skipped into a grassy meadow, gone yellow for the winter, until the car finally came to a stop. She felt Shadowman take her head into his hands. She looked him in the eyes, and the rattle receded a bit.
She couldn't drive like this anymore, and he didn't know how. They'd have to walk, though she really just wanted to throw up.
They got out of the car, and Shadowman took her hand as they made their way back to the road. She didn't notice the waiting van until she was being lifted inside, and then she shuddered into Shadowman's embrace on a bench in the middle. She had identified Adam Thorne in the front passenger seat, expression concerned, mouthing something she didn't understand. She was here, wasn't she? That was all that was important. Custo sat on her other side, his stoic face deep in concentration. The rattle in her mind mellowed to a distant hum, as if that infernal voice had been blunted.
And so they were delivered to Hell, its dark mouth like the gullet of some long-dead dragon, their destination its sulfurous belly. She was handed down into the slippery, frigid black earth. Bones of rock hung from the ceiling and reached from the floor, like fossils from ages past. Electric torches lit their way, and every time she fell, Shadowman's hands were there to keep her upright.
Suddenly the gate was before them, a black throb of iron. Tall and barbed, it loomed larger than ever, its shadows reaching to the ceiling, reaching as if it could go on forever.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Open me!
Layla swallowed. Pulled herself up. Turned to Adam, who trembled, his eyes going bloodshot as he looked on Hell. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The gate must've been speaking to him, too.
“Adam!”
His attention snapped to her, violence in his gaze. The cords of his neck stood out. His skin was flushed. The man needed to get out of here. Bad.
“Talia, Adam,” Layla reminded him. “Your babies. Michael and Cole.”
He teared as his jaw worked. Shame brought his head low, but his chest moved in a deep breath.
“Give them my love, okay?” she said.
His nod brought tears down his face. He made to speak, gaze filled with things to say, probably a message of love from Talia.
“I know,” Layla answered. Talia had a forever hold on her heart. “I felt it, too.”
Adam froze, surprised, nodded again. Though he still faced her, his eyes were drawn back to the gate. Abruptly, he rubbed a hand over his face and turned his back on the thing. Still, two angels guarded him as he started his upward climb.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Open me!
Layla felt a compulsive pull, like a lash around her soul, yanking her forcibly toward the nightmare. It turned her blood cold, made her limbs feel rubbery, her mind numb. She glanced to Shadowman, who didn't seem to have Adam's trouble.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Throw me wide!
Or hers, since she was shaking.
“It's time for you to go, too,” Shadowman said. “This business is for me and The Order.”
Not likely. She looked at the gate again. Its bars seethed, constrained only by the vines that wrapped around them, an occasional wicked flower here, there. That gate was made for her.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: But it is no longer you who will die with me. Open me, save him.
She swung her gaze back up to her black-eyed lover. No wonder he was so calm. He'd bartered his life in his deal with the devil.
“But Rose is dead,” she argued, horrified. “You won the fight.” She whirled back to the gate. “He won the fight.”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: He won the right to die in your place. Will you let him?
No, no, no. She'd thought this through carefully. Had it all worked out.
“You've got to think bigger,” Layla said, grabbing Shadowman by the front of his shirt. “I can come back again.” She hoped, upon her second death, that she could sign up to be an angel. She'd beg to return to Earth, like Custo, and work with her family against the wraiths. “And you can help Adam with the wights, while I can't.”
His arms came around her. “But I made the gate.”
“You made it for me!” She gestured wildly toward it. “Even prettied it up.”
He shook his head, expression going painfully serious. “The flowers were my hope that you'd endure in that hot place, but you didn't need them. Never needed them. You won your life on your own. You should live it. ”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: You'll be alone again.
“Shut up!” she yelled at the gate. She was finished with the alone crap. She had what she wanted, and damn it, she was holding on.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Throw me wide. You can have the ones you love forever.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I got a glimpse of Hell yesterday. It's not for me.”
Custo emerged from the gathered angels. Approached. “Going or staying, kiss him now. We'd better get started before someone cracks.” He flared his nostrils with a hard breath. “I'm halfway there myself.”
Custo walked to the cold, dead forge off to one side. On the anvil lay a hammer and another of the black metal flowers. Probably the one she'd found in the warehouse. Shadowman's hope that she'd endure.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Will you witness his destruction? Will you watch his body break and bleed for love of you?
No. She didn't think she could. But she still wasn't leaving.
Shadowman lowered his head to her ear. His breath caressed her skin. That one spot warmed the rest of her. “Layla, it is done. I beg you to go now. I want you to remember last night, not this.”
Custo lifted the hammer. The violence of his motion sent the black flower to the cave floor.
Layla shook her head. She couldn't leave him. Couldn't endure this either. That was Kathleen's thing, endurance. Not hers. She'd been broken from the beginning. All her life. Set apart. Yes, alone. And why? So she could betray the only one who'd ever loved her.
And he wanted her to remember last night?
kat-a-kat-a-kat: I've got all your memories right here.
“Help me,” Shadowman said.
Took a second for her to realize he wasn't talking to her. Then she was surrounded by angels, ready to forcibly restrain her.
“I'll make it quick,” Custo promised, his voice a rasp of soul-deep reluctance.
But Layla looked at the gate. All her memories? The temptation grew silky, twining around her soul. What she wouldn't give for Kathleen's memories. . . .
“The gate has her,” someone said.
Years of happy childhood. Family. Her sister. How she and her Shadowman had first fallen in love. The birth of Talia, which now, a lifetime away, still made her heart thump hard with a wrench of timeless connection.
Shadowman drew her up for one last kiss. Even as his mouth pressed to hers, hard, dark, full of passion, the gate spoke in her mind.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: What do you think he made me of ? Every strike has a piece of you.
And those flowers, so she'd endure. Hold out, against all odds.
“Get her out of here!” Shadowman roared.
Then he frowned in confusion when the angels drew back, as if a thought had been shared among them. They looked at her. At each other. At the gate.
Layla knew what that thought was.
Those memories sure would be nice. Better than most of what she had in her head. But Kathleen had given them up for another chance at the real thing. And Layla wasn't about to let it go.
She met Shadowman's tortured gaze. “The flowers, love.”
The flowers made the gate, the keeper of the memories, endure as well.
She had to be right because the gate's rattle grew stronger, shaking dust and loose rocks from the cave's dark ceiling and tumbling rocks down the narrow opening at its mouth. The gate knew she had the answer. The angels ducked as the debris rained down. One or two made a dash for the gate, giving in to temptation as the opportunity to open it presented itself in the chaos. These were knocked back by the blond-haired angel and Custo, whose veins had turned to lead.
Layla darted toward the gate herself. An arm went around her middle, whipped her back as a large boulder careened in a blue-black arc of Shadow magic and cracked to the cave floor. She took the hammer from Custo, unafraid of the chaos in the cavern. She was well protected. Always had been.
The tool made her arm buzz with a tingling-glowy feeling. This was not any old hammer.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Open me! Open me! OPEN ME!
The cave rolled with a great earthquake as she stepped up to the gate. Eyed the first flower on it, drew her arm back with all her might, and struck.
The flower's stem bent, and the petals pointed downward. She liked the flowers so much, better even than her gorgeous red roses. When this was over, she wanted to gather them into a black bouquet. His hope that she'd endure. Well, she was right here to prove it.
She struck again as the ground lurched, and the flower fell into the dirt. One, two, three more . . . no a fourth, right there.
The gate stood naked before her, rocking on its posts.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: He loved Kathleen more.
Layla held out the hammer to Shadowman. “You want to do the honors?”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Desired her more.
“It would be my pleasure.” His expression was savage, violent and ecstatic.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: He'll never—
And the gate was silenced with Shadowman's first strike.
Chapter 20
Two months later
 
Khan held the thrashing wight at bay, mesmerizing it with an orb of faelight. The creature shivered in the air, as if to shed its flesh, but it could never die. At least, not without their help.
“Easy . . .” Talia warned as she directed Shadow to mask the barrow behind them.
The barrow was an ancient construct redesigned for modern times. The outside was the characteristic faery mound of grass. Inside, a large steel capsule, monitored for breaches, took the wight deep into the earth.
“Now!” Khan shouted as he cast the orb into the barrow.
The wight shrieked after it into darkness. A sheet of steel enclosed the wight within but could never hold the thing. Only earth. Dark, rich soil was dumped onto the silver entrance by a waiting truck. Khan took himself out of the way so that another vehicle could pack the earth hard.
The wight was buried, though it would never rest.
The barrow keeper, a man named Chuck, hopped down from one of the vehicles. His job was to ensure that the soil did not erode.
Talia joined them, wrapping her arms around herself and stamping her feet. “Did it work?”
Khan was cold, too, but he liked the smoky shapes his breath made against the night sky. “Can you sense death in the air?”
He watched as his daughter inclined her head, turning thoughtful. After a moment she said, “No. All I feel is the cold.”
“Then it worked,” he concluded. “Let's get you out of this weather.” He lifted a hand in farewell to Chuck. They'd gotten to know each other well in the past weeks and would know each other better in the future.
Khan was becoming accustomed to the Hummer. Liked it much better when he was driving and relished the heat the vehicle offered on frigid nights. He took it through the field set aside for the barrows. Climbed onto the mountain road that led to the security gate.
Talia had settled back into her seat. She pulled her woolen cap off her head, and her hair frizzed. “Umm . . .” she began, tucking stray locks behind her ears. “I feel like I should warn you . . . Adam wants to get you under contract for special services to Segue.”
Khan slid his gaze to his daughter. Contract. He didn't think so.
“Not that he wants any kind of obligation from you or anything,” she said. “He just wants to make sure you are compensated for your work.”
“He wants to give me money,” Khan clarified. Adam had already hired Layla as Segue's new director of public relations, ostensibly to deal with the “mess” (Adam's word) she created when she sent her article to her former editor. Khan didn't know for sure, but he suspected that Layla's salary was well above the standard. But then, she was worth every penny.
Talia huffed a sigh. “No. In the real world people get paid for their work.”
“My work is pro bono.” He smiled over at her.
She shrugged. “Okay, but eventually you might want a house of your own.”
He laughed aloud. Had to. “Have we overstayed our welcome, then?”
“No. Of course not. Stay as long as you like.” Now she was flustered. “And never mind. I'll tell Adam that you said no.”
She went quiet, but another quick glance and he could see the small line of worry between her brows.
“Have no fear,” Khan said. “I'll find my own way in this world, as the work with the wraiths and wights permit.” He smiled to himself, hope for the future glowing bright and warm within him. “In fact, I relish the opportunity.”
 
 
Layla was staring at her ringing phone when Khan got back from the barrow field. Her new supertechy mobile was ringing, but she couldn't reach it. The thing was probably lost forever, even though she could see it right in front of her.
She knew Khan threw his keys on the table, his coat over the arm of the couch, but kept her eyes glued on the phone. His arms came around her waist as he, too, regarded Kathleen's wall-high painting. In the foreground, in front of Twilight's magnificent trees, was her mobile. And the number on screen? Her conference call with the Japanese Minister of Defense. Wraith attacks were rising in Tokyo, but the Japanese were slow to accept Segue's counsel as to how to deal with them. That call was a major breakthrough.
“Took a week to set up this meeting,” she said. If she looked away, she knew it would disappear altogether.
“Which one of the boys did it?” Khan gathered her close. She rested her head against his chest.
Of Talia's children, everyone thought that Michael was the most troublesome, with his black eyes and his obvious delight in Shadow, but Cole, quiet Cole, could be just as mischievous. And they were still infants.
“I have no idea,” Layla answered. She couldn't turn her back on them for a minute. They'd gone from rolling over to scooting within weeks. Exactly how one of them managed to get her phone off the table, she couldn't imagine.
“The call is important?” Khan's voice lowered, and she felt the vibration in her blood. Khan. He'd chosen the name for day-to-day use, but he'd always be her Shadowman.
Layla closed her eyes as he skimmed his mouth up her neck and tugged on her ear with his teeth. Happy tingles spread from the contact, and she didn't think he'd even put magic into it. This was not the way to get work done.
“I'd better go hunt down another phone,” she said.
“This late at night?”
“It's morning in Japan.”
“Ah.”
She turned in his arms. Looked up into his fae black eyes. “Unless you can reach in and grab it for me?”
Khan's magery was expanding fast, probably faster than she knew, which worried her a bit. She'd seen him make a spider bend its legs in death, and then snap, reanimate again.
“And why would I want to get that thing?” His hand slipped underneath her shirt.
“I'll plan tomorrow's date,” she offered. The dates were her idea—a way to get him used to this world and a way for them to get to know each other in a normal setting. The bowling had been particularly hilarious, especially when that little kid suggested Khan play with bumpers. They could never, ever, go back there, which was a pity because there wasn't much to do in a thirty-mile radius. She'd have to come up with something good.
“That won't be necessary.” The room darkened. Shadow rippled sensuously through the space. “I've got a better idea.”
“There's a wraith problem in Japan,” Layla pointed out, though she liked the direction of Khan's thoughts. Was trying very hard not to give in.
“The phone is lost, Layla,” he said. “I have no idea how far I'd have to reach to clasp my hand around it, and even if I could, I doubt it would work properly. I suggest a trip instead. Present the wraith problem in person.”
Wouldn't that be nice. The likelihood of getting an inperson appointment, however, was slim to none, even with Segue's connections. She'd once had suspicions about Segue and its questionable “paranormal” work. She wasn't shocked to find others shared them.
“I don't want to lose time.” And if someone was finally willing to listen to her, she didn't want to lose the opportunity either.
“I meant now.”
Layla drew back, but somehow she wasn't surprised. “You can pass through Shadow?”
Passing had been his obsession since the day they'd destroyed the gate. He'd sworn that he would never again be trapped on one side of the veil, she on the other. He'd had enough of that, and frankly, so had she.
He smiled, dark and wicked. “Perhaps it's always been my . . .
fate
to do so, our destiny to always be together.” Now Layla was surprised. After all they'd been through . . . “You believe in Fate?”
“Only the kind we make ourselves.”

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