Chapter 3
Finished.
The hellgate shook on its posts with a
loud, metallic bone rattle that filled Shadowman’s mind until he
was near mad with the sound. He let the hammer fall from his hand,
its impact with the floor mute. All world noise was silenced,
overcome by the hideous clanging of the gate.
The kat-a-kat
morphed, deepening in meaning with new vowels and consonants, and
became intelligible, commanding, Open
me!
The words carried a compulsion that
slid cold and coercive into his thoughts, urging him to step
forward. To put his blistered palm to the handle. To test the
resistance of the mechanism with the weight of his
hand.
After the labor of the gate, opening
the doorway would be so easy. There would be a strange pleasure, a
dark rightness, in answering that call: Make
a thing; use the thing. Simple.
But Shadowman turned his face away.
When he crossed that cursed threshold, he had to be a seethe of
intent. He’d enter Hell as fae Death, with Shadow at his
back.
Open
me!
Not now,
Shadowman answered, but soon.
At long last, he allowed his weary
corporeal body to shred. The atoms of his bone and flesh evaporated
into clinging smoke that hovered, man-shaped, in the air, and then
dispersed into the deepest corners of the warehouse. His
consciousness opened and spread with the loss of his body. It was a
relief not to bear the burden of that mass. Mass, the substance and
magic of mortality, was difficult to manage for a fae, even one as
canny as Death.
In his native Twilight, strength would
have come quickly, but he could not leave a passage such as the
gate untended. Some weak mortal would find and open it. Instead, he
was forced to wait, impatient, as silky layers of Shadow reached
through the variegated patches of light and dark, cast by the fire,
to cloak him in power again.
He could hear the roar of the fire
echoing within the empty warehouse space, the mournful bellow of a
ship on the river beyond the docks, and the soft pats of a trio of
footsteps moving down the street, the bearers’ heartbeats an
overlapping, near-tribal drumming of life. The gate’s Open me! was reduced to an insidious whisper in his
mind.
Yes, insidious and perilous. Damnation
was infested with devils, twisted souls of those who’d spurned life
and love and hope for evil and destruction and pain. Once cut from
mortality and delivered to the Hereafter, they existed in agony,
suffering eternity by torturing each other.
Soon, Kathleen. I will
rescue you.
The heartbeats quickened when they
neared the warehouse. The atmosphere became tinged with burgeoning
mortal fear. The unease rapidly escalated to terror.
Shadowman cast his attention outward,
away from the gate, beyond the walls of the warehouse, to find a
young woman pursued on the street by two swarthy thugs. The lust
coming off the men reeked like rotted fruit. The woman held her
keys like spikes through the fingers in her fisted hand. Her fear
pervaded the area like a wild, living thing.
Open me! the
gate called in his mind. Death ignored it and observed the
woman.
What could have possibly driven her to
wander this street, amidst the industry and violence of the
docks?
Calloused by eons of experience, he
watched as she picked up speed. Death could sense the threads of
her life glowing in the ether around her, drawing her toward her
final destiny. The lines formed a strange map, forces urging her
this way and that, subtle tugs that drew the pattern of her
existence to intersect at this point, at this moment.
Why here? Why now?
Irrelevant.
A shimmer of dark faelight broke over
the dun of the street, visible only to him. A glittering sleeve, a
sweep of glossy gold fae hair, the twinkle of madness in an eye.
Moira. Fate leered toward him, girlish and laughing. Moira had
three faces, but she preferred the young one best. She leaned with
her sharp scissors toward the woman’s lifeline. Death caught the
glint of the silvery blade as the mortal’s lifeline was cut, her
thread in the tapestry of the world at its ragged end.
It happened to everyone.
The woman must have sensed it herself.
She cast her eyes up to the sky, praying no doubt, and strained for
breath. Moira had already departed from the world, her work done.
The woman, of course, had sought a higher power. Her gaze arced
from God to over her shoulder, her mouth parting as she met the hot
eyes of her pursuers.
Would she stumble and fall, as so many
others had throughout the centuries?
No. The woman leaned into a run. A
hopeless flight.
Death marveled as she gathered her
terror to her and bore down on it as she ran. Curious that a spirit
should burn so bright when closest to death.
Kathleen’s had as well. Bright and bold
enough to pierce Shadow.
But, like Kathleen, this woman would
die. She had to. Moira had cut the thread of her life. It could not
be undone.
One of the men, dim by comparison,
reached out to grab her jacket.
The woman spun and planted her spiked
fist in his face.
Good girl. Fight your
Fate, then. Cross in a blaze of glory.
The man reeled back, one hand going to
his bloody cheek, the other still clutching her sleeve. The men’s
lust was threaded with a heat for murder, like a sticky tar to
stain the soul.
She peeled out of her jacket as the
first man grabbed her flying hair, jerking her suddenly back. She
raised that spiked fist again as she shifted her weight. He stopped
her at her wrist, and Death grinned in appreciation as her shift of
weight moved into a vicious knee to his groin.
She managed four steps before the other
man struck her at the back of her neck. She fell, skinning her
palms and chin on the pavement. He grabbed her by the ankle,
dragged her back to them, and heaved her up by the waist of her
pants. Though she kicked and bucked, he pinned her arms with one of
his.
From her gut she screamed, a sound that
ripped through the atmosphere of the deserted street. The man put a
fat palm over her mouth and nose.
Was Kathleen fighting this hard in
Hell? Did her spirit still burn bright, or had she dimmed with
hopelessness?
The men looked this way and that for a
place to enjoy their prey. One tried the door of the warehouse. He
kicked at the knob, breaking the lock and splintering the
frame.
With a flex of power, Death compelled
Shadow to slam the door and bar their entry.
If the hellgate could infiltrate
his mind—Open me! it
rattled—then the mortals would be utterly overwhelmed by it. And he
was still too weak to fight an army of devils.
When the warehouse door didn’t give,
the men looked for an alternative. They spotted and quickly agreed
upon an alley not far away.
The woman’s heart beat as fast as a
newborn child’s, shush-shush-shush, but her
eyes were hard. Death could sense the clockwork of her brain,
though he had no idea what she thought to do.
She had to know by now it was
hopeless.
Hopeless. The word was poison. And
today of all days, he could not permit its pollution within the
three worlds, not when he fought its contamination
himself.
He couldn’t save the woman. She would
die, if not by these devils in the making, then by some other
means, and soon.
One of the men cursed as she bit his
finger, and he slapped her face.
If Death had his scythe, he would have
cut her quick. Ended this without her experiencing the indignity of
the attack. But he would not touch that weapon again; it would keep
him from Kathleen. And he was done with death.
The only thing left was to save her,
though he would do her no favors by prolonging her demise. It would
come, and there were forms that were worse than the one these men
intended.
Still. This would take little effort.
With cowards like these, almost none at all.
Shadowman cast his attention down the
alley, where it terminated on the other side of the street. He
found a heap of refuse topped with a length of metal. With a finger
of Shadow, he nudged the piece to fall. It clattered on the
ground.
The men stilled. The woman’s shirt was
up above her breasts, though an undergarment kept her nakedness
from their eyes.
“Anyone there?” one of the men
called.
Death answered by flicking Shadow
toward a dank heap of cardboard.
“It’s only a rat,” the other man said.
But they both stared down the alley, eyes squinting for signs of
movement.
Rats would be fitting. Death organized
the darkness into a swell of vermin, a river of scrabbling claws
and gleaming eyes, and then sent them coursing toward the
men.
“Fuck!” one shouted, shrill, rearing
back, and landed on his backside when the woman gave him a hard
kick to his chest. Then he fled, swatting at the Shadows scampering
over his body.
The other had already ducked out of the
alley and was running down the street, glancing over his shoulder,
with no care for his friend.
Done.
When both were gone, the woman slowly
sat up, squinting into the dark.
A long moment passed, her fear and
anger dissolving into an acute sense of isolation and
vulnerability. She pulled her shirt down, drew her limbs in, and
made a ball of her body, hands gripping her head. Visible shivers
wracked her. Tears streamed down her face, and she wiped her nose
with a knuckle.
She snorted at herself. “Ty was right.
What the hell am I doing?”
Hell, indeed. The gate went
kat-a-kat.
“I swear this story is going to kill
me.”
She rested her head against the brick.
Black smudges winged from her eyes.
It was time for the woman to go home.
To see her loved ones. To make the most of the hours or days he’d
won her with Shadow. The only other person for whom he’d held back
Twilight had been Kathleen. How fitting that he should do it again
on the eve of Kathleen’s liberation.
The woman examined her skinned palms,
then used the wall to stand. After stepping to the end of the
alley, she peeked around the corner. Shadowman noticed her gaze
drop to her discarded coat. A lick of anger had her straightening.
She glanced both ways, then walked resolutely to the fallen
material and picked it up. She retrieved her dropped keys as well,
refashioning the spikes between the fingers of her shaking, fisted
hand.
She couldn’t possibly be thinking of
continuing on, could she? Was she deranged?
But she seemed frozen in front of the
building, eyeing the facade.
Perhaps the hellgate had her in its
grip.
The woman put her free hand on the knob
and tried the broken door, bitterly muttering, “Thanks for opening
it for me, guys.”
Shadowman waved a hand and compelled
darkness to hold it shut again.
But she effortlessly pushed the door
open anyway.
Layla swallowed hard and opened the
busted door. The cold knob soothed the skinned heat of her palm,
but it didn’t ease her fear-cramped stomach or get rid of the deep
ick of the men’s touch. That would take a long shower. Or
ten.
At least she’d be able to hide in there
if those assholes came back. Not smart about her gun, though, which
was still in the woods somewhere around Segue. There had been no
wraith attacks near the docks, but she hadn’t considered normal
violence, everyday predators. Not smart at all.
She dabbed at her chin. It wasn’t
bleeding, but it sure stung. And if those guys hoped she hadn’t
gotten a good look at their faces for a police report, they’d
picked the wrong girl. Noticing details was her job. She could and
would give a description down to the mole above one guy’s unibrow
and the tat on the other’s hairy forearm.
The memory of his hand on her mouth
made her nauseated. Common sense told her she shouldn’t be there,
especially not alone.
If I get through today
alive, I promise to get therapy.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Maybe the shrink could help with that,
too.
Light from the street fell into the
interior, but it wasn’t enough to get an impression of the space.
The air smelled faintly smoky. She swiped her hand on the walls
near the door, felt a kind of humid griminess, but no light
switch.
Good thing she had a backup. She fished
in her jacket pocket, produced a small flashlight, and pressed the
button. The flashlight had a strong but narrow beam, so she had to
cut the darkness to get a hint of what was around her.
Her immediate vicinity was dusty and
bare. Rope. Some chain. Rotted wooden pallets stacked in a corner.
Whatever had been there once had been cleared out long ago. Except
for the kat-a-kat in her head, the warehouse
was silent.
According to Zoe, she was supposed to
be looking for a person. A he, in
particular.
He who? Another
disgusting street thug? Layla doubted it.
Research hadn’t helped and Zoe was
nowhere to be found for further questioning. This dockside
warehouse was the nearest of Thorne’s considerable assets to New
York City. If this wasn’t it, she could try a couple other places
farther away, but she wasn’t hopeful. The lead was simply too
vague.
“Hello?” she said, but her voice didn’t
carry. She wasn’t keen on shouting either. The place felt
claustrophobic despite its size. Much better to tiptoe forward,
then run like hell should anyone appear.
She moved farther, swinging the light
left and right. Just more empty, dirty space. The smoke thickened
in the air as she progressed. Above, to one side of the building,
was a row of high windows. Even though it was midmorning, no light
seeped through them. Spooky.
Metal debris clanged underfoot. She
swished the light to her feet to find a curling, black piece of
metal.
Curious, she toed it. The piece rolled
to the side. The curls became open leaves around a strange,
wrought-iron flower.
She stooped and picked up the creation.
The flower should have been cold, like the weather and the room,
but it was warm, near hot. It was heavy too, larger than her palm,
and clearly made by hand. A black flower, delicate and . . .
wicked. A treasure left behind as junk.
When she brought her attention back up,
she noticed a low-licking fire, its glow barely lifting the press
of darkness. And nearby an anvil, flat and wide, with a horn on one
end. On its surface lay a hammer.
A blacksmith’s workshop. On the New
Jersey docks. In one of Thorne’s warehouses. It made no sense
whatsoever.
“Hello?” This time she called loud and
clear. The smith had to be near. No one would leave an open fire
unattended in this old building.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat answered her. This time it wasn’t
in her head.
Shocked, Layla turned, and though the
warehouse was matted with shadows, she could easily see a gate
looming black and beautiful before her. The iron portal shook on
its posts. How could she have not seen it until now? The sound
should have been audible from the street.
Even to her untrained eye, she could
tell that the gate had been crafted by a master. The vertical
pieces were tall, barbed spears, made for war. But laced among the
black shafts, giving them structure and support, were twisted
vines. An occasional gorgeous bloom, like the one in her hand,
faced outward.
The gate trembled, as if alive. Her
bones trembled with it. She tried to turn away, but her stiffened
muscles wouldn’t obey.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
It called to her, had been in her head
for days. She knew now that it would never let her go. It was
made for her.
Never alone
again, it said.
Her eyes teared. She felt exposed, the
hole in her chest so easily revealed. She crossed her arms over the
pain. Ty had tried to fill it, had offered her a fantasy of
children, a happy life without the drive of her dangerous
work.
kat-a-kat: Never
alone.
But Ty wasn’t the answer. He was just a
nice guy. And she was his challenge.
Home, the gate
promised.
The gate knew her. If she opened it,
her isolation would be at an end.
The darkness around seemed to shift, as
if something or someone was coming—the street thugs or dreaded
wraiths even—but she couldn’t so much as lift her flashlight to
pierce the dark.
Her deepest wish could come
true.
kat-a-kat, the
gate explained, and Layla understood perfectly. The gate was meant
to be opened. Why else make a gate, except to open it?
The shadows churned, whipped, and
lashed.
Layla dropped her flashlight and
stretched out her hand as she stepped closer. A turn of that
twisted, black metal and her lifetime longing would be at an
end.
“Don’t,” a man said in her
ear.
Where he came from, Layla had no idea
and didn’t care. His urgent, low voice was compelling and familiar,
but the pull of the gate was stronger.
“It is evil,” he
explained.
“Can’t be,” Layla answered. Her every
cell quaked with expectation. She took another step.
The man’s voice came out of the
shadows. “You fought those men on the street. Fight
this.”
kat-a-kat: Open me!
Now!
Layla shuddered, eyes tearing again in
awe of the livid creation. There was no way to explain this
feeling. It was much easier to keep it simple. “I don’t want to
fight it.”
Shadowman knew he never should have
saved her. Meddling with Fate always had repercussions. The woman
should be dead in the street, her body slack, her soul just
entering Twilight.
And now she was clearly going to open
the gate to Hell. The thing must have insinuated itself into her
weak mortal mind.
Death gathered Shadow to him until the
mass of darkness snapped and thrashed in his grasp. He sent it
rolling toward her, to crush her, to knock her from her path to the
gate.
If it had any effect, she did not let
on. Her reaction was the same as it had been at the door. The same
as with his repeated attempts to impede her progress through the
warehouse. She was impervious.
He could not use Shadow against her and
didn’t have the time to figure out why.
There would be no retrieving Kathleen
if devils poured out into the world. He was work weakened, gate
plagued, and he didn’t even have his scythe.
He’d kill her himself if he had to. And
with the gate’s control over her mind, he most likely
would.
Shadowman poured his strength into
forming a body. Lungs to move air. Tongue and teeth to shape words.
Hands to throttle her with. The body he created was the one most
familiar to him, the one created from Kathleen’s imagination, the
hero of her dreams. Better still would have been the terrors other
people made of Death. Monsters of deepest nightmare. Something to
scare her into submission.
“Don’t,” he repeated in her ear. His
spine cracked into place. His legs assumed the weight of a
man.
But her arm was already outstretched.
Her hand gripped black metal. The cursed lever turned.
He threw himself toward the gate as her
weight shifted back.
The woman turned to face him, still
gripping the metal behind her, her confusion and terror bleeding
into the shadows. Where before her heart had calmed, now it raced
again. “I . . . I’m sorry.”
A queer deathlight lit her features,
illuminating, stripping away the mortal coil of her life, shining
through her fresh, pink flesh as if the atoms had little substance
at all, revealing her soul.
It cannot
be.
And Shadowman slammed the gate shut
again. Held it closed with his greater strength while the woman
trembled in the cage of his arms, her lips parted, breath frozen
mid-inhalation.
But too late. Something wrong was in the room with them. A presence edged with
bloody menace. A devil.
Shadowman almost didn’t care, not as
the woman got her first good look at him. Her mind functioned as
all other mortal minds did, remaking Death to her conception of
him, and for once in almost thirty years, his Shadows nearly
obeyed. Such was the power of mortals. Shadowman had held
Kathleen’s conception of his physical form, her dark prince, since
their meeting. Kathleen, who had named him. Kathleen, who had loved
him.
But now, this woman . . . here, today .
. . threatened to shred him completely and make him over to fit
her idea of Death.
Of course he had to forgive her,
escaped devil and all. He had to forgive her everything and damn
himself, holding on to his favored body with every iota of power he
had, lest the woman see a beast and know his true
nature.
No wonder his Shadow could not stop or
harm her. His Shadow had ever sheltered her.
Kathleen was not in Heaven. And
Kathleen was not in Hell.
She’d kept her promise. She’d found a
way back. She’d traded her memories for a slim chance, a small hope
that they’d meet once more.
Shadowman’s gaze raked the woman’s
face, memorizing her new features. She had wide-set, gray eyes in a
narrow face, a small nose, defined cheekbones and jaw. Sweet, full
lips. Dimpled chin. And a mess of light brown hair waving to her
shoulders.
He gripped the gate to Hell for a
little calm.
Kathleen was not dead.
She’d been reborn.