Chapter 12
Khan raised his arm to strike the black
flower. Smoke filled his nose and choked his throat. Sweat coursed
down his bared shoulders and streaked through the soot across his
tensed chest and abdomen. Every fiber of muscle and sinew screamed
with the terrible labor of his task.
He’d been at it for hours, until he
could sense the shift of the sky from pale blue to the tangerine of
sunset. His power grew deeper in the world of darkness, his senses
more acute. Yet the flower, heated for the hundredth time in the
forge and now dimming from white-yellow to rose red, could not be
broken. kat-a-kat-a-kat: You made me too
well.
“And I’ll unmake you, too.” Khan
brought the hammer down on the most delicate, glowing turn of a
petal.
Not one atom of the metal
moved.
He lifted the hammer again, forced his
strength and concentration into his grip so that his fist was black
and smoking with Shadow, and struck the flower.
The bloom merely turned on its side
with a soft clink, unharmed.
Why wasn’t this working? His cause was
just as desperate as it had been before. More so, since Layla was
so close. Why could he not damage the flower? Why could he not hold
her once again? Why could Shadow not overcome, just this once, in
all eternity?
A sense of unease filtered into his
concentration. Khan turned to Custo, who still crouched, watchful,
some way from the forge.
The unease grew to alarm, though Custo
showed no outward sign of emotion.
“What has happened?” Khan asked. The
boy had better not lie.
A pause, then Custo shrugged in
resignation.
“An attack,” he said, “a few hours ago.
Layla is safe, but others were killed. The devil, a
woman, was not able to breach the compound, but she
disappeared into the woods. Adam’s soldiers are tracking
her.”
As a rule, the world pulled at Khan
with myriad death tugs as souls readied for their passing. With a
simple inner extension, he could divide himself into infinity to
see to each. But he’d been ignoring them now for a while, refusing
to meet the call of his duty, the cry of his scythe. An awful
thought crept into his mind: What if one of those soul lights was
Layla, and he ignored her death, and she crossed without him, to be
lost and fed upon in Shadow?
Khan dropped the hammer on the anvil
with a flick of his wrist. “I will see Layla now.”
Custo stood, glancing toward the
opening, beyond which the other angels waited in expectation.
“You’ve made no progress.”
“Some things take time.”
“You may be impervious to the voice of
the gate, but humankind isn’t.” Custo scrubbed his scalp as if to
affect his own brain. “We angels aren’t either. I can hear it in my
head, and it’s saying all the right things. The gate demands to be
opened. It will be if it’s not destroyed soon.”
“Then I suggest you watch over the gate
carefully and resist as best you can. I’ll be back in the
morning.”
Khan permitted no argument as his
exhausted body evaporated into Shadow. He had to see Layla, had to
make absolutely certain that she was well. Custo and his angels
would have to wait.
Custo’s gaze followed him up to the
dark stretch along the cavern ceiling. He called out bitterly, “I
don’t want to hurt her!”
Custo wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He might
have agreed to the task, might be searching for the resolve
required to take an innocent life, but as of yet, he hadn’t found
it. Right now the poor dog would guard the gate to Hell from harm
even if he was struck down by his own kind.
Layla was waiting for Khan, anxiety
riddling the air around her. Her hair waved freely, a little wet,
to her shoulders, so she must have bathed. She had one of
Kathleen’s larger paintings propped against a wall. She paced
before it, biting a nail, then stopped to search the canvas. She
reached her fingertips to touch the shifting trees of
Twilight.
“Have a care,” Khan said, emerging from
the darkest Shadow beneath the boughs. “One good push, and you may
cross.”
“Oh, thank God you’re here. Why don’t I
cross then, and we can talk like normal people?” Her tone was
strong, words coming rapidly. Whatever had happened, she had
resolved her fear and was ready to fight. “There’s a lot we have to
talk about.”
He had to quash the stinging
Yes! that rose in him. In Twilight he could
appear however he wanted. Draw her close. Stroke that skin. But . .
. “If you physically cross, bring your mind and body across the
divide, you will soon go mad. We’ll have to speak like
this.”
He would not compromise her mind, risk
her spirit.
“I’m already going mad. Besides, you’ve
brought me through a couple of times already.”
“Yes, but I brought you right out again
as well. Without me, you would be trapped here. The fae will prey
on you.” Moira would keep her under her skirts just like that other
mortal woman. “Stay where you are. Visit me in
dreams.”
It would have to be
enough.
Her face flushed, and she turned her
head to the side, hiding her expression. If at all possible, he’d
have reached through the veil and touched her like a man. She
seemed so solitary, standing alone in her room, waiting with
thoughts crowding her head and no one to share them with. In that
way, she was his mirror image.
“Please, do not look away. I would do
anything to be with you.” She was his beacon in the dark. Something
bright to look on in the pitch of his existence. No one shone like
her. Nothing illuminated like her soulfire. Yes, he’d do anything.
He had already.
She turned back, eyes flashing. Anger
flared. “Yeah, speaking of which . . . you made a
gate to Hell ? Who does that? And why would you think
Kathleen would be there in the first place? What did I do to
deserve that?”
“You laid down with me.” She’d accepted
him, embraced him, in every way. The tide of that union still moved
his Shadow.
“Oh, God.” She ran a hand through her
hair, gathering it on the top of her head, and gripped her hand in
the mass.
“Do you regret it?” That one touch.
Human. Carnal. Ecstatic.
“Who are
you?”
“I am a beast, Layla. The worst
imaginable. Can we not leave it at that?”
“Hell no. Not when last night . . .
when we . . . I . . . Just no.”
“Do you regret it?” he asked again. Her
emotions were in turmoil, and yes, regret was one of them,
overtaking the others. But regret for what?
“Well, apparently I am going to die.”
She dropped her hand and her hair fell wildly around her shoulders.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with that bit of news? I can’t
believe it, and yet, I’ve had too many close calls to deny the
possibility.”
“We will defy Fate”—and
everyone else—“for as long as we can.”
“Fate. Bullshit. I’ve almost died a
million times now.”
“Layla—”
She turned and jabbed a finger toward
the canvas. Her voice lowered with menace. “There was a
spider.”
Khan wished he had the angels’ gift to
read minds; hers moved so fast.
“And the devil bitch,” Layla continued.
“I let her out of Hell, and she’s killed
half a dozen people.”
Twice that at least. “I built the gate.
You were merely under its power. The responsibility isn’t
yours.”
And he had no trouble bearing it. Death
was his specialty. “Besides, this life is a second chance for her,
too. She could have lived among you humans, tried for peace,
respected life, but she chose otherwise.”
Layla made an impatient gesture. “Oh,
just save it. I swear, around here if it’s not one thing, it’s
another. All of it bad.” Her jaw clenched. “The question is: Why’s
it happening now?”
Her tone suggested she knew the answer,
but Khan replied anyway. “Fate.”
“No, buddy boy—” Layla sent a glare
across the veil. “It all started when I met you.”
He shook his head. “But our meeting was
predestined. I saw Fate herself on the road in front of the
warehouse where you found me.” Moira had flashed her scissors.
“Fate brought us together.”
“Whoa.” She held up a hand to stop him.
“Fate’s a person?”
“A fae. Moira.”
Layla made a face. “And who said she
gets to decide everything?”
“She doesn’t decide.” Just like Death
didn’t decide when someone had to pass. “She does her duty. There
is no life without magic, without Shadow. She is necessary to the
ebb and flow of existence. Her role is prescribed.” It was the same
with all fae, in one way or another, trapped by their
purpose.
“Well, what about the first
time?”
Khan was silenced. To which “first
time” did she refer?
“When you and Kathleen made whoopee,
was that in the cards?” Her tone was aggressive, the emotion coming
off her now distinctly wild.
“No, I broke a law to be with her.” The
fae were constrained by their natures, their duties, not by
destiny. What was she after?
“Give Kathleen a little credit. If you
broke a law, she broke it with you. And if she could do it, so can
I.”
Careful, now. Layla was racing toward a
decision. “I don’t understand.”
“I know,” Layla answered, a glint in
her eye. “How could you? You’re not human.”
Her statement opened up a painful yawn
of space between them. Fae. Human. They were worlds apart. Only a
creature of Shadow would attempt such madness as to love a
mortal.
“But because I kind of like you,” she
said, “I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
“You ‘kind of like me’?” And just that
fast, warmth spread through the chill of his Shadow. He could
listen to her talk like this always. The spark of her mind combined
with the snap of her temper—no wonder her soul was a living
conflagration.
“It’s called free will.”
Oh, that. “Moira is necessarily
cunning. Eventually the imperative of death will find you.” He knew
the imperative intimately. All mortals died. While there was
occasional elasticity regarding the moment of their passing, there
were never any exceptions.
Did Layla think she could do Kathleen
one better? Did she think she could change her fate altogether?
Only a soul as bright as hers would dare it. She had no idea whom
she was up against.
“Of course everyone has to die. That’s
not what free will is about. Free will, my fine faery friend, is
about taking chances, making the most of each moment.”
The heat in her gaze and the swell of
building intent told him that she didn’t think she’d done enough of
it.
“Case in point: Kathleen did whatever
the hell she wanted. She lived under a death sentence all her life.
And look what she had!” Layla gestured to the painting. “Her art,
you, Talia. Don’t tell me all that was fated.”
Kathleen had pushed the limits of her
destiny as far as they could go. She’d held on with spit and drive
until the moment she delivered Talia. Yes, Kathleen had lived
well.
“And what do you want, Layla?” Was it
anything he could hope to give her?
“I want to live. And if I’ve only got
five minutes or fifty years, they’re going to be
good.”
Her claim made him a little afraid.
What could she be thinking with that spark in her eye?
“So step back, ’cause I’m coming
through.”
“Layla—!”
But she was already rushing into the
canvas. She couldn’t know that he wasn’t in the painting itself or
that Twilight was as vast as the human consciousness or as varied
as imagination. So many souls crossed at the same time,
but—there!—for Layla the veil went up in
violent flames. The denizens of Faery lifted their heads, scented
her, pricked their ears to hear her. Trained their dark eyes
through Shadow toward her bright light. A mortal had crossed; fair
game.
Heedless, she ran into the trees to
find him. He, the monster who wanted her most of all.
She had no idea. Twilight was not the
place for this. There was no tenderness here.
Khan rolled out of the darkness and
caught her in his arms. Arms of a man, like she expected. The arms
of the Khan she knew. It took one of her breaths for the rest of
him to form and modern clothing to slide over his body. Black, like
his Shadow.
“You must go. Your mind will wander
here.” As he spoke, whispers rose around them. There were watchers
in the woods, but the fae would hang back from he who was darkest
of all.
She was determined in her arousal. It
rolled off her in great, crashing waves, battering his
reserves.
“Then we’d better be quick.” Her
eyebrows danced in suggestion. “You have a devil to find
anyway.”
She wrapped her arms around him and
filled him with her exhilaration. The beat of her heart in his
head, the pump of life was too much to bear.
“Layla, please,”
he begged. Her lust for life would override him. And she thought
she had no power.
But she nipped his lip, then stepped
back to peel off her shirt. “Right now. Here on the
ground.”
The ground was not good enough for
Layla, especially not with the fae looking on in keen interest,
hungry for that spark within her. This was no place for one with a
loose hold on life. Since only excitement billowed from Layla, the
terror had to be his.
Not here. Not like this. Not where he
couldn’t hide his nature and keep her safe at the same
time.
But she was Kathleen all over again,
bent on seduction, but without the heart trouble to limit her
headlong pursuit of disaster. Layla’s heart beat rapidly in her
chest, the tempo echoing in his. The tide of her emotion was beyond
exquisite. How must it be to experience it firsthand?
He growled in frustration. “I would
have visited you tonight in your sleep.”
Please,
Layla.
“Yeah, that was good. But I want
you. And now.” She came forward again, naked
from the waist up, her skin like alabaster in this light. She
buried her hands in his hair. Brought a fistful of strands to her
face. “You smell so good. Always so good. Faery shampoo
rocks.”
“Don’t ask this of me,” he said,
skimming his mouth over her neck. She smelled earthy, fecund, and
so blood sweet.
She drew back, looked him in his eyes.
“You said you were a beast.”
“I am.” The worst of them. Even now
Shadow crackled with the rise of his want.
Passion darkened her gaze. “Well, let’s
have it then.”
He closed his eyes to hide his alarm.
She had no idea what she was talking about, his reckless woman, so
he simplified. “You will fear me.”
Please don’t make me
show you this.
Layla smiled. “Promises,
promises.”
The moment the whites of Khan’s eyes
bled to black, Layla knew she was in trouble. He lifted a hand into
the air and the forest around them went dead silent. A thick mist
of shadows filtered through the trees, blanketing them in a soft,
impenetrable pocket of stillness.
Considering the dark flex of Khan’s
expression, Layla didn’t think the quiet would last long. She
crossed her arms to cover her exposed breasts.
The darkness around her grumbled. Khan
only lifted a brow. “Second thoughts?”
She dropped her arms again. “You don’t
scare me.”
“I should.” He tilted his head as if
straining for control and said with that same aching deliberation,
“I try very hard to be gentle with you.”
She knew that. A little less care,
though, and she might learn something.
“I need to know you,” she said. And
since each bit of revealed information was worse than the last,
this must be a doozy. It wasn’t as if she had a lifetime for him to
tell her either. Tomorrow she might fall down a flight of stairs,
and that would be that.
He looked away from her, into the
silent trees. “The fae prey on heedless fools like
you.”
“I need to
know,” she said. “Do you understand?”
He looked back at her, his gaze black
and cold. “So be it.”
The low-lying mist whipped into a
frenzy, and Layla flinched, covering herself again. The wind took
with it all the jewel-toned leaves and all hint of living things in
a dirty, stinging tornado of terrifying brevity. Bare trunks of
trees amid a soil of ash were all that was left behind of Twilight.
It was utter desolation. A holocaust of imagination. The death of
all things.
Her heart clenched at the sight. What
was she supposed to learn from this?
She sought Khan, who was suddenly
behind her. He put a hand roughly to her cheek, to keep her sight
fixed on the ruined tableau before her. What was he trying to tell
her?
“Khan?” She trembled, fearing what was
to come.
“Please tell me you want to turn back,”
he said, low, in her ear. “I can still take you back.”
“I won’t go.” Her soul was ringing
again with recognition. He was no stranger, yet she didn’t know
him. She trusted absolutely but could recall no basis for her
conviction. She wanted him, not the polite
enigma who left her roses. Five minutes or fifty years . . . she
wanted him. Opened for him.
“You’re a fool,” he said.
“Your fool,” she answered.
She felt a hand at the waistband of her
jeans. A tug and the fabric fell to dust. She was abruptly naked,
the powder an inch thick at her feet. Her skin flashed from hot to
cold, nipples peaked, belly quivered.
His arm came around her waist, an
unyielding band of black at the edge of her vision.
Her shakes redoubled, but she relied on
the strength of his arm around her. At least he was close in this
terrible place. A lonesome howl of wind lifted the ash, but she
knew, strangely, that the sound came from him. He existed here,
lost in this misery of gray, unchanging dearth.
She tried to turn, to comfort him, but
he held her fast, and, with a hand to her cheek, turned her face
back to the wasteland of Twilight. “Don’t look at me.”
She was cold and scared, her womb
aching. All she wanted was him. The real him.
He braced his legs, sending the ash
into powdery clouds. He cast a hand up her thigh. He tilted her
hips.
She went liquid hot, throbbing in wait.
Her breath halted. Her core and soul braced for an
invasion.
“Forgive me.” And he
thrust.
Her vision blanched winter white, the
barren silhouettes of skeletal trees scraping an empty sky. Her
senses were utterly overwhelmed, so that all she heard was the beat
of her heart, all she smelled was the blood it pumped. He pulled
back, then roughly reseated himself inside her. Again and again,
she was filled with him, gasping for breath in the wake of his
driving rhythm.
A feminine voice from the past broke
through her memory into the present. Can you show
me how to go? I don’t know. . . .
And Khan’s answering, with infinite
gentleness. I don’t know
either.
Kathleen had never known this side of
him. Relentless, brutal, a being of staggering power. She’d never
known the bleakness in his heart.
The wind carried a wail toward her. The
warped voice had no gender—it could’ve been wrenched from his
throat or hers.
Where their first coming together had
been a fantasy of sensuality, this was need, a longing accumulated
over incomprehensible time. His darkness was alive within her,
circling her core, wrapping around her soul.
He could have preyed on her. Drawn from
her essence. She understood that now, the danger of the fae. And
she would have let him.
Here, take me. I’m
yours.
The rhythm grew faster, harder, so deep
she couldn’t breathe. Just clutched at his arm around her,
trembling toward a rapturous brink. She gave him her weight,
trusting him with everything she was. Arched against the broad wall
of his chest.
His free hand circled to the juncture
of her thighs. Stroked her there, hard and sure, and a little bit
cruel.
Her belly went tight. Her womb clenched
around him, Shadow, beast, monster, fae. The ground shook and he
roared behind her.
She split, awed by an exquisite
flowering within that thrilled every molecule of her incongruous
body. The winter trees likewise bloomed before her dimming vision,
crackling into blue and purple and green, the lushness of life and
an ecstasy of color. The sky went violet, stars twirling overhead.
Dizzy. Pulsing with magic. Or maybe that was her.
Her trembling gave way to tears, which
coursed rapidly down her face. “Khan, please, just let me hold
you.”
“No,” he said. “You’ve seen
enough.”
Rose hunched in a campsite bathroom on
the cold, concrete floor next to the sinks. There were three stalls
in front of her, all in need of a good cleaning. She put a finger
delicately to her nose. The bathroom was bad, but with this kind of
odor, there had to be a body decaying around here
somewhere.
She’d worn out her welcome in town.
There were strange folks about, beautiful and hard at the same
time. They almost had her once or twice, but their thoughts gave
them away.
And it wasn’t as if she could hide in a
crowd. The scarf she wore couldn’t cover all of the change on her
neck and ear, nor the fact that the skin on her cheek had started
to yellow and toughen. That arm hadn’t taken any harm during the
messy business up the mountain, but its unusual alteration was now
impossible to disguise.
Would Mickey mind? Not if he loved her
like he said.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Yes, she knew she was supposed to take
care of other business. She had tried to get
in, but the security was too tight. She could take care of six men
with guns, but taking on more might just kill her. It was better to
find a more opportune moment.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
If the gate would just quiet down,
maybe she could make a plan. Stealing the truck had been a mistake.
Killing the men had been worse. Each time she’d been forced to take
a life, her body had changed a little more.
kat-a-kat: Follow your
nose.
To find a dead body? How would that
possibly help?
Follow your
nose.
Fine. At least it would give her
something to do. The smell was so strong that she was surprised she
couldn’t see an orange trail of awful in the air. It got more
pungent during the hour-long trek through the backwoods of
Middleton, and grew positively overwhelming near a circle of
campers and mobile buildings that surrounded the halted
construction of a row of cabins.
Not just one body. Lots of folks had to
have died. This was a massacre or a mass suicide. Maybe their food
hadn’t spoiled, though.
She was about to open a door to one of
the campers when it opened for her. The enlarged teeth she saw
first, pointed like a shark’s, but in the gaping mouth of a man.
Her bad hand came up in defense, grabbed the ugly man by the skin
on his chest, and threw him to the ground.
As she backed away, more fiendish
people stepped out of the camper, a few from the buildings, too,
all of them slavering like a pack of rabid dogs. And glory! if one of them didn’t seem to float above the
earth, in pieces no less. They stank to kingdom come, so she
guessed she’d found her corpses.
Living corpses. None of them had a
thought in their heads. Nothing. It was like they were hollow
between the ears.
Could it be . . . ? Maybe the gate had
steered her straight after all. These had to be the “wraiths” that
the soldier at the compound had feared. These creatures had to be
the reason for the wall and the guns.
“Friends,” she said, “are you what’re
called wraiths?”
One answered with a lightning quick
dart toward her, mouth preparing to bite her head off. That wasn’t
nice, so her bad hand came up and slashed the man’s throat. The
rest of his body fell to the ground, a dry husk in the
dirt.
The others looked concerned, but more
for their own well-being than the pile of skin and
bones.
“If we could just talk,” Rose said.
It’d be better if she could read their minds.
The wraiths formed a bit of a circle
around her, prowling with their big jaws hanging low. The floating
one shivered toward her but was stopped by one of the
others.
Curious.
Steps sounded as a woman descended from
the camper to join the group. Dark haired, young. Almost
attractive. Her mouth was normal, and she was clean, composed, with
a light of intelligence in her eyes. But no amount of perfume—and
the woman must have used a bottle—would cover her stink. This one
was a wraith, too. The leader, most likely.
“I’m Rose Anne Petty,” Rose said,
holding out her bad hand, which was covered in wraith
remains.
The woman regarded the dead body and
then Rose’s hand. “What are you?”
This confused Rose, so she dropped her
arm. “Why, your friend.”
“Are you some kind of angel? Angels can
kill us with their bare hands.”
Rose blushed and put her bad hand to
her breast. Finally, someone understood her. “Yes. Yes, I
am.”
“What do you want here?”
Wraiths. They might just be her answer.
“I’m looking for a place to stay and, if you’re willing, for a
little help.”
“An angel wants help from us.” The
woman looked skeptical.
“It’s an ugly business, really”—but
Rose was sure these good people wouldn’t snap to judgment—“I’ve got
to murder someone inside that compound up the mountain, but rest
assured, it’s for a good cause.”
“You want to kill someone at
Segue.”
“Yes.”
“They kill wraiths, and are
friends with angels.” The woman wraith
relaxed her mouth, and pointy teeth grew in abundant
proliferation.
“Well . . .” Rose looked to Heaven for
a little help.
But the woman raced ahead. “So you’re
not part of The Order?”
The
Order?
“We had a parting of the ways.” She
wasn’t part of anything.
“Is it Talia Thorne you want to
kill?”
Again, Rose was stumped. She didn’t
know any Talia Thorne. She was after a Layla Mathews.
“Yes.” Rose flashed her nicest smile.
“Among others.” What was one more?
“I’m Daria,” the wraith said, then
turned to one of the men. “I want a table and a couple of chairs.”
She glanced at the floating wraith. “And put Thing in the camper
with the others so she doesn’t bother us.”
Thing was a woman? Oh, dear. And there
were others?
A table was quickly brought out, chairs
respectfully opened. Daria grabbed hers and sat, but Rose waited a
moment to see if one of the male wraiths was going to be a
gentleman. None came forward, and her estimation of them dropped
some.
Rose seated herself and placed her arm
on the table so that Daria might get a closer look at her bad hand,
just so she would know who was in charge. The bones had lengthened,
which made the limb take up the better half of the table, and a bit
of goo clung to her pink painted nails. She nodded good-naturedly
at the wraiths on her left so that Daria could see how her strength
went up her shoulder and into her neck. Rose wanted to make sure
there’d be no mistakes from the start.
Daria’s gaze traveled the length of
Rose’s arm and stopped on her drumming fingers. “You are an
angel?”
Rose didn’t like the question in her
tone, so she answered definitively. “Yes. Now, where shall we
begin?”
“There’s no point. Talia’s father is
there.”
“And why is that a
consideration?”
“You must have balls of steel. He’s
Death.”
Rose flinched, scoring the table with
her bad hand’s nails. “I’ll have none of that kind of
talk.”
“This is a waste of my time.” Daria
stood. She must have wanted to stretch her legs, because she
couldn’t be leaving. Rose wasn’t finished yet.
“What do you mean by
Death?”
“Talia screams, and the Grim Reaper
comes. Simple as that.”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Then
make her scream.
And bring on Death? No, thank you. This
was a dead end after all.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: The
daughter doesn’t concern you. Layla does.
Hmmm. Point taken.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: And
the rest will be busy with the wraiths.
Interesting.
Rose flashed her dimples at Daria but
lifted a hand toward the camper. “Are there more of that
kind?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because there’s strength in numbers.
And I have a little talent of my own to add to the pot, if we can
come to an agreement.”
This might just work.