Chapter 15
Shadowman crouched before the gate,
darkness rolling off his shoulders, his cloak. The hammer lay askew
beneath him. The dagger the angel had thrown was a silver dart on
the ground to his side. Custo crouched as well, his skin riddled
with black. kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat: Open the gate.
Let my throng deal with the angels.
Shadowman lowered and inclined his
head. “You sent a devil after Layla.”
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat:
I can call the devil back. Set her on new prey.
“You’ll do whatever suits
you.”
“. . . man!” Custo was saying. “Don’t
even talk with it. The gate is not an option.”
Everything was an option, since no
options were given to him: Here is love, but you can’t have her.
Here is life, but you can only glimpse it upon someone else’s
passing. You have great power, but you can’t use it to fight for
what you want. No liberty? Well, then, Death.
“We’ll find a way to destroy it,” Custo
said. “There has to be a way. A different kind of tool, maybe. A
different approach, something the world has
forgotten.”
Across the cavern, the angels took up
position. Ballard, now fully healed, stood in front, his hair
matted with blood.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Now the gate laughed. It couldn’t be
destroyed.
Destroying the portal with heat and
tools presumed it was made out of metal, but Shadowman knew
different. Even if the black iron were melted away, still it would
stand. Forever and ever until . . .
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
It was maniacal in its glee, riotous as
understanding came into Shadowman’s mind. A wretched mistake among
so many.
The gate was not made of metal, heated
and pounded into form. He might have set out to create it that way,
but the hammer had defied him, had forced his mind elsewhere. The
hammer had required something deep, deep within to lift and
wield.
The trick of the gate’s construction,
then?
Shadowman closed his eyes. A small
breath, and already she sprang into his mind. Kathleen at her
easel, gazing wide-eyed into Twilight. Kathleen under his hands,
giving herself up, even as she seduced a dark lord. Her skin, her
hair, her rising breasts as his mouth skimmed their
peaks.
The gate was not made of metal. Black,
or otherwise.
The gate was made of her
memory.
He’d set this trap, and so killed her
himself, no matter who gripped the hammer. kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat: You created me to save her. Let me save
her. I can save her.
Death before him, death behind him.
Every single thing he touched brought death. Even to the one he
loved. He was cursed. If Moira were here, she’d be laughing.
Stormcrow, Thanatos, Reaper. You are your nature; you are
fae.
I want to change. I
need to change, he thought.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat:
Perhaps you think you can end this madness? If you can, pick up the
hammer yourself and strike her down.
As if Shadowman could ever strike
Layla. Crack her body. Make her bleed. The thought sent a blast of
despair through the cave, the deep places in the earth bellowing,
No! Nor would he let another. Not even if
Layla asked him.
His power, his ageless cruelty, stopped
there. He was at the end of himself.
Then massacre the angels?
Shadowman eyed them from the folds of
his dark cloak. Heaven’s soldiers, set on a beast they had no hope
to bring down.
Custo shook his head abruptly as if to
clear his vision, or to get rid of a bothersome thought. What
subtle things was Hell suggesting to him? Mortal minds, even mortal
angels, were so weak. Eventually the gate would hit upon just the
thing, and even Custo’s great soul would falter.
The host advanced. A third broke away
to circle and come at him from the left. Another third to his
right. Conviction and purpose made them glow.
“I stand with you,” Custo said, “but I
don’t have it in me to kill them.”
Of course not. He wouldn’t be an angel
if he could. In fact, Custo would probably try to save as many as
he could, while also protecting the gate. His purpose, like his
nature, was at odds.
But Death was no angel.
“I’ll do what I have to do,” Shadowman
answered.
The walls of Segue stretched high as
Layla ran through the center atrium to Zoe’s side of the building.
The roof was gone, and in its place was a ceiling of nighttime
stars, the barren tips of branches fingering their way
overhead.
“What do you want?” Zoe’s voice echoed,
laced with fear. “Stay back!”
A coded door almost stopped Layla, but
as she gritted her teeth to find a working combination of numbers,
the door itself became transparent, the frame an archway to the
corridor beyond.
Fae voices whispered, Coming, coming, coming, coming, with each of her panting
breaths.
When she rounded the hallway to Zoe’s
room, brown vines crawled the walls, and standing in the way was
Therese, the little girl ghost. Her hands were fisted, and a pout
was on her face. Around her was an aura of another time, her patch
of space a throwback to the hotel a century before. There, too,
Shadow crawled, the climbing vines like stitches hemming the two
realities together.
“Dead man, dead man,” she began to
chant.
“Yeah, yeah,” Layla said, and rushed
past the ghost. “Old news.”
Therese made a grab for her, clawing
Layla’s flesh and wrenching at the vessel she hoped to possess.
Layla felt a jarring disengagement but moved forward anyway, the
parasite on her back. Was it even possible for a ghost to animate
someone else’s body? Layla wasn’t sticking around to find
out.
The right angles of the floor and walls
came apart, the structure of the building consumed by Shadow.
Therese’s hold turned into a clinging cringe as she found herself
at the edge of one world and the beginning of another.
A shrill, startled scream from Zoe, and
Layla advanced down the vestiges of the hallway. Either Therese
would let go, or she’d be forced to cross, as she should have all
those years ago. Zoe had to get out now, or be lost to Twilight.
This was exactly the reason Shadowman needed to return to his
post.
“Leave me the body!” the child wailed
at her ear. “I need the body!”
“No can do,” Layla answered. There was
power in mortality; Shadowman had taught her that. Maybe it would
buy her enough time for him to find her. Too long in Twilight and
there wouldn’t be much left to find.
An electric wave rolled toward her, and
the remains of Segue were demolished, particles lifting into the
air like snapping sparks from a fire. Layla could feel the advent
in a hum that buzzed her senses and tightened her womb. Heart
seizing in terrible ecstasy, she leaned into the
crossing.
Therese released her hold, sobbing,
“The body!” Her voice weakened with each syllable as she fled the
tide, and then she was gone.
Layla ran through the trees in the
direction of Zoe’s room, the hotel now a thick forest of dark
trunks and craggy branches. Roots elbowed out of the earth to stop
her progress, but somehow her feet only glanced on the surface as
she darted forward.
“Just stay the fuck away!” Zoe yelled,
voice low and ripped with emotion.
Over there. A rising bramble blocked
Layla’s path, and she forced her way through. She could see Zoe and
Abigail inside a small, squared-off clearing beyond, not unlike the
dimensions of Abigail’s bedroom. Zoe, dressed in Segue sweatpants
and a T-shirt a couple days past clean, her black hair ratty, stood
in front of her sister. Her face was blotchy pale, her eyes were
wild, and her expression was equal parts grief and horror. She was
braced to fight.
Abigail stood directly behind her in a
faded green housedress. Her eyes were hollow, jaw was slack with
exhaustion. Her posture listed to the side. The only clue that she
was still alert was the whimper that escaped when a swarming cloud
of Shadow skimmed her skin, as if seeking a point of entry. A
second flitted around her shoulder. A third patch of darkness
webbed up her calves.
But Zoe didn’t strike at these. She
fought the air as if someone or something was in front of her,
preparing to attack.
“Get back!” Zoe screamed, swatting at
nothing.
Had madness already set in? That
quick?
“Shit!” Zoe darted to the side in front
of Abigail, who was now overcome with visible shivers. She jabbed.
She flailed. But at what?
“Zoe!” Layla called.
Zoe’s attention snapped in her
direction, but she didn’t look as if she believed her
eyes.
“I’m coming,” Layla said. The thorns on
the small branches snagged her clothes and scraped her arms as she
pushed forward.
“They’re everywhere!” Zoe hollered
back. She circled around her sister, grabbing her arm to keep her
close, to pull her back from the invisible dangers.
Layla peered into the surrounding trees
as she trampled forward.
Coming, coming,
coming, soft voices whispered around her. But she couldn’t
see who spoke.
At the edge of the overgrowth, she felt
a wet brush on her neck. A lick. She whipped back to find a
creature craning over her shoulder, tall and thin, with backward
limbs like a praying mantis’s. He was naked, gray, with wagging
human genitalia.
“Kiss me,” he said, voice
reedy.
Layla stumbled and fell into the
clearing. The impact jarred her senses, and in the hard blink of
the fall, a dozen . . . things sprang up
around her.
“What the fuck are they?!” Zoe
screamed.
Layla skittered back from the insect
man, bumped into another. Blue. With sketchy human features on a
humping shell of a head. Its eyes lit.
Coming, coming,
coming, it said to her.
Layla lurched upright, but now she was
surrounded, too. “No idea.”
They were queer, deformed creatures,
each with some attempt at a human feature on a misshapen body.
Their curiosity had a predatory quality, a wow in their eyes, like
they’d found shiny toys or treats, and even better, ones that
talked. Their wonder kept them from leaping en masse. They weren’t
fae. Then what? And so many of them.
Layla’s breath came quick, heart
drumming so loud in her ears she almost wished it would stop so she
could hear and think. But then she’d be dead, so maybe
not.
“Shadowman!” she screamed.
The creatures recoiled slightly, and
Layla took advantage of the brief thinning to join Zoe and Abigail.
They stood back to back, though Abigail was all but
useless.
Zoe grabbed Layla’s wrist with her free
hand. “Are you here?”
Layla knew what she meant. “Yeah, it’s
really me. We just have to hang on. Shadowman will save
us.”
Any minute now. These creatures had
picked on the wrong people.
Coming, coming,
coming, they chanted at them, inching closer.
“Abigail—” Zoe began
helplessly.
“Don’t worry,” Layla said. Her chest
hitched with the sound of Zoe’s pain. “He’ll take care of her,
too.”
Except there was no way out for
Abigail. Her body was utterly wasted, eaten away by her tremendous
gift. Segue had been her hospice while she declined toward the
inevitable. If there’d been any medical recourse, Adam would have
pursued it long ago. They were all here because Abigail, so full of
Shadow in life, had died and Twilight had come to claim
her.
Zoe’s labored breaths dissolved into a
sob. “It’s not fair!”
“Shhhhh,” Abigail whispered. “Let me
go, Zee-baby.”
Zoe swiped tears from her face. “Nope.
We’re in this together. You and me to the end.”
One of the creatures made a fast click
with his teeth. Reached bony hands toward Layla. She slapped him
back, but the contact blasted her senses. She struggled to keep her
balance, blinking away stars.
This could get worse before it got
better. Zoe needed to get out. And now. Layla had to convince her
to leave while she still could.
“I’ll take care of Abigail,” Layla
offered. “It’s my time to go, too.”
“I can’t. She’s all I’ve
got.”
“No, you’ve got a whole life to lead.
When Shadowman comes, you need to go with him. This place will mess
with your head.”
“She’s my sister.” Again, the sound of an open wound, a heart so
ravaged that even if it managed to heal it would be deeply scarred
forever.
“I had a sister once, I think.” Layla
had her own heart scars.
“Did you lose her?”
Layla didn’t remember, but that didn’t
seem right. She recalled a pressure on her hand and a stubborn
refusal to let go, like a tether to life. “I think she lost
me.”
Light drew Layla’s gaze up, glittered
in the trees, moved closer. So bright it made her eyes prick and
tear. Someone was coming.
The odd creatures around them rose to
attention, then scattered into the trees, leaving only their voices
behind, Coming, coming, coming.
Angels? They’d work, too. Custo could
get them out of here. Send word to Shadowman.
Saved.
But from the dark emerged a man of
incredible beauty, each step an artful placement. His hair was rich
brown, his fae eyes black. He was clothed in gossamer threads, but
might as well have been naked for all they did to cover his
glorious body. And with the soft smile he threw her, Layla knew
that the other creatures might have been part of Faery, but this
man was fae.
“Oh, shit,” Zoe said.
A young woman joined him. She had
magnificent golden hair, a pair of scissors at her waist, and a
waterfall of a skirt spilling around her. Gorgeous.
And another female, naked and sleek.
She spoke in a fluid language that came out in a kind of
running-free verse song.
Scissor Lady answered, while the man
settled his gaze on Zoe.
Layla had no idea what the language
was, but she understood everything that was said. They were
divvying up the spoils. Scissor Lady wanted her.
Shit was right.
Layla hated name-dropping, but what the
hell. “Shadowman is our friend. He’ll be here any
minute.”
“Friend?” Scissor Lady asked. “Aren’t
you his lover?”
Layla pushed her shoulders back. If
Scissor Lady knew so much, she should know enough to keep away.
“Yeah, that, too.”
“He’d have to find you first.” The fae
man slowly stroked the line of his collarbone. Then his pectoral
muscle. He feathered his fingers down his belly. Looked like he’d
have a good enough time all on his own.
The naked woman clapped, bouncing on
the balls of her feet. “A game! A game!”
Layla was less enthusiastic. They
needed time. Eventually Shadowman would come for her. He’d built a
gate to Hell; he wouldn’t let her lose her mind in Twilight. Right?
Right.
“Anytime soon would be good,” Zoe
said.
But what if he was angry? He had reason
to be. She’d demanded the worst, and then forced his hand by coming
after Zoe.
No. He wouldn’t abandon her like
this.
The fae moved forward, barefoot and
splendid, gods in their own world. A hunger in their
eyes.
Layla needed time.
“Run!” she said. Every second counted.
Where is he?
She turned and grabbed hold of
Abigail’s other arm. Zoe was just as quick and they lunged into the
trees together. Branches scraped Layla’s arms and roots stubbed her
feet, but she pushed forward. Running, running.
Which way? Didn’t matter.
Just deeper into the trees. One minute,
five minutes, as if time had any meaning there.
When Layla looked back, she’d opened no
distance from the pursuing fae, who walked at leisure through the
trees as if on a stroll.
The forest grew more dense and dark as
they ran, an endless growth of magic.
“Shadowman!” she screamed, but the air
swallowed the sound.
Her foot caught and she fell, flat
bellied, barely breaking her fall with a palm skid to her elbows.
She flipped over, ready to fight. Only stupid girls in bad horror
movies fell when chased by monsters. At her feet, she found a long
staff was the culprit. The straight length of dark wood was so
incongruous with the trees that even with the approach of the fae,
she spared a glance to see what it was.
At the staff’s end was a severe curved
blade, glinting in the twilight. It could only belong to one
person: Shadowman.
Layla gripped the shaft with both hands
and heaved the blade upward. The scythe was sized for the beast in
him, huge, wide, the moon-shaped metal an unwieldy weight for her
frame.
“You’ve found his weapon,” Scissor Lady
said, “but you lack the power to use it.”
If he would just come, the scythe would
be waiting. All the pieces were here, ready. Where was
he?
Layla swung the scythe in a clumsy arc,
but the blade passed right through the fae as if they weren’t even
there.
“Tickled,” said the naked woman,
giggling. “Do it again.”
“We’re screwed,” Zoe said. “He’s not
coming. He’s not coming!”
Or not coming quickly
enough.
Then it was down to fists and feet and
teeth. There was power in mortality; Layla just had to find
it.
“Poor little girl,” Scissor Lady said.
She reached out her hand, and in a jerk of perception, she was
suddenly right in front of Layla, stroking her cheek. Except Layla
wasn’t an adult; she was a child again. Lost and alone. “It’s safe
here under my skirt.”
“I’ll pass, thanks,” Layla answered,
stumbling back with revulsion. She shook her head to clear the
illusion. To grow back up. Already her mind was going.
The naked woman had a grip on Abigail,
while the fae man petted Zoe.
“So many things I want to try with
you,” he said.
Abigail let up a wail. The naked woman
pulled strands of light from Abigail’s skin, like ghostly
marionette strings. “Feels good.”
“We get so few with both the body and
soul intact,” Scissor Lady said.
“Get off my sister!” Zoe
cried.
Layla dropped the useless scythe and
lunged for the naked fae toying with Abigail. Tumbled her off and
set the creature shrieking with laughter. Layla went to punch the
fae in the face, but her wrist was captured by Scissor Lady, who
effortlessly lifted her and dragged her some paces away. Layla’s
kicking legs scored the earth, and her hands swatted the air to
find the woman behind her. The effort was wasted.
“Now, pet,” Scissor Lady chided, “you
belong to me, not her.”
Layla was nobody’s pet.
The naked woman straddled Abigail’s
fallen body. Abigail moaned, turning her head to the side. Layla
perceived a brief shift, a blurring of flesh and light, of
disengagement between Abigail’s soul and body, the same that Layla
had experienced in the grip of the ghost. Abigail’s body was
expiring, yet her soul was still pinned between the naked woman’s
legs.
Zoe was scrabbling on the ground,
working for the scythe. The fae man stood back for a moment, making
a show of admiring Zoe’s backside.
They’d all just have to hold out,
endure, until Shadowman came. Kathleen had been an expert at
enduring; surely the nugget of that skill was somewhere in Layla,
as well.
“You’re supposed to be dead, too,”
Scissor Lady murmured in Layla’s ear, as she looked on Abigail’s
death.
“Not today,” Layla said through
clenched teeth, jerking hard to free herself. Scissor Lady’s clamp
on her hand was unperturbed.
The naked woman, still astride Abigail,
arched her back and laughed at the sky.
Zoe’s grasp found the scythe. She
stood, chest heaving, the weapon in her hands. “Get off my
sister.”
A wind riffled through the trees. The
naked fae looked over cheerfully. Ready to play.
A tremor started in the ground. Layla
braced in Scissor Lady’s grasp, but Zoe didn’t seem to notice. Rage
burned in her eyes. “I said, Get. Off. My.
Sister!”
The darkness of the forest convulsed.
The scythe gleamed. The tremor rose to a rolling earthquake, and
even Scissor Lady drew back, though she dragged Layla with her.
Shadow grew dense around Zoe as she bore down on the naked fae
woman.
With each step, blackness filled Zoe’s
gaze. Her expression was fixed in anger, tilting the structure of
her features much like a fae’s. The force of her feeling leached
into her skin, making it shine with an eerie glow.
Twilight was a place of emotion, dark
and bright, both extremes on fire within Zoe. Here was the power of
mortality. Layla knew she was witnessing a
transformation.
Zoe sliced through the air with the
huge weapon, and in the rainbow arc of its sweep, the scythe, too,
changed to match its new wielder. When Zoe struck down the naked
woman, cut the laugh from her face, the scythe was a part of her,
mastered by rage and love. The fae gasped into a cloud of
Shadow.
Zoe swung around to face the male fae,
and in terror and confusion, Layla knew Zoe was the new face of
Death. The first soul she’d shepherd would be her
sister’s.
What about . . . ? “Shadowman!” Layla
screamed.
“This way,” Scissor Lady said, dragging
Layla into the trees. The last thing she saw was Zoe facing the
male fae, Shadow crackling at her back.
“Zoe!”
But Scissor Lady put a hand over her
mouth. “She’ll never find you. Would you want her to? She killed
your man Death when she possessed his scythe.”
Killed? Shadowman? “That’s not
possible.”
“His power was in his duty. He’s left
it for too long, and now another has taken it over.” Scissor Lady
tightened her grip. “He’s gone.”
“He’s immortal.” He’d told her
so.
“Not anymore.” Scissor Lady’s mouth
curled into a sneer. “Fool.”
Layla was hauled through the trees. She
caught a glimpse of dark branches, a violet sky, a blazing streak
of a star. Her heart clamored as her eyes filled with
tears.
Shadowman?
She’d had her chance to save him. A
second life to bring him back to Twilight. To steal a moment to
love. She’d failed Heaven.
Much, much worse, she’d failed
him.