Chapter 17
Layla racked her memory for her name.
She couldn’t be that far gone. Could she?
“Names have power,” Moira said,
strolling her ashy circle and maintaining an almost demonic
triangle with her sisters. “Which is the reason the fae have so
many.”
Layla could feel the word in her brain.
It was the same maddening sensation that had dogged her since she’d
first seen Shadowman. She’d known him yet couldn’t place him. Known
Talia, too, but couldn’t make the connection. Now she was losing
touch with herself.
Hi, I’m . .
.
And she totally blanked. Damn it. The
name was right there.
Layla’s teeth chattered. She folded her
arms for warmth. This couldn’t be the end, yet the trees and ash
and cold gray sky attested otherwise. Was this really what she had
left of him? The desolation was stealing color from her,
too.
He wouldn’t want that. She didn’t want that.
“Take your man Death, for instance,”
Moira continued. “How many names do you think he’s been given over
the ages and by myriad peoples, yet his power was stolen by a silly
girl now bumbling through these trees.” Moira paused in the circle,
facing Layla with a question on her lovely features. “And how do
you think you will fare if you have just the one name, and already
cannot bring it to mind?” She started her leggy stroll again with
an audible, and very pleased with herself, “Hmm.”
Layla called up the names and faces of
her new “extended” family: Talia, pale and fair; Adam, managing
everything; the babies, black-eyed Michael and cherub Cole. She
hadn’t lost them. She recited her phone number, her address, even
her computer login. All good.
It’s nice to meet you.
I’m . . .
Nothing.
Layla drew a deep breath of frigid air
and puffed smoke into the winter wonderland. Her nose was doing
that prickling thing that came with cold or tears. She’d remember
if she just didn’t freak out. She was doing this to herself. Had to
be. If Zoe could find power, Layla could. She would not let this
harpy wreck her. In the meantime, “Stop calling him ‘my man Death.’
His name is Shadowman.”
The three sisters sneered.
Wait. Hold it. Just. One.
Second.
Death as Layla knew him was gone. Okay,
she could take that. He didn’t even want to be Death anymore. But
was Shadowman gone?
Moira and her sisters began their
circling again. “Shadowman is a fool to trade power and time for a
handful of years.”
“He’s alive.” Heat surged into
Layla.
“He’s mortal,” Moira said, as if he
were beneath her.
Layla would take him any way she could
get him. Determination beat her heart faster. She wasn’t cold
anymore. Not at all. “I found a way back to him before. I can do it
again.”
The old sister looked over. “That life
is over.”
Good. Layla wanted that life to be
over. She’d been miserable and alone for most of it. And then she’d
ripped out her heart and told the one she loved to do his duty. Her
mission was complete. Yes, she was very glad that life was
done.
She wanted a new one, on her own terms.
“I’m leaving.”
Layla made for the edge of the circle,
to a space between one fate and another, but the circle moved with
her. Moira smiled. “To go where?”
“Anywhere you aren’t.”
“Impossible. I am Fate. I am everywhere
that you are. I tell you what to do and where to go. Do you think
it was coincidence that you found Death in that warehouse? No, I
took you there. Or that you rediscovered your daughter? Fate did
that, too.”
Layla wasn’t buying. There was no way
in Hell, and Layla knew a little bit about that place now, that
this hag was going to take credit for every decision humankind
made, least of all hers.
“What about Zoe?” Had she predestined
that transformation?
Moira declined to answer.
“I didn’t think so.” Layla made for the
edge again, but the Fates effortlessly followed. “Don’t you have
anything better to do?”
“Better than you?” Moira tilted her
head as if to think. “Not at the moment. I’ll tell you what. You
figure out who you are, and you can lose your mind elsewhere in
Shadow.”
Moira inclined her head, and around the
circle gilded mirrors appeared, glittering and sparkling enough to
make Layla wince. Within their long ovals different people stood as
if trapped within the frames. Old and young, all of them female,
looked out at Layla, their gazes imploring, Pick
me, pick me. Some were strangers, faces that seemed only
faintly recognizable. An old lady; a young woman; a round,
middle-aged housewife. As Layla surveyed the faces, she found
several that struck home. Within one frame stood Layla the child,
her hair in a ragged bowl cut, arms wrapped tightly around herself.
The child was wounded—the pain was right there in her eyes. Then
there was a serene woman who had to be Kathleen, long reddish blond
hair waving over her shoulders. And across the circle stood Layla
as she was today, freezing with the cold, dirty tear streaks down
her cheeks. Red nose to match. And still no name.
But at least it was something to work
with. A puzzle to sort. A trick to turn to her own
advantage.
“Pick one.” Moira twirled, arms out,
gesturing to all of them at once.
Yes, but whom? Layla’s gaze darted from
face to face. Was she Kathleen, the one who started it all? Layla
took a step toward her, then paused. There was no going back.
Kathleen was gone. Well then, what about the adult version of
herself in the glass? It seemed a straightforward solution. But
hadn’t she just said she wanted a new life? Should she then choose
a stranger?
She was all of them, and none of them.
Who was she? She didn’t know. Again.
Temet Nosce. It
still made no sense to her. Too bad she hadn’t figured it
out.
With each cold draw of breath, the
people in the mirrors grew less and less recognizable, the madness
of Twilight tweaking Layla’s mind. In her head was the thick,
sluggish feeling that preceded sleep. She bit her tongue to wake
herself.
The problem was that Fate had posed the
question; therefore, Moira controlled the answer. It was biased,
slanted, weighted in her favor.
The faces were blurring; Layla was
losing her mind. Or maybe the faces were blurring because they
didn’t matter.
“It’s warm and safe here under my
skirt,” Moira promised.
Talk about twisted. Layla dismissed
her. Maybe the question wasn’t so much, Who was
she? as, Who did she want to
be?
Layla’s gaze darted from person to
person. Lonely child, the housewife, beautiful Kathleen, the old
lady, the young woman, the present-day Layla. And in a circle
before them, the three Fates walked. Maid, mother, . . .
crone.
She stopped, gazing at
herself—Yes, that one—and inhaled the surety
of her answer.
In the end it was too easy. So easy she
had to laugh, yeah, a little like a crazy person.
Shadowman, honey, here
I come.
Moira did a little cancan flourish with
the material of her skirt. “I thought you’d last longer. Really, I
did. With the store Shadowman set by you, I thought we’d play for a
while.”
What Layla needed was something to bash
in the mirror. Bash it in and get back home.
Her fists would have to do. She
tightened both with all the feeling she had left: The fullness of
her first meeting with Talia. The tuning-fork strike of her
connection to Shadowman. The unlikely fit in the madhouse of Segue.
She had a place, a family to call her own, and God damn it, she was
going to have them if it killed her.
Moira shook her head. “You can’t harm
me.”
She actually hoped the glass would cut
a little, too, and bring some color to this place. “I’ve
chosen.”
“Oh . . . ?” But Moira’s attention
snapped to the circle. The big-breasted sister with the spindle had
held out her hand, palm up. Her gaze had gone distant as the
spindle stood on its own spinning thread of shining gold, the good
stuff. Lots and lots of thread for a long life.
“How?” Moira demanded, settling her fae
eyes, now gone malevolent black, again on Layla.
Layla pointed at the mirror image of
the old lady. “I want her.”
Faces didn’t matter. This second life
had taught her that. What mattered was soul.
“What, so you can be on the brink of
death again?”
Layla grinned like a maniac. “Someday.
But to earn all those wrinkles”—her gaze fastened on the crumpled
skin, the branches winging the eyes—“all those gorgeous laugh
lines, I figure I’ll need at least fifty years of laughing in your
face.”
The mirror was across the circle, but
Layla was crazy enough by now to know distance didn’t matter. She
brought her right fist up, as tight as a stone, and struck with
everything she was. She caught the swift flush of color into
Twilight, the shrill scream, “No!” just before she leapt through
the frame.
Segue.
The helicopter was not as fast as Adam
promised.
Shadowman had assumed that time was
fleeting, had grasped after it for moments with Kathleen, and then
Layla. Now time was a torture of uneven beats strung together and
stretched into a warp of perception. Frustration hampered each draw
of air and accelerated the thump of his heart. He closed his eyes,
seeking peace, but swirls of amoebic light danced on the insides of
his lids and his mind was battered by the racket of the rotors.
Eons passed more quickly in Twilight than this interminable flight
across the land.
And all Shadowman could do was sit. And
sit. And sit. While Layla suffered.
This world should have long gone
mad.
The yellows and greens and browns of
the slowly changing landscape below were tainted by gray. A river
of black water broke through the land, and beyond, a great city,
barbed with tall buildings.
Finally.
Only then did he realize he’d been
fisting his hands so tightly they ached. He stretched them open and
stared in confusion at the black web of Shadow gathered between his
fingers and against his palms. Shadow.
A push of feeling, and the dark stuff
pulsed with faelight.
Oh, how stupid of him. Of
course.
“Are you all right, sir?” Kev shouted.
The soldier glanced from Shadowman’s face to his show of
magic.
All right? No. Shadowman rubbed his
hands together, and the Shadow dissipated.
But now at least he knew what he was.
Would have known straightaway, if not for the panic that drove
him.
“We cannot go to the Annex,” Shadowman
answered.
“Sir?”
Angels. Shadowman snorted with the
irony. By now they, too, must have realized what he’d become.
They’d striven hard enough to wipe his kind from the face of the
earth during the last war between Heaven and Shadow.
He couldn’t risk a confrontation with
the angels. Not with Layla’s soul waning.
“Take us anywhere else,” Shadowman
commanded. “Anywhere without angels.”
The last place he could go was the
Annex. Surely, death awaited him behind the gleaming faces of the
host. That he’d created a gate to Hell was proof enough for
judgment against him.
Stretching his palm open again,
Shadowman pushed rage into magic. The faelight sprang forth
again.
No, the angels would not welcome him.
He had to find another way into Shadow.
He required a quiet, dark place—he slid
his gaze to Kev—without an audience. And then maybe, maybe . .
.
“Go that way,” Shadowman
commanded.
He knew just the spot.
Layla crashed into a chair, banging her
chin, tripped, and fell on the floor as she crossed the divide
between the worlds. It hurt, but she kicked to get free and stand
in case another surprise awaited her. She glanced around, breathing
hard. Abigail’s room was dingy next to the vibrant contrasts of
Twilight. Solid, cluttered, with a lingering smell of illness in
the air. Dull and wonderful. But no surprises.
She was back. A laugh burst out of her.
Holy crap, somehow she’d made it.
Had Adam and Talia made it out with the
babies? The thought sobered her up real quick and got her
moving.
She tore to the door, skidded to a stop
near the console table, where she hoped Zoe had left the
gun—yes!—then ran down the haunted hallway. No ghost, but then
Layla had a much better hold on life now. She’d seen the shining
thread of it herself. At the elevator, the button light did not
come on when she pressed. Probably not working.
“Shadowman!”
Layla didn’t expect an answer, but he
had to be there somewhere. Not dead, not Death. Then what? She
didn’t care.
The stairs wouldn’t open either—one of
Segue’s inner cages had been triggered again—and since she didn’t
have her handy door opener nearby, she opted to use her Glock.
Bam! Bam! Bam! she fired the gun at the
ceiling to alert somebody of her presence. If Adam was left at
Segue, he’d investigate the shots. It took an interminable three
minutes for two teams of soldiers to show up. She dropped the gun
and held up her hands.
“Ms. Mathews?”
Yes, duh. A couple of the soldiers
looked familiar, but she didn’t know their names. “Are Adam and
Talia okay?”
One of them spoke into a throat mic.
“I’m to take you to them now.”
Oh, thank God they were
okay.
Five minutes later, research level, and
into Adam Thorne’s supertechy inner sanctum, Layla was clobbered by
an awkward, but beautifully tight embrace.
Talia was crying and incoherent. “How—”
String of muffled words. “What happened . . . ? We all thought you
were gone!”
Layla herself had sniffed. “Nope.” She
shook her head. “Well, I was, but now I’m back.”
Talia opened a little distance but kept
a grip on Layla’s arms. “What do you mean ‘back’? Khan said you
were under someone’s skirt. Zoe and Custo are searching for
you.”
Which made Layla bark a laugh and wipe
her cheeks with the heel of her hand. If they knew about Zoe, they
also knew Abigail had passed. “He meant Fate. Damn, she’s a twisted
bitch, but I guess I tricked her . . . and here I am.”
Adam came up beside Talia. “You tricked
Fate?”
“Goes by the name Moira,” Layla said,
nodding. She glanced around. “Where’s Shadowman?”
“He’s mortal!”
Talia’s eyes went wide. “As in flesh and blood. Maybe even angelic.
And so worried about you.”
Mortal. That’s what she’d been hoping
for. Kicked out of Twilight. Busted.
“He was en route to the Annex building,
the northeastern headquarters of the angels,” Adam said, “but he
deviated at the river. Landed somewhere near Port Newark. Kev lost
him from there.”
“What do you mean lost
him ?”
“As in, I don’t know where he is.” Adam
lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “He doesn’t exactly keep me
updated on all his movements. All I know is he wants to cross into
Twilight to find you. Maybe he found another way.”
“But he can’t cross on his own, right?”
Layla had an idea where he might be heading. It was the only place
she could think of. A dark and lonesome place that suited him well.
The place they’d met during her second life. Third
time’s a charm.
But not if he was gone before she got
there.
“We have no idea what he’s capable of,”
Talia said, shrugging. She blinked hard, but her eyes still shone.
“No idea what you’re capable of either, it seems. I’m so glad
you’re back.”
“In the meantime,” Adam interjected,
“we’ve got Rose Petty’s husband here. We were just about to
question him as to where she might be heading, what she might do
next.”
Rose. Right. From one bitch to
another.
Layla’s high crashed. She knew exactly
where Shadowman was. Wanted to jump on him and tell him all about
her job well done. But, yeah, she had to deal with her devil first,
no matter how bad she wanted to dash to the warehouse.
Rose had shredded her heart and made
her weak enough to consider suicide when she had just found
everything she’d chanced this second life for. Layla had just
tricked Fate. She needed to face Rose down, too.
She took a deep breath for energy. “No.
That’ll take forever, and I’m in a hurry. I’ve got a better
idea.”
Rose had to be quick.
She filled an old plastic bag with
foodstuffs from the diner’s shelves. She’d skipped the modern (and
busy) truck stop directly off the exit and gone for the place with
the old-style gas pumps and the peeling yellow paint instead. The
diner smelled of petrified cigarette smoke, grease, and mildew,
even though the earth was frozen right outside.
Only a local would come here, and even
that person wouldn’t eat.
Potato chips. Mashed packaged
chocolate-covered donuts. The cans of tuna would need a handheld
can opener. She dug into the drawers to find one, shifting all
manner of utensils, and settled for a screwdriver mixed in with the
forks.
She needed enough to get her to Macon
without any stops. They had to be looking for her by now. She’d
been careless in Middleton, so sure that she’d be able to kill
Layla with no trouble. She’d been warned about Death, but did she
believe it? No. She’d gotten cocky. Lesson learned. And now she had
to hide.
Mickey would take her in, and they’d
figure out what to do together. Of the two, she knew she had a
quicker mind, but he gave her the sense of calm to use it right.
Mickey always believed in her. With Mickey, she could do
anything.
She grabbed a handful of plastic
dinnerware.
Of course, she’d had to kill the fool
behind the diner counter. He’d been drinking coffee and watching
the news on the TV mounted in the corner when she came in. Went
pasty at the sight of her arm. Maybe if he’d worked harder, the
place wouldn’t be in such straits. Now he just bled on the floor
while morning news anchors chattered on about the
weather.
The bags of flour wouldn’t do her any
good. Some green beans. Rose made a face. Fine. One can, just in
case. Her belly had been making noises for hours now, and she had
to mind her food groups.
“Citizens of Middleton can rest easy
this morning,” a reporter said, coming over the television. “A
recent crime spree has been stopped with the apprehension of
escaped convict Mickey Petty.”
Rose’s attention snapped up.
Mickey?
She dropped the bag of food. With the
strength of her bad hand, she vaulted over the counter to view the
TV screen.
Sure enough, her Mickey was handcuffed,
led by a crew of police officers to a large black SUV. Her
sweetheart’s hair had gone gray and a little thin up top. His face
was covered with at least two days of stubble, skin a little saggy
at the chin. And those eyes, the ones she loved so very much, were
ringed with puffy pink bags of exhaustion and darting in
fear.
“The heroine of the hour?” the reporter
continued, following the crowd down the street. “A tourist to our
small town, Ms. Layla Mathews.”
Layla. The one who played whore to
Death. The one who threatened the existence of the
gate.
“Ms. Mathews single-handedly took down
the criminal.”
The whore had the gall to lift her face
to the camera and wave. Rose knew that she was waving at her.
Mickey never did anything to Layla. Mickey was the soul of
sweetness.
Rose’s vision went red as a wave of
heat swept her.
“Ms. Mathews!” The reporter jogged
around the officers to get a microphone in Layla’s
face.
Layla smiled at the camera as she
ducked into the passenger seat of the SUV. “I’m just glad I could
be of service,” she called out. And then winked for the world to
see.
Rose started to shake.
Mickey was loaded into the backseat, a
cop on either side. Not that they looked like normal police
officers, much less small-town police officers. The gray uniforms
they wore didn’t fit well, straining at their arms and thighs.
Those were some of Segue’s soldiers, beefy and stupid.
The SUV took off out of Middleton,
heading up the mountain and into the tall trees, but not heading
for the jailhouse, as would be expected. Layla had to be taking
Mickey to the Segue compound and was telling her so. That
hateful place.
Mickey. Twelve years! Oh, how the world
was cruel.
Rose stamped her foot. Her chin
trembled. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She had promised herself
that she’d never go back to Segue. Death lived there, the monster
of everyone’s worst nightmares.
She bit the wide knuckle of her bad
hand. Debated. Decided.
“Gate?” she said aloud. The last time
she’d called, the gate hadn’t answered.
This time the familiar kat-a-kat-a-kat rattled her bones.
She looked up at the ceiling as if
talking to God. “Layla’s got my Mickey. I’ll do anything”—except
face that Death monster—“if you help me save him.” kat-a-kat-a-kat: One last chance to kill. Your best chance to
kill her.
“No, see . . .” she said. The gate
didn’t get it. “That m-m-monster lives there. He’ll kill me. He’ll
kill Mickey.”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Death
has fallen. He can’t touch you. Go get your Mickey. Make the ground
run with blood. You have nothing to fear.
“Death what?”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Death
is now weak and mortal.
“How?” She could hardly believe it,
though her heart and mind were already halfway back to Segue. No
Death?
kat-a-kat-a-kat: He
brought it upon himself.
Of course he did. A creature like that.
“Then I can kill him?”
kat-a-kat:
Easily.
Rose grabbed her car keys off the
counter, then dropped them on the pavement outside when she got a
look at the Mack trucks at the stop up the street. That red one
just turning in, the one with the fire painted on the sides, was
muscle on wheels, mean with bulk, like a giant steel boar, nosing
the road while its tusks belched smoke. That truck should be able
to take the wall at Segue.
A couple of run-run-pushes of her
favorite arm and Rose was there in seconds.
She fastened the panicked and wheezing
driver to the front grill, just in case those soldiers got the idea
to blow her off the road with a missile or something. The driver’s
ride-along wife, a dumpy sack of potatoes, sat next to her,
whimpering in a mess of tears and snot.
Rose let her bad hand do the steering
when she got upward of ninety on the straightaway. The growl of the
engine stirred her blood. When she hit the turns of the mountain,
the narrow two-lane road wasn’t big enough for the truck and
oncoming traffic. A VW Beetle almost pitched over the edge but
managed to skid to a stop.
Middleton was empty when she barreled
down Main and took the corner that would lead her to Segue. They
had to know that she was coming. That she wouldn’t stop. If they
thought they could cow her, they were going to get a surprise. She
knew their secret: Death was as good as dead.
The gate was retracted, for her
convenience no doubt. She followed the lane that led to the main
building, but she veered onto the stiff grass in view of the
forward-facing windows. No one fired on her, so the man on the
grill, still bobbing his head, had done his job. Rose dragged the
sack of potatoes out of the cab with her and put a claw to the
woman’s fleshy throat.
“I’ll kill her if I don’t see Mickey
right now!” Rose shouted.
Movement from a downstairs window.
Mickey stepped into view and then was pulled back. Oh, her sweet
man.
The potato sack woman dropped suddenly,
the whites of her eyes twin sneaks under slightly parted lids. The
silly woman had fainted. Rose couldn’t very well drag the sack’s
weight, so she flung her to the side and charged the stairs with
her run-run-push, nearly vaulting her to the top in one great
thrust. Gunfire bit her, but she couldn’t see the source. Invisible
marksmen had to be everywhere. Fire scored her cheek and darted
into the muscles of her back and thighs to lodge, but she didn’t
stop. Mickey was behind that door. She could heal later. He would
gently tend her with loving caresses.
She punched the front doors with her
bad hand and the wood splintered, ripping her skin. An inner metal
framework reinforced the entrance, but another strike buckled that,
too. This was really too easy. With a victorious step, she was
inside. Her knuckles dripped blood in Segue’s fancy hallway. She
took the left passage, in the direction Mickey had been only
minutes before. They couldn’t have moved him far. I’m coming, honey.
An earsplitting scrape and resounding
bang had her whipping around. The entrance was suddenly blocked
with a wall of close-set bars. The ceiling abruptly lowered—Rose
ducked—but the gorgeous chandelier overhead smacked her in the
face, crystals tangling and tinkling in her hair. The floor moved,
folded up around her. She swung out with her bad hand, but it
didn’t even dent the metal. Before she could get her bearings, she
was caged.
Metal screeched until booming into
final prison position.
That whore Layla immediately stepped
out from a room beyond the bars, flicked her gaze at Rose’s bad
hand, musing, It’s gotten
worse.
She bent her mind to master Layla’s.
“Release me!”
“It’s safe,” Layla said over her
shoulder, but thought, Unless she can shoot
venom.
Rose lunged at the bars, reaching her
bad hand through to claw Layla’s face off. She pushed harder on her
brain. “Release me!”
“I don’t have the power to release
you,” Layla said, a little too flippantly for Rose’s state.
No single person has that.
“Well, then bring them all to me,” Rose
said. She twisted each word with power.
Rose watched Layla close her eyes, her
lips tighten as she breathed deep. But she didn’t make any move to
do what she was told.
When Layla opened her eyes again, she
shrugged. “I’ve had a little practice with this kind of mental
thing: The gate made me open it. You almost made me kill myself.
Lost my mind in Twilight.”
“Why don’t you do as I say then!” Rose
shoved as hard as she could, tried to splinter the whore’s brain.
It had been so easy before.
Layla had the nerve to smile. “Because
I’ve faced far worse than you today. Believe me.” The whore leaned
in. “You won’t influence me ever again. Got it?”
Rose was going to have to kill her.
Nobody spoke to her that way. Least of all some trash that wrapped
her legs around—
“Can I see her?” spoke a familiar
voice. Soft. Loving. Mickey.
“Mickey?” Rose called. She pulled at
her bloody sweater. Swiped her hair back from her eyes. Wished she
had some mascara to make them pop.
Layla looked beyond the doorway.
“You’ve earned it.” Did the world a favor in my
opinion. “Just keep back from the bars, and remember what I
told you.”
Rose straightened herself up. Strained
for a first glimpse.
Mickey shuffled into view. He wore the
faded uniform of a custodian. He must have had to work so hard
without her help. His belly had bulged over his pants while she was
away.
That’s her, all
right, Mickey thought.
“You okay?” Layla asked
him.
“Mickey, honey”—Rose batted her
eyes—“we’ll find a way out of all this. We’ll be together again. I
promise I’ll find a way.”
Mickey’s bushy brows drew together.
They warned me about her arm.
“Oh, this?” Rose answered, lifting her
bad hand. “Well, yes, it looks a little . . . unusual. But, honey,
it’s strong. It’s kept me alive. Soon you’ll think it’s as
beautiful as I do.”
And they warned me she
could read my mind.
“Yes,” Rose said. “I can. It will bring
us closer together.”
Don’t think it. Don’t
think it. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
“Honey, say you love me,” Rose
implored. If she was going to be taken away, even for a little
while, she’d need to survive on those words.
Mickey jerked his face into the fat at
his chin and took a step back alongside Layla. “I’m ready to
go.”
Don’t think it. Don’t.
Don’tdon’tdon’tdon’tdon’tdon’t don’t . . .
“Mickey,” Rose sobbed. “You can tell me
anything. Tell me you love me.”
Not that I was the
one—don’tdon’t—
Layla gestured to a man in front of a
group of soldiers. “It’s time.”
—who killed
you.
Rose went very still, her hands, good
and bad, gripped the bars. She must have heard Mickey wrong. They’d
been everything to each other. Shared their secrets. Sure, they’d
had some hard times, and there was that once or twice when she’d
had to remind him how to treat her, and the occasional messy
business he’d cleaned up for her, but . . .
“Honey?” broke from her
lips.
Mickey’s face went red. His lower lids
twitched, as his brain said, I put a pillow to your
face.
But now that Rose thought about it . .
.
You thrashed and
bucked.
. . . she couldn’t remember how she’d
died.
Never loved
you.
“Say you love me!” Rose
screamed.
“She was even worse when she was
human,” he said to Layla. And with that, Mickey Petty turned his
back on her and walked from the room. Stenciled to his jumpsuit was
State Prisoner. His last thought trailed behind him. Worth every damn year.
Fury exploded in Rose’s
mind.
Mickey had betrayed her. Mickey had
killed her. Mickey had sent her to Hell.
The burn took her whole body, and she
shook, gripping the immovable bars for support. She shrieked when
her blood turned to acid in her veins. A rush of searing cold
washed through her body, snapping and spinning her
cells.
“Stay calm,” someone called, but they
weren’t talking to her.
New bone stretched her toughening skin.
She threw her head back as the change crunched her features. No
more pretty eyes. No more winning smile. The transformation
crackled across her other arm, took her belly, her pelvis, her weak
leg. Made her strong.
Worse, Mickey said? She’d show him
worse. All of her went bad.
Layla turned and asked the lead
soldier, “Will the cage hold?”
“It should,” he said. But his mind
answered, Thank God Talia and the kids are on their
way to New York.
That was all the hope Rose needed. She
launched herself horizontal and kicked a bar with the full force of
her altered legs. The bar dented outward.
“She’s like a lizard hulk!” a soldier
shouted.
Rose jacked her legs at the bar again.
It squeaked into an outward triangle, just big enough. Mickey owed
her an explanation.
Rose watched as Layla drew a gun from
her waist and fired point-blank. Cold-blooded was what Layla was.
Shoot a prisoner in a cage. No honor in that.
The soldiers followed Layla’s lead.
Rose was dinged over and over again, but the only bullet that hurt
was the one that pierced her skull. Even that didn’t slow
her.
Rose wrenched the bar out of place.
Where is he? She used the bar to bat Layla
out of the way.
Where is that
liar?
She bounded knuckles, feet, knuckles,
feet through the door of a wide, open room dominated by a long
conference table. Her husband was backed up to a wall, surrounded
by soldiers, which she swatted aside while taking a bullet to the
eye. Another bullet bounced around her teeth in her
mouth.
Blood made her tongue lazy. Her nose
itched from her new foul smell. Rotten. Like her love.
She snorted like a beast in Mickey’s
face. “You did this to me.”
His jelly chin quivered, but he didn’t
tuck it. Took him twelve years to find his spine.
“You always looked like this,” he said.
“Now everyone else can see, too.”
Rose fought a sob and knew the wetness
streaking her face was tears. She could feel the violence gathering
around her. Men organizing to kill her, while they thought to
protect her murderer. One shouted, “Lie facedown on the
floor!”
The room was thick with their mind
chatter. One man seemed in control of them all. Bring her down fast, heart and head, he
thought.
“On the floor, now!”
Heart. Rose punched Mickey’s chest to
see if he had one. It was a puny, slimy thing, just like him. Too
bad it stopped.
Mickey dropped to the floor. Ungrateful
man. And here she’d given him her best years.
Something hit her from behind and her
left shoulder was alight with pain.
Use the Benelli,
a soldier thought behind her.
Rose shuddered as eight successive
blasts thudded into her side. She couldn’t feel her fingers. That
whole side of her body had a sparkly singe kind of sensation that
made breathing hard.
If they weren’t careful, they might
just hurt her.
Mickey dead, now that Layla had to go,
the one who started it all. No wonder the gate was so intent on
getting rid of her. Layla was poison.
Rose struck the window above Mickey.
The glass came out in one funny big piece, with a whole lot of wall
attached to it. Another fat shot struck her back, and she was
propelled outward, skidding across a wide veranda on a slick of her
own blood.
She managed to climb on top of the
railing, but shots drove her over the side and into the bushes at
the building’s base.
“Circle around!” the leader
shouted.
They were murderers, all of them, not
to face her in a fair fight. If she died,
her soul died, too. The end of Rose Petty.
Forever. kat-a-kat-a-kat: Go back. Kill Layla
Mathews. Now. The gate needn’t worry. Layla was going to
die. And not because the gate told her to kill the bitch. This was
personal now.
Rose made for the trees, loping fast on
all fours. The ground exploded beside her, showering her with soil,
but she kept going. This was Layla’s fault. Run. Hide.
Heal.
Oh, Mickey.
That Layla was going to
pay.