Chapter 18
The last time Layla had walked down
this miserable street she’d lost her life. This time, she had it
all in front of her. To her left was a wide concrete slab, and
across the way, much farther, a cargo ship, crane reaching over its
hull. Massive blue and orange cargo containers had occupied the lot
near the warehouse. Now it was empty, and she could see all the way
to the choppy, gray river. Parked on the street, to her surprise,
was her car. Nobody had stolen it, after all.
This was the place. He had to be
here.
A rusted smear of blood near the
doorknob made her pause, but the frame was still broken, so she
pushed the door open and peeked inside. The place was as dark as
she remembered, though now a white-blue light flickered in the
depths of the large space, like a fluorescent trying to come on.
And then the light went out entirely.
Layla crept forward, keeping to the
dark.
An extended male roar of frustration
and the light burst into existence again, a plasma of blue violet
tossed up into the air, battering the darkness. Magic.
Had to be him. Layla advanced, trying
hard to keep each footstep soundless. That weird bursting feeling
almost overcame her again when she saw his silhouette—his tall,
strong body braced, one arm extended, palm flat as he coaxed the
light to maximum brightness, the other arm outstretched behind him,
for balance. His long hair was in a ratty knot away from his face.
Poor man was finally learning what a hassle that hair was going to
be. No way on earth she’d let him cut it, though.
Shadowman. Mortal?
She was three paces from him, but he
still didn’t notice. His body shook with the effort he used to
create the magic light. From this close she smelled his sweat,
dark, a little funky, and totally human. Which made her grin and go
warm all over, in spite of the cold.
Screw it. She stepped up beside him,
pretending to concentrate on the light, though all of her attention
was on him.
“So what are we doing?” she asked
lightly, rocking back and forth, heel to toe, on her
feet.
He reeled back and the light went out.
She thought he fell on his ass, but since she couldn’t see, she
couldn’t be sure.
“You okay, honey?” She tried to keep
the laugh from her voice. Really, she did.
A blue flame burst to life, held in his
palm while he, yes, was half sprawled in shock on the warehouse
floor. Strands of tangled hair fell in his eyes. His shirt, a
long-sleeve tee, was ripped on the side, his abs nicely flexed
beneath. An unlaced shoe had come off. Didn’t look like he knew how
to tie the laces.
“Need help up?” Layla held out her
hand. The bursting feeling grew painful. Crap, she was going to cry
again.
“Layla?” The “la” was hoarse. He’d gone
and ruined his voice.
“That’s me.” Her grin got wider, in
spite of the tears in her eyes.
His face grew paler, expression
dismayed. The poor man didn’t blink, but he did start shaking. How
long had it been since he’d had anything to eat?
Layla knelt on the floor, reached
toward him.
He flinched.
She softened her tone. “It’s just me.
See?”
Kneeling on all fours, she leaned
forward, their faces close. His black eyes went wide and wild,
searching hers. “Hi,” she said. And then she touched her lips to
his. His mouth was warm, firm, oh so real. She breathed him in,
reveled in the return press, and gave him her soul.
He groaned, a lost, hurt sound. And the
warehouse went pitch dark again. She was grabbed none too gently,
dragged onto his lap, pinned with one tight arm around her, while
his other hand roved, maybe checking for all the right parts,
before settling at the nape of her neck.
Finally, he kissed her back, mouth
moving against hers, devouring, tasting. Pulling back to feather
with gentleness, skim satin on satin, before crushing her to him
again.
And still he shook, but now he shook
them both.
Layla shifted. Scruffed her cheek on
his five o’clock beard. Yep. Mortal.
His breath was uneven. His heart was
pounding against her.
“Shhhh.” Layla squeezed him tight.
She’d thought to surprise him, and she guessed she had. “It’s okay.
You’ll be okay.”
“I’ve gone mad, yes?” he said in the
dark.
“No, actually, you just went
missing”—Layla cuddled closer—“and weren’t there for my triumphant
return.”
“I don’t believe it.”
She chuckled. “I’ve got two cars
outside, my piece of crap, thank you very much, and a Segue loaner.
How about we get to a safer location—Rose went full lizard, by the
way—and I can convince you there?”
“Are you here? Do you
live?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I am. And you
bet, I sure do.”
“And Moira?” His voice broke
again.
“I tricked her. I beat Fate.” Layla
laughed. “Boy, is she pissed at me.”
“But . . . how?”
She pulled back. Arched an eyebrow to
tease. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way. Devil’s on the
loose. We’ve really got to go.”
Shadowman stumbled out into the waning
light of the day. He would not let go of Layla’s arm. He gripped
her too hard, and was sorry for it, but he needed to keep her by
his side. The feel of her arm in his human hand astonished
him.
She should not be here. She should be
dead. If he could have felt her emotion, sensed the glow of her
soul, he might have thought her return possible, but this absence
of her feeling and the surfeit of his own confused
him.
Layla hurried them down the street,
beyond her old car to a sleek black one behind it, and spoke fast.
“Rose couldn’t have gotten this far yet, so we should be okay, but
we still need to hurry. If I know about this place, she does,
too.”
She held out a black fob and the car
answered with a flash of its lights. He’d seen the swift rise of
automobiles, but so far, he did not care for them. “Where are we
going?”
And wasn’t Adam taking care of the
devil?
“New York Segue bunker,” she said,
opening the passenger door for him. He should be opening the door
for her, like a gentleman. When she smiled, waiting, he reluctantly
released her and got in. Settled into the black
leather.
She slid into the driver’s seat and
looked over while starting the engine. “Kev reported you didn’t
want to go to the Annex to ask the angels for help.”
“I had to find you, and they kill my
kind,” Shadowman answered, and braced himself as she made a tight
turn with the car.
Her eyebrows went up as she smiled.
“And what kind is that?”
In her expression, he could finally
sense a giddy mirth mixed with her determination to get them to
safety. She was happy to see him. Welcomed him in any state.
Delighted in this particular one.
Shadowman exhaled in relief as the car
swiftly accelerated down the street. “I believe I am a mage, a
mortal who can wield Shadow. A very long time ago, a mage or two
crossed into Twilight. I was trying to do the same to find you, yet
I have not had time to master the craft.”
“I know why the angels want to kill me,
but why would they want to kill you?” she asked.
She seemed so blithe as she talked
about her death. As soon as the angels knew she had returned to
Earth, they would renew their attack on the gate. But in his mortal
state, he could no longer protect her.
“Because while magery draws from
Shadow, mages are not bound to Twilight, and can therefore wreak
just as much, or more, havoc on Earth as the devil. Long ago there
was a great war between Heaven and Shadow. Mages, being mortal,
were crushed first, and then the fae eventually bowed to the
dominion of The Order.”
She shrugged, scrunched her face. “What
makes you think that’s still the case? I mean, you yourself said it
was a very long time ago.”
“I built a gate to Hell. They wish to
destroy it and me.” Ballard would strike him down right now if he
could. And Layla next.
Her expression smoothed. “Good point.
No angels, then.”
“Eventually they will come for me, but
I want to spend as much time with you as possible.” They were both
mortal, yet in the schema of this callous universe, it was still
impossible for them to be together.
“Aside from the gate business, we’ve
got all the time in the world.” She sent a quick self-satisfied
smile his way. “Got that out of Moira, too. Just about spun that
frickin’ thread myself.”
Very few mortals cheated Death. Fewer
still, Fate. Shadowman was astonished, and yet, he believed. To
alter a fate was impossible, but if anyone could, it was Layla.
Hadn’t she promised, upon her first death, that she would be back?
Well, here she was beside him, radiant as ever. Dare he hope they
could survive it all?
“Tell me everything,” he
said.
They merged onto a main thoroughfare,
traffic moving at a ferocious speed. She told him about the ghost
clinging to life, the flight through Twilight, Zoe’s mastery of the
scythe, which made him again bereft at its loss. And then her
capture by Moira, the sisters of Fate entrapping her in his
winter.
“Your mind stayed sharp?” That was the
first wonder of her escape.
“Oh, no, I was plenty crazy toward the
end. But at the same time, everything made a weird kind of sense as
well. It was like a nightmare or a dream where all the surface
stuff stops mattering and what’s important confronts you head-on,
albeit in a twisted way.” Her gaze flicked to the rearview mirror,
connected with something, then regarded the road
again.
“Yes,” Shadowman said, “Shadow is
exactly like that.”
“Anyway, I think I’ve got the hang of
it now, though I wouldn’t want to vacation there or anything. It
did help me deal with Rose Petty and her mind games. Now I know
anything is possible.”
So it would seem.
“You said the devil would be tracking
us.” Maybe that’s who she was looking for in the mirror. “Didn’t
Adam slay her?”
“She got away. Talk about a beast.
Adam’s trying to track her. The Order, too. We’re going to stay in
the Segue bunker for the time being. Hide out. Eventually, they’ll
bring her down.”
Layla leaned forward, squinting upward
to peer at the sky. Then braked hard when she came too close to the
vehicle in front.
“It’s pointless to track her,”
Shadowman said. He knew what had to be done. The devil wouldn’t
stop until Layla was dead, the gate secure.
He’d have to finish Rose himself. Even
though he was mortal there was a way, though less expedient than
his strength and power as fae Death. Mortals had been making deals
with devils since the beginning of time. He’d simply do the
same.
An adjacent car, boxy like the Hummer,
nearly veered into Layla’s space, and she jerked into another line
of traffic, cursing, “Asshole!” All her previous levity was gone.
She gripped the steering wheel tightly, her back straight and
tense. “Hey, can you call Adam on that mobile?”
The car lurched forward as they were
bumped from behind.
“What was that?” Shadowman asked. He
grabbed the slender piece of technology from the slot in the dash
but had no idea how to use it. Again, he was useless in this
world.
“We’re being followed, but I don’t know
who it could be. Only you, me, and Rose know about the warehouse.”
A drip of sweat rolled down her temple. She puffed her hair out of
her eyes.
Cold stole over Shadowman, and he
shivered for the first time. Ever. “The angels know as well. They
came for the gate, and moved it.”
“Angels are bullying me on the road?”
she demanded. “They could get someone hurt!”
“They just want me.” The Order was
taking no chances. A mage had been born, one who’d already brought
Hell and death to the world. His cursed gate was his own death
warrant. “You simply found me first.”
“Well, they can’t have
you.”
The boxy car veered again, scraping
against theirs, the sound an offensive shriek of metal on
metal.
And still the devil had to be dealt
with. Might as well be now, before he lost this last
chance.
“Get off this big road, Layla.” The
calm in his voice surprised even him.
“No way.”
“We can’t go on like this,” Shadowman
insisted. “Trust me. Let me speak with them.”
“The angels will do what’s right.
Right?” But she didn’t sound as if she believed it.
The truth was, the angels would do what
they believed was right, whether it was or not. They had only their
own counsel to go by, the good of humankind foremost in their
minds. But there would be no doubt: A mage who’d built a gate to
Hell would be best scrubbed from Earth. Unless of course, that mage
meant to fight a devil first.
“This road is dangerous, Layla,” he
reasoned. “Let’s get off it before someone”—meaning
you—“gets hurt.”
“Custo wouldn’t hurt you, and he’s an
angel,” she said, trying to convince herself.
She took a side road, and the guard of
surrounding cars followed, yes, like a flock of strange geese. She
turned right onto the next street and coasted down its length. This
road was wide, surely busy at certain times of day, but just now
few cars passed. The buildings seemed gray, passionless, silent, on
the sidewalks only a soul or two.
Shadowman noted the intersection ahead.
Perfect. “Stop here.”
The surrounding cars gave Layla no
choice but to stop in the middle of the street.
“Good,” he said. “Stay in the
car.”
So of course she got out at the same
time he did.
The angels were exiting, too, their
bright, beautiful faces full of doom. Two there, four on that side,
another group joining at his back. Ballard at his right. They were
men and women in modern dress, all of them armed with Heavenly
weapons. And suddenly he was reminded of that first day with Layla,
on the city street. Then, too, the angels had stepped out of
obscurity and made themselves known. Watching.
He approached Ballard, who momentarily
braced himself to strike.
Shadowman glanced down at the battle-ax
in Ballard’s hand. The haft was long and the silver-blue blade moon
arched, though differently oriented than his scythe had been.
Still, the handling would be similar. “Might I borrow that for a
moment?”
Ballard’s brows drew together, his
former concentration broken. His upper lip curled. “You think I
would . . .”
“I’ll need something to strike down the
devil.” Shadowman shifted his gaze to the intersection ahead, the
crossroads, hoping that Ballard would know the lore regarding the
summoning of a devil, and understand his meaning. A crossroads was
a place where the boundaries of the three worlds grew thin, even
that of Hell. From there the gate and its she-devil would hear his
call for a deal and be forced to answer. Making a deal with the
devil had a very long tradition among humanity that lived on in
stories and song, even permeating this young country and these
modern times. “I built the gate that let her out. It’s my duty. If
I am going to fight today, don’t you think I’d best start with
her?”
Frowning deeply, Ballard reluctantly
offered the weapon. “You pursue Hell too often.”
“Indeed.” Shadowman took the ax and
found the weight of the weapon pleasing in his right hand, as he
had his scythe for millennia. It did not burn his mortal flesh, as
the hammer had Death’s. He gripped the haft near the blade, reached
to gather his long hair into a bunch, and with the blade cut the
lot of it off.
“Don’t!” Layla pleaded, too late and
foolish. The hair could only be a liability in a fight. And he
meant to win this one.
“Thank you,” Shadowman said to Ballard.
“I’ll give the weapon back to you shortly.”
He turned at Layla’s hand on his
arm.
“What’s going on?” Her gaze darted from
him to Ballard. “What insane thing are you going to
do?”
He kissed her cheek. Soft, so smooth.
“You humbled Moira for me. Let me do this one little thing for
you.”
She blinked in confusion.
“Trust me.” He strode down the street
toward the intersection.
“But—?” she called after
him.
He lifted a hand for her patience but
didn’t look back. A car honked as he took position in the middle of
the crossroads, ready.
“Rose!” Shadowman called. The
intersection blurred. Time and space shifted out of the mundane.
Headlights streaked red and white, hanging in the air. The
buildings hazed, wavering as if with extreme heat. The place was
both located in the city of the present, and the burnt red dust of
a dirt road in Hell, superimposed over each other.
A fae might be able to track a devil by
subtle signs of death and evil, but a mortal could not. If a mortal
wanted a devil, he must bring the devil to him. At a crossroads.
For a deal. Fame, wealth, beauty, . . . love.
Call a devil, and she must
come.
Rose sat at the pretty kitchen table of
a country home, trying to lift a teacup to her lips. Chamomile tea,
with its smooth aroma, always settled her nerves. The china cup
rattled against the saucer, but Rose was determined to be a lady.
Didn’t matter what she looked like on the outside if her manners
were excellent.
She managed a sip.
Then spilled a little down her chin
when the old man she’d locked in the basement started mewling
again.
Rose put the teacup down with a smack,
snapping the delicate handle from the cup.
Wasn’t her fault he’d toppled down the
stairs. He was the one who didn’t want her to use his dead wife’s
best china, when clearly the set was the only decent thing in the
cupboard.
She tried to hold the cup between her
thumb and first finger but broke the china. The tea puddled on the
flower-printed tablecloth. She worked to control her frustration.
This would not do.
“Rose!” a man’s voice
called.
She dried her fingertips on a napkin,
her blood moving faster. How did the old man know her
name?
No, couldn’t be him. The voice had been
too strong.
Rose stood, wary. Had the bad people
from Segue found her? She’d been so careful in her move north.
She’d followed the gate’s directions so assiduously. No
hot-tempered mistakes this time.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: You
can beat him.
Beat whom?
Rose stepped toward the door, and her
vision wavered. The house fell down around her, disappearing into
red dust, and suddenly she was in Hell again, the burnt desert
landscape as dry and unforgiving as fire. In the cracked clay dirt,
two roads met, crossing each other at right angles.
A shirtless man stood before her. His
muscled chest and tight, rippled stomach made her flash her dimples
before she remembered her dimples were lost under thick, sallow
skin. His pants rode low on his hips, without a belt, so that the
fuzz on his navel directed her attention even lower, which was
inappropriate, but interesting. He had a really long ax in one
hand, a plaything after the attack at Segue.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do
you want?”
“I am Shadowman,” he
answered.
Oh, him. Her
satisfaction at his newly weakened state was poisoned by his
appearance. That the monster should look like that, while she
suffered . . . This was exactly the reason why looks didn’t
matter.
kat-a-kat: He’s mortal
now.
Better yet, he was that Layla’s lover,
as Mickey had been Rose’s. So, of course, he had to die. Layla
should hurt, too.
“I want to make a deal,” he
said.
“Funny”—she sneered at him—“I just want
to kill you.”
“Yes, but if I win . . .”
Rose swiped at his throat, but he
dodged back.
“You must hear me out,” he said. “If I
win, then I want the destruction of the gate to be visited upon my
body, not Layla’s. I want to die in her place.”
“You’ll die now,” Rose said. “And no
one will destroy the gate.”
The pretty man shook his head. “Accept
my deal, and then we will fight.”
kat-a-kat: Agreed.
Finish him now, and I will exist forever.
Layla ran toward the intersection,
drawing her gun. She tried very hard not to blink for fear that
she’d lose her visual grasp on Shadowman, the warping red earth,
and now Rose, shimmering before him in the rising waves of Hell’s
heat.
How did Rose get there so fast? Had she
been following that closely? The devil had found a large gold and
blue paisley muumuu since Segue. It was hard to tell with all that
fabric, but it seemed her injuries had healed and she was as
beastly as ever.
Shadowman had no idea how dangerous she
was. Layla had already shot Rose point-blank, lots of times. If
modern weapons couldn’t kill her, what did he hope to do with that
medieval ax?
Rose and Shadowman prowled in a circle,
intent on only each other. And stranger still, the traffic resumed
like normal, passing through on green lights, stopping at reds,
oblivious to the fight in the intersection. A bass beat from a car
parked at a filthy gas station gave the coming fight an urban
rhythm, while the air took on a sulfurous stink that made Layla
flare her nostrils. Those turning down Layla’s street had to go
around all the skewed cars, but she didn’t care, and apparently,
neither did the gathered angels, who joined Layla to watch. But,
damn them, not to help.
“What’s happening?” Layla shot over her
shoulder to the yellow-blond angel who’d given Shadowman the ax. “I
thought he was going to fight you guys.”
She gripped her gun, ready to fire, but
her instincts told her not to shoot, that the bullet would
never—could never—reach Rose, though she was only a few yards
away.
Layla put her hands to her head, her
body flashing with heat. If she ran into the intersection herself,
could she join them in that desert? Had there been a trick to
Shadowman’s approach? Like some mage magic? Maybe . .
.
The angel stepped up beside Layla and
blocked forward movement with his arm across her chest. “Stay
here,” he said. “Shadowman is gone from this plane. A mortal can
summon a devil at the crossroads to make a deal, usually to sell
his soul.”
A deal with the devil? “And the
crossroads are in Jersey?”
He smiled slightly. “The crossroads can
be anywhere, at any time. If mortals can call on Heaven, they can
appeal to Hell, too. We’d have attempted this ourselves, but it is
our law that Heaven cannot make any deals with a
devil.”
And Shadowman would never have
suggested this crossroads thing to her or even Adam, not up against
a thing like Rose. He’d only risk himself.
Layla flinched as Rose, snarling,
swiped at Shadowman. He dodged back, light on his feet. He arced
the ax into a shining figure eight, the symbol of infinity, to
loosen his wrist.
“He’s going to sell his
soul?”
“No. Mages don’t have souls,” the angel
said. “We won’t know the terms of the exchange until the battle is
done and the victor claims the spoils.”
Shadowman blurred into a
counterclockwise turn. The momentum crossed the ax in front of his
chest, and he rounded into a spider cartwheel over Rose’s shoulder.
He lunged deeply into a graceful, two-handed strike. Caught the
devil at her neck, but the blade glanced away when it hit
bone.
Okay, so he might survive five minutes,
rather than five seconds.
Rose lashed back. Raked his chest with
a claw.
He flexed his hips back when she sent a
cross-swipe across his stomach.
The ax windmilled as Rose punched, but
she was too slow to avoid the quick uppercut to her chin, which
sent her strike wild and her snarl up to a high-pitched
shriek.
Layla gulped. “Can you help
him?”
The angel didn’t seem worried at all.
“I gave him my ax. Devils do not heal from Heavenly
wounds.”
“Well, how about giving him a
hand?”
The angel finally slid his gaze her
way. “Have you any idea how many people over the millennia have
fought Death?”
Layla watched Shadowman coolly spin the
ax in his palm, as if getting the feel of the weapon. One side of
his mouth stretched into a smile. His eyes glittered.
“I’d guess people fight Death a lot,”
she said. There was too much good stuff in this world to give up
easily. So, okay, he’d had plenty of practice.
The angel returned his attention to the
fight. “This should be over fast. The Reaper has never been one to
draw out a death unnecessarily.”
Rose dived at Shadowman, but he spun
out of the way, bumped her shoulder with the blunt side of the ax,
then whipped the blade into an overhead circle.
“And when he’s done with her, he’ll
fight you?” Layla’s heart beat fast.
Rose darted a wicked hand toward
Shadowman’s throat, which he knocked away with the staff of the
ax.
“The gate cannot stand,” the angel
said, “and mages have a long history of conflict with
Heaven.”
Layla had known this was coming, must
be dealt with. She had hoped that after her win over Fate the
problem of the gate might also be solved without the loss of her
hard-won life. A cry of denial choked her. She swallowed it
bitterly. At least Shadowman had been saved that eternity of
Twilight winter. “And if I promise to give myself up?”
The angel turned his shining face to
her. “Can you also promise that he won’t wage war for you? He was
bent on saving you, and therefore the gate, from destruction. He’d
have killed us all if he’d had to, on your behalf. Right now we
hold Shadow very tenuously in check. We cannot afford an extended
battle with him. Can you assure me that he will peaceably allow you
to die?”
Layla kept her sights on Shadowman. Her
heart quailed, but yes, this time she was certain if she asked it
of him he’d agree. She was the master of her own fate, and she
would not permit her legacy to the world, to Talia, be a gate to
Hell. Not when she could stop it. He’d understand. He’d have to
understand.
Rose feinted to one side. Shadowman
wasn’t duped and tracked her movement with a dodge of his own.
Turned. Drew the ax back, muscles rippling into tensed planes and
bunches.
Layla’s heart stalled. “I’d like the
night with him, if that’s okay.”
She’d requested the same when she first
learned why she’d been reborn. Maybe now there would be a different
answer.
The ax darted in a downward stroke.
Rose twisted, off balance, clawing through empty air. Her eyes took
on a panicked plea.
Shadowman’s expression went
indifferent. The blade flashed. Cut through the red dust hovering
in the air. Met flesh.
And Rose’s head skipped across the
cracked, fiery earth.
The angels were already retreating to
their cars en masse. The blond one called back in answer, “Have him
bring my ax, will you?”
Layla shifted her gaze to Shadowman,
who stood panting, sweat coursing down his tawny shoulders. The ax
hung at his side. His shoelaces were undone, again.
Those black fae eyes of his tracked the
exodus of the angels, whom she knew he’d expected to fight next,
then returned to her, a dark and wary question in their
depths.