Shadow Fall (16 page)

Adam glanced over his shoulder, spotted Custo, and stepped back. Annabella stumbled after Custo as he slowly moved forward to take Adam’s place at the door. She wrapped an arm around Custo’s middle so the wall of his strength was between her and Wolf; then she stole a quick glance over his shoulder.

A woman sat in a rocking chair, gnarled hands clutching the armrests, aged beyond any believable sibling relationship to Zoe. Her thin white wisps of hair floated off sallow skin, colorless lips working into a parody of a smile. Her eyes were blackened with pulsing Shadow.

Annabella’s blood ran cold.

The smile reached its grotesque apogee. “You can’t hurt me,” she taunted.

“Wanna bet?” Custo started forward.

From behind, Zoe yelled, “That’s my sister!”

Custo halted again. “Release Abigail. She’s not worth it. Her body is wasted, near death.”

Annabella shuddered with a sudden realization, her fear turning sharp and cutting within her. Where before Wolf had simply assumed whatever form he wanted, the soldier and Jasper, now he
possessed,
sharing the old woman’s body. The
how
was more than obvious: Adam had said that Abigail was so full of Shadow that her eyes were stormy with it. Now Abigail was full of Shadow wolf, the blackness of her gaze hungry, predatory, and…unnatural.

The union was wrong, but there was nothing they could do about it. Any harm Wolf took, the woman would as well, and by Zoe’s account, Abigail was already weak and ill. Zoe had blamed them for killing her sister; it seemed her accusation was dead-on.

Annabella fought a tide of nausea. She thought of her mom and brother, safe at home. If Custo and Adam had come knocking, she would have barred the door, too. And then some.

“Yes, a joining of fae and mortal, less satisfying than I’d hoped”—the old woman’s head cocked sharply; her nose twitched as she sniffed the air—“but nevertheless…potent.”

One of her knobby hands uncurled, splaying its fingers, palm up in front of her. A condensation of light appeared above, while her eyes grew blacker still.

The magic pulsed, thrumming over Annabella’s skin, loosening her joints and muscles, sending languid ease over her limbs, her core contracting with pleasure. The sensation was wrong, too. She didn’t want to feel this, not here, not now. Not from
him.

The magic within her responded anyway: It was pure possibility. Pure potential. The same kind she used to weave a story with her body and mind. Annabella couldn’t draw her gaze from the shimmer above the woman’s palm.

By nature Wolf could change his form, but he couldn’t do more than that. He couldn’t cross back and forth between the worlds, couldn’t make or see or create like people in the mortal world, like she and Abigail. But now Wolf had discovered access to mortal power; they’d led him right here to Abigail’s doorstep.

The
wolf, Annabella corrected herself. Not Wolf. He already had enough power over her.

Annabella rose on tiptoe to whisper in Custo’s ear. “Can we push him back into Shadow?”

Custo gave a short shake of his head. “He’s anchored in her body. It’s a refuge until she dies.”

Annabella regarded the old woman’s twisted expression, then had to look away from what she found there. “It’s not a refuge. It’s a rape.”

She had let this dark creature touch her, dance with her, tap into her fantasies. The memory was both revolting and humiliating in the extreme, enough to really tick her off.

Annabella stepped out from behind Custo, channeling her fear and anger into action. “You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”

“You said you would join me,” the old woman whined. The light in her hand evaporated into the air. Her arm dropped like a stone into her lap, her palm spotted with blisters.

“Get that monster out of my sister!” Zoe was hysterical.

“I’ll go if Annabella comes, too,” the wolf offered, lips peeling back into a toothy smile.

Annabella shivered, recoiling.

“You can’t have her,” Custo cut in. “I won’t let you.”

“It’s your choice, Annabella,” the wolf said, “not his. Come with me and end this. I know how to make you happy in ways no one here can conceive. You have a body made for weaving magic; I am made of magic. Join with me.”

Annabella’s heart flooded her body with an
oh, yes!
wave of blood. She considered the offer for a split second, but the oily black throb of the woman’s eyes decided it.

“I can’t,” she said, though Zoe’s sobs turned her stomach with pity and guilt.

A hand roughly shoved Annabella away from Custo, as Zoe burst through. “Take me. Just leave my sister alone. She’s been through enough. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Adam caught Zoe and dragged her back. Tears smeared black makeup down her cheeks.

“You can’t manipulate Shadow,” Custo said, “so that creature doesn’t want you.”

The talent was inborn, though Annabella understood that it took many forms—anything with vision, she imagined—but then the talent had to be nurtured and honed over years of sacrifice. Just look at Abigail. Her ongoing intercourse with Shadow had brought her prematurely to the brink of death.

“Annabella, please,” the woman crooned, “you must come with me. Bide with me. You may not have set any traps for a wolf, but you have caught me just the same.”

“Yeah, well, I’m setting you free now,” Annabella returned bitterly. “Go away. Git.”

Abigail cocked her head again, and with a little knowing smile made a gesture with her wounded hand. Shadow roiled into the room behind her, opening a moonlit vista of dusky purples and blues, of portent trees under a whirling cosmos possible only in story, myth, or magic. It was the landscape of Annabella’s imagination, and she knew with one sinuous stretch of her body she could blow through the darkened forest and lick the topaz sky. The longing and want that filled her was excruciating. No amount of faking indifference could cover it.

The wolf belonged there, prowling beneath the darkened boughs, but the old woman’s body did, indeed, anchor him in the mortal world. A single bloody tear snaked down the wrinkled cheek.

“Is she in pain? Is she suffering?” Zoe asked as she wept from Adam’s arms.

Next to Annabella, Custo tensed.

“She’s still with the wolf,” he answered. “She’s…”

Annabella looked sharply at Custo when he didn’t finish. His jaw was clenched, nostrils flaring, his forehead drawing taut. Whatever he perceived was bad, real bad.

Zoe wrenched a sob. Her sister suffered. Shame made Annabella feel large and awkward and conspicuous. This was her fault, her problem. Maybe she
should
give herself up. Anything was better than the ache bleeding out of Zoe.

“Oh, just end it.” Zoe begged. “Get that thing out of her.” She hid her face against Adam’s chest, her body visibly trembling as she clung to him.

“You don’t have it in you,” the wolf said to Custo, lifting the old woman’s upper lip to bare her teeth.

Annabella went very cold and still. She knew that Custo did. He’d killed for love before.

He stepped forward into the room, putting her firmly behind him again. “This is your last chance,” Custo said to the old woman. “Leave her now.”

“You bluff,” the wolf countered. “Are you going to break this weak neck with your bright hands?”

Custo’s fingers twitched, but he said, “No.”

Instead, he touched the old woman’s brow. A slender hiss of smoke trailed upward from the point of contact.

Abigail reared back and thrashed her head to the side, but was trapped in the rocker. The wolf might be strong, but Abigail’s human body was frail. Beyond, the view of the Shadowlands shredded, darkness fraying into ragged whips of magic, the incomparable tapestry of the fairyland dissolving. The wolf snarled and snapped her teeth near Custo’s wrist, but with a backward whoop of black dust that had them all cringing, was expelled from the woman’s body.

Annabella’s terror seized her muscles, locking her in place. Was Wolf gone for good, gone for now, or not gone at all?

The cloud of black dust condensed, the grains whispering as they roiled, churning above the now-slack body of Abigail. The rocker pitched back and forth, creaking. Wolfish black specks melted and coalesced into an amorphous blotch of potent darkness, a shadow without a source.

Heart in her throat, Annabella caught Custo’s wrist, her gaze tracking the wolf’s movement. For a moment, the wolf blended with the deeper shades of Abigail’s bedroom.

Her heart’s wild pounding muted her hearing, which, in turn, seemed to confuse her sense of sight. Panic abused her reason. The wolf huddled in the shadows by the bedside table, then—
where?
Under the bed? Along the wall? Behind the door?

She couldn’t see, damn it. Shadows were freaking everywhere.

Annabella’s fear solidified into a stone in her gut, a chill prickling her scalp. With effort, she brought her gaze up to the ceiling, to the shadowy splay of the ceiling fan. Sure enough, the wolf crouched there, like a misshapen spider, once stomped but still living, its legs double bent under a nubby body.

Annabella stumbled as Custo hauled her to his side. With a tripping step, they fled to the far side of the room, opposite the door. Breath catching, broken into stuttering gasps, she backed to the wall.

The old woman stirred, whimpering. But oh, thank God,
alive.

A flicker of movement brought Annabella’s gaze briefly back to Zoe, as the sister wrenched free. Zoe twisted out of Adam’s reach, driving forward to shield Abigail with her body from the predator above.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Zoe said. “I’m here. Shhh.”

Annabella gulped to clear her throat and squeezed Custo’s hand. She hated spiders.
Hated hated
spiders.

“If you had angel wings, you could fly up there and squash him,” she said, voice shaking, eyes tearing.

“I’d need a really big shoe to kill one that size,” he answered. He was way more calm than she was, his attention focused on the ceiling. “Adam, add Big Shoe to Segue’s weapon list.”

Adam grunted.

Custo shifted beside her, and in one fluid movement brought a gun up and hammered the ceiling with a violent
pop, pop.
Adam was one second behind him with his own,
pop, pop.

Annabella startled painfully with each report, as Zoe squealed and clutched closer to Abigail, hands protecting her head.

They had
guns?

The shadow fell in a dark rain and landed on four paws on the other side of the rocking chair. A bristling wolf, the breadth and hulk of his shoulders too familiar. His ears were pinned, teeth bared, intelligent eyes glaring. Glaring, oh shit, at her.

Custo’s shot was blocked by the huddled sisters. “Adam!”

Adam fired again, and the wolf dropped.

Annabella sucked in a shaky, hopeful breath, though she knew,
knew,
that the wolf could not be killed. She reached a hand to clutch the back of Custo’s shirt.

Her high tanked as she spotted the sinewy twist of shadow easing toward her through the rungs under the sisters in the rocking chair.

Annabella tried to squeeze behind Custo, pressing herself against the wall. Wolf was never going to stop. Never never, until he had her. Never never nev—

Custo fired repeatedly at the floor—her body clenched sharply at the noise again—but he hit the thing, tight, smoky impact holes biting the snakelike body, but not slowing it.

The nearer it got to Custo and her, the more the dark Shadow of the creature hissed, foul steam rising as if Wolf, no,
the
wolf, were on fire. Yet it slithered closer.

Annabella kicked with her foot when it was inches away, but the Shadow branched, one tendril twining coolly around her ankle. When it hit bare skin she started to shake uncontrollably.

Custo dropped to his knees, grasping the dark body, and ripped it off her. The Shadow evaporated like smoke in his hands, and he redoubled his efforts as the snake reformed before Annabella’s eyes.

A low moan, her own, reached her ears as rank terror gripped her. Custo couldn’t stop it. Why couldn’t Custo stop it?

The serpent insinuated itself beneath the hem of her pant leg in a sizzling caress, climbed her calf, and twisted around her thigh.

She screamed, near mindless, beating at her clothes in futility as the snake crossed her crotch, lined her like a fat G-string—
oh, please, no
—then tightened around her waist as he approached the cleft between her breasts. Her body quivered with its touch.

Custo was already at her pants, ripping the seams as he tore the thing off her. The wolf’s burn on her skin was hot, blistering, her body responding to his dark magic with a violent, unwilling orgasm. She throbbed with it, flesh, blood, bone. Her senses were subsumed with want and revulsion, Shadow and magic torturing and promising at once. Her scream gave way to choked weeping, and when Custo tore away the last of the wolf, she was certain her soul had been ripped away as well.

Her life, the world, was both wild and ravaged, reason and meaning torn ragged.

At last her legs gave, and Custo took her weight at his shoulder. Dimly she was aware of a subtle retraction of darkness, the retreat of the wolf. Part of her yearned to follow, to be satiated, obliterated by Shadow, even in an ecstasy of pain. But she was anchored in her body, too.

“Where is he?” Custo shouted. His chest felt solid, his arm around her secure. Which was good because she’d finally lost it. Custo would hold on to her. Custo wouldn’t let her go.

“I can’t see him!” Adam returned, but from a great distance.

Annabella’s body went slack against Custo’s, her head to the side on his shoulder, dumb to anything but the pump of his heart and the receding promise of magic. Her eyes burned and tears scorched her cheeks as they fell unchecked. The room grayed to static, the fuzz filling her ears.

Then nothingness swallowed her.

Chapter Fourteen

A
NNABELLA
was sleeping. Finally. She was tucked into bed, her shiny brown hair spilled across the crisp white pillow. Her breathing was deep and even, lips slightly parted.

Custo exhaled and scrubbed a hand through his hair. A shiver of fever racked him, though the wound in his gut was a hot throb. He was too angry to care. He wanted to hurt something, beat something, tear something apart with his hands…and make it stay dead. Was that too much to ask?

He stood up from the chair beside the bed, pain stabbing his belly, and paced the length of the mattress.

The fight at Abigail’s place was the second time in as many days that the wolf had evaporated in Custo’s grip, leaving him clutching at empty air. At least wraiths could be contained, but the wolf kept slipping away.

Why? Why attack and then retreat only to stalk and wait and watch? Why not attack and attack and attack, until all resistance was exhausted, all protectors dead?

Custo didn’t like his answer. He’d spent the three hours since the fight trying to come up with a different one, but with no success. The reason was crystal clear.

The wolf wanted Annabella willing.

The wolf had already tried to seduce Annabella through her beloved dance. Like Custo had expected, he’d simply changed his approach.

Abigail, already filled with Shadow and ailing, required little effort for the wolf to possess. He could sample the mortality that he so craved in Annabella. If Abigail had been a stronger vessel, the wolf might have been satisfied, his menace to the world exponentially compounded, and the immediate threat to Annabella ended.

Abigail, however, was weak. And how wily of the dog to leave the old woman alive. That way, he’d deliver to Anna-bella a threat and a promise with the same act: Come with me, and no one else need be harmed. Then he slithered all over her to demonstrate how their union was inevitable. That he could give her carnal pleasure, however forced. That not even her “angel” could stop him.

The thought made Custo sit down again, sweating, clenching his hands, remembering the empty fistfuls of darkness as he tried to wrench the wolf off Annabella.

Custo gazed across the bed at Annabella’s lovely profile. She’d awakened in the car, confused, blinking for memory. Then she’d sat up, spine stiff, yet shaking during the swift ride back to Segue. She wouldn’t let him hold her anymore, and a touch of her mind told him she meant it. And she wouldn’t eat, though he knew she’d been fantasizing earlier about food. Annabella had come to the same conclusions he had about the wolf’s attack.

The wolf, the hunter, wanted her willing, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

They had all returned to Segue, Abigail and Zoe included, as if Segue equaled safety. Nowhere was safe until Talia delivered and could deal with the wolf once and for all. Or until they could manufacture a new way to coax the wolf from the world, a long shot with the wolf growing so impatient. The only progress they’d made today was to learn that Custo was mortal, and the wolf, for all intents and purposes, was not.

Felt more like a step back.

…idiot better cooperate…
The garbled bit of Adam’s thoughts told Custo he was approaching. Sure enough, there was a soft rustle of noise in the foyer of the apartment, then a shuffle of multiple people crossing the living area. Custo stood in the bedroom, waiting for them to come to him. They’d better keep it quiet, too.

Adam had his “not taking any arguments” expression on as he entered. Dr. Lin arrived next. Short, round, and bald, he stood in direct contrast to the two accompanying muscle-bound male nurses pushing a mobile gurney and a trayful of tools and supplies.

Before Adam could get a word out, Custo mouthed, “No, thank you,” and then turned his attention back to Anna-bella to dismiss the lot of them.

“Do you or don’t you have a bullet in your belly?” Adam asked softly, with an unspoken
you poor bastard
tagged on.

According to Luca, presumably a trustworthy source, Custo did. Not to mention his gut on his left side ached like a motherfucker. So yeah, he wouldn’t be shocked to find a bullet in there.

Custo frowned. If he let the good doctor dig it out, he’d be incapacitated for a while, even with his rapid healing. What if the wolf infiltrated Segue again? What if the wolf were in the room now? What if the wolf chose that very moment to attack again?

What if…what if…what if…? That question was maddening.

“Or are you afraid of the needle?”

Custo gave Adam his best deadpan. Not funny. Besides, that was
years
ago, and there were extenuating circumstances.

Adam shrugged. “You know you need to be in top form. Suck it up, and let Dr. Lin take the bullet out. I’m not telling you what’s happened until you do.”

What’s happened?

Easy as 1-2-3, Custo reached with his mind, and Adam answered the question: Geoffrey, their suspected Segue traitor, had been found dead. Murdered by wraiths.

Custo scowled. He wasn’t surprised. He had known that ferreting out the traitor wasn’t going to be as simple as chasing the one that ran away. That left the twenty-seven in voluntary containment. He’d have to question them personally and see what he could uncover through more direct means. It had to be one of them; no one else was privy to their plans. With everything else going on, this one threat had to be eliminated, and soon.

They couldn’t sustain another wraith attack with the wolf on the prowl.

But first, Custo had to take care of himself. Luca knew it, Adam knew it, and he knew it, too. Surgery was damn inconvenient, but his wound was a liability. And no amount of cursing or ignoring the pain would change that fact.

Custo would have preferred Gillian, whom he’d known for years as an excellent physician, but she wasn’t leaving Talia’s side. Which was good; Custo didn’t want her pregnancy endangered because of him. He’d settle for Lin.

“Fine. We do it here.” Custo turned to Dr. Lin. He kept his voice low. “Nothing fancy, just get in and out. I heal remarkably well.” In case the man didn’t get it, he added, “Wraith well.”

“He’s not a wraith,” Adam countered, though Custo didn’t think it necessary. “But he does have an extraordinary healing capacity impeded by the bullet.”

Enough. Custo wanted this over. He grabbed the gurney, ignored his discomfort while he dragged it out of the startled nurses’ grasps—pussies with muscle—and positioned it perpendicular to the bed so he could watch Annabella during the slice-and-dice. He peeled off his shirt. His hands went to his belt and he dropped trou. The skin at his side was hot to the touch.

Leaping onto the table and wincing with a roar of pain at his side, he said, “Ready.”

The doctor and his crew were not.

“Now!”

Annabella whimpered and Custo bit back a curse. She had taken so long to settle down.

Adam came up alongside him while the doctor prepared. With a glance at Annabella, he said, “She seems better. Her color is good, and Dr. Lin tells me that she suffered no physical effects from the wolf’s attack.”

“She couldn’t stop shaking for a full hour.”

But yes, Annabella had been as shocked as he to discover that her skin was clear and smooth, unharmed. She’d commanded him to turn around while she checked out the more intimate parts of herself, and then sat grimly on the side of the bed making terrible, fear-based decisions about her life, none of which she’d uttered to him. He got the gist through his own means: if she stopped dancing, the wolf would lose interest in her.

At least she made a conscious effort not to call him Wolf anymore. Not to give him that power over her. Not to succumb to the seduction of Shadow. Even though she was withdrawn and quiet, she was holding her own in her head. Keeping up the fight.

“She’ll get through this,” Adam said. “Anyone can see how strong she is.”

But she was human, too, and scared. Only her iron-willed determination kept her grounded. Though there was an exception. “She said the paintings were moving.”

Adam’s brows came together.

“Kathleen’s paintings,” Custo clarified. “Annabella said they were alive, that the trees were swaying.”

Adam looked over at the framed images of the Shadowlands on the walls. “Was that just her perception, or were the trees really moving?”

“Is there a difference?” Custo answered. Annabella’s unique perspective breached Shadow regardless, making the question of reality irrelevant. Adam should get that by now.

“Good point. I’ll have them removed.”

A nurse wheeled a tray up to the bed and Adam stepped aside. A cold wash of something bitter-smelling was rubbed onto Custo’s abdomen. The pressure, though light, hurt.

Then the damn prick, which wasn’t as bad as Adam’s lifted, mocking eyebrow. Still not funny.

Custo turned his head for a much better view. Annabella, asleep.

Custo’s guts were wrapped, his belly on fire, as the first of the Segue soldiers entered the apartment under guard. He was held in the living room while Custo positioned two chairs in the corner of the bedroom, away from the still-sleeping Annabella. He wouldn’t allow so much as a screen between them, and he would end anyone who remotely twitched in her direction.

“All of them passed the fMRI lie-detector test,” Adam argued when Custo explained that he wanted to question each soldier himself.

Seemed Adam had gotten his hands on a new toy, a functional magnetic resonance imager, which was supposed to measure blood flow to the brain to ascertain truth from lies with more accuracy than the standard polygraph.

Custo wasn’t that impressed with the results. The traitor had to be within this group of soldiers; only they had access to the intel that placed Adam at the back of City Center last night during the performance. Hence, Custo’s own round of questions.

“You can tell truth from lies?” Adam asked.

“Sort of,” Custo hedged. Not that he didn’t trust Adam with his little secret about mind reading. In fact, he didn’t know why he hadn’t brought it up before, except that mind reading made him intensely uncomfortable. The whole angel thing still didn’t sit right with him, and the telepathy made it worse. Reading thoughts was a handy tool, but he knew from personal experience how unpleasant it was to have someone else eavesdropping in your head.

Screw it.
“I can read minds,” Custo said. “It came with the wings.”

He waited for anger, or at least annoyance, but all he got from Adam was,
Huh, interesting.

Custo pushed harder at Adam’s mind. “It doesn’t bug you? Bugs the hell out of me.”

Adam smiled slightly, saying exactly what he thought. “I’m used to it. Or kind of. Talia can sense emotion when I touch her. She doesn’t get ‘thoughts’ per se, but she can guess them pretty easily based on how I’m feeling.”

“But I am not your wife, and I can read your mind.” Custo was incredulous. “That has to bother you.”

“Nope.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Adam’s smile grew. “Then read my mind and find out. You know me too well for me to really hide anything from you, regardless. Anything important, that is. Just stay out of my bedroom.” Adam’s smile hit his eyes. “Or don’t, if you need a few pointers in that arena. You never really could keep a girlfriend very long. I’ve wondered…”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” But Custo was grinning a bit, too.

The knowledge was more than welcome. Talia, a child of Shadow, could sense emotion. Custo, a denizen of Heaven (however unwilling), could glean thoughts from people’s minds. The dichotomy made perfect sense considering the respective characteristics of each world. Magic and inspiration pervaded the Shadowlands, while order and deliberation represented Heaven. Mortality drew from both. No wonder the battleground was Earth.

“Does
she
know?” Adam tilted his head toward the bed. The question was weighted with Adam’s opinion—he thought she should.

Custo ignored it. “Nope. She’s pissed at me enough already.”

“Chicken.”

Chi—? No.
“She has enough to worry about without feeling self-conscious about something as intimate as her private thoughts.” Custo gestured to her. The woman had been attacked not hours ago. She needed a break.

“You like to learn things the hard way,” Adam said, with a sorry shake of his head.

“Look, I’ll tell her when I’m good and ready. When I think the time is right.”

Adam shrugged, saying, “Your call,” and motioned to bring the first Segue special operative into the room, but he thought, clearly and distinctly,
but be careful or she’ll never trust you again.

He was being careful, meticulously so. Adam just couldn’t appreciate how difficult it was to respond to only verbal dialogue when the internals were much more telling. Like with the sequestered Segue soldiers—a couple of pointed questions, and bam, they’d have their traitor.

“Watch and learn,” Custo said to Adam.

The soldier took a seat in front of him. He had a dark buzz, a swirl of tattoo inking out of the collar of his T-shirt.

“What’s your name?” Custo had it on a card in front of him.

“Lieutenant Michael Joseph Parnham, Third Division, Segue Spec Ops.” But in his head he said,
Mike.

Time to get down to it. “Are you working in collusion with the wraiths?”

Mike straightened. “No, sir!” His thoughts echoed his exclamation,
No, sir!

Annabella stirred. Hell, she was bound to wake up with twenty-odd soldiers going in and out of the room. But Custo wasn’t about to leave her alone. It had to be this way.

“Are you aware of anyone working in collusion with the wraiths? And keep your voice down. Yelling your answer doesn’t make it any more or less true.”

“No, sir.”

“Have you ever passed information outside your authorized unit?”

“No, sir.”
Except for that one time I told Jeni about going overseas because I promised her I would let her know if I was leaving the country, but she left me anyway for an accountant because she wanted to have a baby and a minivan and a pretty house with a…