Shadow Fall (23 page)
“I can’t. I’ve got a human woman here,” Custo replied. He couldn’t, wouldn’t leave Annabella alone for a second. “She’s been infected with…something.”
Shadowman tilted his head, forceful gaze intent across the debris and cars in the parking lot, assessing. Custo would have guessed from context that he was examining Annabella, but she was hidden by the gang-tagged Dumpster.
“She’s lost anyway,” Shadowman concluded, returning his attention to the throng of wraiths.
Custo straightened. “Over my dead body.”
“Don’t be a fool. You’re already dead.” Shadowman’s darkness contracted, and he was revealed completely—tall, broad, strong beyond imagining, and cruel. His trench coat, black leather from the look of it, seemed to absorb light. With a wicked whip and twist of darkness, Death’s long hair was bound effortlessly behind him. “The body you now hold is a choice, made of your soul, and thus mortal. Be careful with it. She’s gone regardless.”
Shadowman left his cover, stalked up behind the press of the immortal dead, and tapped one on the shoulder.
The creature turned, opened its mouth, and got its neck broken for his hesitation. The nearest wraiths hurled themselves back from the presence of Death, trampling a few that fell to get away from the one being that could kill them, but wouldn’t die himself. At least Shadowman had killed a few before revealing himself.
The wraiths scattered, a good many pelting for the Dumpster where Custo hid with shivering Annabella. A wraith leaped over the Dumpster with a great hollow thump. Custo altered its trajectory and brought it head first into the pavement, then stamped its neck to the side. Dead.
Two others rounded the side. Annabella tripped one, was slapped back, which gave Custo enough rage to break its back with his knee, then its neck with a midair strike that nearly ripped its head from its shoulders. The second wraith missed Custo’s face and locked onto his shoulder with his teeth. It jerked when Annabella stabbed it with something, releasing him. Custo jabbed his elbow in the wraith’s face, crushing its nose, and hurled it over his shoulder to stomp its trachea, then break its neck.
They’d be safer in Shadowman’s wake. No wraith would get near enough to hurt them. Taking Annabella’s hand, he made a break for the tall, dark man parting the wraiths like Moses at the Red Sea. Bodies of wraiths littered the street, the smell so foul Annabella vomited as they passed the worst of it, but stumbled alongside of him.
Beyond was the white wreckage of the tower and the ragtag group of Segue soldiers who’d held the wraiths at bay. Adam was midcommand, organizing a triage to save what injured angels he could. He glanced over, noted Shadow-man, Custo, and Annabella’s presence, but continued with his work. Time was critical. A pitiful few others, angels, dug in the rubble for survivors. They called with their minds, seeking responses, but got only flickers of consciousness.
Hold on. Help is coming.
Custo wrapped his arms around Annabella as cold certainty ran through his blood.
The tower was a refuge no longer. No help for Annabella’s condition could be found there. The angels couldn’t save her when their brothers and sisters were buried, their mortal souls at risk.
In one minute, or ten, or thirty, the wolf would come again for Annabella. She was trying to hide her mounting shakes but not fooling anyone. Custo would have to fight him again. And again. Since Custo was mortal, the wolf would eventually prevail.
Which left…
Shadowman set his cold gaze on Annabella, and she visibly shivered.
“Please help her,” Custo said.
“Did your elders teach you nothing?” Death asked Annabella with disdain.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
Shadowman lifted a pitying smile. “Long ago, a girl such as you came into Shadow. Her name was Persephone, and she ignored warnings, as you likely did. She ate four pomegranate seeds, and in doing so, bound herself to spend a season each year in the Otherworld.” Death made a show of looking Annabella over. “How much did you eat at the hunter’s table?”
Shadowman’s tone was as awful as Annabella’s expression, and Custo almost intervened. But she lifted her chin, returning the bastard’s cold glare, and said, “I think I started with the chocolate, and then an éclair, no wait—” She inclined her head dramatically to remember, then continued, all brat, “I think I hit the comfort food first, some cheesy au gratin delicious dish I can’t name, but my mom would probably love the recipe if you wouldn’t mind getting it for me—”
Custo grabbed her hand to shut her up, but she brazenly continued in Death’s face, “And then the chicken pot pie, with the
best
spring peas I’ve ever—”
“Point is she ate the wolf’s food,” Custo cut in. “Could be worse, right?”
“Look at her. She’s bound to Shadow, and yet as a human, even one with a gift to draw from Shadow, she cannot tolerate it indefinitely. Eventually she will weaken, and the wolf will overtake and possess her.”
“Is there a cure?” Annabella asked.
“He has to release you,” Shadowman said, “but I don’t know why he would with your power. I think he’d bring you to heel”—her chin went up again—“or let your body die, and keep you from passing into the Hereafter.”
The set of her jaw and the intensity of her black eyes told Custo she’d use every atom of her contrary spirit to make her submission miserable for the wolf. If she had to go, she wouldn’t go easy.
Custo was ready to beg. “Is it in your power to help her, to force his cooperation? Can you kill him?”
“The hunter is elemental, immortal. I can order him back to Shadow, but Annabella would eventually have to follow. He set out to capture her, and that’s exactly what he has done. There is no ‘cure’ for a choice. Even one so seemingly insignificant.”
So, better to fight now, when Annabella was at her strongest, than to run and be hunted again and again until they wished for an end. Any end.
“I like a good fight,” Adam said, coming up beside Custo. Adam was already beat to shit, his pretty, aristocratic nose swelling under blackening eyes.
Luca joined them. His face was scabbed with blood, eyes heavy with losses from The Order’s ranks.
I’m with you, too.
Hell of a way for Segue and The Order to come together, but at least some good was coming out of the nightmare.
Annabella was shaking her head. “This is between the wolf and me. Has been from the beginning. I can do things with Shadow. Magic. I can make him hurt.”
But eventually he’ll overpower you,
Custo added mentally to himself. Not good enough.
There was no way he could bear Annabella submitting on her own, alone. At the very least, he’d be by her side, even if it cost his embodied soul. It wasn’t worth much without her anyway. They’d fight, and they’d pay for their mistakes together, in blood and pain, which was nothing new for him.
But they couldn’t win.
Last time he died, he had nothing to lose but his regrets. This time…everything.
Someone had to win.
Adam had Talia and their babies. Custo couldn’t allow him to help, and in so doing invite more loss and misery into the world. Or Luca, whose end would be as final as Custo’s.
And Shadowman?
“I tricked you once,” Custo said, “and I am sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it right before…
he
comes?”
“I can’t exactly trade you to Hell now, can I?”
No. “Other than that.”
Shadowman’s eyes slanted to the ruin of the tower. To the arsenal now littering the white stones. The weapons would have to be carefully tucked away until The Order could rebuild.
“I need the hammer,” Shadowman said.
“Take it,” Custo said.
Death’s nostrils flared. “I would have already, if I could touch it. But I need an angel to hand it to me.”
Luca bumped Custo’s arm. “No. It’s forbidden. Don’t add this mistake to the others.”
“Who are you to talk?” If Luca had listened to Adam in the first place, the tower would still stand. If the hammer would bring Kathleen and Shadowman together, then so be it.
Custo climbed the steps of rubble and found the hammer in the dust, the same one he’d handled in the tower’s armory. The shaft was solid, a dark wood rubbed smooth by handling. One side was wide and blunt, the other a rounded knob. A blacksmith’s tool. Custo had no idea what Death would do with such a thing when there were some awesome blades littering the area, and he didn’t care.
When he turned back, his heart stopped.
The wolf was padding slowly across the street, his bunched shoulders rolling with the stealth of his advance. The wolf barked once, and Annabella fell to her knees.
“Hunter,” Death said, “there is no need for that. You’ve leashed her already.”
Custo leaped down from the white rubble as the wolf morphed into an almost-man, naked, hairy, potent, and vicious. His body was built for power, muscles thick and corded. His expression was feral, but had lost that rabid craze that had cost him the fight at Segue. He was back to cunning, to searching out and exploiting weakness.
He’d set traps, and one had sprung. He was here to collect his prey.
Custo helped Annabella to stand and, handing Shadow-man the hammer, said, “I won’t let you have her.”
“You can’t stop me,” the wolf said. To Annabella, he barked, “Come.”
The blackness of her eyes seemed to throb, the thin lines on her skin growing thicker. Annabella swayed, but obstinate as ever, said, “No.”
“Come!”
Annabella blurred, the Shadow within her hazing toward the wolf in obedience, but the rest of her was rooted in the rubble. Custo put his arms around her waist. Her slim frame trembled, every trained muscle overriding the compulsion of Shadow.
How long could she keep it up?
An hour? A day? And yet, what else could she do but refuse and endure? She’d fight until her body broke. Annabella was made of willpower, had honed it, like her body, for most of her life. She was by nature a fighter.
“Come. Now,” the wolf growled across the war zone that was the street. His disgusting stuff was getting hard as if he anticipated dominating her.
Rage pounded in Custo’s head. He put Annabella behind him. That monster would not touch her while Custo was living.
Annabella reached around Custo’s body to flip the wolf the bird. God, Custo loved her.
Adam’s thoughts filtered through Custo’s worry.
I’ve got six guns trained on him, waiting for your signal.
To fight the wolf with conventional weapons was to prolong the inevitable.
Luca added,
I can think of three of The Order’s blades that would cut him out of the world.
That might take care of the wolf, but what about Annabella? The Shadow was making her ill. She’d have to return to the Otherworld eventually to survive, and the wolf would be waiting for her.
No. Shadowman had stated the only possible way: the wolf had to willingly release her. But what circumstances would compel the beast to do such a thing when Annabella’s power was almost in his grasp?
The wolf needed a better offer.
Custo slanted his gaze toward Luca. “You said my presence on Earth, my body, was a choice?”
“No.” Luca shook his head. So he’d thought it, too.
You have no right to offer your body, your great soul, to a dark fae. Annabella would give him free access to Earth, but with you he could breach Heaven.
Hence, a better offer. It was a simple solution: Convince the wolf to release Annabella in exchange for him instead. A mortal for an angel.
A sharp pinch brought Custo’s attention to Annabella. Her eyes were huge in her face, the lines of her skin like old, cracked china.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” she said, her voice strained with threat, “but I know I don’t like it.”
Custo had to smile at that. The world needed someone with her kind of spirit, her talent, her light. He would not stand by and watch her grow dim.
To Luca, he said,
In my body, the wolf would be mortal, as I am. Adam has six guns at the ready and you have three swords to choose from. Kill him as soon as he overtakes me.
You’d be giving him your soul.
Custo had given his life for Adam. He’d easily give something as inconsequential as his soul for Annabella. And all he’d have to do is control the wolf within his body long enough for Adam or Luca or even Death to do what needed to be done. To kill him—gunshot to the head ought to do the trick—and thus kill the wolf. There was a way after all.
Decision made, sweet peace swept over Custo. He kissed Annabella on her head and then forcibly guided her to Adam for safekeeping.
Her feet were damn stubborn. “What are you doing?” she cried, resisting him.
The wolf growled, lips peeling back from canine teeth. “Annabe—”
“Forget her,” Custo interrupted over his shoulder. “I’ve already had her anyway. Find yourself a more faithful mate.”
“I’m going to be sick,” Annabella said as Custo delivered her to Adam’s hands and left her without a backward glance—better that way—to approach the beast.
“I want her power,” the wolf answered.
Custo shrugged. “Release her, and you can have mine.”
A
NNABELLA
twisted and yanked her arm out of Adam’s vise grip. She caught the glances he exchanged with Luca. They were up to something, and since no one saw fit to clue her in, the plan was probably very, very bad. She couldn’t hear clearly, but Custo had offered something cryptic to the wolf, which the wolf seemed to understand and be considering.
Whatever it was, the answer was, “No!”
Custo turned back. “Baby, trust me, it was meant to be this way.”
“Don’t ‘baby’ me!” Annabella yelled. She wasn’t a child. “Stand by me. Fight with me.”
She really didn’t think she could handle this if he weren’t by her side, and she couldn’t believe he was pulling this macho crap on her now. Actually, she could believe it. This pigheaded behavior was just like him.
Custo murmured to the wolf. “Yes, they’ll try to stop you, but my body will heal on its own if you can get away.”
“You’re suggesting that I possess an angel?” The wolf grinned, toothy and cruel.
Annabella’s heart stopped beating. She should have known Custo would attempt a stupid but impossibly sweet thing like that. Trade himself for her.
But what then? They’d still have a power-hungry, crazy-ass wolf on the loose, just inside an impossibly gorgeous body. And as far as she knew, they didn’t have a way to restore Custo afterward, unless the angels and their Order had some extra power no one had shared with her.
Movement caught her eye: Adam flicking his fingers. A signal, but to whom? For what?
Annabella scanned the area, saw the black tip of a rifle braced on white stone. And ten feet away, another weapon came up, carefully aiming at the wolf and Custo. A third soldier knocked the decaying remains of a wraith off a wall and took up position.
They better be careful where they fire, because even though Custo could heal supernaturally well, he could still be…
Oh. God. No.
The plan became clear, and as she’d suspected it was stupid and horrible and she didn’t want any part of it: The wolf would possess Custo, an angel, and therefore an offer way better than her comparatively frail body. The wolf would take his chances with the guns for this perfected form, while Adam shot his friend in cold blood in an attempt to kill the monster. A gamble on both sides.
‘Kay. Now she was pissed.
Annabella whirled back to the wolf and Custo, but it seemed they’d already come to an agreement.
The wolf spread his fingers toward her, and the marionette strings that had been tugging relentlessly at her limbs and mind released. The Shadow within her fell away like a breath exhaled, leaving her raw and sore, and heavier than ever.
She pushed away her exhaustion; the show wasn’t over yet.
“Stop!” Annabella yelled, lurching toward the wolf and Custo to prevent whatever insanity Custo had proposed.
But it was too late. As she lunged toward them, Custo took a simple step forward, and absorbed the wolf.
At once the day dimmed, clouds boiling out of the blue and grumbling over the sky. The edges of the world became grittier, its sounds harsher. The air grew sullen and bitter to the tongue.
Annabella cast her weight forward as Custo whipped around. Black bled through the mossy green of his eyes, obscuring the color. The veins in his neck, forearms, and the backs of his hands darkened, as if his heart now pumped Shadow. His expression took on a mask of barely controlled rage.
“Stay back,” he said, his voice a low rumble of effort.
She dodged his outstretched arms and wrapped herself around him anyway, gripping her wrists around his back so she couldn’t be shaken off. If Adam’s men were going to shoot, they’d have to shoot her first. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“I can’t fight him long,” Custo ground out, his cruel hands prying at her wrists.
“You should have thought of that before,” Annabella answered, holding on tight to spite him. A sob formed in her throat, but she swallowed it back. She could cry later. “How dare you change places with me? It’s not right. Everyone here knows it’s not right.”
“Adam!” Custo called. “Take her! Please!”
In her arms, Custo was changing, his chest broadening. His breath came in labored pants.
Two Segue soldiers crouch-walked into position at Custo’s back, guns trained on him. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Luca holding a long blue blade.
Even the angels were against them.
“Annabella, I don’t want to hurt you.” Custo sounded like he was speaking through clenched teeth.
“You won’t,” she answered back. “You love me.”
“I do, but the wolf wants you”—Custo shuddered—“bad.”
“Sucks to be him.”
“This is the only way,” Custo said. His voice had taken on a disturbing bestial roll, but she wasn’t giving up.
“Listen to me, Custo,” Annabella said. “I don’t want you to die for me. What kind of crappy gesture is that for someone you love?” The worst.
“Annabella…” Bones cracked in his shoulders.
“Besides, you already died for someone once,” she continued, “and look how that turned out.”
He growled in her ear, breath hot on her neck.
“Try something different.” Her sob broke free anyway, and she spoke through her tears. “Live.”
Custo gripped Annabella’s wrists so tightly the bones moved. She squeaked, but she wouldn’t let go. Twining voices filled his head, but they couldn’t agree:
Kill her. Love her. Use her. Fuck her. Protect her.
Where was Adam when he needed him?
Annabella raised her face, expression stubborn. The blue was back in her irises, her skin clear and perfect. She was normal and whole again.
She returned his scrutiny. “Not your best look,” she said.
In the glass storefront across the street, he was unrecognizable. His bones had altered to accommodate more muscle and tough flesh. His cheekbones were prominent, eyes wider, blacker, deeper. Shadow pulsed through his veins and sparked along his nerves. The power surging within him was thrilling, giddy, and slick.
Custo turned slowly, assessing the street. Soldiers crouched in a wide circle around him, poised to shoot. Luca’s knuckles were white with his grip on the sword. Shadowman’s disinterest had given way to pity.
Adam’s gun was loose at his side. He’d taken a step toward Annabella, ostensibly to retrieve her, but stopped himself.
“Adam!” Custo shouted.
Adam moved no closer. Made no attempt to rescue Annabella.
Custo looked at the sky for help, but the heavens were closed. The storm above swallowed the tops of buildings and snapped with electricity, agitating the dark boulders of the clouds to knock hollowly into one another.
A growl shuddered through his mind, hungry and impatient for the storm to break. For the street to run with red.
He took Annabella’s arms and forced her grip to break, knowing he’d leave bruises. Her hold on him loosed with sobbing shakes. “Not letting go” ran together in a
notlet-tinggo
chant forced through the clench of her teeth. She slid down his body to her knees, her forehead hot against his hip, arms locking again elbow to elbow.
Insensible to anything but holding on to him, she’d just given Adam and his soldiers a clean shot. Custo’s head and chest were in plain view. There was little danger of hitting her.
The time was now.
He glanced down to stroke her hair in a last comfort, but his hands were altered, fingers thick, mottled with gray, and tipped with wicked-sharp, curling black claws. They itched to gouge, crush, and tear, incapable of gentleness.
Custo fisted them tightly, his heart fisting, too. He would not lay those hands on her head. Would not touch Anna-bella with violence while a shred of his soul remained intact. His love for her condensed into a bright
will not
that roped the beast of his rising bloodlust.
He lifted his arms open to the side in a wide arrest position, his nails cutting into his palms. He’d come full circle, ready again to face death. This time a final, endless, consuming darkness.
No sniveling allowed.
Custo sought Adam’s gaze, found it waiting, his brother’s face lined with grief and pain, mouth curling downward as if to spit a bad taste out of his mouth. And yet, it was so much better that death come at his hands, than it had at that piece of shit Spencer’s. A mercy and a gift.
Custo nodded, quick and short,
shoot now,
as the wolf snarled within to fight. To use the woman as a shield, and if she still lived when they’d fled this place, to mount her and fu—
He brought his hands to his head to smother the impulses.
Hunger clouded his mind, voracious as a killer. His will burned with a lust to kill, hunt, to rut. His sight darkened, the day churning with a spitting and cursing storm, obliterating light and all sense of time. The streetscape was heavy with gray, the wind whipping the dust of the tower into spinning devils, awaiting the break of violence.
Shoot. End this.
His vision sharpened, and the darkened world edged with keen outlines of the men, his prey. He could almost scent them individually, their blood and sweat a dark bouquet. He touched his tongue to a sharp canine tooth, elongating in his mouth. How easy it would be…
Hot tears snaked down his cheeks as small fissures cracked his strength.
Adam, please!
Custo couldn’t voice it. Annabella, whose sobs had gone hoarse, would come to her senses and stand. Protect him with her life while he fantasized about murder.
Adam worked his lower jaw, coming to a decision.
Make it quick. No time.
Custo waited for the bite of the first bullet. Welcomed its relief as lightning sliced the sky.
Waited. But nothing happened.
“Stand down,” Adam said, dropping his weapon and his gaze to the rubble.
“Sir?” a soldier asked.
“I said, stand down.”
Custo gaped in disbelief. His gaze flew to Luca, who must know the horrors crowding his mind and the weak grasp he had on his will.
Please!
He could hold on until Luca walked ten paces forward and impaled him. He’d
have
to hold on that much longer.
But Luca’s eyes went dull and he dropped his blade. A puff of dust-smoke lifted.
I can’t. I won’t.
So much for family. Custo was abandoned, alone, and made a bastard all over again.
At least Death, callous as stone, would not discriminate.
Shadowman?
Death lifted the hammer Custo had given him from the ruin of the tower. “We’re even now.” With that, he folded himself into Shadow and stalked silently away.
Custo was alone with the rising beast, Annabella, and an audience. They’d betrayed his trust when he needed them most. Did they want to see a monster?
So be it.
Custo threw back his head and howled to the sky. The sound was a mix of wrath and soul, a curse to God and a prayer for deliverance. Lightning flashed in answer and black Shadow lifted like mist from the pavement, dark trees growing in the midst of the city, his hunting ground, prey packed into buildings like cages. Their myriad thoughts would both betray their locations and their intentions. So easy. Too easy. A glut.
The air filled with layered fae voices:
Anna. Bella. Anna. Bella. Anna. Bella.
Annabella stood, eyes blazing with her formidable temper. She assumed a position, arms outstretched, to create a circle around them into which she allowed no curling dark tendril of magic to pass. Shadow seethed behind her, cold and silky, but she wouldn’t let Custo have it.
The beast in him roared.
“No,” she said. Her magic kept Shadow from feeding Shadow. She’d found the shift of mind that permitted her to draw from or deny the Otherworld. He’d helped her learn that trick himself, and she raised the sun.
How dare she?
“Custo or…or Wolf…” She shook her head in irritation. “…or whoever you are. You want Shadow? You deal with me first.”
Custo almost laughed. What did the puny woman hope to do?
Her hair whipped in the rising foul wind. She was graceful and strong, but tactically ignorant. With one swipe, he could drag his claws across her belly and end this.
But that would be too easy. He went for her neck.
Annabella flinched as his large hand closed around the pale, slender column. Her stubborn chin dimpled as she glared at him, unafraid. Angry. Willful. A tight bundle of passion daring him to do his worst.
If it hurt, she didn’t signify. But then, endurance was second nature to her.
Teeth bared, he snarled in her face. She was a pain. In the ass. She’d been this way from day one. Obstinate. Irritating. Intractable.
Before he did anything else, he would break her, body and spirit.
Hand around her neck, he forced her backward toward the ground. She had to know, had to learn, who was master once and for all. And then he could be finished with her. If she cracked her thick head on the pavement when her legs gave and she fell, so much the better.
But her legs didn’t give. Her body bent like a willowy bow, the epitome of supple strength. The kind that weathered hurricanes. And she made it look easy. The arch of her spine into the brace of her legs was the antithesis of submission. The satisfied smirk on her lips told him what he knew already. That her soul was made of the same stuff.
Her face was getting red. He could kill her, easily and with pleasure. The storm thundered its approval, echoing the primeval growl in his head.
—Anna. Bella. Anna. Bella. Bella. Bella. Bella.—
He could squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the breath out of her, until she collapsed from suffocation. The action required only the slightest contraction of his hand.
But that wouldn’t satisfy him. Not remotely.
Why wouldn’t she break?
Custo’s animal mind sought an answer, the means of her undoing. There had to be another way, and with it the secret to human will, the power of mortality.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the area. The bolt was caught in an eternal moment, the scene laid bare to Custo’s hungry eyes: On one side of the wreckage stood Adam, his dark, brooding eyes watching in expectation. On the other was Luca, his expression equal parts worry and faith. They were beacons of purpose—one from his life, and one from his death—their thoughts willing the man to overcome the beast.
