Shadow Touched (24 page)

“We were pets that bite,” Ellie said. “They’ll want us ‘put down,’ but it’s our
owner
whom he’ll want to make pay for damages.”

“So me,” Adam said. “I employ you. You belong to me.”

His wife, half-fae Talia, patted his hand. “You’re a lowly human, too. They respect Shadow and power. If Cam and Ellie are pets, then you, my sweet husband, are my plaything at best. Cam and Ellie belong to
me
.”

Thank god Talia understood. The class system of the Dark Age.

“But if Gunnar touches you,” Adam told Talia, “he has to know Shadowman will flatten his house. There will be nothing left of Martin. No victory. No vengeance. Just smear.”

Ellie remembered something, and it made her smile. “But it would be a damn good death, which Zander Martin explained to us was the most a mage could hope for, especially one born to war. Mages aren’t immortal. They have no soul to care for. What better way to go than at Death’s own hand, after having killed his daughter or grandsons in talion for your own. What a legacy! The stories would last a thousand years.”

Adam snorted. “The members of Martin House wouldn’t appreciate it very much.”

Cam looked at Ellie. “No, they would not. So we have an ally in Zander at least, the current heir. He wants Martin House to survive this fight between his uncle and Segue.”

Zander Martin was Gunnar’s nephew, whom they’d met during their visit to Martin House as well. He had seemed to think Mathilde’s ways were distasteful, but more than that, he’d helped them, although only because doing so had also furthered his ambitions.

“He did hand me the poker that ended Mathilde’s life,” Ellie said. “He won’t act directly against the head of his house, but it stands to reason that given the opportunity, he might be prevailed upon to undermine Gunnar. Zander is a survivor.”

Then again, Zander might just as well want her and Cam silenced—dead silent, in fact—so that his part in Mathilde’s death would remain secret. Zander looked after number one.

“But how do we reach him?” Adam said. “He lives at Martin House, behind the wards.”

She and Cam had been over this before, too. They would’ve already contacted him if they could have and made it worth Zander’s while to help them.

Angie leaned over and topped off Ellie’s coffee.

“Thanks,” Ellie said, glancing up at her friend.

She knows
, Ellie’s shadow said inside her.

Ellie paid attention to her instincts, but she was beginning to notice the little things in body language, too. “Do you have any ideas, Angie?”

Angie straightened, and a crease formed between her eyebrows.

Yep. There it was.

“Just listening in. Makes me wonder if Zander hasn’t been through this conversation himself already, too. He’s the one who’s going to be flattened, right? When Shadowman demolishes Martin House, I mean. The whole mess has implications for him.”

“Yeah,” Cam said.

Ellie loved her shadow. It always knew where to look for strength.

“He’s probably been frustrated at how long it’s taking for the stupid humans to come to their senses and realize that he has a vested interest,” Angie said. “He’s been watching Gunnar bait Segue into open hostility. He doesn’t need you to call him up and discuss it. He’s probably waiting for you to
act
. Think it through and just do it. Trust that he’ll be there, ready again.”

Ellie grinned at her. She and Angie had become good friends since the fae incursion in Sedona when JT had been lost. It’d taken all of one second for Angie to accept her shadow. The woman had sense. It was time everyone else knew it, too.

“Grab a cup and sit down,” Adam said.

 

“Okay, I give. It’s something at least,” Cam said when he and Ellie finally returned to their suite. “Score one for self-interest.”

A couple months ago at Martin House, Zander had seemed very adept at looking after his own skin. He
might
cooperate with Segue, if they’d guessed his thinking correctly.

Cam had liked that Zander seemed to have a code; it wasn’t necessarily an honorable one, but it made Zander somewhat predictable. In the midst of senseless cruelty, the code had been a relief—something they could understand and work with—when they were so shaken with the violence that had occurred.

“Self-interest saves the day,” she said, heading straight for the bedroom. “I’m totally good with that.”

Cam liked the lightness of her tone. She’d asked him too many times over the past weeks if there had been anything else she could’ve done to avoid killing Mathilde. She’d confessed that in that awful moment, she hadn’t considered the ramifications of her actions. Hadn’t considered that Gunnar might strike at Segue.

“I like the way Angie thinks,” she went on saying in the same light way. She stripped off her clothes and grabbed one of his clean T-shirts to sleep in. Sexiest thing on earth, drooping at her shoulder and hanging almost to her knees. “I like how she handles her boys, too. Direct, but fun. Bossy, but flexible so that they can still get away with enough to keep them happy. I want to be like that.”

Cam blinked at her, confused.
Be like what?

“Not now,” Ellie said, hands up, as if to stop the train of thought. “After. Way after. When everything is okay.”

Did she mean
be that kind of mother?

Seemed the momentum of the evening had let something she’d been thinking about slip. She’d kept this well hidden. He’d had no idea.
Kids?
Was she serious?

Cam thought of the children in Strasburg, Virginia, arms over their heads. Help not coming. The Segue kids had been locked inside for the better part of two months. The man from Middleton had been trying to get antibiotics for his daughter, and look what happened to
that
family.

“Even if the situation with Martin is resolved,” Cam said carefully, “nothing is going to be okay.” The world was in a free fall. Children were out of the question.

“When we’ve adapted,” she said.

“Adapted. Right.” What else could he say?

Ellie’s face flushed, eyes shining. She wrapped her arms around herself—a sign that she was keeping her shadow in check. “Or not. I didn’t mean anything by it. Forget I mentioned it.”

Not?
Now she didn’t care?

He was sure her shadow would be explicit on the subject of children, and it wouldn’t take no for an answer. Procreation was a basic drive, a human imperative, which could get interesting if the shadow wasn’t satisfied.

“We can’t just forget it,” he said. “You know that.” But he wasn’t prepared to agree with her, either.

“Sure we can. I have already,” Ellie said, a slight edge to her voice. She stooped to gather up the day’s laundry. Grabbed up the boxers and socks he’d left on the floor that morning.

“Ellie, even your shadow has to understand—”

“I said forget it.” She pushed past him into the bathroom, threw the laundry in the hamper, and shut the door.

The faucet went on immediately, which either meant that she was really serious about brushing her teeth, or she was putting up a wall of sound between them.

Just because they had a little . . . not even hope . . . a small chance that Zander Martin would be selfish enough to help didn’t mean the future was any brighter.

Not to mention . . . Cam couldn’t be a
father.
Did she even see what was happening to him? This dark magic taking over his mind and chilling his soul?

He knocked on the bathroom door. “Damn it, Ellie, come out here.”

“Just give me a minute.” Edge there, too.

Silence. He couldn’t even go near the kid question.

What the hell had she been thinking? And for how long?

He sat on the bed listening to the water run. He couldn’t see through the door, but he’d bet she wasn’t getting ready for bed. She was in there . . . going over it in her head. Making up her mind. Resolving something on her own.

With Ellie putting the door between them, he felt himself grow colder, a hint of the soullessness that a life without her would be for him. His disquiet was unfounded—he knew that. He and Ellie had already decided to stay together, no matter what. Together was the only way to survive. Together was what kept the darkness in his mind at bay.

Yes, her shadow could be formidable. However, anything that came from Ellie was good. He was not ready for children. Not ready to even broach the question, and could build an unassailable argument against it. But he was not leaving Ellie alone with this desire in her heart.

He was not leaving Ellie alone period. He’d lose his mind without her.

“Ellie,” he said to the door.

The water turned off. “It’s okay, Cam.”

She’d decided to let it go . . . at least for now.

No. They couldn’t let it go.

“How about we set a date for the wedding first?” It was the best he could do tonight. They’d gotten engaged at Martin House but hadn’t discussed when they’d marry. They’d deal with the question of children later. Yes, when they’d adjusted. Might be a while. But he would have Ellie now.

“I don’t want to wait any longer,” he added to the door. “Unless you really want the fussy stuff.” Fussy might not be the best word. “Fancy, I mean.”

He was fucking this up. His brain just wouldn’t work with all the shit going on.

She opened the door, but her body didn’t seem tense. She wasn’t fighting her shadow. “I’m not fancy.”

Seemed she’d decided that she wasn’t leaving him alone, either.

He felt himself relaxing, almost smiling, the moment of danger past. “How about next month?” Hopefully the Martin thing would be done by then. “We can do it here. Maybe see if we can’t get Laurence to come back to officiate.”

Laurence was the angel who’d given Ellie control over her shadow. Before that, the shadow had ranged free, tormenting her and terrifying everyone else.

A painful smile flickered uncertainly on her face. “Laurence?”

They were going to be okay. If they could hold on through this, they could last forever.

“I like how he puts things together,” Cam said.

She made a face. “I was kind of rude to him. Definitely ungrateful.”

“He’s an angel. He’ll forgive you.”

Ellie sighed, big-time. “A month. Here. Officiated by Laurence, if we can get him.”

If they survived. “Yeah. Make me a happy man, Ellie.”

Because today had sucked.

She stepped into his arms and kissed him. “I will.”

And the coming days, even if the plan went well, were going to be worse.

D
awn found Ellie wrestling with herself to get into a helicopter. The rotors made her hair spastic, but her body was unable to move. Cam stood behind her with his hand on her waist. Only rarely did her shadow take over the physical part of her. Today it was putting up a fight.

“It’s going to be all right,” Cam said in her ear.

The plan called for her and Cam to escort supply trucks to Segue, but her shadow didn’t want to leave unprotected the people who’d become her only family. Yes, there were soldiers and guns and a wall surrounding the property, but considering Gunnar Martin’s insidious attacks, she had little faith in conventional measures.

Segue was her
family.
Not that the people here were helpless, but her shadow didn’t have the ability to see reason.

“Ellie,” Cam said, “the danger is
outside.
We have to go outside to stop it.”

Her shadow had to have been listening, because its lock on her bones and muscles released. Ellie climbed into the helicopter, but it was an act of will to sit there and lift off. The Segue Institute—elegant main building with more utilitarian structures behind—grew small beneath them.

Five transports of supplies and food had been disrupted in some way over the past couple of months. Nothing had come in by road for weeks, and that had to change.

But the attacks also created an opportunity, and it was so obvious that when Cam had pointed it out, Ellie had closed her eyes in relief.

Every time Gunnar Martin had one of their supply trucks destroyed, diverted, or overcome, the interests of his house and Segue literally intersected. It was at those crossroads where Zander Martin could contact them. And as it had been Cam and Ellie who had conspired with him in the past, it was they who needed to be present.

“You okay?” Cam said into his headset microphone.

She nodded, then made a face. “No one else has to work this hard to get married.”

Cam’s scary black eyes crinkled with laughter, and he reached over and took hold of her hand. Good. He was better when he was moving, when he had a task to perform, a problem to solve. Violence made him go dark and distracted.

And this new wedding thing? Setting the date? She couldn’t sense any stress in him over it, and neither could her shadow. It felt good to her, too. They were moving forward; this plan had helped them do that.

Six hours later, upon landing at a transfer facility on the outskirts of Harrisburg, they found an eighteen-wheel Mack truck waiting and loaded with supplies. They shook hands with Captain Ryan Mead, a huge, rock-jawed ex-soldier with a shiny bald head, and Lieutenant Gil Sheridan, more wiry, with a meaner line to his mouth. Both wore body armor and were armed, ex-Seals turned private security contractors, hired by Adam to see the job done and to keep their mouths shut about it later.

“The truck’s cab is reinforced and bullet-proofed,” Captain Mead told them without preamble, “but in case of trouble, you’re to do everything we say with no questions, no hesit—” He broke off when his gaze met Cam’s, and he ended in a thoughtless mumble, “Holy Mother of God.”

Ellie intervened with a friendly smile. “You know the rumors that magic and monsters are back in the world?”

Captain Mead took a step back from Cam. “Yeah?”

Ellie smiled. “Well, Dr. Kalamos can
see
the magic, and
I’m
the monster.”

She released her hold on her shadow, and the darkest, deepest part of herself separated from her body. The two soldiers drew ragged breaths as it circled them with a soft, soundless, and distinctly feminine prowl.

Mead’s jaw clenched, but he held his position, eyes narrowing a fraction.

“The shadow won’t hurt you,” Cam said, calmly, “and it can’t be killed either, so please don’t try. You’re not in charge here. We are. Your only task is to drive the truck and protect the cargo. Don’t worry about protecting me or Specialist Russo—the shadow will do that effectively. When we are attacked—as every shipment has been for the past three weeks—try not to engage our assailants, who are magic and monsters, too. Leave that to us. Don’t be heroes. The body count is already high enough.”

“You’re mages,” Ryan said, disdainfully.

“Actually, no,” Cam said.

The shadow leaned into the soldier’s ear. “Human.”

A tremble rolled over him, though he gritted his teeth. “Fuck. Me.”

“No,” said the shadow.

“The shadow is literal, so watch yourself.” Cam gestured toward the truck. “Shall we?”

Ryan wasn’t budging. “No way that thing’s not a mage.”

“It’s not a mage,” Ellie said, moving toward the truck. “You’ve got one inside you, too.”

She stepped up and opened the cab door, peeking around into the cabin—bunk, mini-fridge, closet. She hoped she could get a decent satellite connection inside the cab so that she could observe the second part of their plan in action—Adam going to Martin House to extend, in all humility, an olive branch to Gunnar. No one believed for a minute that Gunnar would take it.

She really wanted to see this live.

“Ellie?” Cam called.

She looked back outside the cab to find her shadow phased
inside
Mead. He jerked and dodged, but her shadow anticipated each move. Ellie yanked it back, and it slid quickly through the air and into unison with her.

“Sorry, my shadow is occasionally mischievous,” Ellie said to him. “You guys make up your mind? We’ve really got to get on the road.”

Cam was looking at his phone. “Adam just arrived at Martin House.”

“Let’s roll!” she shouted at the men, who were speaking in low tones to each other. She helped them along: “Get over it already. We’re the good guys, I promise.” She honestly hoped they would survive. She and Cam would do their best to make sure they did.

She settled on the back bench of the truck’s cab—there was a little desk attached to the wall, where she set out her tablet and watched the swirly icon go around and around as it attempted to hook up.

Cam sat on the bench beside her, ear to his mobile phone. “He’s going inside the gatehouse now.”

Mead and Sheridan seemed to have come to a decision. In this new world, there were only two ways to go—either they learned to work with magic, or they retired and hid in their houses.

Mead wordlessly took the driver’s seat, Sheridan the passenger seat. The engine roared to life, then idled at an angry growl. A couple adjustments up front, and the truck started a slow haul across the lot.

“They’re not going to allow Adam to go up to the main house,” Ellie said to Cam.

This part of the plan involved Adam attempting to make peace with Martin House by gifting Gunnar with something precious—one of Kathleen Thorne’s paintings of the Shadowlands. All of Segue, but particularly Talia and Khan, prized the paintings, each a vivid rendering of the endless, ageless trees, saturated with color, and the strange shadows moving among the trunks. The fae. Occasionally one would venture right up to the canvas, seeming as if it could peer into the mortal world, too.

There was nothing more valuable at Segue than those paintings. Parting with even one was painful.

It was a grand gesture—but one they knew would never succeed. First, no painting, not even one of Kathleen’s, could replace a daughter. Second, it was presented by a human, not a peer. Talia had argued that she should be the one to go, but Adam was adamant that
humanity
had to be respected now, or the Dark Age would be lost to them. And finally, the gift could be interpreted as a threat. The painting was a doorway in the form of art. If Gunnar brought it into his house, it was possible that someone might just step through the painting—from one world to another—and thereby get past the house wards. Gunnar wouldn’t be that foolish. He’d know a Trojan horse when he saw one.

But they had to try. At the very least it would focus Gunnar’s attention on the ignorant, presumptuous, and lowly human, Adam. They needed Gunnar to momentarily look away from the transports.

“I’m connected,” Ellie said. The video had begun streaming from the tiny camera pinned to Adam’s jacket. The vantage point on the tablet screen panned slowly as he turned his shoulders to capture 180 degrees of the room from his position. He stood in the receiving area where she and Cam had been searched when they’d visited Martin House—it was like a customs office where visitors were cleared, their bags searched, before being allowed beyond and through the wards.

Ellie leaned forward as the truck’s momentum decreased, slowing as it reached the road, then she jerked a little bit as it climbed onto the street. Ellie released her shadow again and gave it a nudge upward. This was preplanned, too: The journey required vigilance, so her shadow would be riding up top, like a dark wolf in the wind.

Ellie looked back at the tablet. A black-eyed man had come inside the gatehouse to meet Adam, but not someone she recognized from her visit. She and Cam had met with two attendants who’d rifled through their bags and belongings and had asked them to declare and describe any magic they used.

“No, I don’t remember him,” Cam said into his mobile to Adam’s team, who were waiting in the vehicle outside the gatehouse. “He’s definitely a mage, though. He’s got the eyes for it, and both the attendants Ellie and I met were.”

Adam strode forward, offering his hand—everyone equals. “I’m Adam Thorne of the Segue Institute. I have an appointment with Gunnar Martin.” Kaye Brand had done the favor of arranging at least that much. However, she’d arranged the visit that had cost Gunnar his daughter as well, so Adam knew to expect a different reception.

The attendant didn’t take Adam’s hand and remained remote. “What have you brought with you?”

Adam hesitated, then stepped back and lifted the covering on the front of the painting. “A gift.”

The man’s eyes fixed upon it, widened slightly, and as the moments ticked by, grew full with sadness and longing. Kathleen’s paintings made Ellie feel the same way. The place beyond the frame was one of magic and inspiration and beauty.

Adam remained silent, probably to let the impact sink in, then said, “It’s very beautiful, isn’t it?”

The attendant turned back to Adam. His gaze took a little longer to break away from the painting, and he was breathless when he managed it.

“Wait here.” He was visibly disturbed, but he left Adam and the painting alone in the gatehouse again.

Ellie looked back up at the road. The truck had finally hauled up a ramp to a two-lane highway. Their planned route to Segue included less-traveled arteries that would make travel time longer but would put fewer people at risk. Picking up speed, the truck crossed flatlands spotted with the occasional distant house or abandoned structure. And still Adam waited in the Martin gatehouse. Minutes ticked by with the miles and nothing happened.

The tension inside Ellie pulled tighter with the passing of time—close quarters in the truck, soldiers unfamiliar with magic—so that the small muscles in Ellie’s chest around her heart felt the strain, like a slow poison, anticipating something bad with every revolution of the tires and shift of Adam’s weight on the screen.

Cam had no patience, either. He was braced, the muscles of his back flexed and his elbows on his knees.

After an hour, he sighed. “How long do you think Adam should wait?”

“As long as he can hold it.”

Although, at some point Adam would have to decide when enough was enough. Ellie wouldn’t put it past Gunnar to make Adam wait for hours or days, even. Or leave him there to rot forever.

Another half hour of gray two-lane highway had passed when, on the tablet’s screen, another man entered the gatehouse. The view on the tablet swung as Adam turned toward him. The man was tall and fair, with a rangy build.

At Ellie’s shoulder, Cam leaned in. “It’s Zander.”

The new heir to Martin House approached and stood in the center of the open space.

What did it mean for their plan that
Zander
would come to greet Adam? Had Gunnar sent him? Was he Gunnar’s agent, or acting on his own? Would Adam even recognize him from their description?

“You are Adam Thorne?” he said.

“I am,” Adam held out his hand. “I’ve come to—”

Zander waved him silent. “I know what you’ve come to do.”

He approached the painting of the Shadowlands, the place from which the power of the mage families came.

“This is Kathleen O’Brien’s painting,” Adam began formally—so he
had
recognized Zander. “Shadowman, who was also Death, watched Kathleen from the Other side of the boundary between the mortal world and Twilight, first curious, then entranced by the light of her soul. For her, and for her only, did he rend the curtain that separated them and cross so that he might touch her. She received him as her lover, and thus Talia, my wife, was conceived. It was this union, this love, that brought magic back into the world, and as a gesture of goodwill, I give the painting to Martin House, so that this great house and Segue may start anew as well.”

Ellie gnawed her lip in suspense.

Zander’s gaze flicked to the painting, then he looked back at Adam, seemingly unmoved. The man had to have a heart of stone. “Are you here to swear fealty to Martin House?”

Now
that
was interesting.

“Fealty?” Adam replied, similarly taken aback. “No. I come as an equal.”

Cam shook Ellie’s shoulder. “Ellie.”

She glanced up from the screen, where Zander had been walking over to the painting, and saw through the truck’s windshield that her shadow was now crouched on the hood—the dark, sinuous curve of its back, the bumps of its vertebrae, the upside-down heart shape of its hips and ass as every muscle was now primed for attack.