Shadowfae (29 page)

I
stumbled from the elevator, sweating in the cool air. My hair tangled around the thick collar of the shirt I’d stolen from Dante’s place, and my wet fingers clenched on the handle of the green shopping bag that held my makeshift soultrap. My bare feet stuck on the slate, leaving wet footprints, and I skidded turning the corner to his door.

It lay open. Ajar. Lights out.

I stumbled through, catching myself on the doorframe. “Rajah?”

Silence. Morning sun speared in open venetians, striping the carpet with white, flashing on stainless steel. I skipped into the bedroom, breathless. The mess we’d made was still there, the sheets rumpled, the smell of sweat and sex and cardamom, Luna’s coat a splash of midnight on the pale floor. I kicked it aside, searching, but my foot slid across empty carpet.

My heart clenched. I stuck my head under the bed, desperate. Nothing.

My bag was gone. Luna’s soul was gone.

The soultrap for the girl.
Dante’s taunt replayed in my mind, malicious. Not only that, Rajah had taken my purse. My phone. So I couldn’t find him.

No. No way. He’d just taken the bag for safekeeping. I should wait for him. He’d be back.

But I couldn’t wait here. Not here, where the walls screamed of him, the air stinging with his scent and mine. Even the coolness made me think of him, shivering my skin. And in my shopping bag, Dante’s bloody soul writhed and spat, contorting the hot glass. I’d jammed the fabric in as tight as I could, but soon the foul thing would shatter the glass and escape. I needed a soultrap. Now.

I ran back into the kitchen and tried the cupboards, one by one. White dishes, tall glasses, a stainless milkshake maker. Nothing made of brass. The pantry, nothing but breakfast cereal and tinned fruit and spice jars by the dozen. I tried under the sink. Dishwashing powder, a spotless toaster. The world’s cleanest garbage bin. I even peered into the dishwasher, just in case. No soultraps.

I slammed the door shut, unease rippling my pulse. What kind of incubus doesn’t keep soultraps on hand? I scanned the bookshelves, under the TV, behind the sofa.

Fuck.

The bag jerked in my hand, Dante’s soul squelching like hot jam. I couldn’t wait any longer. I scrabbled through the pile of magazines on the floor for pen and paper, and it was the easiest damn letter I’ve ever written.

Rajah,

I love you. Don’t give up on me. I’ll be back in an hour. Wait for me. Please.

Yours forever,

Jade.

I plopped a glass on it on the marble bench so it wouldn’t drift away in the air-conditioning, and dashed out.

The sun burned as I waited at the tram stop, my skin sizzling in the after-rain humidity. A taxi would be faster, but I had no cash and no one on the tram cares if you pay or not. I caught the city circle to

Swanston Street

, and people in business suits or gym clothes stared at me as I curled my feet up under me on the seat and cradled my shopping bag. My nerves twinged, ragged with worry, and I wanted to bare my teeth, tear my hair, scream,
What the fuck are you looking at?
But I was greasy and barefoot, wearing Dante’s shirt and pants—far too big for me, and I hadn’t found any shoes that didn’t fall off my feet—and sporting a ragged red bite mark on my throat. No wonder they were a little curious. If they only knew what was in my bag.

I swapped trams by the shining gray monolith of

Federation Square

, watching the creeping hands on the clocks at Flinders Street Station for what seemed like an age. By the time I hopped off at

Lygon Street

, a piercing ache split my skull from dehydration and I felt light-headed and weak, like I hadn’t eaten or drunk in days. I’d absorbed some good energy from Dante’s death, but Luna had eaten most of it and it wasn’t enough to make up for the blood Dante took.

I wanted to run. But I walked carefully toward home, clutching my precious bag, crossing slippery bluestone paving and stepping over rivulets of graying water in the gutters. More than once, my feet conspired to tangle and trip me up, and I reached my door with grazed knees and a bloody elbow where I’d scraped it on the ground to keep my temporary soultrap safe.

The door lay ajar, my key ring still dangling from the lock.

My heart tumbled. At least he’d been here, looking for me. I plunged inside, anxiety and hope plugging my throat like a scratchy clump of sand.

The usual mess, dirty dishes, old magazines, piles of washing I hadn’t bothered to put away. Dante’s roses, crisping and fragrant on the table, sweetening the fading smell of fairy. Sunlight, slanting through the blinds, gleaming on open cupboard doors, dishes knocked awry, my threadbare couch cushions tumbled on the linoleum.

My bag twitched, murmuring sadistic promises. Blindly I grabbed an empty trap from the open cupboard and yanked the cork free. The blood-soaked shirt squelched out like an overused tampon, and Dante’s oozing soul spewed into the trap, filling it to the brim. I jammed the cork in as hard as I could, my muscles weak and unresponsive, and shoved the trap into the fridge to shut him the fuck up. Good riddance. I didn’t have time for him now.

In the bedroom, my drawers hung open, clothes jumbled. I pawed through my shirts, sweat sliming my hands, and that beloved spicy scent drifted over me, warming my skin even as my heart thudded screaming into my guts.

The soultrap was gone. Rajah had taken Quinn.

My lungs convulsed, deflated, and I gasped for air, my diaphragm cramping. My only hope of an end to this foulness, and he’d taken it. Even if Luna’s shade was enough, without Quinn, I’d never be free.

My bangles chimed smugly, victorious, and my knees buckled. I sank onto my barren bed, the rotten stink of moldy fairy blood crawling into my nose. My mind gibbered at me like a cage-mad rat, scrabbling for another explanation, any explanation that didn’t mean I’d lost him. Dante. It could have been Dante who took Quinn while I was still passed out in his goddamn box.

But I knew it wasn’t true. Dante would have drunk Quinn’s soul himself, or tipped it out onto the carpet before my eyes so I could watch it wither and die. He wouldn’t have passed up the chance to taunt me. Besides, my keys were in the door, and the whole forsaken place smelled of Rajah. He’d broken in while I was captive and had stolen Quinn, just to make sure I’d never win. To make it pointless for me to fight with him over Luna.

So go get it back,
sniffed Luna’s shade dismissively.
Giving up so soon?

I ignored him. If Rajah had screamed,
Don’t come after me!
into my face, the message couldn’t have been clearer.

My eyeballs ached with impossible tears. I wanted to scream, sob, crawl under the bed and rot away to dust. I wanted to curl up and die.

I dragged the stained quilt from the floor and pulled it over my head, burying myself in damp darkness. The flowery smell of Dante crept over me, soaking the quilt, and I wriggled out of his horrid clothes and flung them away. My legs hurt, like I’d run too far uphill, and sickness wormed cold fingers of misery in my guts, but the discomfort was dull and pleasant compared with the savage ache in my heart.

I couldn’t die, but I sure as hell didn’t have to live. Maybe I’d just stay here, and never get up. I wrapped the quilt in tight, my tears spilling out at last to soak the quilt and smother me.

A creeping tingle spidered over my skin, my bangles vibrating.

I clamped my teeth down on the quilt, groaning.
No. Fuck off. Not now. I’m wallowing in self-pity. Come back in a few hundred years.

The metal heated, searing my wrists. My skin stung like a rash, and I gurgled in frustration, kicking my legs in useless rebellion. But it was like a cloud of invisible wasps attacked me, piercing every inch of my skin with their feral stings, and the smell of the burning blisters on my forearms grew worse.

I thudded my fists into the mattress, wailing, but it was no use. Resisting thrall was futile. If I’d learned anything from this mess, I’d learned that.

I dragged myself up from the bed, defeated, and struggled into the first thing that came to hand, an old green sundress. My mirror showed a corpse, pale, black circles under staring eyes, hair limp and straggling, a fading yellow bruise splashing my throat. I didn’t care. I forced one foot in front of the other and robot-walked into the kitchen to fetch Dante from the fridge, my skin still writhing with poison. A gift might at least cool Kane’s temper. And Dante was no use to me, not anymore.

The black-suited troll already hulked under the stairs outside, gleaming white tusks curling up over his thick lip, and I got in the car without a word, gripping the cold brass bottle on my lap.

25

Y
ou want me to what?”

Kane reclines on his white sofa, calm blue flame twisting around his knuckles, his black eyes like mirrors giving away nothing. Soft downlights gleam on the glass table, the creamy linen drapes drawn. Kane doesn’t like the sun.

Rajah swallows. “Help me find her. Please. I can’t . . .” The words stick in his mouth, sour like rotten meat, and he forces them out, humiliation and sorrow stabbing hot claws in his chest. “I can’t do it on my own.”

A sweet red smile curls Kane’s lips, delight crusting his golden hair with frost like diamonds. “You know what I want.”

“Damn it, Kane, there’s no time—”

“You know what I want,” Kane repeats steadily. His fingernails sharpen and grow an inch, their color mottling.

Rajah’s hands twitch in fury. He’d hoped Kane would insist, order him, take the responsibility away. But Kane is too particular in his pleasures for that. Guilt squeezes Rajah’s bruised heart, cold and bitter, but he’s determined not to let it show. As calmly as he can, he pops Jade’s bag open and sets the two soultraps on the coffee table.

Kane’s eyes blossom azure, a happy, childlike grin lighting his face. He scoots to the sofa’s edge and plucks up the first trap, thumbing the cork aside to sniff the contents. His nose wrinkles in distaste, and behind him a tall black vase of lilies wilts, crisp petals falling to the floor. “Horrid. Is this hers, or yours?”

Rajah doesn’t have time to waste on Kane’s weirdness. Neither does Jade. Images brand his mind again, of her in Dante’s foul embrace, her blood flowing out, and fear compels him more strongly than any thrall bangle. His voice comes tight, barely audible. “Jade’s.”

Blue static zaps in Kane’s hair, his soft chin tightening. The flowers wither and turn black, and he jams the cork back in, hard enough to crumple the brass.

Rajah blinks. He knows that look. Angry, indignant. Jealous.

But before Rajah can figure more, Kane opens the second trap, and sparkling golden flame flickers along his fingers, his expression overwritten by a smile. “This one’s been a long time coming. Very sweet of you, Rajah. You shouldn’t have. But I’m afraid it’s not enough.”

He leans back on the couch, flicking imaginary dirt from his nails, and Rajah longs to leap up and throttle him with his bare hands. “Please, you have to help me find Jade before he hurts her. I’ll give you anything you ask.”

“Anything?” Kane’s eyes light with a malicious green twinkle.

Humiliation and hate burn together like oil and acid in Rajah’s lungs, but he forces the word out. “Anything.”

Another smile twists Kane’s lips, this one not so nice. “Done,” he says lightly, his red tongue flicking his teeth in delicate pleasure. “But you needn’t have. She’s already here.”

Before Rajah can curse or wonder, the entranceway lights snap on behind him, and the front door clicks open.

I
stared, and Rajah stared back.

Vaguely, I formed the idea that Kane was there, that my two soultraps sat gleaming on the table. I bit my lip, my tongue dry and useless.

Rajah looked like he was having the same problem, because he had to swallow twice before he could speak. “I’m sorry.”