The Bloodshade Encounters & The Songspinner (Shadeborn Book 2) (11 page)

The Water Portal

Evangeline walked only half a step ahead, but it was enough to tell Alexander that he wasn’t expected to speak. He watched the curves of her torso and the sway of her hips as the dark beauty led him away from the town, out into the surrounding farmlands. In their walk, Alexander had a chance to consider her name: Evangeline Novel. The Novels were likely to be the most ancient of shade houses, and they laid claim to being direct descendants of the first shadeborn to ever cross into the human world. The Novel tradition dictated that all family members to bear the name had to be highly trained and ferociously skilled with all magic from an uncommonly young age, which would explain Evangeline’s amusement at walking up to the gallows. Alexander was willing to bet this petite figure could have wiped out the whole settlement if she had wished to. He found that he was both excited and terrified by that idea.

When they were far enough from the sleepy morning eyes of Salem Town, Evangeline stopped and offered Alexander her hand. He took it without thinking, electrified by the prospect of her touch, and suddenly found himself ascending into the air. He tried to use his own gravity to aid the flight, but Evangeline was evidently in charge of their course. Her fingertips barely even connected with his own as they flew, forcing him to reach for her constantly, lest he plummet into the endless trees below. Alexander had never bothered to explore the summer forest west of the town, but now he rather wished he knew where he was going, so that he might have a slim chance of finding his way back if the need arose.

They landed with sharp precision in a place where a batch of trees opened up to form a clearing. Evangeline let her quarry drop first, only a foot or two off the ground, and Alexander landed with a splash. He looked up at her in revulsion as the cold pond-water crept into his shoes and started soaking up the legs of his trousers. Evangeline too landed in the water, but the pond seemed to part at her will, leaving her long dress unscathed as she stood in a dry hole she’d created in the middle of the flow. Alexander willed himself to do the same, but the most he could manage was a small, rumbling wave that sent a few frogs leaping out of his way.

Evangeline’s perfect lip curled.

“You’re a bit late mastering water, aren’t you?” she said, clearly amused.

“Did you ever consider you might be early?” Alexander replied.

The dark beauty giggled at him and waved her hand, leaving them both in a pocket of dry land amid the pond-water. Alexander wanted to ask what this madness was all about, but the girl before him was far too serious and severe to have brought him to a deserted frog pond for no reason. He let her lead once more as she carried them deeper into the water, the ripples parting to form a new path with every step. They were only a few feet forward when the pond-water suddenly stopped co-operating.

“Something wrong with your skills, my lady?” Alexander said with a grin.

Evangeline shot him a dark look, but she was still smiling.

“This is supposed to happen,” she explained. “I have a friend living in these parts. This is how I find her.”

The trim lace figure raised her arms to her sides and pushed forward with her chest, a sight which Alexander was consumed by, at first. It took him several moments to realise that a great deal more water in the pond had shifted, leaving a column of liquid in the very centre untouched. Either Evangeline had left it there on purpose, or the remaining water was impervious to shademagic. Alexander didn’t like the idea that impervious things existed, so he opted for the former choice. He stepped forward and peered into the column, surprised to find it far clearer and more reflective than the previous pond had been.

“What now?” he asked.

“We pass through it, of course,” Evangeline answered.

Again she waited for him to take her hand, but Alexander felt a surge of impetuousness at the thought of once more being led like a child. He leapt into the water, feet first, and found himself falling straight through it, as though the liquid had never been there at all. There was no wetness for him to pass through, for the whole thing was an illusion. Now, he found he was tumbling through blackness beneath the earth as he struggled to get command of his own gravity before he met the floor.

He was a bit late, landing with a dull thump on the hard, stone ground at the exact moment that his powers kicked in. The gravity soothed a little of the blow, but the young shade’s legs and feet were burning from impact as he stood and regained his balance. Evangeline, who had obviously been expecting the drop, landed gracefully at his side. She titled her head to look up into his face, one long finger rising to trace across his jaw. A curious look overcame her dark eyes.

“I’m not sure if that was courage or stupidity,” she mused, “but it amused me all the same.”

“Would you mind telling me where we’re going now?” Alexander asked.

“But of course,” Evangeline said, bowing her head. “If you’ll pardon my candour, I’ve noticed that you could use a little assistance in the power department.”

Alexander puffed out his chest, ready to defend himself, but the young woman held up a tiny hand.

“No sense in denying what we both see is fact,” she clipped. “It’s not your fault, my dear, the House of Cross is terribly badly bred. They don’t make strong connections with the blood. All the same, I don’t like to see a shade in need. I want to help you.”

She didn’t say it in a magnanimous way, and Alexander didn’t like the pitying frown in her lower lip, however delicious it appeared. He already knew she was at least fifty times more powerful than him, so the last thing he needed was a reminder of his shortcomings. How could she possibly help him? What could be so special about this cavern that it could override his own blood?

“I suppose I could consider a little more power,” he replied stiffly.

“Of course you could,” Evangeline agreed, already starting to walk away.

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness during their talk, but Evangeline’s black-lace form still vanished into the shadows if she walked too far ahead of him. Alexander kept close behind her as she led him to a place where small orbs of light were settled in the cavern roof, giving enough of a glow to stop him from walking into the walls of the tunnel they now traversed. Had she been a human girl, Alexander thought this would have been the perfect time to give her a fright and wrap her up in his arms, but he had a feeling he might lose those arms if he tried such a move under these circumstances. Still, the desire for Evangeline’s body was burning under his skin, whatever reservations he had about her superior skills.

Once in a while, Alexander had to calm his shock at the sight of faces in the walls. They weren’t the actual faces of people, just illusions caught between the light and the rocks, yet the farther they walked into the tunnel, the more Alexander felt their hollow, shadowed eyes were following him. A new voice echoed through the tunnel suddenly, forcing him to choke on the hitch in his own breath.

“Well, well. What have you brought me now, shade daughter?”

Gifter

The tunnel opened into a grotto where thousands of the small, light-giving orbs were plastered to the ceiling like a cobblestone wall. The combination of so many dim spheres gave the whole space an eerie blue glow that reflected down into a clear-water river, which Evangeline was quickly approaching. Alexander watched her float effortlessly across the trickling underground tide, but he chose to leap the few feet across it instead. There was no sense in showing her just how shaky his levitation was, especially since the ‘friend’ that she had mentioned was now watching him too.

Once he had crossed the thin strand of river, Alexander had a better chance to observe the new figure in the glow. She had no legs to speak of, rather a wisp of smoke that grew from her waist where she stood some seven feet tall. Her upper half was thick but curvaceous, a golden waistband marking the point where her body faded away to smoke. The upper section was barely covered by a fitted black waistcoat, revealing numerous patches of skin that were a sparkling shade of blue, not unlike Alexander’s bright eyes. From some angles, the light orbs above made it look as though the woman was made of ice, but the closer he got, the more Alexander thought her skin seemed to be as hard as glass.

“Gifter,” Evangeline said, bowing her head to the huge figure.

“Mademoiselle Novel,” the creature replied.

Gifter’s voice could have been forged from shadows. She spoke through glossy white lips, set into a face with bright coral eyes, and her hair fell in silver ringlets around high cheekbones that cut a fierce wedge under those eyes as she grinned. Alexander had never seen a creature of such aspect before, though he had encountered many supernatural things on his journey across the Americas thus far. The fact that he didn’t know what manner of thing Gifter was left an uneasy knot in his stomach, but he couldn’t stop staring at the tall figure, even through his state of fear.

There was neither pupil nor white to her gaze, only that swirling coral-red liquid, which filled the orbs between her eyelids to the brim. Alexander was certain that she wasn’t blind by the way she locked her gaze upon him, but he found it hard to know what emotions lay beyond her opaque look.

“Do they not bow where you come from, boy?” Gifter asked.

“Oh,” Alexander stumbled, inclining his head to the woman. He didn’t like the feeling of exposing the back of his neck to her, and a cold shiver passed over his skin when he did so. He bolted upright again as soon as he could.

“This is Alexander,” Evangeline explained politely. Even she seemed less confident in Gifter’s presence, for some of the smugness in her smiling, rouged lips had faded. “He’s been living in the middle of Salem Town. I assume you know of the trials up there at present.”

“A witch hunt,” Gifter said, nodding. She toyed with a curl of her silver hair. “I can feel the blood seeping into my walls as it runs downstream from the gallows.” She considered Alexander again. “You poor child. Have they found you out?”

“Not yet,” Evangeline added swiftly, “but they will. He exposed his powers to a human girl this morning.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Alexander asked, a sudden rage burning in his throat. She had come to meet him at the gallows deliberately then, but the question remained as to why he had become a target for this pair of vixens.

“Eyes in the walls,” Gifter chuckled, putting a finger to her long, thin nose and tapping just the once.

Once again, Alexander’s gaze roved to the cave walls where the shadows played tricks, making faces appear in the rock. As a handsome young wanderer, he had gotten himself into many awkward situations in the last few years, and become well-practised in running away from them all with his essentials still intact. Now, as he stood before the two females, Alexander realised he may have stepped out of his depth on this one. The magic here was complex and unfamiliar. He didn’t even stand a chance against Evangeline if things turned ugly, let alone against the giant blue spectacle that was grinning at him, like she was ready to plate him up for dinner.

There was only one solution: play along until the chance arose to escape. Alexander turned to address Gifter directly, forcing his stance to look cool and unaffected.

“Evangeline said something about power?” he prompted.

“Ah,” the glassy giant crooned, “You would like a gift!”

The figure glided backwards, raising her hands to the roof of the grotto, where the light orbs sat. Within moments the spheres stuck to the cave ceiling started to detach themselves, glowing brighter as they descended into the lower atmosphere one by one. A particularly dazzling ball of orange light passed Alexander by and he just caught sight of its spindly legs and bug-eyed face. They were like fireflies, though much larger and brighter than any variety he had ever seen, and they were sentient enough to follow Gifter’s thin hands as she guided them into formation.

They grouped themselves to form a sphere, which hung like a lantern beside Gifter’s head, as a series of objects came into view behind her. She removed some covering cloths from a few items in turn: a jewellery box, a mirror and the empty frame of a window. The window surprised Alexander the most, for he had thought only shades knew the value of keeping an empty window frame handy. As Gifter leaned forward to explore the contents of the jewellery box, Alexander noticed something that he rather wished he hadn’t. In the silver-framed mirror that was propped by her side, Gifter did not have a reflection.

There were only two kinds of creatures who didn’t have a reflection in a mirror. Alexander was fairly certain that Gifter was no vampire, but the other option of what she might be was too terrifying to contemplate. He tried to convince himself that it was a trick of the light, because of where he was standing, but when Gifter turned with a small glass bottle in her hands, the mirror showed him the bottle with no fingers wrapped around it, and no body beyond. Gifter, with her glass-blue skin and her voice made from darkness, was a sworn enemy to the shadeborn.

And Alexander was about to accept help from her.

“This bottle has all the power you need, my boy,” she soothed, offering him the vial. “Drink it up and see the results.”

Alexander looked to Evangeline for support, but she was watching him with an expectant look. He wanted to pull her aside and speak to her, but Gifter’s words kept repeating in his mind.
Eyes in the walls.
Ears too, no doubt: she would hear him voice his misgivings wherever he tried to retreat in this oversized ants’ nest. Evangeline stepped closer to them both and took the bottle from Gifter’s long fingers, transferring it instead to Alexander’s shaking grip. She gave him a confident nod.

“She knows what she’s doing,” Evangeline said. “Gifter’s magic is older than either of ours.”

“Older than this world, dear mademoiselle,” the creature added.

Alexander couldn’t bear the secret word hanging on his lips. He wanted to name Gifter, to show her that he knew what she really was. Names had power, and Alexander needed all the power he could get.

“Because she’s a
djinn
,” he said.

Gifter applauded him with a few slow, amused claps. Alexander felt the heat of rage once more as he clutched the glass bottle tightly in his fist.

“Shouldn’t you be on the other side of that mirror?” he asked her. “I thought that was where djinnkind lived?”

“Just because we should live between the glass, doesn’t mean we want to,” Gifter answered. “I find the human world much more amusing. Evangeline has been so kind as to help me to sustain my existence here by helping poor waifs like you, dear.”

Child. Boy. Waif.

Alexander was sick of her words and the smallness they forced upon him. He thrust the bottle at Gifter’s face, his muscles tensing as the urge to run returned. The djinn were enemies to the shades, and it had always been that way. What advantage did Evangeline think she was getting by working for both sides of an endless feud? Whatever game she was playing, Alexander wanted no part of it anymore. When Gifter didn’t take the bottle back, Alexander threw it to the ground and turned to make his escape.

He didn’t hear the bottle smash on the cave floor. Instead, he felt as though he was trying to move through thick, gelatinous air, every muscle in his body raging against the impossible wall that was now holding him back. The little vial of liquid rose into his view quite intact, and levitating perfectly until it reached his lips. He felt his mouth opening against his will, his head pulled back as though an invisible hand had taken hold of the hair at the scruff of his neck. The liquid from the bottle was surprisingly hot as it hit the tip of his tongue.

“There now child,” Gifter whispered. “Take your medicine.”

“We only want to help you, Alexander,” Evangeline added in the same hushaby tone.

Suddenly the gravity wall that had held him in place was gone. Alexander tried to run then, aiming a leap over the river, but before he could reach the water’s surface, he collapsed to the ground. His hands flew up to his neck as his eyes expanded, gripping everywhere at once, searching for something that he could not see or reach. Something was happening deep in his throat.