Ink and Shadows (39 page)

“God, this fucking hurts,” Kismet gasped, his breath shortened with the effort to pull air into his lungs. His addiction ran under the breadth of the pain, hidden below his screaming nerves. An icy cold spread over his chest, his ribs aching with each slight shift he made in an effort to ease his anguish. “Shit.”

“That kid is cursed,” War muttered to Death. “Just so you know.”

Min’s opponent feinted in, trying to draw the woman out with a rounded fist. Min dodged the blow, bending almost in half as Death’s blade sliced across the creature’s face. Nearly losing her balance, Min backpedaled, easing onto her heels to recover. Slamming his elbow up into the Veiled’s soft throat, Death pushed the creature back to give Min room to fight. The other remaining darkfae pressed in, their flat-faced leader berating them.

“Charity’s yours, War,” Death replied. “Faith’s mine.”

“Death, what do I do?” Mal called out.

“Cut it out of him, Mal.” Death kicked over one of the darkfae’s dropped knives. “Use this. Don’t nick his heart.”

Ari grumbled under his breath, barely loud enough for Mal to hear, “Try to keep him alive long enough for me to kill him. He’s the reason for all of this mess.”

“I can’t believe you got shot.” Mal crouched over Kismet, wondering if he could keep his hands steady enough to carve into the young man. “Damn them. I can’t believe they shot you.”

“You have to stop!” Faith grabbed at Beckett’s hand, pulling at the gun. “We can’t do this. They’ll kill you.”

Min jerked at the sound of another gunshot ringing out, nearly losing her grip on her weapon. The incident at the motel had rattled her more than she cared to admit, the heat of Mal’s blood on her hands still a thing of her nightmares. A small pain in her side panicked Min until she realized it was a slice of a blade over her skin, the cutting wound soothing despite the stinging of her severed nerves. Looking around, she scanned her own people before looking toward Faith, the speckle of gunpowder mottling her breast.

Faith stared down at the blood on her chest, her fingers finding the edges of the hole in her body.

Strangely, the wound didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. Rather, it spiraled out into tentacles, sucking and releasing sharp pangs along her limbs. The world became taller all of a sudden, her mind slow to realize that she’d fallen to her knees. It was then that the pain began, screaming wretches clawing into the back of her skull. Her heart strained, trying to fill the vacuum left by the blood pouring from the breach in her chest.

With the agony of her body being violated by a small piece of metal, Faith surrendered to the terror in her heart, allowing it to take her. She fell, and her lungs exhaled hard from the impact. The floor felt so hard beneath her, her fingers digging to gain some grip on the slick surface. Faith’s breath came in little pants, panic cold in her lungs. With the Veil pushed thin into the building’s perimeter, the immortal strained to reach the tiniest shred of shadow.

“Faith!” Charity caught at the woman, supporting the back of her head. Numb, the magus stood, holding the gun in his limp fingers. “What the hell did you do?”

“I don’t know.” Beckett fell forward, casting the weapon to the ground. “She grabbed at the gun. It just went off.”

“We need to get you out of here.” Gripping Faith’s waist, he lifted her up, straining to find a thick enough shadow to push her through. “If we can get you to Peace, he can help. See if you can find a call, anything to help you.”

Faith heard only an echoing nothingness in the shadows that tasted of the Horsemen. The Veil retreated around her, a wasteland of ghosts. She tried to reach at least the youngest of their Three. Hope was the easiest immortal to call, an ethereal hold on the Veil, but she couldn’t feel even the faintest whisper of the little girl.

In pain, Faith choked on the bitterness in her throat. She felt her lover’s hand on her face, the same hand that shot her. Charity’s desperate voice sounded like a distant echo, drowned out by the anger she could feel rolling through the darkness from Death. War shouted at Mal to help the boy, a buzzing echo fading into a soft hum. The Second Horseman would sooner help a human than another immortal, Faith realized, the burring noise of voices now a rushing ocean of sound.

“Charity, I’m so sorry. Take care of Michael for me. Please,” the woman cried, her eyes weeping hot fire. Faith let herself slide away, ashamed she’d strayed so far from why she’d manifested. Whispering a final apology to her absent lover, the woman released her will and wished herself gone.

The last face Faith saw before returning to the Veil was Beckett’s, his expression fixed with shock. Without the phantom world between them, the magus watched the woman who lured him into love disappear from his arms, leaving nothing behind but the searing anger in his heart.

I
N
A
house on a grassy hill, Hope lifted her head from her play, petite hands stilling over the long blonde hair of her doll. Peace watched the smallest of the immortals, the eternal child, tilt her head and close her eyes, sunbursts of blue hidden behind a pale wash of café au lait skin. Sitting on a long stretch of mahogany carpet, Hope checked the attendees to her tea party, a collection of dolls and plush animals arranged in a semicircle near the sweep of windows overlooking a lake.

Solemn and near the end of her term as Hope, the little girl pondered speaking for a moment, her words lost in the tumbling shadows whispering through the Veil. The murmuring increased, a gossiping sibilance weaving across the miles. A flicker of thought crossed her mind, a still statue of quiet amid the rush of sound carved from far-off screams.

Hope’s lashes flitting open, she found the tiny pink plastic brush she’d set down and began brushing another length of doll hair, her fingers wrapped around golden strands. The Veil shook again, a shuddering tremor attuned to the Three Gifts. Hope caught the edge of it on her thoughts, the stilled scream of a woman’s voice tinting the dark curtain’s flutter.

Hope turned her face toward the man who once made their Three a Four, staring with all-seeing eyes at Peace’s shock, his nerveless fingers gripping the edge of the kitchen counter. A teapot whistled shrill for his attention, the steam rising in an angry column toward the high ceiling.

“Oh, Faith.” Peace’s anguish broke into his voice, shattering his heart. “What are you and Charity doing?”

“I hope this next Faith likes kids, Penelope.” Hope undid the buckle of one shoe, then slid it onto her doll’s unwieldy foot. “It would be nice if there was someone who would play with us.”

Debating if she should retire to her room, Hope decided the fog-drenched lake would make a better backdrop for her gathering, a spray of roses just under the windowsill lending an English tea touch to the festivities.

Besides, the immortal thought to herself, she would want to be presentable when their new Faith arrived. Charity would be in no right mind to deal with anyone, and someone would have to be strong.

Gathering up the Veil in her mind, Hope pinched off the trembling call from Faith, slicing the woman off from the Three and banishing her to the shadows that fed off the weak.

“There,” Hope said to herself. “That’s better. It’ll be better now, Penelope.”

Penelope’s second shoe took longer to wrestle on, Hope’s small fingers struggling with the minute buckle. Sighing hard, she bent to the task, working the leather over the doll’s foot. Satisfied, she gave one last pull on the doll’s filmy socks before returning her to her place at the gathering. The tea would have to be brewed from air, Hope decided, the sounds of Peace’s sorrow continuing behind her. No matter, the little girl shrugged as she poured a ghostly chai into a dainty porcelain cup. The view was more than enough to make up for the lack of tea, and the dolls certainly weren’t going to complain.

B
ECKETT
FELL
to his knees, eyes wet with pain. He raged and wept, his heart speeding with intense agony. Charity’s hands were on his shoulders, the immortal’s fingers clenching hard enough to bruise down to the bone. He couldn’t see past the tears, but he could hear the whispers for revenge in the back of his mind.

“They need to die.”

Charity nodded at Beckett’s words, his face wrinkled into an anguished mask. “You can do that,” the immortal reminded him. “Call something. There’s enough of what you need inside of me. Pull it out. Make them hurt, Beckett. Let them watch each other die.”

Gathering the power Beckett kept simmering in the well of his soul, he lashed out, pulling at the tiny shadowed edges around him. Enough of the Veil pulsed in the darkness, giving the man a channel outward to where inky wraiths thrived. Hitting a thread leading out of the penthouse exterior, Beckett poured his energy outward, his ire and pain at Faith’s loss hot with fierce emotion.

Mal eased Kismet over, his hands gentle on the boy’s shoulders. The young man’s face gleamed ivory, the blood bleached out of his skin. Kismet grabbed at Mal’s hands with cold fingers, holding the Horseman’s arms tight across his upper chest. Bending his head down, Mal rubbed his cheek against the human’s, hoping to warm the chill in Kismet’s flesh.

“Kiz, you’ve got to stay still,” Mal pleaded. Kismet blinked, hoping to hold on to his consciousness just long enough to curse at Mal for jostling him. “You’re making me more nervous.”

“What are you doing?” Gasping, Kismet hissed. Harsh pains jabbed his stomach, the muscles battling convulsive waves. Fighting Mal’s hold, he turned before nearly blacking out from the agony of his body ratcheting and failing. “God, fuck. That hurts more.”

“Just do it, Mal.” Death ducked behind Ari, trying to keep his attention on the fight while glancing at the bleeding human. The paleness of Kismet’s face didn’t bode well. Mal’s palpable fear did little to help the situation. “His body isn’t strong enough to push the bullet out.”

“Please, trust me,” Mal said, his voice soft in Kismet’s ear. The scent of his own shampoo blended with the erotic sweet musk he’d come to identify with the feral human he’d taken in. “I’m not trying to hurt you, not on purpose. But I think Death’s right. That’s got to come out of you before it kills you.”

“Trust you to carve me apart?” Kismet closed his eyes tight, swallowing at the thick spit on his tongue. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Mal admitted. “But it’s either me, or you wait for Ari.”

“Screw that.” Kismet laughed, a sharp pang in his chest. “Hell, use a chopstick if you have to.”

Behind them, Mal heard Death telling Min to move in closer, tightening up the space between them. Fingers shaking, Mal cut into the human’s tender skin. Kismet hissed, loosing a torrent of swear words, the profanity mingled on the blood of his bitten tongue. Gritting his teeth, Mal dug the blade in deeper to widen the opening.

Kismet’s belly clenched, hot bile rushing to his throat. Mal turned the young man’s face, hoping the rush of warm fluids would pass freely onto the floor. He couldn’t risk him choking. The tremors would drive the bullet in deeper, making it impossible for Mal to reach without slicing Kismet nearly apart.

“I’m sorry, Kiz.” Mal winced when he hit one of the boy’s ribs with the blade. Kismet gurgled and arched before going slack in Mal’s embrace. “Kismet!”

The boy’s chest rose and fell, unsteady but constant. Sighing with relief that Kismet had merely passed out, Mal continued to explore the wound, trying to find something metal in the soft tissues. Gritting his teeth, Mal cursed as the blade slid around the opened wound. “I can’t tell what’s bone or metal.”

“Reach in and feel around,” Ari shouted behind him. “Bone is grittier than metal.”

“Right. Sure, I should know that, because I do this all the time.” Bracing himself, Mal whispered into the young man’s ear. “I’m sorry. This is going to hurt.”

Mal placed the knife within easy reach on Kismet’s stomach, took a deep breath, and tore into the young man’s wound with his fingers, scissoring the hole apart with brute force. More blood poured over Kismet’s side, soaking through the shirt fabric and into the thick denim of his jeans. Mal dug through Kismet’s side, his eyes closed as he worked around the spokes of bone until he found a metal pellet barely round enough to be held on a fingertip.

“Got it.” Mal twisted the tiny bullet between his fingers and yanked it free. Pulling the slender man into his arms, Mal cradled Kismet against his chest, willing the tear in Kismet’s side to heal. “Stay with me here. Don’t let go.”

Death cut upward, his shoulders tiring under the strain of slicing through the denser mass of a darkfae’s body. Min’s strength was lagging, her shoulder dropping as she fought. He stepped in to block a knife blade aimed into her chest. Smiling her thanks, Min shook her arms, trying to get the feeling back in her tingling muscles.

Behind him, Kismet gasped and choked, Mal’s murmuring encouragements a soft, calming brush of sound over the boy’s pain. The air beside Death shifted, growing warm and sensual. Ari reappeared to balance his calm. The bump of a shoulder against his felt as erotic as stolen kisses they’d taken from one another over the centuries. He turned, grabbing the merest of glimpses at the blond Horseman at his side, and caught Ari’s wink, disarming Death’s wariness with a cocky grin. Shoving Min aside, Ari stabbed outward, working his blade past the last darkfae’s defenses.

“Go sit down, Min.” Death nodded, tipping his head back to avoid getting a wash of blood in his face. “We’ll take care of whatever they’re planning.”

Min thankfully collapsed onto the ground beside Mal and Kismet. Her body ached, and she worked to slow her breathing, catching huge gasps of air into her chest. She rubbed at the hot burn crawling in her arms, her legs shaking. Min’s face ran brown with clotted blood, cuts across her jaw and temple drying under the hot lights of the lobby, and her side ached where a blade got past her defenses, the skin knitting together through the weave of her shirt fabric. She’d have to cut it out later or get Ari to yank the cloth out of her stomach.