Shadow Play: (7 page)

They entered the cell, and the fae stood up. The scent of the waterfall was stronger in here. She still had the aspect of the doctor whose form she’d taken—hair neatly brushed back, clothing pressed—but there was an insubstantiality, a lightness, that bothered Cam. Her eyes were widening as well, blackness within. A little more time, one hard push, and the fae might just whisk into Shadow. The fae was ailing.

One look at Ellie, and again the fae words flowed freely. It was trying to communicate. Cam’s hand signal, “stop, wait,” did not halt the skip of syllables.

Ellie moved to the back of the room, center; Dr. March stood to the side, eyes bugging, waiting for something to happen. Col. Langer stayed near the front, next to the fae. The door closed behind them.

Cam looked over at Ellie, who did
not
look back at him. Still angry. “When you’re ready, Ms. Russo.”

Immediately, the shadow darted out from her body, a blur of grey woman, but she headed straight for Cam, distress on her face. “Cam!” she wailed before Ellie yanked her viciously back.

The shadow lurched to a new trajectory, but still reached toward him. Was the reason for her unease the fight he and Ellie had just had? Or something else?

No. If the distress were due to a threat, the shade of her skin would be deepening, solidifying for a fight. This was about last night. A part of Ellie obviously still wanted him, which would only make her angrier. They had to resolve this situation. And soon.

Col. Langer and Dr. March had retreated a step from the dark goddess who had suddenly emerged in their midst. Cam ground his teeth together that they should ogle her nakedness. It got under his skin sometimes, which was one reason he preferred the quiet of his lab: He had Ellie to himself.

She forced her shadow to turn her head away from him and face the fae. Even wiped her shadow’s expression clean of feeling.

Langer and March seemed to be recovering, but hadn’t yet lifted their jaws off the floor.

Cam had never seen Ellie wield this kind of control. It was a cruel kind of mastery, a self-punishment maybe for the shadow’s unauthorized freedom last night. Ellie had been angry at times over the past four months, but the strong emotion had usually made her shadow even wilder.

He was wary of this new strength. Too much was changing: The declaration of love, when their relationship was more stressed; the shadow’s new ability to wander while Ellie slept; Ellie’s precision control of her shadow now. Were the two sides of Ellie more separate than ever, or were they in more perfect union? He couldn’t tell.

The shadow began to speak, the sounds similar to the fae’s, but neither was pausing for the listen and response of dialogue. The words should have collided between them, but instead ran on top of each other, twining, as if both fae and shadow listened and communicated at the same time.

Cam looked at Ellie, who’d closed her eyes, as if she didn’t like what she heard.

“Ellie?” Cam asked. He’d expected her shadow to interpret.

Ellie shook her head, struggling to understand. “I think she wants to die. I think she came here to die.”

Ellie translated while the shadow was the conduit. When they’d met the fae yesterday, Ellie had been in full union, like any other human being. Separated, displaced, she was able to decipher meaning where everyone else heard gibberish.

Dr. March stepped forward to examine the shadow close up, then glanced back at Ellie, then back at the shadow, this time gaze flicking down to her breasts, before correcting to her face. “How do you know what they are saying?”

“I don’t know. It just
seems
like that’s what she’s saying,” Ellie gritted out. “But yeah, I’m sure, she came here to die.”

Seems
was a very good word where Twilight was concerned. Cam ranged toward Ellie. “Does she say
why
she wants to die?”

Ellie gnawed on her lower lip, gaze distracted. “She’s very old.”

Twilight and its inhabitants were as ancient as the world.
Old
was an understatement.

“She wanted something new,” Ellie told them, speaking over the babbling talk of the shadow and the fae.

“Dying isn’t
new
,” Col. Langer argued.

Ellie continued. “She saw the way, the bright colors, the heat, the sun beating down in the sky. She wasn’t frightened. And then two humans full of death appeared before her.”

“Children!” Col. Langer again. “Not full of death.”

“Mortals,” Cam corrected. Ellie meant they were mortal, that they could and would die eventually.

“And since death was what the fae wanted,” Ellie said, “she switched places. Became the boy.”

That was the moment of crossing, one world to another. And something about this area of Sedona facilitated it. There was more work to be done here.

Ellie inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the waterfall-scented air. “Brought water to the desert as a gift.”

Col. Langer grunted. “Cornville and Page Springs have enough water now.”

“But the mother didn’t want him.”

Ms. Parson.

“She wouldn’t recognize him as her son, abandoned him, when he would have been a good son, grown strong, given her great gifts, and died an old man.”

Another grunt from Langer. “So he—she—
it
wanted to live first, then die.”

Cam worked for patience. Yes, the fae had started out male and was now female. No “it” necessary.

Ellie shook her head. “The lifetime would have passed quickly for her. And then, nothing. She’s dying now, her Shadow wisping away every moment.”

“Will she go back?” Cam asked. “Will she return to Twilight?”

“She does not like it here,” Ellie said. “The …
mage,
I think … would have trapped her for his own purposes. The mage won’t give up. The fae feels trapped already. The mage will use her. The mage wants power. But the fae does not know what power is, so how can she give him this gift?”

“Why did the fae impersonate the doctor?” Cam asked.

“So that the mage wouldn’t find her. How would the mage know which one was her if there were two of the same person?”

Dr. March shook his head at the reasoning, but Cam understood its simplicity. The fae hadn’t thought through to the next step of the encounter with the mage: a challenge.

“But the mage
did
find her,” Ellie said. “Slit her throat first, but that is not how the fae can die. She would’ve happily died if that was all it took. She would’ve liked to die like a human.”

“Will she go back?” Cam repeated.

Ellie paused, listening to the ramble. “I think so. She has changed already. She has learned fear and loss.” Ellie shook her head, frustrated. “There are other strong feelings, but I can’t find names for them. She has smelled death. That is enough.”

“Can she lead you to JT?”

“She can lead me to herself, whatever that means.” Ellie’s forehead tensed. “But I don’t think she’s trying to trick us. I think she’s referring to the original switch. That she only has to look for a part of herself that remained behind, and that JT has it.”

Excellent. This gave Ellie a path of sorts to traverse in Twilight, the originating point being the fae, and the destination, the fae’s own Shadow, which was in JT’s keeping. It was as direct as they could get where Twilight was concerned.

“Can you tell her that we’ll make the switch back soon,” Cam said. “That we’ll head to the waterfall shortly?”

“Now,” Ellie answered back. “She says now. The mage is near. Now.”

Ellie’s shadow torqued her head at on odd angle, trying to fight Ellie’s hold. “Danger,” she snarled. She wrenched again. “The bad man. Here.”

Cam flashed with cold adrenaline. Col. Langer spoke into his throat mic. Dr. March reached for the door, but froze, green-faced, when Cam shot him a heavy look. The safest place to be was in the company of Ellie’s shadow.

The shadow jerked her head into another angle, fighting Ellie. “Danger!”

“Okay,” Cam said. “We do this now.” His new team had been prepared all morning. Dr. Hasler, the mage specialist, was going to have a helluva first day. The only thing that had to be delayed was Cam’s talk with Ellie, but all he really needed to say was three words.

“One more thing,” Ellie said.

Cam nodded. “Quickly.” They had to get to the waterfall. Get them on their way. Once the fae had gone into Twilight, the mage could have no other interest here. The faster they moved, the safer everyone would be.

“She wants to give you a gift,” Ellie said. “For fighting so bravely to keep the mage from getting to her and taking her away. She says you were clumsy.”

Cam had mostly been fighting to keep
Ellie
from harm, and yeah, he’d been beaten soundly. So any gift from the fae was unwarranted, and the idea made him nervous anyway. Very. A little leeway from Ellie, however, he’d take in a heartbeat.

“Her last gift flooded two towns,” Col. Langer said.

Good point.

“No gift necessary,” Cam said. “But thank her.”

“A gift,” Ellie insisted. “She won’t leave until you agree.”

Cam’s gut tightened, but he nodded. If it would help Ellie find JT and bring them both back safe and sound, okay. And if it would help them hurry up. He knew the gift would come with a price tag, who knew how high.

The fae/doctor stepped forward, this time speaking in that strange language to Cam, though he didn’t comprehend a word that was said.

Cam looked over at Ellie, who shrugged and shook her head—the meaning seemed to be lost on her as well. Not good. He wanted to back away, to refuse. But in the interest of brevity, he smiled and nodded again. Get on with it.

The fae lifted a hand and touched Cam’s temple.

Cam had the oddest sensation of thin, fuzzy tendrils crawling into his skull behind his eyes. The sensation stopped his heart for a second, trapped his breath in his throat, too. The Shadow sizzled in his brain—because that’s what it had to be, Shadow. Magic. In his head.

Took only a second after all.

His vision blurred so that the doctor no longer stood before him, but rather a child-sized humanoid, a little like JT, but all bald, with hollow cheeks and belly. Not a he or she, really … more like Langer’s “it.” The fae had taken on something of JT in the transfer, and Cam guessed that JT would be a little fae now, too. Ms. Parson might get her child back unharmed, but not unchanged.

Everything was changing.

Cam turned his new sight upon Ellie’s shadow and was not surprised in the least at the beauty that burned before him. Her composition wasn’t merely grey. No, her exquisite form swirled with infinitesimal flashes of brilliant color he’d been too blind to see before. She wasn’t made of some variant of darkness. Ellie’s shadow gleamed.

No wonder the fae had embraced her upon meeting. Cam wanted to embrace her again, too.

Yesterday, he’d fought an invisible foe and lost. Today he saw everything.

CHAPTER 5

Ellie, with the fae beside her, stumbled down toward the falls surrounded by a cluster of men—Cam’s new so-called team. Cam kept close, but had been a little twitchy since the fae had touched him. His green eyes had gone black, which, combined with the swelling and discoloration of his face, made him look like a stranger. Her anger over what had happened last night put even more distance between them.

A second ring of men, soldiers, protected their progress, guns pointed outward at the surrounding area. Instructions buzzed over their ear pieces. And out in front, in all her naked glory, her shadow led the way. A minute more and they’d be at the falls.

“What did she do to you?” Ellie asked Cam.
She
meaning the fae, who seemed to be aging with every step. Shadow streaked away from the doctor’s body like the crackling tail of a comet.

“Something to my sight,” he answered. “Don’t worry about it. I can still see.”

The fae had stopped talking, stopped trying to communicate too, as if everything was too much effort.

“What do you mean, your ‘sight’?” Ellie demanded. Her concern ratcheted her previous anger up to fury. How could she be so furious and care so much at the same time? Her only relief was that her shadow wasn’t concerned about him, and her shadow’s instincts were always right.

“My sight’s better,” he said. “I see more at once, that’s all. Time will tell if there are any other side effects.”

He seemed to dismiss her then, which ticked her off even more. He glared around the site as they passed, presumably looking for the mage. But if the mage were here, her shadow would have him in a choke hold by now. Or worse.

On the dry side of the waterfall, the concealing curtain was parted, allowing entry. A torrent rushed on the other side. Spray was in the air, grabbing her lashes. The water was clear, sparkling as it fell, earthy red as it churned away and re-contoured the lower landscape for miles. Front and center, the Shadowlands. The seductive smell of magic made her head dizzy.

The rest of the team was already in place: emergency medical staff, Dr. March and Dr. Hasler, and Ms. Parson, to make certain that JT wasn’t too frightened by all the unfamiliar faces to cross back over. She looked years older, but no less determined. Carter, the brother, was now in the care of his father, who was staying in an overflow hotel in Flagstaff.

Ellie’s shadow reached her hand into the water, but it rushed right through her palm.

Cam turned his back on the falls to speak. How could she trust him with those eyes?

“So far so good,” he said, “and you’ll be safe once your shadow and the fae cross.”

Right. Except for the mage who might be lurking nearby, the conditions couldn’t be more auspicious. The fae was cooperative and had indicated that it could find itself in Twilight, which meant it could lead her to JT. Her shadow needed no supplies, required no last minute preparations. Why then, didn’t Ellie feel ready?

Because she had a big personal decision to make. She’d send her shadow off … but would she allow her shadow back into the world? This was her chance to get rid of it. No more sexy talk. No more humping and jutting and splayed legs. No more violent killer. She could send that part of herself far, far away and never be bothered again. So tempting.