Shadowman (35 page)
Authors: Erin Kellison
“Custo wouldn't hurt you, and he's an angel,” she said, trying to convince herself.
She took a side road, and the guard of surrounding cars followed, yes, like a flock of strange geese. She turned right onto the next street and coasted down its length. This road was wide, surely busy at certain times of day, but just now few cars passed. The buildings seemed gray, passionless, silent, on the sidewalks only a soul or two.
Shadowman noted the intersection ahead. Perfect. “Stop here.”
The surrounding cars gave Layla no choice but to stop in the middle of the street.
“Good,” he said. “Stay in the car.”
So of course she got out at the same time he did.
The angels were exiting, too, their bright, beautiful faces full of doom. Two there, four on that side, another group joining at his back. Ballard at his right. They were men and women in modern dress, all of them armed with Heavenly weapons. And suddenly he was reminded of that first day with Layla, on the city street. Then, too, the angels had stepped out of obscurity and made themselves known. Watching.
He approached Ballard, who momentarily braced himself to strike.
Shadowman glanced down at the battle-ax in Ballard's hand. The haft was long and the silver-blue blade moon arched, though differently oriented than his scythe had been. Still, the handling would be similar. “Might I borrow that for a moment?”
Ballard's brows drew together, his former concentration broken. His upper lip curled. “You think I would . . .”
“I'll need something to strike down the devil.” Shadowman shifted his gaze to the intersection ahead, the crossroads, hoping that Ballard would know the lore regarding the summoning of a devil, and understand his meaning. A crossroads was a place where the boundaries of the three worlds grew thin, even that of Hell. From there the gate and its she-devil would hear his call for a deal and be forced to answer. Making a deal with the devil had a very long tradition among humanity that lived on in stories and song, even permeating this young country and these modern times. “I built the gate that let her out. It's my duty. If I am going to fight today, don't you think I'd best start with her?”
Frowning deeply, Ballard reluctantly offered the weapon. “You pursue Hell too often.”
“Indeed.” Shadowman took the ax and found the weight of the weapon pleasing in his right hand, as he had his scythe for millennia. It did not burn his mortal flesh, as the hammer had Death's. He gripped the haft near the blade, reached to gather his long hair into a bunch, and with the blade cut the lot of it off.
“Don't!” Layla pleaded, too late and foolish. The hair could only be a liability in a fight. And he meant to win this one.
“Thank you,” Shadowman said to Ballard. “I'll give the weapon back to you shortly.”
He turned at Layla's hand on his arm.
“What's going on?” Her gaze darted from him to Ballard. “What insane thing are you going to do?”
He kissed her cheek. Soft, so smooth. “You humbled Moira for me. Let me do this one little thing for you.”
She blinked in confusion.
“Trust me.” He strode down the street toward the intersection.
“Butâ?” she called after him.
He lifted a hand for her patience but didn't look back. A car honked as he took position in the middle of the crossroads, ready.
“Rose!” Shadowman called. The intersection blurred. Time and space shifted out of the mundane. Headlights streaked red and white, hanging in the air. The buildings hazed, wavering as if with extreme heat. The place was both located in the city of the present, and the burnt red dust of a dirt road in Hell, superimposed over each other.
A fae might be able to track a devil by subtle signs of death and evil, but a mortal could not. If a mortal wanted a devil, he must bring the devil to him. At a crossroads. For a deal. Fame, wealth, beauty, . . . love.
Call a devil, and she must come.
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Rose sat at the pretty kitchen table of a country home, trying to lift a teacup to her lips. Chamomile tea, with its smooth aroma, always settled her nerves. The china cup rattled against the saucer, but Rose was determined to be a lady. Didn't matter what she looked like on the outside if her manners were excellent.
She managed a sip.
Then spilled a little down her chin when the old man she'd locked in the basement started mewling again.
Rose put the teacup down with a smack, snapping the delicate handle from the cup.
Wasn't her fault he'd toppled down the stairs. He was the one who didn't want her to use his dead wife's best china, when clearly the set was the only decent thing in the cupboard.
She tried to hold the cup between her thumb and first finger but broke the china. The tea puddled on the flower-printed tablecloth. She worked to control her frustration. This would not do.
“Rose!” a man's voice called.
She dried her fingertips on a napkin, her blood moving faster. How did the old man know her name?
No, couldn't be him. The voice had been too strong.
Rose stood, wary. Had the bad people from Segue found her? She'd been so careful in her move north. She'd followed the gate's directions so assiduously. No hot-tempered mistakes this time.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: You can beat him.
Beat whom?
Rose stepped toward the door, and her vision wavered. The house fell down around her, disappearing into red dust, and suddenly she was in Hell again, the burnt desert landscape as dry and unforgiving as fire. In the cracked clay dirt, two roads met, crossing each other at right angles.
A shirtless man stood before her. His muscled chest and tight, rippled stomach made her flash her dimples before she remembered her dimples were lost under thick, sallow skin. His pants rode low on his hips, without a belt, so that the fuzz on his navel directed her attention even lower, which was inappropriate, but interesting. He had a really long ax in one hand, a plaything after the attack at Segue.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
“I am Shadowman,” he answered.
Oh,
him.
Her satisfaction at his newly weakened state was poisoned by his appearance. That the monster should look like that, while she suffered . . . This was exactly the reason why looks didn't matter.
him.
Her satisfaction at his newly weakened state was poisoned by his appearance. That the monster should look like that, while she suffered . . . This was exactly the reason why looks didn't matter.
kat-a-kat: He's mortal now.
Better yet, he was that Layla's lover, as Mickey had been Rose's. So, of course, he had to die. Layla should hurt, too.
“I want to make a deal,” he said.
“Funny”âshe sneered at himâ“I just want to kill you.”
“Yes, but if I win . . .”
Rose swiped at his throat, but he dodged back.
“You must hear me out,” he said. “If I win, then I want the destruction of the gate to be visited upon my body, not Layla's. I want to die in her place.”
“You'll die now,” Rose said. “And no one will destroy the gate.”
The pretty man shook his head. “Accept my deal, and then we will fight.”
kat-a-kat: Agreed. Finish him now, and I will exist forever.
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Layla ran toward the intersection, drawing her gun. She tried very hard not to blink for fear that she'd lose her visual grasp on Shadowman, the warping red earth, and now Rose, shimmering before him in the rising waves of Hell's heat.
How did Rose get there so fast? Had she been following that closely? The devil had found a large gold and blue paisley muumuu since Segue. It was hard to tell with all that fabric, but it seemed her injuries had healed and she was as beastly as ever.
Shadowman had no idea how dangerous she was. Layla had already shot Rose point-blank, lots of times. If modern weapons couldn't kill her, what did he hope to do with that medieval ax?
Rose and Shadowman prowled in a circle, intent on only each other. And stranger still, the traffic resumed like normal, passing through on green lights, stopping at reds, oblivious to the fight in the intersection. A bass beat from a car parked at a filthy gas station gave the coming fight an urban rhythm, while the air took on a sulfurous stink that made Layla flare her nostrils. Those turning down Layla's street had to go around all the skewed cars, but she didn't care, and apparently, neither did the gathered angels, who joined Layla to watch. But, damn them, not to help.
“What's happening?” Layla shot over her shoulder to the yellow-blond angel who'd given Shadowman the ax. “I thought he was going to fight you guys.”
She gripped her gun, ready to fire, but her instincts told her not to shoot, that the bullet would neverâcould neverâreach Rose, though she was only a few yards away.
Layla put her hands to her head, her body flashing with heat. If she ran into the intersection herself, could she join them in that desert? Had there been a trick to Shadowman's approach? Like some mage magic? Maybe . . .
The angel stepped up beside Layla and blocked forward movement with his arm across her chest. “Stay here,” he said. “Shadowman is gone from this plane. A mortal can summon a devil at the crossroads to make a deal, usually to sell his soul.”
A deal with the devil? “And the crossroads are in Jersey?”
He smiled slightly. “The crossroads can be anywhere, at any time. If mortals can call on Heaven, they can appeal to Hell, too. We'd have attempted this ourselves, but it is our law that Heaven cannot make any deals with a devil.”
And Shadowman would never have suggested this crossroads thing to her or even Adam, not up against a thing like Rose. He'd only risk himself.
Layla flinched as Rose, snarling, swiped at Shadowman. He dodged back, light on his feet. He arced the ax into a shining figure eight, the symbol of infinity, to loosen his wrist.
“He's going to sell his soul?”
“No. Mages don't have souls,” the angel said. “We won't know the terms of the exchange until the battle is done and the victor claims the spoils.”
Shadowman blurred into a counterclockwise turn. The momentum crossed the ax in front of his chest, and he rounded into a spider cartwheel over Rose's shoulder. He lunged deeply into a graceful, two-handed strike. Caught the devil at her neck, but the blade glanced away when it hit bone.
Okay, so he might survive five minutes, rather than five seconds.
Rose lashed back. Raked his chest with a claw.
He flexed his hips back when she sent a cross-swipe across his stomach.
The ax windmilled as Rose punched, but she was too slow to avoid the quick uppercut to her chin, which sent her strike wild and her snarl up to a high-pitched shriek.
Layla gulped. “Can you help him?”
The angel didn't seem worried at all. “I gave him my ax. Devils do not heal from Heavenly wounds.”
“Well, how about giving him a hand?”
The angel finally slid his gaze her way. “Have you any idea how many people over the millennia have fought Death?”
Layla watched Shadowman coolly spin the ax in his palm, as if getting the feel of the weapon. One side of his mouth stretched into a smile. His eyes glittered.
“I'd guess people fight Death a lot,” she said. There was too much good stuff in this world to give up easily. So, okay, he'd had plenty of practice.
The angel returned his attention to the fight. “This should be over fast. The Reaper has never been one to draw out a death unnecessarily.”
Rose dived at Shadowman, but he spun out of the way, bumped her shoulder with the blunt side of the ax, then whipped the blade into an overhead circle.
“And when he's done with her, he'll fight you?” Layla's heart beat fast.
Rose darted a wicked hand toward Shadowman's throat, which he knocked away with the staff of the ax.
“The gate cannot stand,” the angel said, “and mages have a long history of conflict with Heaven.”
Layla had known this was coming, must be dealt with. She had hoped that after her win over Fate the problem of the gate might also be solved without the loss of her hard-won life. A cry of denial choked her. She swallowed it bitterly. At least Shadowman had been saved that eternity of Twilight winter. “And if I promise to give myself up?”
The angel turned his shining face to her. “Can you also promise that he won't wage war for you? He was bent on saving you, and therefore the gate, from destruction. He'd have killed us all if he'd had to, on your behalf. Right now we hold Shadow very tenuously in check. We cannot afford an extended battle with him. Can you assure me that he will peaceably allow you to die?”
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