“No deaths,” Khan answered, or he would have felt the mark. He did not like the angels, but he was glad they were searching, too, and probably limiting the harm the woman could cause on the unsuspecting populace.
“No?” The angels had no gift for death. “Well, that's good news.”
“She'll be turning foul, a monster to behold.”
“Takes one to know one,” the angel returned. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked down the sidewalk, his back to Death.
The devil, a
she
, was biding her time. It made no sense for her to strike in Middleton now, when Layla was so near. Khan could feel a sense of waiting in the stillness of the air for the moment the devil deemed it right to strike. The angels were here to keep the peace in the interim.
The day, like the eons of days before it, had been swallowed by the night, so Khan returned to the beat of life within Segue.
The roses were in a vase at Layla's bedside.
She paced in the room beyond, wringing her hands. The air was rife with the charge of her nerves, so he drew out a chair that she might sit down and calm herself.
“Khan?”
If her apartment had had any of Kathleen's paintings, he could have given her a familiar face to speak to. But these rooms were like all the others in Segue, similar in their comfortable furnishings, unimaginative in decoration.
He needed another medium and found it in the glass of a window.
He rapped with Shadow for her attention.
She screamed when she saw him there, and he considered her perspective. For her, he was a face in the night, looking in from the dark air some distance from the ground. It took a moment for her heartbeat to slow again. He was rapt with the subtle expressions that played across her face, matching them to the emotion that touched his Shadow: an excited kind of fear, which he liked; a pleasurecoil of interest, which he liked better; and best of all, humor, though it was born of exhaustion. If she could laugh at him, they might have a chance.
“I'm curious,” she said, “how you think this could possibly work out.”
He pushed for a smile. “You doubt my ability to seduce you?”
And got raised eyebrows instead. “Well, right now, you're a window man, and earlier you were a painting man, and when you're all creepy with darkness, a shadowâ”
“Layla!” He cut her off.
She startled, which he regretted, but he couldn't have her completing that thought. So often her mind worked like Kathleen's; they'd both arrived at the same name for him. Shadowman. But names have power, and with it, she would surely know his nature.
Layla sighed hugely, shaking her head. “You should know that we're doomed from the start, and not only because you're, um, two-dimensional right now.”
“Anything is possible.” He had to believe that, however small their chances. Possibility was the essence of Shadow. “You bid me come to you before. I came. You asked me to touch you before. I answered the call of your desire. We gave ourselves up to each other. We made our own doom, but I'd take it again if you'll have me.”
“Well”âshe ran a nervous hand through her hairâ“while I might be . . .
intrigued
by your interest, and what you claim is our history, I just . . .” As she spoke, she worried the skin on her ring finger and looked away. “This is crazy. Any chance you'll be out in the real world soon? It would be much easier to speak to a body.”
His body was the problem. “It may be some time before I can get back. Please continue. You just what?”
“I don't remember you.” She sobered completely. “Maybe our time has passed. Maybe you were meant to be with Kathleen, but not so much with me.”
“I've searched the whole of your life for you. Been burned by divine light. Breached Hell even.” His Shadows grumbled within him. “And now that I have you, I'm not letting go. Our time is just beginning.”
He watched her swallow hard. Scrape the skin on her ring finger.
“What troubles you?” he asked.
Her gaze darted nervously away, then back. “Well, I'm sorry to have to point this out, but you're strange. Frighteningly strange.”
“Get used to it.”
“Yeah, and the bossy, imperious thing . . .” She made a pained face as if looking for the right words. “I'm a pretty independent woman. You say something arrogant, flip your long black hair, and I just want to, uh, mock you, which I think might be very dangerous. And I've had enough danger for today, thanks.”
She was right. What he had in mind would be much easier face-to-face. “Go to the bed, Layla, and lie down.”
She tilted her head, as if thinking. “See, now, there you go again. I'm not quite sure if you're aware of it since it comes so easily to you. You just commanded me to do something, and I can't see myself complying.”
Her words were at odds with her reaction. The word
bed
had sparked a violet pulse deep in her womb. Part of her badly wanted to be in bed. It was her indomitable will and her Earth-centric reservations that tormented them both. They needed Twilight, and now.
“Layla, will you lie down for me? Or will you drive me mad?”
“Those are my options?” she scoffed, goading him.
“I am immortal, yet I do not know how I will survive you.”
She waggled her head. “Yeah, and speaking of the immortal thing . . .”
Khan cursed himself. “Lie down.”
“Don't boss me.”
“
Please
, lie down.”
“I don't go to bed with people, or”âshe snortedâ“
immortal fae
, that I've just met.”
“You know me, Layla, or you would not be arguing with me.”
Stop fighting, love
. “Your inborn sense of preservation would send you flying from my presence. And yet you stay, and argue with a dark lord of the fae, because you know that, of all mortals, you are safe. I ask you to lie down so that I can share your dreams, so that we might converse a little easier.”
She frowned. “You scared the crap out of Dr. James this morning.”
“An excellent example of the typical mortal response.”
“What are you?”
His Layla was too clever.
“Fae,” he answered.
She gazed at him in the window and pressed her lips together, deliberating. “The âdark lord' part was a bit much.”
He bowed his head to concede her point. Nevertheless, a dark lord he was. That much she would have to accept.
“It will be your dream, Layla. You control what happens in it.”
“Dream only,” she said.
“Yes, of course.” What occurred in the dream, however, was entirely up to her.
She went to her bedroom and set herself up primly, head centered on her pillow, hands clasped over her belly, ankles crossed. The coverlet dimpled around her. Her mind was too agitated for slumber, so he waited for the moment her shoulders relaxed, her thoughts wandered, and then he cut her free and let her fall.
Khan emerged in the dockside warehouse where they'd first met. He took the form Layla knew, the body that Kathleen had created for him. In dreams, he could be anything.
The warehouse was done up with the riches he'd copied from the magazine scrap: plush chairs; books; the map flat on the table, held down by the figure of a wooden Buddha, who regarded him tranquilly. Khan found Layla staring into the gilded mirror. Frustration beat the air around her. The glass was murky; whatever she sought eluded her.
“Layla,” he said.
The room blurred as she turned, her mind sifting the details of the dream from a new vantage point. He held his body fast as the furnishings settled into clarity again. Dreams were always shifting, always fluid. Beyond this little island oasis, the trees of Twilight swayed.
“I can't find her,” she said. “I look and look and look and I can't see anything.”
Layla had been searching her reflection, so he could guess whom she was looking for. He approached and skimmed his knuckles across her cheek. “She's here. You're here.”
“I'm lost.”
Would she even remember their words this deep in a dream? How much comfort could she bring back to consciousness? He didn't know. He bent to touch her nose in an Eskimo kiss. “You're found.”
The color of her anguish shifted to intense, consuming longing. The dream, the room deepened, the hues growing harsh, aging. “I don't want to be alone anymore.”
“You're not alone. I'm here. Come what may, I'll never let you go again.” To prove it, he brushed his mouth across hers.
Fine black lines of anger cracked the room as she became self-aware in the dream setting. It was a difficult skill to master. Kathleen had been proficient at it as a child, and Layla was learning just as fast.
“I need to be able to take care of myself. A ghost attacked me today, and Talia had to save me.” Layla gestured wildly to the mirror, where another version of herself now stood, dressed in the gold gown he'd fashioned for her upon their meeting. The gown ill fit the body it covered. “I'm not your precious princess Kathleen, locked in the castle tower waiting for rescue.”
On that point, Layla was mistaken. “Kathleen fought the only way she could: she
endured.
”
“Yeah, well in this life, I don't sit around.” Her dream voice warped with her intensity.
It was the quintessential human struggle: to be the master of one's own fate. Layla didn't know it, but even now she fought a power far greater than a wisp of a ghost. She fought Moira, who inevitably would win.
“A ghost attacked you?” They were harmless.
“Yeah, the west wing freaky child.”
Softly, in singsong, a chant began to echo in the warehouse. “Dead man, dead man, come alive . . .”
And Khan grew cold as he understood the threat: the chant was a curse, masquerading as child's play. Layla's lifeline was cut, her time on Earth at an end, and therefore, her body was forfeit. The ghost, clinging to life, sought to occupy it. The chant
, Dead man, dead man, come alive,
was an invitation for her to take over Layla's flesh. And Layla would be cast out, forced to cross or become a ghost herself.
As a rule, ghosts were shallow things, rarely capable of intelligence, just strong feeling: sadness, rage, greed.
This act reeked of design, of a trap. Moira. Again.
The dream hazed for a moment. “Talia got her. I mean, damnâ”
Good girl. But Talia could not force the ghost to cross. The “west wing freaky child” still walked the halls of Segue.
“It's me who can't do anything,” Layla said.
Â
Â
She squinted back into the mirror, but the figure in the glass was still indistinct, a definite problem. This reincarnation business was messing with her head big-time.
“You have more power than you think,” Khan said. “Those in the mortal world have the most power of all.”
“Compared to you guys, I have none.” And the world grew more frightening and unknowable by the hour.
The dream flashed white, muddled her senses, before settling again.
She turned back to Khan, Mr. Dark Lord of the Fae. He wore black, head to toe. Pants that skimmed over his long, muscled physique. A simple shirt that defined the ridges beneath. And a minimalist leather coat. His hair fell past his shoulders, and as she watched, it braided itself, and the sharp line from jaw to cheekbone was revealed.
What the hell was he?
No, wait. She didn't want to know.
The dream flashed againâKhan was near, then farâ all perspective seemed off. Better to
feel.
That sixth sense overrode everything else.
Feel everything.
She knew she should be screaming in fear, but she was stirring with interest and . . . and . . . tingly, torturous
want
instead. The sensation, right down below her belly button, had never been this strong. Perhaps meeting him in dreamland was a mistake. Fighting this pull was going to be far more difficult here.
“Are you doing this to me? Making me feel this way?” It would be inexcusable if he was.
“No,” he answered, but his wicked grin was back. “I can cast an illusion that might terrify or please, but I cannot make you feel anything.”
“You can do more than cast an illusion,” she said. “I've seen it.”
“I can sense the rapid beat of your heart.” He circled her in a blur of movement. “And I can sense your emotions. Your dream is thick with them. Shall I describe what you feel?”