Talia gave her a sorry expression. Polite, but not believing.
“It's there,” Layla said and raised the camera. It was a Nikon D40. Nice, but not as good as hers. “That shadow has been bugging me since I snuck into your woods.”
“Layla, I know Shadow,” Talia said. “If there were anything unusual here, I'd see it.”
Uh-huh. Layla would have to explain. “When I was a teenager I got into a kind of live-in prep school for disadvantaged youth. Northfield.” She found the manual mode on the Nikon and set the exposure for maximum contrast. “Took a photography class. The teacher explained about perspective. How every person has a different one. How we all see things a little differently.”
“Doesn't make sense,” Kev said. “A camera will catch whatever it's pointed at.”
Typical response.
“Perspective is not about what's in front of the camera. Perspective is about the eye looking through it.”
At sixteen, that brief explanation had been a major “aha!” moment in Layla's life. Maybe the creepy stuff she saw was just her perspective. Maybe she just had to learn to see things another way, and the frightening visions would stop. To a certain extent, it had worked until now.
Kev frowned. Talia looked uncomfortable.
“It's easy: I am simply going to take a picture of what I see, and I see Segue half lost in shadows. What do you want to bet I can catch it on film?”
Layla lay down on the grass, which crunched beneath her, the cold leaching through her sweatshirt to cool her back.
Talia crouched beside her, while Kev stepped back to talk into his earpiece.
The framing required some light to contrast with the shadow, as well as the clear sky overhead. If she was very good, she might be able to capture a sense of castle, too. Because to her, that's what Segue looked like. She inhaled to take in the deepness of the dark and the crisp solidity of the white. The blue above augmented the two, revealing their stark differences, not just in light, but in texture and depth.
She snapped the shot, tweaked her angle, bracketed the exposure, and shot again. Pulled back, one more time. Until she downloaded the images, she couldn't be sure, but she thought she had it.
The viewfinder was suddenly filled with a blur of movement, and then she was hauled up.
“Hey!” she yelled as she made a grab for the camera. Kev's better reflexes snatched it out of the air while simultaneously propelling her toward the Segue building. Talia was already a couple of yards away, almost rounding the corner.
“We've got to get you inside,” Kev said as he hurried her up to a jog. “I've just been notified of an attack.”
His tone sobered her up real quick. Was it time to die? “Wraiths?”
“Something,” he answered. Sounded like a dodge. “We'll have to examine the bodies before we'll know for certain.”
The sudden emergency had her blood pounding hard while her skin went clammy. Two attacks in one day. Wraiths throwing themselves against Segue security. How could the Thornes possibly cope with this kind of constant assault? The castle was under siege.
They entered on the main floor of the old hotel. Adam met them in the wide, connected corridor of elegant rooms. Talia already had a baby in her arms and was doing a nervous bounce.
“What's going on?” Talia asked.
“We've got action at the main gate. A woman. Caucasian, about five-two, a hundred pounds, brown hair. Blue coat,” Adam said, but wouldn't quite meet Layla's eyes. “She took out six of my men before disappearing. She has to be in Middleton by now or we could track her on the thermal-imaging cameras.”
Hundred-pound woman besting six soldiers with guns. Had to be a wraith.
Why wouldn't Adam look at her? “Was it the flying kind?”
Adam finally darted a glance. “You mean a
wight
. We're working on new capture strategies. Barrow-tech. Khan suggested it the other day to Talia, and the angels have confirmed that barrows are the way to go.”
The wraith situation was just getting worse and worse. The public needed to know specifics about this threatânot the rumors and misdirection in the media. The public had a right to know about these monsters, including this new breed, the wights. Layla had no idea how to write her article, one that would instill more fear than hope, but at the very least, knowledge was power.
“I'd like to visit the attack site.”
“No.”
“But . . .”
“No.” The heavy look he gave her shut her up. Adam needed to see to the dead. She respected that. And she wanted his full attention to argue her case about the wights. It was just too damn important. The world was different now.
Then came a wait for news. Layla joined Talia and the babies in the library, close to the action, but comfortable. Talia spread a blanket on the floor and the little ones ogled up at the ceiling or attempted to roll over.
Layla's internal panic slowly morphed through the long minutes into a generalized, slightly sick anxiety that had her jumping every time Adam stepped in the room. She decided to distract herself, snagged a laptop from a cubby, and downloaded the images she'd captured with the camera.
Two shots were blurry. It had been hard to hold the camera perfectly still when she was lying on her back, looking up at the hulk of the building. Another captured the shadow, but the crop of the image made it plausible that something mundane was casting the reaching darkness.
But there was one image that stopped her.
Yes. There.
That's what she was talking about.
Shadow, capital
S
, was cloaking one half of the building. More than that, the building itself seemed to twist out of its right angles as if the walls were trying to shrug out of the darkness. The building was writhing, warped by the dark swamp overtaking it.
At Layla's shoulder, Talia frowned at the image. “My mother was an artist, hugely gifted.” She paused, cleared her voice. “I've been watching to see if you have a similar talent. Maybe this is it.” She paused again. “I
know
this is it.”
Layla shook her head, denying the comparison. “I've never been that much into art.” She couldn't imagine creating Kathleen's masterpieces. That gene had definitely skipped her. “But I've messed around with a little photography, when I could steal time.”
“You need to steal more; that photo could hang in any gallery.” Talia bit her bottom lip as she considered the image. “And I was right there. I didn't see that at all. Your perspective is definitely different.”
“But didn't you say that you
knew
Shadow?”
“I can draw from Shadow, like my father. Darken a room. Cloak myself and others. But I can't cross, and I can't use it to create illusion. And I've never seen the Twilight trees my mother painted.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I'm saying the veil was thin for my mother. And clearly it's thin for you, too.”
“But not for you?”
Talia dropped her gaze. “My mom was very ill her whole life.”
Layla caught the subtext: Kathleen had been near death, so the veil was thin. Reincarnated, Layla had that same experience, and now she was set to die, too.
“That's why the ghost could get to me, isn't it?” Finally the attack in the west wing made sense. In a weird way, she was almost a ghost herself, just hanging on for that fateful moment.
Talia reluctantly inclined her head. “Yeah, we think so. I'm so sorry I didn't anticipate the danger. We had no idea.”
Layla gripped her shoulders to ease the tension there. “You can't anticipate everything, I guess. And you did scream her into submission, so I'm not complaining. One question: Khan has pulled me through the Shadowlands a couple of times now. He never showed you?”
A side of Talia's mouth tugged up. “He offered, but being only half mortal, I'm too scared I won't be able to cross back. The fae are very limited in some ways. Their world is circumscribed, more so than for humanity.”
“How does Khan go back and forth so easily?”
“Ah. Khan's very powerful. Maybe the most powerful. And I'm only half fae.”
They started bringing in casualties, and later Adam returned to the library to discuss the findings. Once again, he looked deeply tired and Layla wondered how long he could sustain this kind of constant pressure and concern.
Talia went to him and put her head on his shoulder, lending him her strength.
Layla stood, worried and helpless. “Well?”
Adam sighed. “None of the dead exhibited the telltale wraith bite marks on their faces. The prevailing wounds were claw marks across the belly or throat.”
Layla shivered. She'd seen the bodies of people killed violently before, but it always made her very cold and heartsick.
“At least their souls weren't taken,” Talia said.
Adam acknowledged this with a weary nod.
“Souls?” Layla asked.
Talia looked over. “Wraiths feed on souls to sustain themselves. The souls become trapped within until the wraith is killed.”
The WHO claimed the wraiths fed on a form of metabolized energy.
But, souls?
Clearly the situation was much, much worse. Layla needed to take a look at Talia's wraith research. And even then, she didn't know what to report in her articleâif she survived to write one. Khan had said she would agree that a little deception was called for. If the soul part was true, then reporting it to the frightened masses would be like announcing Armageddon.
Layla was confused on one point. “So this wasn't a wraith attack?”
She looked from Adam to Talia, both of whom shot each other glances heavy with meaning.
“What?”
They looked back at her.
“Oh, God, what now? I'm already going to die. What could be worse?”
“Maybe we should wait for Khan,” Talia said. “He'll be back tonight.”
“You tell me now, so I can yell at him later. If there is a later.” Layla gripped her thighs for control.
Talia pulled a chair from a big table and sat across from her. “You know he's been looking for Kathleen since she died.” Two worry lines formed between her brows. “Looking everywhere.”
Talia glanced over her shoulder at Adam, as if for support, then faced Layla again. Layla had no one behind her. The absence had been omnipresent in her life, but she felt it fresh now.
“Kathleen died, but when Khan breached Heaven to find her, she wasn't there.”
Because Kathleen had been reborn as herself, Layla Mathews, the one who was doomed to die at twenty-eight. Okay, she got that.
“If Kathleen wasn't in Heaven, he was going to go after her in . . . Hell.”
Layla flinched. What had Kathleen done to deserve Hell?
“So he built a gate.”
Oh, God, the gate.
“And the gate was opened.”
“For a second! Not even a second.”
“And a devil escaped.”
“Like with horns?” She hadn't seen anything like that. But then, it had been so dark. And Khan and been there, so close. Oh crap, she was shaking.
Adam sniffed. “Nope. The devil is a woman. Caucasion. Five-two and about a hundred pounds.”
Layla stood, knocking over her chair. “That was
her
!”
“Yep,” Adam said.
“She killed those men.”
“Yes.”
“Because I opened the gate.” Stars formed before her eyes. She needed to sit.
“Put your head between your knees,” Talia soothed and drew her down, shoved a chair under her butt. “It's going to be all right.”
“Not for those guys. Where's Khan?” Layla spoke to the floor. She needed to see him. Now. He was superstrong. Mr. Powerful. He could get rid of the devil woman, right?
“Khan's got a day job now,” Talia answered. “Busting up the gate.”
“But Custo was doing that,” Layla argued.
Adam shook his head. “When Custo tried, he hurt you. If he were to continue, it's likely that you'd die. The hope is that since Khan built it, he can tear it down again.”
Layla lifted her face. “Aren't I about to die already?”
Talia grabbed hold of Layla's hand so tight that Layla could feel a heartbeat in the connection. “I lost you once. I'm not letting you go again. Neither is Khan.”
“We'll keep you safe,” Adam added. “This isn't our first battle against an otherworldly creature. Custo's wife, Annabella, had a real keeper for a while. Bloodthirsty thing, he was.”