Kathleen had been brave and strong, as if her heart pumped courage. And Layla had that same quality, heightened by recklessness. If anyone could look Death full in the face, it was she.
Layla stopped breathing, but her chin lifted. Her gaze skimmed over his mouth, his nose. Found his eyes.
“There you are.”
“Adam's going to be mad about his wall.” She was shaking harder, and Khan wondered if she realized that she had transferred her grip from the counter to his arms.
“You are my Reason,” he said. “Do you understand?”
She shook her head, blinking hard and looking away. He followed the dodge of her gaze and caught her again.
“The light in Shadow.”
Her eyes were full of hurt. “Don't say that.”
He tightened his hold on her. He had a strange sense that she was slipping away from him, when all should finally be well. “You don't fear me, so what is it?”
The color in her face went ashy, and her heart stilled for a long, awful beat. “I know why I've come back. Why everything is happening right now. What I'm here to do.”
She tried to shrug him away but he gripped her hard, her body squeezed against his. He wasn't letting her go.
“Out with it then.”
Layla strained again. No use.
“Speak, if you've something to say.”
She pulled a little air, steeling herself in his embrace. Met his gaze. She had to force the words out of her mouth, because she sure as hell didn't want to say them. “Shadowman, I'm here to ask you . . . to beg you . . . to pick up your scythe again and do your duty.”
The room went silent except for her labored breath.
“You can't mean it.” He released her and drew back from this revelation.
But Layla, his woman, his life, nodded her head. “I do. Please, you have to. You won't listen to anyone else, but maybe you'll listen to me. It's why I was sent.”
Shadowman shook his head. “I don't want to be Death anymore. You know I can't.”
She looked at the floor and had the gall to sniffle. “Please. This is what I came to do. I can't fail. It's too important.”
The scythe cried from Twilight, the blade weeping for mortal blood. And she wanted him to answer it? “This place is a grave, and you are not dead,” he said. “Let us go.”
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Rose made quick time across the compound aided by the knuckle push of her bad hand on the ground.
Run, run, push. Run, run, push.
Shots were fired, but they skimmed by her as she vaulted a wall. Then over a jeep. Then took a gallop at the fence along the perimeter of Segue. Leaped. Swung her body over. Her bad hand and arm might be ugly, but they were lovely in their usefulness and strength. How many times had they saved her now?
She had to get out of there.
She urged her body faster, through the trees and growth and up to a knobby ridge, away from the evil that was Death. She only paused, holding her breath, to listen for pursuit. The night was silent. Trees swaying. Winter wind snaking through the branches. And above it all the cruel, cruel heavens. To allow that thing to walk the earth when she'd been sent to Hell made no sense whatsoever.
Hell had nothing compared to the monster she'd seen at the compound. Nothing.
The world was upside down, is what it was.
What if good was bad and bad was good? They were just words, after all. What if somewhere along the line, the good and bad traded places? And nice people like her were sent to torment, while Layla Mathews's existence challenged the Gate.
Just look at that monster guarding Layla Mathews. Anybody could see that wasn't right.
The world was upside down, for sure.
Rose glanced at the five-fingered claw that was her hand. The transformation had crept over her breast and now fed the pump of her heart so that she was alert, ready at all times.
How far could she get before sunrise? Clear the forest. Steal a car. Run. Run. Run!
Hell was kind in comparison to Death. Hadn't Hell given her everything she needed to survive this harsh, unkind world? She should give thanks. If not for her arm, she'd be dead.
“Gate?” Rose said aloud.
The gate was quiet. For once.
Oh, thank goodness. Not that she wasn't grateful, but still.
She'd better get moving. Put as much distance between her and Segue as possible. The last thing she wanted was to face that monster again.
So she was a coward, so what?
Ladies were supposed to be gentle.
Nothing, not even the gate, could compel her to go back.
Chapter 14
Layla sat on the sofa in her apartment, arms crossed, elbows braced on her knees. She breathed deep so she wouldn't be sick all over the nice rug, but each inhalation just fed the internal fire scorching her chest. Denying the message in her head was impossible, but coping with it now that she had found her place in the world was beyond excruciating. It was burning her from the inside out.
Talia was using the bedroom as a makeshift nursery since her apartment had been battered and soiled by dead wraiths. She stood frozen in the doorway, as if on guard, a baby bottle in her hands. Adam paced on the other side of the room in front of the windows. Custo straddled a turned-around straight-backed chair. And Shadowman glared from the seat across from Layla. At least he'd managed to put on some clothes.
Adam stopped abruptly. “Aside from the scythe issue, what exactly did you remember?”
Layla concentrated on the crisscross grain of the upholstery of Shadowman's chair. She hadn't looked at him directly since delivering her message. Hurt too much. “That the existence of the wraiths is our fault. That souls are being lost to Shadow as fae prey on them when they cross. That he has to go back and restore The Order by lifting his scythe.”
“But nothing of what we shared?” Shadowman put in.
She shook her head no. And she didn't want to. What she already felt for him was strong enough.
The wraith thing was beyond ironic. Here she'd spent years of her life trying to learn the origin of the wraiths when it had been she and Shadowman all along. Had that compulsion, that obsession, come from her, or had it been part of her reincarnation directive as well? Layla bet it was the latter.
“First of all,” Talia said angrily, “you aren't responsible for the wraiths. Yes, when Shadowman crossed to be with my mother, a fae demon got into the world, The Death Collector. I killed him, so in that case we've cleaned up our own mess. But the wraiths? Do you know what each person had to do to become one? They had to drink a cup of demon vomit. They had to choose it. Becoming a wraith was a deliberate, voluntary act, not some condition spread like a disease. And we're still fighting them. We've dedicated our lives and our resources to that end. So that blame is in no way yours to bear.”
Shadowman was silent through Talia's tirade, the weight of his gaze heavy on Layla's near-crumbling defenses.
Apparently the wraiths had colluded with Rose Petty, a dangerous combination that still sent shivers down Layla's back. With Rose's ability to manipulate minds, and wights taking to the air, the wraiths had gotten into the main building. Into Talia and Adam's apartment. Into the nursery.
They must want Talia's children bad.
“Doesn't matter if they chose it or not. The wraiths, a devil, that horrible gate,” Layla listed. She forced herself to meet Shadowman's gaze. He had to understand. “We've been hell on the world and it's time it stopped.”
“Layla,” Adam said, “the problem is more complex than Khan returning to Shadow.”
“No, it's not. It's very simple. Very clear.” It rang like a bell in her mind, a horrible clanging that she couldn't silence. It was only marginally better than the hellgate's rattle. Both were the sound of doom.
“If Khan goes back,” Adam continued, “what will happen to the gate?”
“The angels will rip it apart,” Khan answered, each syllable clipped.
He had to be using Shadow; Layla felt it on her skin, moving against her, stroking and churning like an ocean. Even now he tried to seduce her. It would be so easy to give in and let his cool fury douse the burn inside her.
“I'm sorry to be explicit, Layla,” Adam said, “but I have to get this straight. My understanding is that if the gate is destroyed, then you will be killed as well.”
She didn't know how to respond to that, so she kept quiet. The important thing was that Shadowman went back to his duty. Her life was over, anyway. That fact was abundantly evident in the multiple near-death scrapes of the past couple days. The sooner this was resolved, the sooner the nightmare would end.
“Custo,” Talia pleaded. “Please.”
Custo stood and turned his chair back around. “It's extremely rare for someone to be reincarnated. In every case I know of, there has been some great work to be done. The second life itself hardly mattered. Case in point, Layla was born an orphan. I defy you to find the birth mother. Layla never connected with any of her foster families, was wholly raised by a system, and moved through this world almost completely alone.”
“It's cruel,” Talia said, eyes shimmering.
No, Layla thought, she was on a mission; she just hadn't known it. She'd already had a chance at life, and a good one, as Kathleen. This was about finishing Kathleen's business, Layla's business now. The reality sucked, but there was no changing it.
Adam picked up where Custo left off. “Makes sense. Her work has been dominated by the wraiths and an obsession with Segue. And, she went to extraordinary lengths to get near Talia.”
“Why wasn't she sent back as an angel, then?” Talia asked.
Layla knew, but Shadowman answered. “We wouldn't have been able to touch.”
Angels and fae were at odds, the light of the first eroding the darkness of the other, which was why Custo kept well back from Shadowman.
Layla's face heated as cool Shadow curled around her in an embrace, caressing her skin and quickening her blood. Sensuous zings ran down her tightening middle to torture her when she had no hope of release. Yes, if she had a choice to come back as an angel, full of knowledge, but not able to be with him, or as a mortal, ignorant and scared, she'd choose mortal every time.
“Kathleen had to have agreed to this business,” Shadowman said cruelly, even as he reached out to Layla. His black gaze wouldn't let her move. “She chose her fate.”
Which made Layla tip up her chin and push back her shoulders. He had a right to act like a cold bastard. She was asking the worst and betraying him, too.
“What I don't get,” Talia said, “is why Khan can't choose
his
fate. He's been Death for forever. Now it's time for someone else to step up. Then he could watch over Layla.”
“Angels have been stepping up,” Custo said. “But they can't cover all of the Shadowlandsâthe place is endless. And they can't sense a passing and catch it at the brink. Souls have been lost, and they need to be recovered. Khan is the only one who can do that. His absence is a growing problem.”
Shadowman smoldered in his darkness. “He's saying I don't have a choice.”
“But you do,” Layla answered. “You made one choice already. I'm asking you to make the other one. The idea that some lost soul in Twilight is fading while you and I are off doing who knows what . . . It's obscene.”
“No, Layla,” Custo interrupted. “You have that wrong, too.”
She gave him a look that dared him to prove otherwise.
“I, as well as most of The Order, believe your union with Shadowman was necessary. Because of the two of you, magic has once again come into the world. Art and innovation are in a modern renaissance. The influx brings good and bad, yes, but both are absolutely vital to the well-being of humanity. It was past time. We are at the brink of a new age.”
“And the devil?” she scoffed. “I let it into the world.”
Custo shook his head. “If the angels of our Order have difficulty resisting the gate, it was impossible for you to resist its pull.”
“Even I heard its call,” Shadowman said, finally ripping his gaze from her to regard Custo. “And I am Death.”
Layla held her breath. There. He'd said it. He might even do what was right.
“You don't have to worry about the devil,” Adam said. “She's tricky, but destroying her is a question of firepower, which Segue can handle. Her husband, Mickey Petty, is arriving shortly. We'll use him to draw her out.”
That was Adam, trying to work the problem. And everyone else, absolving her of her culpability. She didn't deserve it but couldn't do anything regardless.
“Which leaves the gate,” Custo said. “I have to warn you: The Order won't let you pass into Twilight with Shadowman before we attempt to destroy it. If you die before it is destroyed, then it may never be destroyed. Eventually, someone else will be compelled to open it.”
The Shadow on her skin turned rough.
“You can look at her,” Shadowman interrupted, “and plan her murder?”
“You've made no progress,” Custo argued, his mouth drawn into a bitter line. “The devil just took more lives. The Order is going to act, and soon.”
“Enough!” Shadowman said, standing. He loomed over her, a dark shadow splitting the room. Darkness smudged out from his skin into smoky wisps in the air. “This talk is futile. I won't comply. Layla, you will come with me, and we will be happy.”
This just wasn't going to be a happy day.
Layla stood slowly. It hurt to move with the fire inside and the bell in her head. She was more than a foot shorter than he, but she wasn't scared. Of course he would fight this. He would fight and fight until she gave him no other choice. Her throat was already raw from containing her own screams of denial. She tried for a little lightheartedness. “I warned you about the imperious thing.”
“I can't lose you again,” he said. His voice had lost all human tone, rumbling low, from a deep storm within him.
She reached to brush his cheek, so beautiful, so severe. “That part you can't control.”
“Watch me. I won't let you go.”
“You will, or I'll fade like all the rest.”
“Not if I can keep you alive.”
“Don't you understand?” Layla said. “This is my destiny.”
Layla saw Talia duck into the bedroom, but the soft cries from within came from the mother, not a child. The fire in Layla's chest flared. The sooner this was over, the better.
She turned to Custo. “I'll want the rest of the day to be miserable, if that's okay with you.”
“Layla, Iâ”
“Custo, it's fine. I'm fine. At last things make sense, which is a huge relief.” And here she'd found Talia, a friend, after all this time. Adam should go to her. Why was he still here in this awful room?
Custo frowned. “That's not what you're thinking. At least don't lie to me.”
“What do you want me to say?” Layla snapped. “The bell in my head says this is no-win. I get it. At least let me put on a good face while I try to do the right thing.”
Shadowman sent his darkness coursing around her. “I won't let this happen.”
Brick wall, and her head was already bloody.
Shadowman pulled her into his arms. “I could keep you safe.”
Layla felt a strange stirring of air, and then she was struck by an invisible fist. She cried out, then bit her lip too late for quiet. The sound of metal against metal rang throughout the room. Her weight collapsed into Shadowman's arms and she got a crazy vantage of the room.
“Layla?” He gripped her.
Layla marveled as the gray veins under Custo's skin grew darker. “Fuckers started on the gate without me.”
Suddenly Adam was beside her. “They knew you couldn't do it.”
“Rose Petty took lives today,” Custo said. “The Order won't risk letting in more devils like her.”
“Go!” Adam shouted. “Stop them. Buy us more time. Tell them she's willing.”
Another blow assailed Layla's senses. Stars sprang into her vision and she smelled the metallic scent of blood, running freely from her nose. The rapid manchatter kept up around her, but her attention was drawn to Shadowman's face. His eyes had gone full black again, swallowing the whites. Unless he was turned on, that was a bad sign. His form, though solid, seemed to phase out of reality, as if the darkness was filling him to bursting. Very bad.
“Don't,” she tried to tell him, but she knew he was beyond that. Beyond listening.
This is the way it has to be
. But she could see that he didn't care.
She trembled as a new beast was born before her eyes. Her Shadowman, yes, but filled with a blackening menace that outdid anything Rose could hope to conjure.
The angels wanted Death?
Well, here he comes.
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Shadowman took the cavern with a hurricane of darkness. He drew from the depths of the earth where shadows were soaked in black pitch and hurled death at the host gathered before the gate to Hell. Bodies flew back and crashed on the stone walls and the stalagmites reaching up from the floor.
Only Ballard hung on to the gate, his yellow hair whipping in the wind, one hand around a wrought-iron rung, the other gripping the hammer. Though Death bore down, still Ballard drew back and struck the gate again.