Chapter 17
Layla racked her memory for her name. She couldn't be that far gone. Could she?
“Names have power,” Moira said, strolling her ashy circle and maintaining an almost demonic triangle with her sisters. “Which is the reason the fae have so many.”
Layla could feel the word in her brain. It was the same maddening sensation that had dogged her since she'd first seen Shadowman. She'd known him yet couldn't place him. Known Talia, too, but couldn't make the connection. Now she was losing touch with herself.
Hi, I'm . . .
And she totally blanked. Damn it. The name was right there.
Layla's teeth chattered. She folded her arms for warmth. This couldn't be the end, yet the trees and ash and cold gray sky attested otherwise. Was this really what she had left of him? The desolation was stealing color from her, too.
He wouldn't want that.
She
didn't want that.
“Take your man Death, for instance,” Moira continued. “How many names do you think he's been given over the ages and by myriad peoples, yet his power was stolen by a silly girl now bumbling through these trees.” Moira paused in the circle, facing Layla with a question on her lovely features. “And how do you think you will fare if you have just the one name, and already cannot bring it to mind?” She started her leggy stroll again with an audible, and very pleased with herself, “Hmm.”
Layla called up the names and faces of her new “extended” family: Talia, pale and fair; Adam, managing everything; the babies, black-eyed Michael and cherub Cole. She hadn't lost them. She recited her phone number, her address, even her computer login. All good.
It's nice to meet you. I'm . . .
Nothing.
Layla drew a deep breath of frigid air and puffed smoke into the winter wonderland. Her nose was doing that prickling thing that came with cold or tears. She'd remember if she just didn't freak out. She was doing this to herself. Had to be. If Zoe could find power, Layla could. She would not let this harpy wreck her. In the meantime, “Stop calling him âmy man Death.' His name is
Shadowman
.”
The three sisters sneered.
Wait. Hold it. Just. One. Second.
Death as Layla knew him was gone. Okay, she could take that. He didn't even want to be Death anymore. But was
Shadowman
gone?
Moira and her sisters began their circling again. “Shadowman is a fool to trade power and time for a handful of years.”
“He's alive.” Heat surged into Layla.
“He's mortal,” Moira said, as if he were beneath her.
Layla would take him any way she could get him. Determination beat her heart faster. She wasn't cold anymore. Not at all. “I found a way back to him before. I can do it again.”
The old sister looked over. “That life is over.”
Good. Layla wanted that life to be over. She'd been miserable and alone for most of it. And then she'd ripped out her heart and told the one she loved to do his duty. Her mission was complete. Yes, she was very glad that life was done.
She wanted a new one, on her own terms. “I'm leaving.”
Layla made for the edge of the circle, to a space between one fate and another, but the circle moved with her. Moira smiled. “To go where?”
“Anywhere you aren't.”
“Impossible. I am Fate. I am everywhere that you are. I tell you what to do and where to go. Do you think it was coincidence that you found Death in that warehouse? No, I took you there. Or that you rediscovered your daughter? Fate did that, too.”
Layla wasn't buying. There was no way in Hell, and Layla knew a little bit about that place now, that this hag was going to take credit for every decision humankind made, least of all hers.
“What about Zoe?” Had she predestined that transformation?
Moira declined to answer.
“I didn't think so.” Layla made for the edge again, but the Fates effortlessly followed. “Don't you have anything better to do?”
“Better than you?” Moira tilted her head as if to think. “Not at the moment. I'll tell you what. You figure out who you are, and you can lose your mind elsewhere in Shadow.”
Moira inclined her head, and around the circle gilded mirrors appeared, glittering and sparkling enough to make Layla wince. Within their long ovals different people stood as if trapped within the frames. Old and young, all of them female, looked out at Layla, their gazes imploring,
Pick me, pick me
. Some were strangers, faces that seemed only faintly recognizable. An old lady; a young woman; a round, middle-aged housewife. As Layla surveyed the faces, she found several that struck home. Within one frame stood Layla the child, her hair in a ragged bowl cut, arms wrapped tightly around herself. The child was woundedâthe pain was right there in her eyes. Then there was a serene woman who had to be Kathleen, long reddish blond hair waving over her shoulders. And across the circle stood Layla as she was today, freezing with the cold, dirty tear streaks down her cheeks. Red nose to match. And still no name.
But at least it was something to work with. A puzzle to sort. A trick to turn to her own advantage.
“Pick one.” Moira twirled, arms out, gesturing to all of them at once.
Yes, but whom? Layla's gaze darted from face to face. Was she Kathleen, the one who started it all? Layla took a step toward her, then paused. There was no going back. Kathleen was gone. Well then, what about the adult version of herself in the glass? It seemed a straightforward solution. But hadn't she just said she wanted a new life? Should she then choose a stranger?
She was all of them, and none of them. Who was she? She didn't know. Again.
Temet Nosce.
It still made no sense to her. Too bad she hadn't figured it out.
With each cold draw of breath, the people in the mirrors grew less and less recognizable, the madness of Twilight tweaking Layla's mind. In her head was the thick, sluggish feeling that preceded sleep. She bit her tongue to wake herself.
The problem was that Fate had posed the question; therefore, Moira controlled the answer. It was biased, slanted, weighted in her favor.
The faces were blurring; Layla was losing her mind. Or maybe the faces were blurring because they didn't matter.
“It's warm and safe here under my skirt,” Moira promised.
Talk about twisted. Layla dismissed her. Maybe the question wasn't so much,
Who was she?
as,
Who did she want to be?
Layla's gaze darted from person to person. Lonely child, the housewife, beautiful Kathleen, the old lady, the young woman, the present-day Layla. And in a circle before them, the three Fates walked. Maid, mother, . . . crone.
She stopped, gazing at herselfâ
Yes, that one
âand inhaled the surety of her answer.
In the end it was too easy. So easy she had to laugh, yeah, a little like a crazy person.
Shadowman, honey, here I come.
Moira did a little cancan flourish with the material of her skirt. “I thought you'd last longer. Really, I did. With the store Shadowman set by you, I thought we'd play for a while.”
What Layla needed was something to bash in the mirror. Bash it in and get back home.
Her fists would have to do. She tightened both with all the feeling she had left: The fullness of her first meeting with Talia. The tuning-fork strike of her connection to Shadowman. The unlikely fit in the madhouse of Segue. She had a place, a family to call her own, and God damn it, she was going to have them if it killed her.
Moira shook her head. “You can't harm me.”
She actually hoped the glass would cut a little, too, and bring some color to this place. “I've chosen.”
“Oh . . . ?” But Moira's attention snapped to the circle. The big-breasted sister with the spindle had held out her hand, palm up. Her gaze had gone distant as the spindle stood on its own spinning thread of shining gold, the good stuff. Lots and lots of thread for a long life.
“How?” Moira demanded, settling her fae eyes, now gone malevolent black, again on Layla.
Layla pointed at the mirror image of the old lady. “I want her.”
Faces didn't matter. This second life had taught her that. What mattered was soul.
“What, so you can be on the brink of death again?”
Layla grinned like a maniac. “Someday. But to earn all those wrinkles”âher gaze fastened on the crumpled skin, the branches winging the eyesâ“all those gorgeous laugh lines, I figure I'll need at least fifty years of laughing in your face.”
The mirror was across the circle, but Layla was crazy enough by now to know distance didn't matter. She brought her right fist up, as tight as a stone, and struck with everything she was. She caught the swift flush of color into Twilight, the shrill scream, “No!” just before she leapt through the frame.
Segue.
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The helicopter was not as fast as Adam promised.
Shadowman had assumed that time was fleeting, had grasped after it for moments with Kathleen, and then Layla. Now time was a torture of uneven beats strung together and stretched into a warp of perception. Frustration hampered each draw of air and accelerated the thump of his heart. He closed his eyes, seeking peace, but swirls of amoebic light danced on the insides of his lids and his mind was battered by the racket of the rotors. Eons passed more quickly in Twilight than this interminable flight across the land.
And all Shadowman could do was sit. And sit. And sit. While Layla suffered.
This world should have long gone mad.
The yellows and greens and browns of the slowly changing landscape below were tainted by gray. A river of black water broke through the land, and beyond, a great city, barbed with tall buildings.
Finally.
Only then did he realize he'd been fisting his hands so tightly they ached. He stretched them open and stared in confusion at the black web of Shadow gathered between his fingers and against his palms. Shadow.
A push of feeling, and the dark stuff pulsed with faelight.
Oh, how stupid of him. Of course.
“Are you all right, sir?” Kev shouted. The soldier glanced from Shadowman's face to his show of magic.
All right? No. Shadowman rubbed his hands together, and the Shadow dissipated.
But now at least he knew what he was. Would have known straightaway, if not for the panic that drove him.
“We cannot go to the Annex,” Shadowman answered.
“Sir?”
Angels. Shadowman snorted with the irony. By now they, too, must have realized what he'd become. They'd striven hard enough to wipe his kind from the face of the earth during the last war between Heaven and Shadow.
He couldn't risk a confrontation with the angels. Not with Layla's soul waning.
“Take us anywhere else,” Shadowman commanded. “Anywhere without angels.”
The last place he could go was the Annex. Surely, death awaited him behind the gleaming faces of the host. That he'd created a gate to Hell was proof enough for judgment against him.
Stretching his palm open again, Shadowman pushed rage into magic. The faelight sprang forth again.
No, the angels would not welcome him. He had to find another way into Shadow.
He required a quiet, dark placeâhe slid his gaze to Kevâwithout an audience. And then maybe, maybe . . .
“Go that way,” Shadowman commanded.
He knew just the spot.
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Layla crashed into a chair, banging her chin, tripped, and fell on the floor as she crossed the divide between the worlds. It hurt, but she kicked to get free and stand in case another surprise awaited her. She glanced around, breathing hard. Abigail's room was dingy next to the vibrant contrasts of Twilight. Solid, cluttered, with a lingering smell of illness in the air. Dull and wonderful. But no surprises.
She was back. A laugh burst out of her. Holy crap, somehow she'd made it.
Had Adam and Talia made it out with the babies? The thought sobered her up real quick and got her moving.
She tore to the door, skidded to a stop near the console table, where she hoped Zoe had left the gunâyes!âthen ran down the haunted hallway. No ghost, but then Layla had a much better hold on life now. She'd seen the shining thread of it herself. At the elevator, the button light did not come on when she pressed. Probably not working.
“Shadowman!”
Layla didn't expect an answer, but he had to be there somewhere. Not dead, not Death. Then what? She didn't care.