Rose turned into a strip mall parking lot and made for the Starbucks. She dove into the bathroom first thing, locked the door, and stripped off her shirt. She'd had it all of half an hourâa modest turtleneck, fall flowers embroidered in a pretty turn over the breastâand it was already stained with red splatters. The sticky red was on her hands, too, but she had to make do with just water, as the soap pump was out.
The smell in the room was a little strong. How people could be so lazy about their work, she didn't know. She had half a mind to . . . well, there was no time now.
She used her nails to scratch and scrape at the black lines under her cuticles. Evidence was such a trial. One hand was a little worse for wear. At first she thought the knuckles were just swollen from the fight, but the bones seemed different, too. Longer. The muscles were corded and sinewy, the fingernails coarser. Didn't look right. That hand, her bad hand, she'd have to keep carefully hidden, or else people would stare.
Reasonably clean, she drew on another of her new shirts, a lovely pale yellow, like her sunny nature.
When she emerged, a coffee was waiting for her at the pickup counter. As she walked out the door a customer yelled behind her, “Hey, that's mine!” but Rose paid him no mind. She made a point not to respond to uncouth behavior like shouting. His mother should have taught him better. If he persisted, Rose would.
She got back in her car feeling much refreshed and looked down the street for signs of a freeway entrance. Somewhere along the way she'd have to dump the body in her trunk before it started to smell. Unclean things, bodies. Maybe it'd be quicker to leave the car instead and find herself another, something roomier that didn't smell like cigarettes. She didn't want to keep Mickey waiting. Twelve years was enough, sweet man. A green sign directed her to I-95 heading south.
But the
kat
in Rose's head said
, That way!
West.
Go that way!
And then she knew what the sound was. She should have recognized it at once. The rattle had to be the gate. No matter how far she ran, she'd never be free of Hell.
kat-a-kat: That way!
No. She accelerated to exit the intersection. Before morning she could be in Mickey's arms.
kat-a-kat: Obey me. Turn. Now.
It really wasn't fair. All she wanted to do was get back to her sweetheartâ
twelve years!
âbefore she was caught and sent back to the bad place. And here the bad place was coming after her before she could do a really good deed. A big one. Mickey would know just the thing.
kat-a-kat: Kill a woman, and you'll never have to fear that place again.
Rose eased her foot off the gas. “Any woman?” That was easy. Women were everywhere.
kat-a-kat: Layla Mathews.
“And I'll be free?”
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Her bad hand kept the steering wheel steady while she whipped the car into a tight turn.
Open, empty road was before her, so Rose closed her eyes. A quick stop, perhaps a difficult moment when she'd have to take care of some unpleasantness, and then freedom. Mickey. He'd be so happy to see her.
Chapter 6
Khan cradled Layla in his arms as a third metallic shock wave hit her. The blast also shredded his Shadows, their frayed edges whipping with the warped currents that wracked her body, the room, the air, but she was shuddering and insensible to his near dissolution. He was Shadow weak, but he still commanded the layers of darkness to open a passage, to permit a final shift to Segue. The danger came from another location, but to that high place, he could not go. His only hope was that Adam could get word to Custo.
Twilight sighed around him, its power briefly suffusing his being. He used the rush to propel himself back into mortality, where he crouched in a large empty room of Segue's main floor, Layla in his arms. “Adam!”
A heartbeat among the many within Segue accelerated, the person moving quickly. Others joined the first, and together they ranged closer. Finally, Adam, jogging down a connected series of wide rooms, appeared. He was breathless, confusion and alarm a static pop around him. “What's goingâ?”
“Call the angel,” Khan rasped. “Tell him to stop.”
A handful of other mortals gathered and watched from a few paces back.
Adam frowned. “Is that Layla Mathâ?”
Layla jerked and clutched at Khan as she was struck again, a reverberating tone ringing out as a hammer rings an anvil. The sound set Khan's teeth on edge, and he willed Shadow to hold his form. She needed him now, in this moment.
Adam was already on his phone. “Custo. Stop whatever you're doing. It's hurting Layla Mathews.” A pause, then Adam sharpened his gaze on Khan. “Yes, he's here. He brought her.” His forehead flexed with disbelief, his focus shifting to Layla. “You can't be serious.” Trouble billowed off him, but he nodded. “I'll be waiting.”
Khan ignored Adam as he knelt beside them, making another call on that worldly contraption of his. “I have a wounded woman on the main floor, east side, third parlor. We'll need a gurney.” Another pause. “I have no idea what the nature of her injury is.”
More heartbeats accelerating. Sudden movement below. One from floors above. But the heartbeat that concerned him was the flutter within Layla's chest. It stammered into a regular rhythm, and he knew, for the present, that she would survive. What other hurts she'd sustained, he could not guess. Her eyes were wide, jaw was tense, skin was white, as she waited for the next blow. A trail of thick blood trickled from her nose.
“Ms. Mathews, help is on the way,” Adam said. “What happened to you?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I . . . I don't know.” She ran her fingertips under her nose and the blood spread to her cheek.
Khan helped her to sit. She leaned back, her weight on his chest. Every sinew in her body was tensed.
He felt Adam's attention transfer back to him. “Mind telling me what's going on?”
“I'll leave that to your angelic friend. He knows enough.” But clearly not all. What did The Order think they were doing, pounding at the gate without thought or caution?
Layla pulled a breath. “Mind telling
me
?” Outrage roared within her. She pushed away from Khan, her loss diminishing him further, and moved toward Adam. “First Khan says he started the whole wraith business. Then he says Taliaâhis
daughter
?âkilled somebody. Then he shows me magic. Transporting. Strange people in the street.” Her words sped up as if she was trying to make sense of it herself. “Next thing I know I'm in a world of hurt. I mean
hurt.
”
Adam transferred his gaze to him, a dangerous smile darkening his expression. “âKhan,' is it?”
Khan remained silent under Adam's scrutiny. He didn't have to answer to him.
“I'd like a word,” Adam said.
Layla grabbed Adam's arm. “Please. I need to know what's going on. What's just happened to me?”
Adam ignored her request, glancing up instead to signal a couple of approaching mortals, one wheeling a gurney. Khan had bowed over many a stretcher during the millennia. This one was narrow, with railings walling the sides, as if it were part coffin, too. There was no way he would permit his death-touched woman on the thing.
“Will somebody tell me what's going on?” Layla addressed everyone.
“Okay, help's here.” Adam stood, fury battering the air, his gaze hot on Khan. “We need to speak privately. And now. In the meantime, our good doctor can look Ms. Mathews over, though she seems to be recovering just fine and can be on her way shortly.”
“It's not safe for her to leave,” Khan said.
Adam shook his head. “The question is whether Segue is safe from Ms. Mathews.”
“Hey!” Layla said.
If Layla was going to take refuge here, Khan needed Adam's agreement. No, he needed his willing support, and Adam, it seemed, was far from it. Layla, for the moment, could wait; Adam couldn't. And then there were things he had to tend to. One evil thing, in particular.
Khan leaned to whisper in Layla's ear. “You're safe now.”
“Butâ?” Layla sputtered after him.
As he moved to follow Adam, a medic of sorts knelt beside her, pressing gently around her eyes, the bridge of her nose. “Can you tell me your name?” he asked, and Khan almost laughed. Her name had troubled him, too, this day.
“Come on,” Adam said, gesturing to the rooms beyond. Khan followed his daughter's husband out of the room, through the connecting passageways to privacy. It pleased him how the place was webbed in Shadow. Not the mundane falls of dark that emphasized normal depth and variation, but the stuff of magic and possibility. Of Between. This was clearly Talia's place. Time lay thick within the throbs, an echo of memory here, a wisp of ghostly movement there.
As soon as he was beyond the notice of Layla and the others, he let his own Shadow loose around him, his illusion of a mortal form relaxing into a body haze that cost him little to hold. Adam could use reminding that he conferred with the lord of the fae, the father of his dark bride, and not one of his underlings.
When Adam turned, he did indeed take a swift step back. Then he gritted his teeth, steeling his nerve, which also pleased Khan. Talia deserved a strong man. “Custo says that Ms. Mathews is . . .” Adam raised his hands, head shaking, as if he had difficulty completing the sentence.
“Layla is Kathleen, yes.” The fact still shot an acute emotion, something sharp and sweet, throughout his body. Kathleen. Found. Kathleen. His.
“Impossible.” Under Adam's controlled exterior, he was thick with disbelief and confusion. “You can't possibly expect me or Talia to believe this.”
“Yet the fact remains.”
Adam frowned his disapproval. “I take it she doesn't know? Or remember anything? Doesn't know who or what you are?”
Good. Adam understood. “She can't know, not yet. She would reject me.”
“Yet you saw fit to fill her in on everything else, very likely endangering Talia in the process, not to mention our work here.” Adam threw his hands in the air. “She's a reporter. She's been dogging our steps for the past couple years! My favorite piece of hers featured that fuzzy picture of Talia, with the caption
WHO IS TALIA THORNE?
If she exposes us, Talia will be hounded. Our children will be in danger. And all this in the middle of the wraiths' reorganization! You can't be serious.”
“Layla doesn't want to hurt anyone. If she is driven, it is to know her daughter. Surely, the rest is the means to that end. She will reveal nothing when she learns the truth.”
“That in some cockeyed, messed-up way she's Talia's
mother
? Why would she believe that?”
“Because it's the truth, because there is a thing not easily broken that binds family across time and space, because Kathleen swore she'd return somehow to find us. And she did just that. She traded her memories to come back. She gave up
herself
on the hope that the connection between mother and child would prevail. That I'd find her. That she could have her family.”
Adam shook his head. “But she is not Kathleen anymore. She's
Layla Mathews
, and she is writing a multipart feature series to expose us.”
“We will all have to take a gamble, then, to see which of her selves prevails, Kathleen or Layla.”
Adam put a hand to the back of his neck, frustration spilling out of him. “Talia will want to know her. Will open her heart to her.” His anger turned fierce. “If that woman betraysâ”
“I wager she won't.”
“How much do you want to bet?”
Khan pulled a grim smile. “I've already bet it all, haven't I?”
He extended himself and felt the tremble of Shadow that was his daughter above and off to the far left. She cradled a bright life close in her arms, while another little one slept nearby. Kathleen's grandchildren. Another gift. “Will Talia be coming down soon?”
“Not until the kids are both sleeping soundly, which actually could be forever.”
“I promised Layla that she would meet Talia today.”
Adam's eyes sparked with satisfaction. “Sadly, a promise you won't be able to keep.”
His obstinacy was going to be a problem and needed to be broken. “Peace, Adam. You don't know everything yet: Like Kathleen, Layla's death is already upon her. I have held back Shadow twice now, but Fate has cut her from the tapestry of life. None of us has the luxury of time. She will die, and soon.”
Adam stilled, his driving intensity tripping to a stop. “I'm sorry, what?”
“Layla is going to die soon. It is past her time already.”
Adam laughed bitterly. “One of these days, I'd appreciate it if you'd fill me in on how it all works, because as far as I know, Talia's mother had a heart condition and Layla looks pretty damn healthy to me.”
“Fate had Kathleen die in youth before, and Layla will follow suit, by violence or by accident. Kathleen and Layla both had the same allotment of time in mortality; they are the same soul. Her measure of life is at its end. We cannot hold her with us long.”
“Oh, that's much clearer.” Adam shook his head, but the emotion churning the air around him was changing again, taking on the fierce whip of his rising determination. Adam would not allow Talia to lose her mother again, not if he could help it. His eyes had a steely glint when he asked, “And this gate business?”
“Ask Custo. It is in his care for the time being, but let him know that only
I
can destroy it. If he or his angelic host tries, they will only harm Layla.”
She must have bound herself to the gate in some way when she'd turned the black handle. He had not considered that eventuality. The destruction of the gate bore a great deal more thought before it was attempted again.
Then there was the devil, a predator in an unsuspecting world. If Custo could be trusted to prevent The Order from dismantling the gate, then the devil was the first order of business. The thing had to be sundered before it could wreak havoc in mortality.
“Keep Layla safe. I will return as soon as I can.”
“You're leaving?”
“If Layla may remain here, then I must attend other pressing matters.” The creature would be learning the kind of power it wielded, though the thing would ultimately have to bow to Death.
Adam was all resignation now. “I'll make her as comfortable as I can, keep her out of danger. Where are you going?”
Khan summoned his now sluggish Shadows out of the weak shades in the mortal world. “I go hunting.”
Â
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Layla lost the last half of the doctor's question about her medical history when she spotted Adam's approach. She stood, pulling at the hem of her sweater, and prepared herself for another boot back to New York. With all the hopping around today, she wouldn't be surprised at all to find herself back where she started.
“Ms. Mathews”âThorne held out his handâ“it's a pleasure to have you back at Segue.”
Had to be sarcasm under that control.
“I want to know what's going on. And where's Khan?” He'd promised to tell her everything. He made her feel . . . but she wasn't going to think about that.
But Thorne shifted his attention to the doctor at her side. “Dr. Patel?”
“She looks like she's been beat up a little, but I can't find anything that warrants further examination at this time.” Dr. Patel turned to her. “You let me know if you start feeling poorly, and I'll take another look.”
Thorne nodded a dismissal to the doc and regarded her again. “Khan tells me that you'll be staying at Segue for the time being.”
“Uh . . . I . . .” She couldn't keep up. If someone would just answer her questions . . .