Shadow Hunt

CHAPTER 4



Cam woke to the feeling of lips pressed to his, coaxing him awake, and a familiar feminine hand grasping his sleep-hardened business. The rest of him was rested, unraveled, contented. Damn, it was good to be alive.

“Morning, sailor,” Ellie said, low and saucy.

He refused to open his eyes. Felt too good riding the breakers of sleep with Ellie beside him. Work could wait while he indulged in his favorite fantasy. He had a muddy vision of a white house with a big green lawn and a basketball hoop over the garage. He wanted kids, little boy monkeys like Adam’s, who were always up to no good. Or a girl like her mama, sweet and pink. His chest ached in the vicinity of his heart. Yes, a girl for sure. They’d have to try until they got at least one of each. And if they ended up with five, the world would be better for it.

Ellie stroked him, warm and firm. His brain dimmed.

Maybe they should give it a go right now.

No. He went stern on himself. Not until she was wearing his ring. And he had a plan for that. A picnic up on Segue’s rooftop, under the stars. Marcie was going to prepare him a basket; she’d leveraged her cooking against a preview of the diamond.

Marcie. Slight. Cam opened his eyes. Hell. Martin House. Ellie smiled above him. “We lived through the night. Twenty-four more hours and we’re outta here.”

“I was already home,” he grumbled.

She pouted for him. “Welcome back to the real world.”

He looked at her, considering. She’d tucked her hair behind her ear on one side so that it wouldn’t tickle his nose. He wouldn’t have minded, though. “As long as you’re in it, this is where I want to be.”

She dropped another kiss on him. “Good. Now up. Shower, so we can go down to the Seminary and get dirty all over again. You’ve got some killing to do.”

In spite of everything, he rose with a grin. Must have been damn good for her too.

Actually, everything was good when it was just the two of them, even here when the day ahead would be so bad. Had to be a kind of magic, not Shadow, though, something more. Stronger than Shadow.

The sun was well up by the time they took a path from the back of the house down the hill to the Seminary compound. Cam had to stop midway to wonder at the vista before him—a full-glory morning on the lawns, yet blanketed with Shadow, the ghosts of Twilight’s trees misting in the sunlight. The highest boughs diffused into a golden, surreal, steamy evaporation.

Twilight was ever-night. And yet here it was, at the break of day, a once-in-a-millennia Brigadoon kind of moment.

He tried to describe it to Ellie, but he was a scientist, no good with words, and she looked at him the whole time, worry coming back into her eyes. So he dropped it, and they moved on, the lightness with which they’d awakened burst like a soap bubble.

The path led to a cluster of identical low white buildings crouching around a center plaza covered in a thick fog of Shadow. A small group of people had gathered there, most kneeling in meditation, the blond-haired profile of Mathilde among them. And there, in the back, none other than Slight.

Heat rolled over Cam in a rush of adrenaline. His muscles tightened as his blood ran faster.

Cam touched Ellie’s back to keep her close as they started up the path toward the courtyard. But he glanced about him, startled to find the white buildings were open rectangular structures, walled only on the back side, supported by columns on the others, and therefore open to the elements. Each structure was full of the blackest, most impenetrable Shadow.

Mathilde was standing when he looked back, thin trails of magic swirling with her movement. “Ah, the humans have arrived.”

The others stood as well and turned to see them, but Cam kept his attention nailed on Slight. The stray mage was no more than five feet six, wiry thin. He wore all black and stood with the quiet of a deprived monk. Marcie was present in the puckered red welt that dragged up his neck and across his jaw.

Again, Cam felt a rise of pride that Marcie had gotten her strike in. She’d fought, and Cam would finish her work.

The fact that Slight was there, in full sight, made Cam think that Ellie’s little sting at dinner—that Mathilde couldn’t command a mongrel dog—had drawn blood.

Now it was his turn. Engage Slight now, or wait and see what Mathilde had in mind?

Cam didn’t trust the moment. He thought of Mathilde’s ability to control Ellie’s shadow and the possibility that she had more of the same or worse planned; maybe it was better to wait and learn the tenor of this gathering before concentrating on Slight.

“Here at the Seminary,” Mathilde addressed her gathered mages, “we have for the most part ignored humanity, save to touch on the dangers of conventional weapons and how sheer numbers can be a problem.”

No. Not the humanity-is-inferior thing again. Not with him standing by. “You underestimate us,” Cam said loudly as he gained the courtyard.

Mathilde made a long-suffering face. “I don’t think so.”

“Then you’ve led a sheltered life,” he said. She seemed too confident to have ever really been in a life-or-death fight. She had no idea what a desperate person was capable of.

The rest of the mages—Cam counted six—responded only with the dart of their gazes, back and forth. Watchful. Ellie was silent beside him, probably just as startled at seeing Slight as he was. The fact that she hadn’t acted or said anything meant she was being careful as well.

“What power you have, Dr. Kalamos,” Mathilde said, “comes from Shadow, does it not?”

“It does.”

“And the event that split Ms. Russo? It too most likely had something to do with Shadow.”

“I believe it did, yes,” Cam answered. “But you miss the relevant point. Humankind has always had access to Shadow—dreams, nightmares, legends, inspiration. Humanity taps into Shadow every day. And when we die, we pass into Twilight, where few of your kind can tread. Ms. Russo and I have merely accessed Shadow to a different degree than most others. But with Shadow flooding the Earth, more of my kind will develop extraordinary affinities.”

Mathilde frowned. “Your kind doesn’t remember the time before, when Shadow was thick on Earth. Magekind does remember, and we ruled over you. We shall again.”

As a scientist, he knew to be wary of foregone conclusions and would have advised her of the same. As a human man, he was more inclined toward, “Over my dead body.”

She smiled, tilting her head toward Slight. “That has been arranged.”

“I expect he’ll try,” Cam said dryly. Sparks flooded his blood at her promise. Not of fear or eager anticipation, but of preparedness. And he kind of liked his odds: when they were bad, especially very bad, unexpected things happened. Like miracles.

“Before we stain the center with your blood”—Mathilde gestured to the cobbled stones of the ground—“how about we give the novices a try against Ms. Russo’s shadow? She might require restraint after.”

The sparks in Cam’s blood burned. “You will not restrain her shadow.” This was what he’d feared: that Mathilde would divide to conquer, him with Slight, Ellie at Mathilde’s mercy. No.

He drew breath to explain his position in no uncertain terms, but Ellie interrupted him.

“Who’s up first?” she called out, startling everyone. Too cheerful.

Cam huffed out his breath through his nose. He’d hoped Ellie would keep a cool head, but the setup and welcome had obviously pissed her off too. She sounded that cheery only when she was seeing red. He knew from personal experience.

A barrel-chested mage spoke up. “I’m not afraid of shadows.”

So Cam let Mathilde’s threat pass by without further argument.

The group seated themselves around the perimeter of the courtyard, and Cam found himself next to Slight. The proximity felt like acid in Cam’s heated veins. To sit in outward ease next to his enemy.

Slight sent a wry kind of look his way. Cam ignored him to examine the long black-bladed knife that Slight placed on the ground in the Shadow mist before him. Ready and waiting.

Message received. One nick and . . .

Ellie sat on Cam’s other side, and only when the barrel-chested man was alone in the center looking at her expectantly did she loose her darkest self.

The shadow leapt through the air, arching over Cam toward Slight. Her hands and fingers strained to claw his face off—still so angry over Marcie. But Ellie directed her shadow toward the center, where the barrel-chested man had backed away a step.

The shadow hissed at Mathilde, who smiled back at her. “Doesn’t even recognize her own nakedness,” she said to the group.

Cam looked at the shadow’s naked curves, her jutting breasts, the triangle at the juncture of her legs, the soft curve of her hip. The shadow was perfect and she knew it.

“And note how her attention wanders,” Mathilde said.

The shadow was still divided between Slight and Mathilde, though Ellie had forced herself into the center. The shadow didn’t seem to notice the barrel-chested mage at all, which meant he wasn’t a threat.

He had taken an offensive stance, an eerie blue light shining in the whites of his eyes and his teeth. The seething Shadow on the ground twisted around the mage’s ankles and legs, as if feeding him, and a snake of blue smoke came out of his mouth.

Reluctantly, the shadow brought her attention over to her opponent.

The Ellie beside Cam leaned over to say, “Looks like he needs a breath mint.”

Her shadow form stalked forward, disregarding the snake, grabbed the barrel-chested man by the throat, lifted him three feet off the ground, and smacked him so hard to the earth that his legs flew up and only hit the stone courtyard a good two seconds later. Blue stuff hissed out of his mouth, but the shadow was unaffected.

Ellie allowed the shadow to choke the mage until his limbs spasmed. “Enough?” she called out.

The mage slapped the ground, signaling his defeat.

Ellie pulled her shadow up and back several paces, saying, “Next?”

Cam smiled. Atta girl.

“Tiana!” Mathilde commanded.

A short woman rose, her face middle-aged, her proportions prepubescent. She took the courtyard, seemingly at her leisure, but then Cam saw the mist of Shadow on the ground whip and part in a sudden frantic path. The mage woman dashed into exactly that pattern with incredible speed.

Ellie’s shadow was just as fast as the mage, darting forward and cutting Tiana’s trajectory with a backhand that knocked her across the courtyard. The mage woman skidded facedown across the stones, unconscious. Blood oozed out of her friction-blistered nose.

The shadow advanced to finish the job, but Ellie pulled tight on her leash. “Next?”

Cam didn’t get it. What kind of an attack was that? Sure, the mage woman had been supernaturally fast, but with the path opening up before her like that, Ellie’s shadow was sure to know exactly where the mage would be.

Mathilde had failed with this student. All a person had to do was look and then they’d be able to . . .

Wait.

Though his heartbeat had accelerated, Cam put Slight out of his mind and relaxed to let himself see, see as much as he possibly could.

“Nial!” Mathilde commanded.

Nial apparently could use Shadow to bind, impede, or entrap with jets and ribbons of magic. And Cam could perceive with his Shadow-altered eyes the magic carrying out the mage’s will a moment before the mage himself seemed to cast it.

And yes, Cam had also seen the barrel-chested mage pull from Shadow before he used it.

Cam felt a smile on his face, his deepest concerns suddenly laid to rest. He would have sweet victory and safety for Ellie. There had been a way all along.

This was a Seminary of War. It was supposed to teach its novices how to best use Shadow to defeat enemies, humans among them. And here he was, the weak human, learning as well. He’d always been a good student. And Mathilde, it turned out, was an excellent teacher. Her method was almost Socratic, her students’ attacks a form of inquiry. But they didn’t seem to come to any conclusions.

Cam, however, did.

With this much Shadow concentrated in the Seminary, his sight, more like a fae’s than a mage’s really, could see how the magic would be used a moment before it was.

Which meant that there was an extra moment to be had. A moment was more than enough time to win.

Cam planned to take advantage of it as soon as Ellie was finished with her demonstration. Slight could not beat him here, in a place so steeped in Shadow, not when Cam would be able to see what Slight was going to do before he did it.

The relief was almost painful, like a sob long in coming. He could win.

Then he and Ellie could get out of this awful place.

And he would convince Ellie to marry him and they would have all the good things that he dreamed of.

Just a little while longer. Three more opponents.

Ellie’s shadow dispensed with each mage in turn. By the fifth opponent, Mathilde was frowning. She’d stopped commenting, stopped pointing out inferiorities. Cam almost felt sorry for her pupils; they were depending on the use of their Shadow-given talents, not thinking for themselves and noticing that no direct attack upon the shadow would ever work. They had to come up with a different way, think on the fly, and orchestrate a feint. Simple misdirection was not going to cut it.

Still, it was interesting to watch—the more he looked, the more he could perceive the subtle differentiations of Shadow, how it reacted to each mage, and how it betrayed them too. The visual spectrum of magic became superdetailed so that he could see . . . everything.

When he happened to look beyond the courtyard, his attention was caught on the outline of a figure watching from the low white building on the other side of the courtyard.

Standing in that deepest pitch of Shadow was Gunnar Martin, watching his daughter being shamed by the lowly shadow of a human.

Cam’s high faltered at this added variable. He thought he’d had the answer. Now he suddenly knew that he should have been watching Mathilde herself. Though she faced forward, everything about her stance suggested that she knew her father was behind her. The flare of her nostrils said she’d had enough of looking like a fool.

Mathilde stalked into the courtyard.

Cam didn’t have to see to guess what Mathilde was about. His anger surged, black as tar.

With a subtle tilt of Mathilde’s head, Shadow magic swirled around Ellie’s shadow, penetrating her dark self like a many-tentacled parasite. Whatever power Mathilde Martin wielded, it had something to do with overcoming the human soul; a power far beyond the powers of the mages gathered here today. No wonder Martin was a preeminent House among magekind.

The prismatic colors of Ellie’s shadow dimmed.

Ellie put a hand on his arm, as if to keep him calm.

Not working. He was burning inside.

Mathilde showed off her power, holding the shadow in a frozen writhe, its beautiful body straining against invisible bonds.

“You have not been observant,” Mathilde said to her novices. “Your skills are nothing to the shadow because the shadow is a brute. An animal. If you fight strength to strength, you will fail. You will die.”

“Let her go,” Cam said.

“It has no mind of its own,” Mathilde continued, “because the mind is over there.” She set her black gaze on Ellie. “It’s the mind that tells the shadow what to do. Actually, any greater mind will do. Observe how it works.”

Mathilde whispered to the shadow. Cam couldn’t hear what was said, but got the idea when Ellie’s shadow arched sensuously, putting one hand to her breast, the other to the cleft in her legs.

That’s it. Cam broke inside.

He glanced down to the space in front of Slight.

“The shadow is a puppet—” Mathilde began, happily instructing.

Cam saw the Shadows around Slight begin to move, but Cam got there first.

That extra moment was everything.

The black dagger was in Cam’s grip, and a second later, its blade was at Mathilde’s neck. Segue had taught him to move very fast too.