He had no idea how he did that. Probably an angel thing, but he couldn’t stay to find out.
He hefted to standing and, wavering, wiped the blood from his mouth and temple with his arm. The remaining handful of wraiths on the street had frozen, looking bug-eyed and baffled at the corpse of their…friend.
“I’ve got to get to Annabella,” Custo said.
A shot fired. Something bit him in his side. He glanced down as another fiery bullet took him in the arm and knocked him, spinning, to the ground again.
His vision blurred with dancing white spots. Warmth spread on the skin, plastering his shirt to his side, as a chill seeped into his bones. More shots punctuated the air, but he was insensible to their source or target. He concentrated solely on the burn that signaled regeneration.
It wasn’t coming.
A hand at Custo’s arm pulled him suddenly upward. His knees buckled so he ended up kneeling. A fight raged around him, a gun discharged, shouts. He caught Adam’s voice, shouting, “Here!” but to whom he spoke, Custo had no idea.
Custo peered into the bleary sky, blinking rapidly to focus.
Luca looked down at him. “I thought we lost you. Well, pull yourself together and get off your lazy ass.”
Custo was abruptly released as Luca dived into the fray. Custo stared, weak and stupid, at the street fight around him. Each movement was a strange rainbow arc of color in his vision. Each mundane shape was irregular and strange. He found Adam, expression fierce and joyful at the same time. That, too, was wrong; Adam was too perpetually worried to look that happy. Had Shadowman returned? Dead wraiths were stinking up the alley. The fetid smell made Custo’s eyes tear.
No, not Death. Others had joined the fight against the wraiths. Their faces weren’t familiar, but they were beautiful, skin perfect, eyes too deeply aware to be human. Custo knew them for what they were: angels. One held a wicked-looking short blade, its shaft subtly winging at its base like a trident. Custo could almost hear it singing though the air. The weapon was murder on wraiths.
Slowly the world solidified. The blurry colors collected in their rightful places. The shapes of building and body took on defined edges. And a blissful burn roared through his gut. He was healing at last.
Annabella.
Custo opened his consciousness to find her. He swept through the thousands in the audience, the bright specks congregated on the stage, the people waiting in the wings.
Custo searched for the glowing spirit that had brought him back to life, and found her flickering on the edge of hers.
Chapter Ten
A bell tolled the break of dawn. The music quieted, and the wilis delicately assumed listening poses, bodies leaning, heads cocked. The light on the stage shifted, yellowed, as the sun broke through the shadows of the trees. Giselle had seen her cursed Albrecht through darkest night. She clasped him one last time before returning to her grave.
Come. Now. Wolf pulled her toward a break in the trees, a deviation from the choreography of the ballet.
Yes, Annabella answered. All her dreams could and would be made real, and she didn’t even have to try. She’d be miserable for the rest of her life if she denied Faerie and didn’t embrace the magic with everything that she was.
Come, Wolf said again, this time with his sexy growl. The sound used to scare her, but now it excited. He knew her in ways that no other man could; he knew that her passions were hungry, just as he knew that nothing on Earth could satisfy them.
She belonged in the Shadowlands, dancing forever.
But…She glanced out into the audience—all the people were enthralled, spellbound, as if they collectively held their breath. The illumination of the stage lit their faces and had their eyes shining.
Just one more thing…one more moment, here…
Annabella wanted her applause. She’d worked hard enough for it. Seventeen years of breaking her body for ballet. She wanted the first bows with the company, then the curtain calls, the standing ovation, her arms full of roses. She wanted these people on their feet, shouting “brava.” If that made her a diva, so be it. If she were crossing to the Shadowlands, this was the only time her work would be recognized.
The orchestra sang the last strains of the love song. Albrecht was supposed to collapse center stage as Giselle disappeared into her grave, but Wolf stood, holding out his hand to draw Annabella into his world in a strange reversal of the story.
A happily-ever-after would have them exiting together, bound for the Shadowlands, but Giselle was a tragedy.
And Annabella wanted to take her bows.
Come, he said a third time, angry.