“Okay, then,” Annabella said. She leaned her weight into a step back to get Custo moving. No way was she going to kill some dying psychic today. Time to go back to Segue and work on Plan B. Or, uh, C.
Zoe rolled her eyes again. “Okay, fine. She might have said something about going to the party tonight. There. We’re done.”
“What party?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know,” Zoe returned petulantly. “The party. You figure it out.”
Party, party, party…Oh, crap. Annabella had completely forgotten. “The reception for the company. It’s tonight. I’ll get out of it, say I’m sick or something.” If Venroy wasn’t already pissed at her, he was going to be livid about this. The new principal missing the start-of-the-season bash. Freaking fantastic.
At her back, Custo suddenly stiffened. Annabella felt his arm around her waist. It tightened as he lurched forward, then stopped himself. “Abigail is—” He halted for a second, his chest suspended midbreath. “—Adam, Abigail!”
“Move,” Adam said, as he slapped the door to the side and pushed Zoe out of his way.
“Stop!” Zoe shouted. “What the fu—?”
A scream from above cut the air, then strangled into silence.
“Abby!” Zoe screamed back. All bitchiness dropped from Zoe’s tone, leaving only gut-wrenching, frantic worry. She disappeared into the darkness after Adam.
Annabella tried to follow, but Custo held her back. “No, I think it’s the wolf.”
She bucked against the hard bar of his arm across her middle. “Then you’re the only one that can help. We have to go.” She tried to drop her weight to escape him. “You can’t let him hurt her.”
His hold tightened further, but Annabella could sense a hesitation, a moment of deep, conflicted thought.
“Damn it,” Custo said. “You stay with me. Touching me.”
“Yes! Fine!” Her head flushed with the return of circulation as he released her, only to take her hand and drag her through the underbelly of the building.
They burst into a large, windowless room. Its walls and floor were painted drippy black, and a bar took up the far wall, lit with eerie red light. They hurried up a scarlet runner that led to a slightly raised dais. Behind the stage was a short hall, papered with cheap, neon flyers announcing disturbing rocker bands.
Not her kind of club.
Up a narrow flight of steps and down a horror-movie hallway, they found Zoe and Adam crowding another doorway. Zoe was half in, half out, her face fearful, as if she couldn’t quite decide whether to go to her sister or run from whatever was in the room. Adam’s jaw was set with grim resolution.
Their expressions sent a vicious, electric shiver up Annabella’s spine that spread across the cold sweat dampening her body.
“Let her go,” Adam said to whoever or whatever was in the room.
“So,” a female voice trembled, as if in the throes of deep pleasure, “this is what it is like to be made flesh.”
“Leave her alone!” Zoe shouted with a painful warble, her love for her sister stripping her naked.
The fear in her voice resonated painfully within Annabella. Her throat grew tight in sympathy, even as her belly quailed against discovering what was in the room.
Adam glanced over his shoulder, spotted Custo, and stepped back. Annabella stumbled after Custo as he slowly moved forward to take Adam’s place at the door. She wrapped an arm around Custo’s middle so the wall of his strength was between her and Wolf; then she stole a quick glance over his shoulder.
A woman sat in a rocking chair, gnarled hands clutching the armrests, aged beyond any believable sibling relationship to Zoe. Her thin white wisps of hair floated off sallow skin, colorless lips working into a parody of a smile. Her eyes were blackened with pulsing Shadow.
Annabella’s blood ran cold.
The smile reached its grotesque apogee. “You can’t hurt me,” she taunted.
“Wanna bet?” Custo started forward.
From behind, Zoe yelled, “That’s my sister!”
Custo halted again. “Release Abigail. She’s not worth it. Her body is wasted, near death.”
Annabella shuddered with a sudden realization, her fear turning sharp and cutting within her. Where before Wolf had simply assumed whatever form he wanted, the soldier and Jasper, now he possessed, sharing the old woman’s body. The how was more than obvious: Adam had said that Abigail was so full of Shadow that her eyes were stormy with it. Now Abigail was full of Shadow wolf, the blackness of her gaze hungry, predatory, and…unnatural.
The union was wrong, but there was nothing they could do about it. Any harm Wolf took, the woman would as well, and by Zoe’s account, Abigail was already weak and ill. Zoe had blamed them for killing her sister; it seemed her accusation was dead-on.
Annabella fought a tide of nausea. She thought of her mom and brother, safe at home. If Custo and Adam had come knocking, she would have barred the door, too. And then some.