What could have possibly driven her to wander this street, amidst the industry and violence of the docks?
Calloused by eons of experience, he watched as she picked up speed. Death could sense the threads of her life glowing in the ether around her, drawing her toward her final destiny. The lines formed a strange map, forces urging her this way and that, subtle tugs that drew the pattern of her existence to intersect at this point, at this moment.
Why here? Why now? Irrelevant.
A shimmer of dark faelight broke over the dun of the street, visible only to him. A glittering sleeve, a sweep of glossy gold fae hair, the twinkle of madness in an eye. Moira. Fate leered toward him, girlish and laughing. Moira had three faces, but she preferred the young one best. She leaned with her sharp scissors toward the woman’s lifeline. Death caught the glint of the silvery blade as the mortal’s lifeline was cut, her thread in the tapestry of the world at its ragged end.
It happened to everyone.
The woman must have sensed it herself. She cast her eyes up to the sky, praying no doubt, and strained for breath. Moira had already departed from the world, her work done. The woman, of course, had sought a higher power. Her gaze arced from God to over her shoulder, her mouth parting as she met the hot eyes of her pursuers.
Would she stumble and fall, as so many others had throughout the centuries?
No. The woman leaned into a run. A hopeless flight.
Death marveled as she gathered her terror to her and bore down on it as she ran. Curious that a spirit should burn so bright when closest to death.
Kathleen’s had as well. Bright and bold enough to pierce Shadow.
But, like Kathleen, this woman would die. She had to. Moira had cut the thread of her life. It could not be undone.
One of the men, dim by comparison, reached out to grab her jacket.
The woman spun and planted her spiked fist in his face.
Good girl. Fight your Fate, then. Cross in a blaze of glory.
The man reeled back, one hand going to his bloody cheek, the other still clutching her sleeve. The men’s lust was threaded with a heat for murder, like a sticky tar to stain the soul.
She peeled out of her jacket as the first man grabbed her flying hair, jerking her suddenly back. She raised that spiked fist again as she shifted her weight. He stopped her at her wrist, and Death grinned in appreciation as her shift of weight moved into a vicious knee to his groin.
She managed four steps before the other man struck her at the back of her neck. She fell, skinning her palms and chin on the pavement. He grabbed her by the ankle, dragged her back to them, and heaved her up by the waist of her pants. Though she kicked and bucked, he pinned her arms with one of his.
From her gut she screamed, a sound that ripped through the atmosphere of the deserted street. The man put a fat palm over her mouth and nose.
Was Kathleen fighting this hard in Hell? Did her spirit still burn bright, or had she dimmed with hopelessness?
The men looked this way and that for a place to enjoy their prey. One tried the door of the warehouse. He kicked at the knob, breaking the lock and splintering the frame.
With a flex of power, Death compelled Shadow to slam the door and bar their entry.
If the hellgate could infiltrate his mind—Open me! it rattled—then the mortals would be utterly overwhelmed by it. And he was still too weak to fight an army of devils.
When the warehouse door didn’t give, the men looked for an alternative. They spotted and quickly agreed upon an alley not far away.
The woman’s heart beat as fast as a newborn child’s, shush-shush-shush, but her eyes were hard. Death could sense the clockwork of her brain, though he had no idea what she thought to do.
She had to know by now it was hopeless.
Hopeless. The word was poison. And today of all days, he could not permit its pollution within the three worlds, not when he fought its contamination himself.
He couldn’t save the woman. She would die, if not by these devils in the making, then by some other means, and soon.
One of the men cursed as she bit his finger, and he slapped her face.
If Death had his scythe, he would have cut her quick. Ended this without her experiencing the indignity of the attack. But he would not touch that weapon again; it would keep him from Kathleen. And he was done with death.
The only thing left was to save her, though he would do her no favors by prolonging her demise. It would come, and there were forms that were worse than the one these men intended.
Still. This would take little effort. With cowards like these, almost none at all.
Shadowman cast his attention down the alley, where it terminated on the other side of the street. He found a heap of refuse topped with a length of metal. With a finger of Shadow, he nudged the piece to fall. It clattered on the ground.
The men stilled. The woman’s shirt was up above her breasts, though an undergarment kept her nakedness from their eyes.
“Anyone there?” one of the men called.