Layla cast her gaze around, though she knew she wouldn’t find him, especially in the dark. A wooly group of pines darted from the earth into the atmosphere. She followed them up to the faint twinkles in the sky.
Just in time to see a . . . a thing, a body, dropping from above. It altered its trajectory toward her, its length flattening as it descended. So not dropping, flying. It had no visible feet or hands, though its trunk seemed to have mass. Old, ripped clothes hung off its shoulders. Its face was ravaged with decay, mouth open, teeth extended to feed. Wraith, but not wraith.
Layla grabbed the gun from Adam’s holster, flicked the safety off, and fired above into shadow-webbed branches.
“In the trees!” someone shouted a little too late. Rapid gunshot report battered her ears.
A roar of wind darkness blew through the air, riffling her hair and blasting across her back.
Her trigger finger stalled as the wraith was caught midair, twisting, almost crawling up the sky. A hideous crack broke the quiet as it bent double, but the wrong way, then fell to the earth with the hollow clatter of loose bones in a fleshy bag.
She’d seen a couple of wraiths brought down before. She’d written about the experience. But never had she seen one shredded like that. Had to be Khan at work again. Khan, her door opener, dream lover, and wraith killer.
She searched the sky, heart pounding, breath coming in great puffs of frosty air.
Another crack, and she turned, bracing in fear as a wraith fell dead to the ground.
The soldiers fired their guns again, but if not for Khan, men would be dying.
Layla grabbed Adam’s arm. “Will they hurt him?”
Adam had dark, hungry glee in his eyes, a sharp smile cracking his face. “Not a bit.”
The sky went ashy, the sun finally claiming the day. For a moment, Layla saw a swath of Shadow whipping like a cloak around the silhouette of a man. Khan. He was all darkness, arms outstretched, hands raised, body midpivot in the sky. With a pulse, he dispersed into a gritty ink stain and reformed some distance away, a tornado of black to cast another wraith to death on the ground.
“Show-off,” Adam muttered.
Layla was breathless. “How does he do that?”
“Do what?”
“Kill them so quickly, so easily. I’ve never actually seen one die.”
Adam’s eyes glittered. “The wraiths are dead already. He just, uh, seals the deal.”
The explanation made no sense. It had to be a fae thing, a magic thing.
Adam was up, moving toward Khan’s first kill. Which was crazy. More wraiths could be out there, yet Adam seemed perfectly comfortable to move around without cover. His men followed suit. Everyone was confident of their safety in Khan’s presence.
Layla craned to look above and all around her. Khan was still nowhere in sight, so she leapt, stumbling through the brush, after Adam to follow the story.
“I want the wraith remains picked up and delivered to the holding cell for examination,” he was saying. “This one here first.”
The smell was extraordinary, as if the wraith had been long dead. Layla had to cover her mouth and nose with her hand as she gazed down at the dry, yellowed husk of wraith tissue and bone. In the bushes was a swatch of stringy, dirty hair above jellied eyes. The remains lacked cohesion and weren’t remotely recognizable as human.
“And to think,” Adam said, “not too long ago you were camped out in my woods, all by yourself.”
The memory made her wince with a belated realization of how much danger she’d been in. She easily could’ve been killed.
“What were you really after that day?” Adam took a pair of surgical gloves out of his pocket, put them on, crouched down.
Layla thought of how she’d sat with her camera, willing Talia to step out of Segue. “A photo to run with my story.”
She crouched down, too. What did Adam think he could learn from the body? Was it still possible to identify the man the wraith had once been?
But Adam was looking at her. “You traveled down from New York, hiked for hours from Middleton, climbed my wall, and waited out in the cold for a photograph?”
“I know it sounds insane.” She couldn’t believe she’d done it either.
Adam shook his head, his hard expression softening. “Talia was all tears when she got back from visiting you the other night. I think I understand a little better now.”
Adam’s face was haggard with exhaustion, there was a blood smear at his neck, and by the looks of things, he had a day’s worth of work ahead of him before he could rest. And if the wraiths were “testing the perimeter,” as he’d said, then he might just be back out there again come nightfall.
A team of men in plastic coveralls joined them. They were masked and carried large, industrial-looking gray boxes, presumably containing equipment to gather and clean up the mess.
“We can talk more later, if you like,” Adam said. “I’ve got to take care of things here now. And you can keep the gun. You clearly know how to use it.”
She still gripped the handle, finger light on the trigger. “Segue’s safe, then?”