“Seriously fucked up.”
Shadowman gripped the hammer, a tool of the angels. With it, he could forge the gate. Barbed and brutal, the gate’s only decorative element was a few spare flowers, the kind that could grow in the harshest, darkest clime. Three wrought-iron, triangular petals were folded close to guard the core. The blooms were his desperate hope, a symbol that Kathleen could endure beyond, her soul bearing the empty pitch until he could find her.
“Are you going to tell them?” Death asked.
“I’m part of The Order,” Custo said. “The angels can read my mind. I couldn’t hide this if I wanted to. And I don’t. We’ve had enough trouble dealing with the last forbidden passage you created between the worlds. Wraiths are still plaguing humankind. There’s a war out there. Don’t open up a way even more dangerous.”
Shadowman glanced at the gate.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat, the gate answered, trembling on its posts. The gate had been talking to him like that since it had been mounted.
And he knew he could not wait to retrieve Kathleen from Hell. There was no higher purpose in her presence there that he could fathom. No order or justice to her damnation. He broke the law, but Kathleen suffered in Hell. There was nothing to do but fetch her back.
“Look ahead, if you can,” Custo said, the green forcing out the black in his eyes. His urgency, thick and pungent, saturated the shadows. “I beg you to look ahead.”
Shadowman gripped the hammer tighter. The gate was nearly complete. Soon, very soon, it would be ready. The fae existed in the now, the present moment, but he could see that far into the future.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
The gate already clamored to open.
“What do you think a gate to Hell will do to the mortal world?” Custo’s burnished skin gleamed in the dark. He was all angel now, fighting once again for the people on Earth. “If you can pass through it, what do you think will come out our way?”
Nothing good, that was certain.
So Shadowman answered with a question of his own. “And if it were your Annabella?”
Custo went silent, breathing deeply, thinking of the beautiful ballerina who was his wife. It didn’t take long for his mouth to twist.
“It hurts you even to think of it, yet Kathleen is there, right now.”
Custo closed his eyes. “There has to be a reason . . .”
“. . . for her to bear pain and despair unending?” Shadowman’s arm ached with the burden of the hammer. The sinews and muscles strained to hold it, but he held fast to his human form. He had a gate to finish. “And you could tolerate this for Annabella while you had the means to save her?”
“Oh, God. I gave you the means. Oh, shit.” Selfrecrimination threaded through Custo’s distress. “That makes me responsible.”
“Then see it through.”
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Shadowman turned to regard the gate. At his side, Custo did the same. The potent menace coming off the thing was palpable. Shadow shimmered against the hellthrob of his creation. A gate to Hell, forged by Death.
Shadowman felt the moment Custo came to a decision, his hard resolve overcoming the wilder emotions.
“I begged for a day once, and that’s what I’ll give you,” Custo said. “Then I swear I’ll bring the angels. We will rip it apart, even if you, Kathleen, or . . . or . . . even Annabella are behind it. It is wrong. You fae obviously have trouble telling the difference.” kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
Right? Wrong? Shadowman didn’t care. Death, by nature and necessity, was numb to such considerations.
“I don’t require your permission, boy.” The pain of his grip on the hammer crawled over his shoulder.
“Mark my words,” Custo said, summoning Shadow to depart. “The angels are coming.”
“Mark mine,” Death returned. “I’ll have her back.”
Chapter 2
A rustle in the brush snapped Layla Mathews’s attention from the quiet hulk of The Segue Institute’s main building to the dense trees on her right. Wraith. She held her breath, willing her heartbeat to silence, lowered her camera, and put a hand to the gun ready on the earth in front of her. Steady . . .
She waited for movement. Strained for the telltale screech that meant trouble.
Keep it calm. . . .
But heard only the kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat of the now chronic tinnitus in her head.
Nothing. Her gulping heartbeat slowed.
Seconds passed. A breeze hit the November trees, and the leaves chattered in the wind.
Still nothing.
Okay. Back to work. She was going to get a photo of Talia Kathleen Thorne if it killed her. A clear shot, in high-res. The follow-up segment to her wraith series wouldn’t be complete without it.