Layla sat on the sofa in her apartment, arms crossed, elbows braced on her knees. She breathed deep so she wouldn’t be sick all over the nice rug, but each inhalation just fed the internal fire scorching her chest. Denying the message in her head was impossible, but coping with it now that she had found her place in the world was beyond excruciating. It was burning her from the inside out.
Talia was using the bedroom as a makeshift nursery since her apartment had been battered and soiled by dead wraiths. She stood frozen in the doorway, as if on guard, a baby bottle in her hands. Adam paced on the other side of the room in front of the windows. Custo straddled a turned-around straight-backed chair. And Shadowman glared from the seat across from Layla. At least he’d managed to put on some clothes.
Adam stopped abruptly. “Aside from the scythe issue, what exactly did you remember?”
Layla concentrated on the crisscross grain of the upholstery of Shadowman’s chair. She hadn’t looked at him directly since delivering her message. Hurt too much. “That the existence of the wraiths is our fault. That souls are being lost to Shadow as fae prey on them when they cross. That he has to go back and restore The Order by lifting his scythe.”
“But nothing of what we shared?” Shadowman put in.
She shook her head no. And she didn’t want to. What she already felt for him was strong enough.
The wraith thing was beyond ironic. Here she’d spent years of her life trying to learn the origin of the wraiths when it had been she and Shadowman all along. Had that compulsion, that obsession, come from her, or had it been part of her reincarnation directive as well? Layla bet it was the latter.
“First of all,” Talia said angrily, “you aren’t responsible for the wraiths. Yes, when Shadowman crossed to be with my mother, a fae demon got into the world, The Death Collector. I killed him, so in that case we’ve cleaned up our own mess. But the wraiths? Do you know what each person had to do to become one? They had to drink a cup of demon vomit. They had to choose it. Becoming a wraith was a deliberate, voluntary act, not some condition spread like a disease. And we’re still fighting them. We’ve dedicated our lives and our resources to that end. So that blame is in no way yours to bear.”
Shadowman was silent through Talia’s tirade, the weight of his gaze heavy on Layla’s near-crumbling defenses.
Apparently the wraiths had colluded with Rose Petty, a dangerous combination that still sent shivers down Layla’s back. With Rose’s ability to manipulate minds, and wights taking to the air, the wraiths had gotten into the main building. Into Talia and Adam’s apartment. Into the nursery.
They must want Talia’s children bad.
“Doesn’t matter if they chose it or not. The wraiths, a devil, that horrible gate,” Layla listed. She forced herself to meet Shadowman’s gaze. He had to understand. “We’ve been hell on the world and it’s time it stopped.”
“Layla,” Adam said, “the problem is more complex than Khan returning to Shadow.”
“No, it’s not. It’s very simple. Very clear.” It rang like a bell in her mind, a horrible clanging that she couldn’t silence. It was only marginally better than the hellgate’s rattle. Both were the sound of doom.
“If Khan goes back,” Adam continued, “what will happen to the gate?”
“The angels will rip it apart,” Khan answered, each syllable clipped.
He had to be using Shadow; Layla felt it on her skin, moving against her, stroking and churning like an ocean. Even now he tried to seduce her. It would be so easy to give in and let his cool fury douse the burn inside her.
“I’m sorry to be explicit, Layla,” Adam said, “but I have to get this straight. My understanding is that if the gate is destroyed, then you will be killed as well.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she kept quiet. The important thing was that Shadowman went back to his duty. Her life was over, anyway. That fact was abundantly evident in the multiple near-death scrapes of the past couple days. The sooner this was resolved, the sooner the nightmare would end.
“Custo,” Talia pleaded. “Please.”
Custo stood and turned his chair back around. “It’s extremely rare for someone to be reincarnated. In every case I know of, there has been some great work to be done. The second life itself hardly mattered. Case in point, Layla was born an orphan. I defy you to find the birth mother. Layla never connected with any of her foster families, was wholly raised by a system, and moved through this world almost completely alone.”
“It’s cruel,” Talia said, eyes shimmering.
No, Layla thought, she was on a mission; she just hadn’t known it. She’d already had a chance at life, and a good one, as Kathleen. This was about finishing Kathleen’s business, Layla’s business now. The reality sucked, but there was no changing it.
Adam picked up where Custo left off. “Makes sense. Her work has been dominated by the wraiths and an obsession with Segue. And, she went to extraordinary lengths to get near Talia.”
“Why wasn’t she sent back as an angel, then?” Talia asked.