“Layla, I—”
“Custo, it’s fine. I’m fine. At last things make sense, which is a huge relief.” And here she’d found Talia, a friend, after all this time. Adam should go to her. Why was he still here in this awful room?
Custo frowned. “That’s not what you’re thinking. At least don’t lie to me.”
“What do you want me to say?” Layla snapped. “The bell in my head says this is no-win. I get it. At least let me put on a good face while I try to do the right thing.”
Shadowman sent his darkness coursing around her. “I won’t let this happen.”
Brick wall, and her head was already bloody.
Shadowman pulled her into his arms. “I could keep you safe.”
Layla felt a strange stirring of air, and then she was struck by an invisible fist. She cried out, then bit her lip too late for quiet. The sound of metal against metal rang throughout the room. Her weight collapsed into Shadowman’s arms and she got a crazy vantage of the room.
“Layla?” He gripped her.
Layla marveled as the gray veins under Custo’s skin grew darker. “Fuckers started on the gate without me.”
Suddenly Adam was beside her. “They knew you couldn’t do it.”
“Rose Petty took lives today,” Custo said. “The Order won’t risk letting in more devils like her.”
“Go!” Adam shouted. “Stop them. Buy us more time. Tell them she’s willing.”
Another blow assailed Layla’s senses. Stars sprang into her vision and she smelled the metallic scent of blood, running freely from her nose. The rapid manchatter kept up around her, but her attention was drawn to Shadowman’s face. His eyes had gone full black again, swallowing the whites. Unless he was turned on, that was a bad sign. His form, though solid, seemed to phase out of reality, as if the darkness was filling him to bursting. Very bad.
“Don’t,” she tried to tell him, but she knew he was beyond that. Beyond listening.
This is the way it has to be. But she could see that he didn’t care.
She trembled as a new beast was born before her eyes. Her Shadowman, yes, but filled with a blackening menace that outdid anything Rose could hope to conjure.
The angels wanted Death?
Well, here he comes.
Shadowman took the cavern with a hurricane of darkness. He drew from the depths of the earth where shadows were soaked in black pitch and hurled death at the host gathered before the gate to Hell. Bodies flew back and crashed on the stone walls and the stalagmites reaching up from the floor.
Only Ballard hung on to the gate, his yellow hair whipping in the wind, one hand around a wrought-iron rung, the other gripping the hammer. Though Death bore down, still Ballard drew back and struck the gate again.
They hadn’t even given her a moment’s warning.
Death summoned Shadow, deeper and deeper, until the cavern walls ran with sightless bugs streaming toward the mouth. Bats screamed through the air in a cacophonous flapping. And the gate rattled with hysterical glee.
Shadowman sent a gale of power and struck Ballard. His head bounced off the gate, bloodied, but he held on.
How valiant. But angels were mortal and this one was going to die.
Death flexed his magic and took to his feet. He hoped they saw a beast. They deserved to meet a beast for the murder they planned. He grabbed Ballard’s hair in his hand and bashed his head against the gate. Used his skull like a new hammer. Thrilled toward the moment when white bone would show through.
But his arm was caught by that dog, Custo. “Let me—!” The rest of his words were lost on the wind.
Just as well. Shadowman shook off the hold, drew Ballard back, and struck the gate again. Finally, the damn angel’s body went slack, the hammer dropping to the cavern floor. Death tossed the used body aside and turned to the angels, who were regrouping for a fight.
Custo stood between them, eyes black with Shadow, arms lifted, hands flattened to say, Stop!
The moment they struck Layla, the angels had taken matters way past stopping.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat: Open me. I’ve an army at your disposal.
“She’ll comply!” Custo shouted at them. “Layla has agreed!”
“I don’t,” Shadowman’s thunderstorm grumbled.
Another angel stepped forward. “Recuse yourself, Custo. You are blinded by your friendships.”
“Layla just found out,” Custo said. “She agreed. Give her a little time. . . .”
“There is no such thing as time,” Death said. Not anymore. There was only forever. And he would have no less.
kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat: I can give you forever.
“Listen to me!” Custo shouted. “Layla found her purpose. She can set things straight. Shadowman will go back to Twilight.”