“Come on,” Adam said, making to start off again. “The wolf has her.”
Custo steeled himself, doubts crowding his mind, but turned the other direction. Leaving Adam. Denying his presence. The fragrant air resisted his change of course, sheering at his body as he tore himself away from years of friendship and trust. The act was excruciating, every cell in his body rebelling.
Not Adam. This was a ploy, a game, or a test. Not Adam.
Custo pressed on. The direction didn’t matter, not with the trees and fae messing with his mind. The only thing to do was continue searching. Annabella was here, somewhere. And he would find her if he stayed his course, in his mind, if not in the forest itself.
The trees opened somewhat, and Custo upped his pace, only to come to a second tripping stop.
His father. Evan Rotherford, standing in his fine suit, his white sleeves peeking out, the Rotherford family cuff links that Custo would never own glinting where there was no light.
Custo knew his father for what he was, another test, but it still took a deep breath to form the question, “What do you want?”
“I want my son back,” his father said, extending his hand.
Years of resentment and anger condensed into a bitter rebuke that burned on Custo’s tongue,
No.
His father had denied him for years. He wasn’t allowed to change his mind. Not now, not ever. His father could go to hell.
Custo closed his eyes, clenching his teeth. His hate would keep him rooted in the same spot, and the roots went deep. Soul deep.
But this was not his father, just like Adam had not been Adam. It was a trick he had to solve, or he wouldn’t be able to move on.
Think of Annabella.
Annabella, his future, as this man was his past.
The air took on that uncompromising quality again, the kind that resisted change, insight, and clarity. With effort Custo inhaled a lungful of the stuff, and like swallowing a mouthful of shit, Custo worked his tongue and teeth to transmute the
no
into something different. His “Yes” cut the air with a sharp hiss as he grasped his old man’s hand for the first time in his life.
His father, surprised, tried to flinch back, but Custo held tight. The illusion failed, and a fae woman trembled in Custo’s grip. She was pale and lovely, her skin washed in moon glow. Her long hair fell in a veil over her lower face, but her eyes took on a shape of pain.
He didn’t buy it. He’d caught a fae, and he wasn’t letting go.
“Where is she?” Custo demanded.
“She doesn’t belong here,” the faery said, staring with anguish at her clasped hand. He would not allow himself to be moved by it.
“Well, stop fucking with me and show me where she is,” Custo returned. The woman’s fingers were slight and cold, her contact numbing.
“It is not our nature to reveal,” she said, turning haughty.
“Even if you want to get rid of her?” The contradiction was just like Shadow, eschewing reason for madness.
—doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong—
“She dances with the wolf and belongs to him now.” The fae woman’s lowered lids and the cruel twist of her mouth said she didn’t like the union one bit.
“She belonged to me first,” Custo argued, “and I’m taking her back. Help me find her.”
“I can’t,” she cut back, as though she hated it herself.
The heavy air stirred, blew, rustling the branches of the trees with a high whine not unlike…violins. Another breeze took up the lower notes and formed the opening measures of Giselle’s ghostly dance.
Annabella.
Custo’s heart lurched. He squeezed the fae woman’s hand. “Is this another trick?”
“Perhaps,” she answered, with a sneer.
Custo peered into the dark trees, which stood like great sentinels blocking his path and his view. The Shadowlands defied logic, so he had to follow his heart.
His heart was through those trees.
He released the faery. She pulled her hand from his grasp with lightning quickness, her nails cutting a deep, long gash across his palm.
Pain lanced through Custo’s hand and his blood flowed thick and free onto the forest floor. Looking up, he found the faery woman gone. She’d exacted her revenge and disappeared. He gripped his wrist above the wound, waiting for the burn of healing to start.
—blood, blood, blood, blood, blood—
No burn came in Shadow’s domain. Custo’s blood fell in slick, fat drops to the ground. Ripping a misshapen band of cloth from his shirt, he bound his palm tightly to stop the gush. He didn’t have time for this. Annabella was just through there.
Custo ran toward the music. When he saw the first flicker of movement, he slowed, creeping forward to hide in a dark copse and watch Annabella dance with…Jasper? The blond hair, lean body, ridiculous tights, and near-feminine shirt all belonged to Jasper. Custo couldn’t get a good look at his face, but he was sure it had the pretty boy’s features.
It took no effort to recognize this lie, though Annabella seemed lost to it. The man, the creature, holding her could only be the wolf. His hands were all over her, lifting, spinning, embracing Annabella. The wolf had just set her down again when he cocked his head, sniffing the air. He held Annabella’s waist, but his nose lifted, sniffing again. Distracted. Scenting something.
—blood, blood, blood, blood, blood—
Custo looked down at his bandage and recalled the scoring rip of the fae woman’s fingertips. She’d helped him after all, the best way she could. She wanted Annabella
out.
Custo buried his wound against his middle, willing the wolf to pass him in favor of the blood-soaked forest dirt. With a great leap, Jasper changed into a slavering, yellow-eyed beast in pursuit of fresh game. When he disappeared into the trees, Custo rushed forward to Annabella.
She had settled into a delicate position, forlorn, awaiting Albrecht’s return. She was stone pale, her marble skin lined with a spider-fine webbing of Shadow, lips gray. When she raised her eyes, Custo found her blue irises and pupils were full black, unfocused, with the distraction of blindness.
He approached carefully. “Annabella?”
She gave no answer.
“Annabella, it’s me, Custo.” He grasped her shoulders, gave a little shake. There was no time. She had to work her magic and get them back. The wolf could return any moment.
“Annabella, I know you’re in there,” he said. “Come on out, love. Fight. I need you.”
She didn’t seem to hear a word, lost in some fragile, internal dream world.
His hands went to her face, thumbs stroking her cheeks, so cold. He brought her to him, kissed her passive lips with everything he had. Poured his hope, love, and guts into her. No response.
“Bella, I love you. I need you here. Please.” He was tempted to slap her, but something told him she might break, rather than come to her senses.
“Sweetheart, remember Jack’s place? Chinese food? I told you that you are mine.”
Her eyes twitched slightly.
“That’s right. Come back to me, honey,” he said, voice gritty. A universe of feeling filled his chest to near bursting. “Come back and make an honest man of me.”
Just that faraway look again. So much for professing undying love.
Damn it.
Okay, think. He brought their foreheads together and exhaled roughly.
—he’scoming, he’scoming, he’scoming—
Custo’s voice turned stern. He shook her, harder. “Wake up, Annabella. You can control this. It’s your gift. Your talent to draw from Shadow. Use it to get us home. Get us home, Annabella. Fight for life. Don’t you want to dance?”
At that her head turned softly.
“That’s right,
dance,
” Custo said.
“I danced with Albrecht, but he broke my heart, and I died.”
Custo recognized the story of
Giselle
. Now he understood: she was lost in the ballet, a refuge and a trap. His mind raced to recall the details. Giselle rose from the grave as a wili, a spirit. When Albrecht came to mourn her, the queen of the wilis commanded that he dance until he died. Giselle chose to dance with him, to see him through the night to the dawn of day.
Oh, that cunning wolf.
—he’scoming, he’scoming, he’scoming—
The Shadowlands were perpetual night, perpetual darkness. A night that lasts forever. And Annabella was trapped in it.
Very clever.
But Custo could do the wolf one better: he knew the difference between Giselle, the character in a ballet, and Annabella, the storyteller, the magic-maker.
“You’ve already danced with Albrecht, Annabella,” Custo said. “What happens next?”
No wonder the fae woman was so keen on getting rid of her. Annabella’s power was beyond formidable. It was frightening.
“What happens next, Annabella? Tell the story.”
—he’scoming, he’scoming, he’scoming—
Annabella lifted her head, listening as morning bells jangled loudly through the forever night-darkened trees.
—he’scoming, he’scoming, he’scoming—
Custo didn’t bother to look over his shoulder, his body electric with hope, even as he heard the wolf’s rapid footfalls pounding across the clearing.
“That’s right, honey,” he said, eyes tearing with fierce pride. “Bella, tell the story: raise the sun.”
T
HE
ground rumbled beneath Annabella’s feet, bells clanging loudly in her mind. She held on to the sound with everything she was, lashed her heart to the story, and heaved, lifting the blazing orb of the sun to the horizon line.
Tell the story. Raise the sun.
Pink washed the sky, drowning out the diamond glow of the stars. A sudden, monstrous gale blew through the Shadow forest, denuding the trees of their leaves, the trunks rising like skeletons from the trembling ground in the wan glow of dawn. A keening wail lifted all around, the dark inhabitants quailing under the revelation of light.
Annabella clung to Custo’s solid shoulders to borrow his strength, sought his eyes for courage, and coaxed the hot sphere higher. Morning in the Shadowlands. Salvation.
Like a blotch marring the burgeoning blue, the wolf leaped behind Custo. The wolf’s rage crackled in the air and raised the fine hairs on Annabella’s skin.
The ground lurched, lost its solidity, churning under their feet. The Shadowlands, expelling them.
—doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong, doesn’t belong—
The three fell back to Earth, to Segue, and the confines of the open storage room in an airborne brawl, Custo gripping the wolf’s jaws.
The concrete was brutal, crushing, but Annabella rolled immediately to her feet—she could handle a little pain—and threw herself on the huge bristle of black grappling with Custo.
She wrapped an arm around the beast’s neck and used all her muscle to force the jaws away from Custo’s throat. Riding the wolf’s hump, she grabbed a fistful of coarse hair and yanked it back. The wolf smelled like a dog, dark and beasty and a little bit foul.
“Run, Annabella,” Custo ground out, red-faced, shaking with effort to restrain the crazed wolf.
“No,” she managed, locking on to the wolf’s back with her thighs. Thank God for pliés.
A shout brought her gaze up to the door. She ducked her head just as a soldier fired, hitting the wolf between the eyes. Adam must have been prepared for this very contingency.
More men filed in behind him, guns trained through the doorway, ready to unload on the beast. Custo reached out a hand toward them, and the soldier scuttled forward to hand him a mean knife.
Which the wolf knocked away.
Annabella scrabbled to get it and cut her fingers on the sharp blade before grasping the hilt in a slippery hand. She stabbed while she could, where she could, in his shoulder. The knife hit bone and glanced to the side, slicing across the wolf’s flesh and not down into it, hot red spilling across her arm before it cooled and evaporated into Shadow.
The wolf bucked and threw her, hard, into one of Kathleen’s paintings, cracking the frame and tearing the canvas. Stars of pain exploded in Annabella’s vision. A soldier dived for her, grabbing her arm to drag her out of the fray. She was passed into the concrete cavern, through a line of soldiers, and laid on the ground.
The soldier, a square-faced man whose eyes were too close together, demanded, “Is this your blood?” but he stalled in his examination, staring openmouthed at her face.
“I cut my hand,” Annabella answered. Not enough to take her away from Custo.
The soldier touched his ear. “Sir, we’ve got a medical emergency. Need immediate evac.”
“I’m not going anywhere. It’s just my hand.” And even that wasn’t too bad. She pointed in the direction of the storage room. “He’s the one who’s hurt!”
Another volley of shots echoed in the tunnel, battering her eardrums. She cringed, covering her ears, but the report kept ricocheting in her skull. To her right a masked soldier was donning a small tank of a backpack attached to an oddly shaped gun. Had to be a flamethrower.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she said, “fry him.”
“Ma’am, it’s not safe here.” The first soldier again. “You look
very
ill. You need a doctor.”
“I’m not going—”
There was a sudden shout, a break in the line of guards, and a cacophony of violent gunfire. Custo was pulled through, blood everywhere, his right arm hanging limp, bloody, and broken at his side. At least he was on his feet.
Now
they could get out of here.
The gunfire let up. With a loud pause in the action, the soldiers fell back. Then the cavern was filled with a roar of tremendous heat and the smell of fire. The gunshots had hurt the wolf, but the fire would consume his body. That would give Annabella and Custo time to run while the wolf remade himself out of Shadow and pursued.
Someone grabbed her under her arms, and Annabella was carried toward the yellow lift, though her legs worked perfectly fine. She’d have fought it, but Custo was at her side, his good arm slung over another soldier. The lift engaged and they ascended with agonizing slowness to the upper level.
“I need a helicopter,” Custo said. “Now.”
“Sir, you both need serious medical attention,” a soldier responded. He seemed to be the head of the unit, a little older, his buzz so short that he was shiny bald.
“I’ll heal on my own, and”—Custo shot Annabella a worried look—“I don’t think there’s anything you can do for her. She needs specialized care, and I intend to see that she gets it.”
That was the third time someone hinted that something was wrong with her. “What the heck is everyone talking about?”
Annabella caught a couple sidelong glances, but no one answered her. The lift screeched to a stop. One of those funny army-styled golf carts was waiting.
Custo helped her into the back bench and jumped in beside her, squeezing her hand to comfort, and shouted “Go!” to the driver.
Annabella blanched when she got a look at her arm.
Under the smears of blood, she was pasty-pale, with fine lines of black scribbled along the surface, like minute burst capillaries. She angled her head to get a glimpse of her face in the rearview mirror, and then wished she hadn’t. She’d officially joined the freak show.
The shape of her face was the same, her features recognizable, though speckled with blood, but the rest was just wrong. And ugly. The centers of her eyes, pupil and iris, were black, as in voodoo-witch black. Her complexion was waxy, way beyond the stage white of Giselle. And now that her adrenaline was tanking, her body had that getting-sick feeling, everything achy and extra cold.
She dropped her eyes. “What’s happened to me?” Was she going to die?
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Custo said. He inhaled, then held the breath.
“What?”
“Did he hurt you? Did he…?”
She shook her head, fighting tears. “We only danced, but…I did kinda lose myself in it for a while. Until you came.” A thin trail of hot wetness skated over her cheek. “Am I going to be okay?”
“Absolutely. We’re going to The White Tower and we’re not leaving until Luca fixes you up. The Order must know a way to cure you. We’re not leaving until they do.”
Sudden fear knifed through Annabella. “My mother. The wolf will go after my mother.”
“Is that how he coerced you to go with him?”
Annabella nodded. “And he’ll follow through on his threat, especially now that I’ve run away from him. We have to get to her first.”
Custo caught her gaze with his. “I’ll send an extraction unit for your family, but we are going to the tower.”
“No. This is my mother we’re talking about.”
“Bella. Take another look at yourself in the mirror.”
Annabella kept her gaze on his face. She wasn’t budging.
He shook his head, no. “We have to find out what’s happening to you and if it’s reversible. My hunch is that the wolf will follow you, especially now that you are infected with Shadow, rather than make good on any threats to hurt your family. Remember what happened to Abigail?”
Annabella’s argument stuck in her throat. The memory of Abigail’s possession was vivid, horrifying, an invasion of body more complete than she could fathom. But she wanted her mom and brother safe and sound.
“Decision’s made, Annabella,” Custo said. His tone brooked no further disagreement. “We need to get you help before the wolf catches up with us. I don’t think we have much time.”
The army cart burst out of the concrete bunker. A helicopter was waiting, its propellers beating the air into a deafening hurricane of small debris that stung Annabella’s eyes. At Custo’s direction, the driver helped her inside, though she still didn’t need it. She looked like a freak, but she wasn’t helpless.
The helicopter lifted off before she was fully strapped in, nose angling toward the city. Annabella stared at the skin on her hands, while Custo yelled into a headset.
“Adam, repeat!” Custo’s forehead and eyes strained as he listened. He rubbed a hand over his face and told her, “I can’t get a clear signal.”
He asked the pilot, “What’s our ETA?”
“Seventeen minutes.”
Custo looked back at her. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine. The same.” Which wasn’t quite true. She was bitterly cold.
Annabella watched Custo’s arm heal as they flew, the flesh knitting together from the inside out as the minutes ticked by. The bone looked straighter, too. She tried to control her shivers while she listened to Custo make a series of calls. Her mom had been picked up, and though spitting mad, was fine and in transport by her city’s police to rendezvous with a Segue unit, which would really piss her off. Her brother had likewise been detained by campus security. Annabella could do nothing but wait and hope they were safe.
“Oh. Hell.” Custo was looking out his window to the city below.
Annabella leaned over to see for herself, but couldn’t immediately make sense of the chaos. A narrow building was in near rubble, its street-side wall collapsed, the interior floors and rooms exposed. Great white pieces of stone littered the sidewalk and crushed two unlucky cars. Other cars were abandoned helter-skelter in the middle of the road as in a disaster movie.
The helicopter lowered, and people became visible: a line of army soldiers crouched behind debris, protecting the remains of the building, firing upon an encroaching armed throng who obviously weren’t scared of guns.
The helicopter banked toward a rooftop landing, and from this new perspective, the street became more familiar. The destroyed white building below had to be The White Tower, occupying the space of the alley where it once had been concealed from human eyes. Now it was in full view. The soldiers protecting it and the fallen angels were led by Segue, holding off the invading wraiths.
“Adam was too late,” Custo said.
“Or just in time,” Annabella answered, unbuckling her belt. “We’ve got to hurry.”
Custo put a staying hand on her arm. “I’m not taking you down there.”
“Ha! I’m not asking permission.” She opened the helicopter door and pushed against the wind, her hair flying in all directions.
Custo climbed out after her, expression fierce. “Annabella—”
She cut him off, lifting her Shadow-veined palms for him to see. “There’s nothing down there scarier than what the wolf will do to me. He’s got to be close behind us—nothing can hold Shadow—and the next time he attacks we won’t have a flamethrower to stall him.” She pointed to the melee below. “The Order has answers and they need your help. I’m going whether you like it or not.”
Annabella took off across the roof toward a set of red metal doors, and Custo had no choice but to follow. Joining the fray was madness, suicidal, something for him, but definitely not for her. Besides, they were on the wrong side of the fight; they’d have to cross through the wraiths to get to Adam and his defense of the fallen tower. And though it was plenty cool that he could kill wraiths with his hands, as he and the other angels had the night of the gala, there were far too many of them for him to take on alone. But Annabella wouldn’t think of any of that.
As always, she seemed determined to be a pain in the ass.
The doors opened to a flight of utility stairs, which led to an upper floor of the building, housing what appeared to be a series of small, independent businesses, little gold plaques to the side of their doors. They took the main elevator to the lobby. Custo avoided the main entrance and barged through a very sketchy-looking staffing business to exit out the rear to a parking lot off the main street.
He hid her behind a Dumpster and assessed the thick army of stinking wraiths held back by Adam’s gunfire. Had to be upward of a hundred converging on the Segue men defending the broken tower.
No way to get through. The wolf could catch up at any moment, and then they’d be beset on all sides. They had to keep moving. Maybe if they circled around—
“Who’s that?” Annabella nudged him.
Custo’s attention focused on where she pointed, a blind spot some ten yards from their location at the juncture of a low concrete wall and a building.
“He was right there a second ago,” she said.
Against the age-whitened concrete, a lash of rippling, smoky darkness whipped into existence, and a wraith was propelled backward from the press of the throng. Midair, the wraith halted, and though partially obscured by Shadow, Custo saw his head suddenly torque, and then the sack of wasted flesh fell to the ground. The kill was over before Custo could blink.
Two nearby wraiths turned at the sudden motion, teeth thick in their mouths. With a bloom and jut of Shadow, the lower jaw was knocked off one, and the other crumpled, head lolling after a blur of movement.
Darkness crawled across the lot. A third wraith suddenly threw himself onto a rusty stake.
One by one, wraiths were picked from the back of the throng.
Had to be Shadowman, come to Adam’s aid. And he’d said he didn’t care.
Near a vertical cement post, the Shadows came to a roiling stop. Only Death’s stern face was visible in its depths, expression pitiless, eyes stirring with deep black. He looked over to the Dumpster and spoke, his words clear though he seemed to only mumble across the distance. “Don’t trouble yourself to help.”
Sarcastic son of a bitch. Custo had jumped Heaven’s Gate to help rid the world of wraiths; if he could have been wrenching the necks, he would have.