Shadow's Curse

by Alexa Egan

  “I haven’t given St. Leger away.”

  “Then who is Sam talking to? Why has he betrayed us?”

  Nancy steered her unresisting away from the wagon. “You’re mistaken. Let me go and find out what’s—”

  “No. You mustn’t. They’ll know you warned me. I’ll gather my things and slip away. Now, before they come looking.”

  “Sam would never turn you over to Branston. Not for any amount of money.” Nancy followed Callista as she stumbled up the steps into the wagon, shutting the door and bolting it as if a wooden latch might protect her. Mind racketing from thought to thought, she hastily snatched up her few meager possessions and stuffed them into the satchel. She paused, noting the carved box at the bottom of the bag. Someone had gathered her bells. Someone had carefully replaced them. Had it been David? Her mother’s letters were just as she’d left them, but for one, which had slid free of the ribbon. Or had it been taken out on purpose? Had David read it?

  “Sam loves you, Cally,” Nancy argued. “You must have heard wrong. He wouldn’t betray you.”

  Callista shook her head as she hefted the satchel onto her shoulder. Already she could barely catch her breath and the muscles in her back ached and pulled.

  A knock at the door punched the breath from her lungs. “Nancy? Are you in there? Let me in. I need to speak with Cally.”

  “You wait and see. There’s bound to be a simple explanation.” Nancy offered what was supposed to be a reassuring smile, though Callista saw the doubts in the woman’s eyes.

  “Nan! Open the door,” Sam hissed.

  Nancy unlocked the latch and turned the handle. Sam pushed inside, the wagon creaking at the added weight, the air within seeming to grow stuffy and unbearably hot, but perhaps it was only Callista’s fear making her dizzy and slightly nauseated.

  Sam looked different. His eyes flickered dark and uncertain in a taut, pale face. His clothes were dirty, a long grimy smear across his coat, neckcloth untied, and dark brown mud edging a sleeve. She peered closer. Not mud . . . blood. But whose? His own? David’s?

  “What’s this?” Sam’s eyes widened to see Callista dressed for travel, her bag clutched to her chest. “I expected you to be in bed.”

  “I’m fine. Much better.”

  His gaze traveled around the wagon as if he thought David might be hiding under a blanket or in a cupboard. “Where’s St. Leger? Did he come here? Have you seen him?”

  Nancy and Callista exchanged a look before she replied, “I’ve not seen him for hours.” Though she’d spoken to him. At least, it was speech of a kind. David’s voice had rumbled up in her mind, closer than a whisper, the words clear and sharp and tinged with resentment.

  Sam made one more raking look around, obviously stymied at this unexpected hitch in his plans, while his meaty hands opened and closed, showing the same dark brown stain clinging to his palms and caught beneath his fingernails.

  “I know what you did,” Callista said, anger trembling her voice. “Did you manage to haggle the price up to sixty pounds?”

  “I never—”

  Nancy stepped between them. “Tell her she’s wrong, Sam. Tell her it’s a mistake.”

  He stared over his sister’s shoulder, bullish and unwavering. “I saved you, Cally. The man was a criminal . . . a fugitive from the law. They’re taking him back to London to answer for his crimes. Hanging’s too good for the likes of him. Drawing and quartering might be better.”

  “Is that what they told you? That he was a murderer?”

  “Saw it for myself. The savage killed the three who tried to take him. Lucky for me and Sally, I had a pistol to keep him from adding us to his total.”

  “Sally? What was she . . . I don’t believe it. You’re lying.”

  But the blood didn’t lie. Nor did the drawn and frightened look on Sam’s face. He’d taken David for a London dandy, strong, perhaps, and trained in fighting but easily cowed and swift to surrender if he met with any real resistance. David’s quick cunning and vicious brutality had shocked Sam and perhaps even made him realize what he’d unleashed in his unthinking jealousy.

  “You always were a trusting soul, Cally. But this time you placed your trust in a murderous scoundrel.”

  “I’ll not go back to Branston. I’d rather die.”

  Sam smiled in triumph. “That’s where you wrong me. I never said nothing about you to the blokes what came after St. Leger. When they asked, I said you must have separated on the road between here and the city. That I’d never seen you.”

  “Branston won’t believe you. He’ll know I would have stayed with David.”

  “I’m not as stupid as I look. Sally backed me up. Told them how she and St. Leger were pillow mates. How he boasted of taking your maidenhead and then abandoning you. The men were angry but convinced. Sally’s a good actress when there’s money to be made.”

  “I have to get away before they realize you duped them.”

  Sam planted himself in front of the door. “You’ll stay here where it’s safe. And if you’re right and these chaps suspect they’ve been lied to and come nosing about, I’ll send them packing with a few broken ribs for their trouble.”

  “Please, Sam! You must—”

  “Enough! I’ll take care of you, Cally. And when that St. Leger chap is gone, it’ll be like it was before you left. I’ll make you happy.” He motioned to Nancy. “Come on, Nan. Cally needs her rest.” Nancy offered a quick backward glance just before the door closed behind them.

  The scrape of the key turned Callista’s stomach. She was caught like a mouse in a cage. She perched on the narrow bunk as she sought to calm her mind enough to think logically. She needed to escape and she needed to find David. She tried the door, rattling the latch, slamming a shoulder into the jamb, but the wood held, the lock remained unmovable. She sank back down on the bunk. Closed her eyes as she conjured and discarded impossible plans. Where are you, David? I need you. You can’t just leave me here, no matter how much you think it’s for my own good . . .

  Like the brush of a feather or the bite of cold when a snowflake touches one’s skin, a glimmer of thought moved across her mind. Instinctively, she reached out as if to catch the sensation and hold on to it. But it receded, and she was left feeling emptier and lonelier than ever.

  She opened her eyes, her gaze settling on a long woolen greatcoat hanging from a peg—David’s. He’d left it behind. Perhaps . . . if she was very lucky . . .

  She rose to search his pockets, hoping for a tool she might use to jimmy the door. Her fingers touched and then curled around a crumpled piece of paper. She scanned the few words scrawled there with a sick feeling in her gut. He’d hired horses. He was probably already in the village. She needed to leave now if she had any hope of catching him before he departed. But how?

  Her hands shook and fear curled up her spine into her head as she sought to hold complete panic at bay.

  The turn of a key had her on her feet, poised to flee. She’d get one chance. She would be ready. She snatched up her satchel, prepared to swing it full force at whoever appeared in the doorway.

  “Cally, it’s me!” Nancy shouted, putting up an arm to ward off the blow.

  Callista slumped back, the bag a deadweight against her trembling arms. “What do you want?”

  “Sam’s gone in to the fair. I think he’s still hoping to find St. Leger. If you want to leave, now’s your chance.”

  Callista offered her a wary frown. “Why?”

  “Because I saw the way St. Leger looked when he thought you were in trouble.” Her hand smoothed down over her stomach, eyes dark with hidden emotion. “And because I saw the way you looked tonight when you thought St. Leger had come to harm. Sam doesn’t stand a chance against a bond like that.”

  Callista squeezed Nancy’s hand with a tremulous smile. “Thank you.”

  Nancy shrugged her off with a snort of irritation. “Just go before I come to my senses. He is still my brother, you know.”

  Callis
ta nodded and, wrapping herself in David’s muffling greatcoat and cradling her bag as she might a child, hurried out into the wild chaos of the night, dodging fairgoers as she slipped past the crowded sheep pens.

  “Excuse me,” she stammered as a figure loomed up out of the dark, hands gripping her roughly.

  “Where you headed, little bit?” the man sneered.

  She wrenched away, hurrying for the safety of the wooded track that would take her to town. Looked back over her shoulder to find him still watching her.

  13

  Night slid like a ghost over the land. One moment, the air hung gray and heavy, trees naught but purple and black silhouettes, birds quiet in the bushes, and a few lazy swallows circling homeward. The next moment, stars glimmered pale and high among streamers of cloud, and the moon rose up through their branches red as the blood he’d spilled.

  The wood stretched all around him. He lifted his muzzle to the wind, feeling the scents burst like pictures in his head. The tang of pine and oak and elm, the soft, grandmotherly smell of moss and fern, and overall the bitter slightly sweet scent of the decaying deadfall stirred with each lift of a paw as he moved deeper into the trees. Ahead, a whiff of hot blood as a squirrel or rabbit darted across his path, and a passing breeze from the fairgrounds carried the fuggy warm aromas of manure and sheep and man.

  He welcomed his shift to aspect like a freeing breath. He needed the easing stretch of taut muscles as he ran under the growing moon, the welcome of the spring night to wrap around him like a balm. The simplicity of instinct where every moment exploded into being with the immediacy of battle and then fell away, quickly forgotten.

  A crow swooped down from a great sycamore, wings spread on the wind, beak sharp as a dagger. He snapped at it, but it fluttered away and dove once more before settling on a dead branch nearby, watching him with cocked head and ruffled feathers. It was half again larger than any normal crow, with a sharp intelligence in its jet gaze and talons tipped in silver. David recognized the creature from Mac’s description.

  Worry uncoiled from a deep part of his soul.

  “This is fortunate. We were sent to find you, child of the wolf. And here you are, come to us.”

  So focused was he on the crow, David was unaware of the man’s presence until he stepped from the long twilight shadows, the power moving over and through him like a storm wave buffeting the senses, dragging him under.

  Imnada.

  Yet not.

  Human.

  But much more.

  He was large. Amend that—he was colossal. David, who looked up to few men, knew that in human form he’d be craning his neck to stare into this man’s dark impenetrable eyes. And he was old. Despite the lack of gray in his hair or lines on his face, wisdom burned in his eyes and age hung upon him like a cloak.

  What do you want with me? Did Mac send you? Has something happened to . . .

  He couldn’t complete the sentence. If Mac had been hurt or killed, it would be a nail through his heart.

  If Beskin has harmed a hair on his head, I’ll rip him to shreds and gnaw on his bones. A growl rolled up the back of his throat, pulling his lips back in a show of long, deadly fangs, his fury lifting the hair all along his spine. And then I’ll do the same to any damned enforcer that crosses my path.

  “The little dog owns a nasty bite.”

  Where the crow had been now stood a woman. It would have been easy to mistake her for a boy, with her short cap of black curls, sharp-boned face, and imp’s grin. But as she glided across the grass, her cloak of ebony feathers billowed aside to reveal small upthrust breasts and rounded womanly hips, her skin glowing pearlescent in the gloom of the wood. She turned her rainbow eyes upon him and the fur along his back bristled, despite himself. He recognized her immediately: Badb, one of the true Fey. He’d never stood in the presence of one before. They didn’t bother themselves with the shapechangers. Never had. Not even in the days before the Fealla Mhòr, when the walls between the worlds held many gates and it was easy to find the right path to cross over and back.

  Perhaps this was because the true Fey knew in their hearts that the Imnada were different—their magic unlike any they had seen or understood. Even with all the Fey’s powers, they held no real sway over the shapechangers. The Fey were not their gods, nor were the Imnada beholden to them as the Other were for their very existence. How it must have galled them.

  Here to pick at the corpse, carrion crow? You’ll have to wait. I’m still breathing, no thanks to you.

  “Fine words from a hunter of cutpurses and a stalker of whoremongers,” Badb mocked, her crimson lips widening, but the giant of a man laid a hand upon her shoulder, and she retreated.

  Interesting. What kind of man could control one of the Fey? A man with enormous power, was the answer that shivered up from the base of David’s brain.

  “Can you put Mr. St. Leger’s fears to rest, Badb?” the man asked.

  The girl closed her eyes for a brief moment. “Flannery lives. More than that, I cannot see. The shifters cloud my vision and all is hazy.”

  David relaxed a fraction of an inch. I’ve been warned about her, but who are you?

  The man shrugged. “A traveler . . . a friend . . .”

  Friends are a danger. They make you care. I prefer enemies.

  “Those you seem to acquire with ease,” Badb snipped, tossing her cap of curls.

  “Gray sent me to bring you to him,” the man said. “And the book.”

  It remains within the fair, but it’s not safe to return. There are men searching for me.

  “Ossine?”

  Men in service to Victor Corey, a gang lord. A man with half of London in his pocket.

  “And why would this lord of gangs be searching for you? Does he also desire to study Zwanis Xhelho’s Book of Seven Forgotten Stars?” the man asked.

  Corey hunts a girl.

  “The woman you take north to Dunsgathaic.”

  That’s no concern of yours. Who are you? What are you?

  “You sense the answer, but you fight it. I can feel your resistance.”

  David reached out once more, his mind pressing, searching. You’re Imnada, but you don’t bear any signum I recognize. It’s no clan or holding I know, which is impossible. As younglings, we’re taught them all by the Ossine as part of our learning.

  “The Lythene died out long ago. I am all that is left.”

  A thought niggled at the base of David’s brain. Some story heard at his grandmother’s knee. A legend only half remembered.

  The Ossine would never have allowed an entire clan to just die out without working to save it. That’s one of their jobs—to chart the bloodlines and to keep the aspects feasible in new generations.”

  “The Ossine have the power over life . . . and death,” the man answered. “They have grown in importance since I knew them last.”

  David had no answer, but more than enough questions.

  He’d no time to ask any of them. Badb stepped forward, her cloak trailing over the ground with a soft rustle. She placed a hand on his head, ignoring the tension stringing his muscles, his lips drawn in a silent growl.

  “You are dying, shapechanger. The curse and the draught working in harmony threaten to kill you. It is only a matter of time.”

  And whose fault is that, Fey? It was you and your companion who offered us this devil’s solution.

  “Enough,” the dark-haired giant said. “If there are enemies in these woods, we must be swift away to Addershiels. Take us to retrieve the book. We cannot leave without . . .”

  But David was gone. He tore away from them, losing himself in the deeper trees, muzzle lifted to the air, his body alive with fear and anger. She was in the woods . . . somewhere. He smelled the panic on her skin, he felt the mad gallop of her heart, heard her shout in his head.

  Callista was in danger.

  Through the thick tangle of ancient trees, light filtered weakly from above to lie green and gray upon old moss-covered trun
ks and sheened the pale leaves of ash and oak. He leapt over a rotten stump, slid on his belly beneath a web of bindweed as snaring as a spider’s trap. There. He veered free of the thick, grasping undergrowth to find himself on a beaten-earth track. Up ahead, the chase came closer. He heard the crack and snap of bracken as it was shoved aside in haste, a cry quickly stifled as she fell roughly.

  I’m here. You’re safe. I’ll not let them harm you.

  Callista broke through the trees, her hair falling free of its pins and speckled with leaves, his greatcoat dragging half off her shoulders, her satchel banging against her thighs. She skidded to a halt as she caught sight of him emerging from the night.

  “David!” she gasped.

  It’s me. What’s wrong?

  “They’ve found us. He’s just behind . . .”

  She stumbled forward, the satchel dragging her shoulder. David heard the twang of a broken wire and the squeak of a pivot, his body in flight before the spark hit the flint.

  Spring gun.

  A roar shook his blood, pain shot through his side, and he fell hard to the ground, the wind crushed out of him and every new breath shooting fire along his nerves, the trees swirling as if a great wind shook them. He heard a scream and felt a hand upon his neck, clutching at his fur.

  “David! Please. Look at me. Don’t close your eyes.”

  A roaring like the rush of a waterfall filled his head . . . the trees swept into a hurricane of color and sound . . . a great tear opening within a sky of sparkling cloud.

  Don’t follow the path. Stay with me here.

  Callista’s voice echoed in his head. He tried to answer, tried to hold to this world by his fingertips, the hole pulling him toward it, but his thoughts grew foggy and finally, he let go.

  * * *

  The wolf was David. The wolf was David and he’d saved her life. The wolf was David, he’d saved her life, and he was not dead. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. She wouldn’t allow it, and if anyone could fight death tooth and claw, she could. If not, what good was her power of necromancy, anyway?