He was too late, again.
Adam’s arms shook as he laid out his friend. He couldn’t hold Custo’s hand as he died, because his fingers were cruelly twisted, broken. He took Custo’s wrist instead to wait out the fading heartbeats.
One beat.
Custo as the poor kid with no family, new to Shelby Boys’ School, rumpled and rearing to fight.
A second beat.
Custo, showing no fear when first confronted by the horror of Jacob. Working side by side to contain the monster. Helping found Segue instead of living his own life. Custo should’ve had his own life. A woman. A family. Of all things, Custo should’ve had a family of his own.
The darkness of the room thickened.
No third beat touched Adam’s fingers. A smothered sob wracked him as a warm fleeting presence brushed by—Custo!—which Adam knew was only palpable in Talia’s half-light.
A depression formed, tendrils of curling darkness reaching out as if whipped by an unseen wind.
Adam slowly rose next to the bed and peered inside the layers of shadow for a trace of Custo’s passing. The loss hollowed him, scraped out his heart, stealing the breath and words he so desperately needed to say good-bye and thank you and I am so fucking sorry.
But there was only darkness. Darkness and Shadowman.
Shadowman stood trapped within a vortex of intense, swirling shadow. The wind slowed and died, coming to rest in a rippling cloak about his body. Shadowman twitched his cloak aside, and Adam perceived a gleaming light beckoning within the deep like a bright promise.
A glow moved within and across the darkness. Custo. Gone. Adam felt like a limb had been severed from his body. Something vital missing, yet the ghost-pain of it remained to haunt him.
The wind picked up, binding Shadowman again.
But the rod of Death’s scythe was long. He whipped out the curved blade, speared the wraith’s just-stirring body, and dragged her out of the world. The “fireflies” within the wraith floated free into forever, the consumed souls released at last to the hereafter.
As darkness swallowed Shadowman again, he brought up his bloodthirsty gaze and met Adam’s.
Adam understood. Spencer was right. The answer was so simple. No one else Adam loved need fear The Collective.
Yes, Talia could free Death with her scream. But anyone else could, too. They just had to die to do it.
Cold will hardened in Adam as he stepped away from Custo’s broken body. This wasn’t good-bye. No. Now he planned to follow Custo’s lead. If Custo could give his life to protect his friend, to screw Spencer, to kill a wraith, Adam could, too.
But there was no way Adam would spend his life for his selfish brother Jacob. No, if he were going to court Death, it would be for the demon himself.
CHAPTER 17
Talia watched as the soldiers moved stealthily into the center of the room, fanning out to search the dark while that coward and traitor Spencer lounged on the wall next to the bedroom, giving orders from his headset.
Where was Adam? Why was he taking so long? One more minute and she’d go in after him herself.
One soldier’s trajectory headed perilously toward the open air of the window. With his senses muted, he wasn’t aware of his danger, even as his boots crushed glass underfoot.
Talia retracted her shadows slightly from the sharp drop of the loft’s broken window. If the man fell to his death, it would not be because of her.
The man stepped out of the shadows into sunlight. The sudden deluge of stimuli and imminent danger had him flailing for balance. But he recouped, shuffled forward, and peered cautiously over the edge. He took up position there, as if Talia and Adam planned to escape that way. Not likely.
The wraiths, one a bald, thickset male, and the other, a tall and lithe female with the graceful poise of a ballerina, slinked across the room.
“Been lucky all my life,” the male wraith muttered. “I deal with a demon, and my luck dries up. I pull the short straws every time now.”
Demon.
The female held out her hands to feel her way across the dark. Her fingers fluttered across the shoulders of a soldier twice her weight. She found his mask and used it to lift his body out of her way
The soldier thrashed and screamed, though his cries sounded smothered in the darkness.
“Oh, I’m not going to eat you,” the female wraith sneered and dropped the man to the floor. “Treaty won’t allow it.”
Treaty. Spencer. Custo.
The female’s hand found the long wall that led uninterrupted to the hallway. She was headed to the bedroom.
Not going to happen.
Talia gripped her knife, drew her arm back, and threw the blade across the shadowy room.
Talia couldn’t aim to save her life, but that didn’t matter in shadow. The knife sailed through the air at an awkward spin, and would’ve probably dinged the female wraith on the shoulder with its shaft, but Talia corrected its course with an upward shift and twist of shadow and drove the blade into the wraith’s left eye.
The female wraith screeched as she hit the wall and then slid soundlessly to the floor, grabbing at Spencer as she collapsed. They fell in a lovers’ sprawl of twining limbs. His labored breath broke the silence of the room. Pushing up, he crawled off her corpse, trapped on one side by a wall, and on the other by the sofa. He was almost clear when the wraith grabbed his ankle.
Regenerating was hungry work. The wraith pulled the blade out of her face, flicking white tissue on Spencer’s black clothes, and brought him to her gaping mouth. He got a shot off. Hit her in the shoulder. Ineffectual. The wraith, like the sun, was rising and she was hungry for breakfast. Spencer screamed high, like a girl, as the wraith sealed her kiss. His body jerked once and then lapsed into a slack sack of skin.
Talia felt Spencer blink out, and she shuddered at the waste. So stupid. What other end had he imagined for himself? This was the only one fitting.
With Spencer now a used heap on the floor, the wraith resumed her progress toward the bedroom. She was at the threshold when she suddenly reared back, clumsy in fear. Heedless of obstacles she scrambled through the great room, slid on glass, and plunged backward out the window.
Adam. Talia crawled toward the bedroom door just as he exited. She scrambled to meet him near the alcove, took one of his hands, sticky with blood—his?—and pushed her shadows at him. The pungent tang of the blood clung to him like a corpse, and she controlled a gag by switching to breathing through her mouth.
Adam’s gaze focused on her with the resurgence of her shadows. He’d aged ten years in the last five minutes. His eyes were clouded with an emotion, but she couldn’t name the feeling that flowed from him and into her—something dark, tinged with grief and pain, but strangely settled and resolute. She didn’t trust it, found herself preferring his anger. This new sensation made her ache as if she were dying a little inside. Whatever he found in that room must have been very bad.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her words were woefully inadequate, but she couldn’t think of anything better to say.
Adam’s expression hardened as he glanced around the room, taking stock of the soldiers spreading slowly in blind stealth, and the remaining wraith.
Adam’s gaze finally rested on Spencer. His lips curled into a sick smile before he dismissed the sight altogether. Spencer was scum; he didn’t deserve to be mourned.
“We’ll take the stairs,” he said.
Yesterday Patty, and now Custo. Adam’s losses just kept piling up. His strain was showing—he had every right to break and should have, a long time ago.
Emotion squeezed Talia’s heart. She had to say something more. She had to let him know that he was not alone.
“Adam, I—”
“Not now.” His grip on her hand tightened painfully; the rest of his body went very still.
She swallowed the rest of her words.
Not now. She understood. He couldn’t take comfort with Custo’s blood on his hands.
>
“The stairs,” she repeated.
He seemed to relax slightly, gave a short nod, and then guided her in a crouching walk through the kitchen. He maneuvered past the elevator to an adjacent nondescript door. The door hissed when opened, leading to a stairwell.
A soldier on the other side of the door backed against the stairwell wall, raising his weapon.
Adam shifted and kicked the man head over heels down the flight of stairs. They stepped over his body, rushing downward, trying to keep ahead of the remaining soldiers within the loft. Talia strained to hear footsteps, but none followed. She figured they had a few things to deal with what with Spencer dead and all. Several minutes of quiet, panicked descent later, they exited the rear of the building, Talia trying to smother her gasps of air.
Adam grasped her hand to keep her close, alert for signs of pursuit. He was too quiet, too calm, the roar within him utterly silenced. Solemn resolution dominated now. Stripped of all his resources and everyone he trusted, he still tried to hold the world together with his bloody bare hands. Adam Thorne was the strongest—no, the best man she’d ever known. She understood why Custo gave his life for him, because she knew she’d do the same. Adam could take anything he wanted from her, her breath, her body. He already had her heart.
At the end of a short, clean alley, a car waited, Zoe sitting at the wheel. Had to be Abigail at work again. A cop shouted stop! just before they pulled away, but Zoe didn’t even bat an eye. She must have known he wouldn’t follow. She took one nonsensical turn in a backward-moving direction, but redirected toward the club on the next block.
Once inside, Adam parted the motley crowd with a sweep of his arm. “Where’s that doctor?”
“Here.” Amalia shouldered through.
“She can’t stop shaking. Her color’s not good. And her skin’s gone clammy,” Adam said.
“I’m fine,” Talia argued, but her weak, raspy voice contradicted her. The suffocating coating had not thinned at all.
He strong-armed her back into the little dark room and planted her in a chair. “You don’t look fine.”
“Neither do you,” Talia said.
“When did you last eat?” Amalia asked as she fit an oxygen mask over Talia’s face.
Her question stopped Talia short. Adam, too, from the look of his confused expression. Food hadn’t been high on their list of priorities.
“Maybe twenty-four hours,” Talia admitted. Adam grudgingly nodded confirmation.
“Slept?” the medic prodded.
“I slept in the car,” Talia said. She pointed to Adam. “He never sleeps.”
“You inhaled poison gas,” Amalia said. “I specifically ordered you to rest.” She looked over at Adam. “And you look like hell. Is that your blood or someone else’s?”
Adam’s expression tightened with grief.
“Someone else’s,” Talia answered for him.
“I’ll order some food,” Zoe offered, retreating out of the commotion.
Adam turned to Talia. That too-calm look was in his eyes; it had her stomach clenching and her soul screaming no! no! no!
Proving her suspicions correct, he shifted his gaze away the moment hers met his. “If you’re all right, I need to make some calls.”
Calls. Right.
“Abigail said we could stay here,” he continued. “Try to get some sleep. You need to rest to heal.”
Sleep. Impossible.
“I won’t be long.”
Then why won’t you really look at me?
But she couldn’t ask him in front of all these people. Not with his pain so raw. And she couldn’t hold on to him while she was tethered to the oxygen. She didn’t even know if she had the right. So she had to let him go. She just hoped he didn’t do anything monumentally brave or stupid. At least, not without her.
Outside the room, Adam begged a black tee off the back of a guy with a silver shaft piercing the cartilage between his nostrils. As he shrugged into the shirt, Zoe descended the stairs, opening her mouth as if she were going to impart some more of Abigail’s wisdom.
“Leave me alone, Zoe. And tell Abigail to stay out of my business, too.”
He didn’t wait for an answer but headed back out the building and down the alley on foot, food and sleep be damned. He had to get out of there, away from Talia’s damn faery eyes. Her lost, hurt look. She saw too much.
Patty gone. Custo gone.
He wouldn’t, couldn’t, tolerate Talia’s death on his hands, too. No way on earth would he allow her within screaming distance of the demon. Not now, not ever. Not even if she could save the world. It wasn’t happening. Not while he still breathed.
He punched a number in his mobile phone, one he knew but had never allowed himself to use. The line rang once before Jack picked up.
Jackson Flatt traded in some very illegal, exotic weapons and paraphernalia. He was a first-come, first-serve kind of operator, who made no connection between the weapons he sold and the innocent lives lost because of them. Over the years, Adam had had some special needs, but never, under any circumstances, would he have done business with Jack.
Times had changed.
“It’s Adam Thorne.”
“Adam Thorne.” Jack stretched the vowels of Adam’s name for pleasure. “To what do I owe the honor of your call? You slumming?”
Adam controlled the impulse to end the call and bit back a retort. “I need something. Can you hook me up, or what?”
“Why don’t you ask your go-to boy, Spencer?”
“Spencer’s dead and I am no longer affiliated with SPCI,” Adam answered.
“Hm.” Jack paused on the other line, processing this new information. “Welcome to the dark side. What do you need?”
“L-pills.” Just saying the words made Adam’s neck sweat.
“Have anything to do with your wanted face on the news?”
News. Damn. If he was on the news, then so was Talia. Even if he managed to pull this off, her life was going to be completely messed up.
“Indirectly,” Adam answered.
“You going to be able to pay with all the heat you got coming down on you?”
“Always.”
“Then, yeah. I can probably hook you up. I know a guy. Correction, I know the widow of a guy who might have what you’re looking for. You get my meaning?”
Jack wasn’t exactly subtle. L-pills or lethal pills were designed for quick and effective suicide. Ingestion of potassium cyanide would precipitate brain death within minutes and heart failure shortly thereafter.
“How fast can you get them to me?”
“Say an hour. Maybe two. Grand Central. Buy a paper to kill time, and I’ll find you.” The line went dead.
Adam didn’t know how much Jack wanted for the pills, and he didn’t care. A thousand. A hundred thousand. A million. Really didn’t matter.
Adam bought a newspaper, but he didn’t read it. He snagged a laptop from an unsuspecting college student at the station and worked, the paper propped up at his side. In a couple of hours, he had Talia’s security planned, instructions for her to leave the country detailed on a file on his flash drive.
When Jack dropped onto the bench at his side, three hours later, the second floor of the station was teeming with busy, colorful, vibrant people oblivious to the imminent crisis.
Adam shut down the laptop, slipping the flash drive into his pocket, as Jack sized him up with an undisguised once-over. “What are you on? Coke? Acid? Something more exotic?”
“I’m high on life,” Adam said in bitter irony. “Do you have what I need or what?”
“This shit will kill you.” Jack lifted a crumpled brown paper lunch bag.
“That’s the point. What do you care anyway?”
“I don’t,” Jack said. “I just don’t get why you’d want it. The fucking world’s turning upside down. Some seriously scary shit on the street lately. My business has doubled, but the guys coming in to pick up their stuff are looking over their shoulders like t
he boogeyman’s behind them. And now Adam-fucking-Thorne gets off his high horse to place an order for L-pills. Shit. Makes me want to retire early and move to a nice tropical island somewhere.”
“How much do you want?” Adam took the bag, fumbled inside for a vial of pills. He was too tired to illuminate Jack on The Collective.
“It’s free. I saw a news clip of you beating the shit out of a monster in Arizona before the station replaced it with pretty pictures of you and your lady friend like some kind of conspiracy cover-up. Don’t know why they bothered. It’s all over the Internet anyway. Can you tell me what the fuck that thing was?”
“Wraith.” Just saying the word doubled his heart rate, adrenaline flowing to fuel this last push. Just a few more hours and it would all be over. He could sleep forever, then.
“Are there more than one of those monsters?”
Adam nodded, standing. “Lots more.”
“Fuck.”
No kidding. Adam rose, opened the bag, and pocketed the pills. Without looking back, he headed toward the exit, leaving Jack to contemplate the future.
As for his own, all the things he had left to do in his life could be numbered on one hand. He had to get back to the club, give Talia the flash drive, somehow get out without her following, find the Styx, and open the way for Shadowman to kill the demon via the little pill. Pretty straightforward.
He took a cab back to the club, AMARANTH, according to the abused sign above the main door, but entered through the rear. The place was quiet, which had Adam’s heart accelerating. Where was the music?
Adam kicked open the dressing room door. Empty.
A kid dressed in jeans and a tee, almost normal-looking in spite of the tattoos crawling up his neck, shouldered some equipment through the back entrance.
Adam stopped him. “What’s going on here? Why’s it so quiet?”
The kid scowled. “Everyone’s getting ready for the fete. I’m trying to figure out how to work the stupid fog machine. Zoe says Abigail sees fog, so I gotta figure out how to get the stupid fog machine to work in the next hour, or I won’t have time to get ready.”
Dark and Dangerous: Six-in-One Hot Paranormal Romances Page 81