Touch of Shadow (The Shadow Sorceress Book 5)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  "To someone I know can help," Marcel answered.

  I didn't bother asking him who. There were two choices open to me. One was to trust him and get the answers I needed. Of course, that path also left me open to the possibility of having him betray me when he felt I'd outlived my use. The second was to pester him with questions, refuse to go with him until he told me what I wanted to know, and run the risk of him walking away completely. Neither option was particularly favourable, but I knew which one I would chose.

  With a nod, I followed him out the door and into the hall, pausing only to look over my shoulder at Heddou once more. It didn't seem real. Everyone had always been so afraid of him and now.... Well, it just proved that death was the great equaliser. One day you're on the up and up and the next you were just like everyone else, hooked up to a machine that breathed for you, the only thing keeping you alive.

  "Before we go, there's just something I want to do," I said to Marcel and Victoria.

  "I will fill Victoria in," Marcel said, and I nodded before starting down the corridor toward the elevator.

  23

  Standing in the hall outside Peter's room, I watched as his tiny chest moved with the pumping of the life support. The tubes and wires surrounding him seemed to swamp him, making him look tiny in the bed.

  "Did you get any sleep?" Graham's voice cut through my thoughts, making me jump.

  "Jesus," I said, turning to face him. I took in his dishevelled appearance. "I could ask you the same question."

  His hair stood on end; dark circles beneath his eyes made him look older than he was; his tie was loosened so it hung at an odd angle around his neck, and one side of his collar was sticking up.

  "You look like a hobo," I said with a gentle smile.

  "I've been here all night. What's your excuse, Morgan?" He grinned at me, belying the harshness of his words.

  "Touché," I said, pushing my hand back through my hair. "Any word on his condition?"

  Graham's expression grew grim and he shook his head. "They've been running tests all night and everything so far is coming back negative."

  I sighed and glanced back at the child in the bed. It wasn't fair. His life had barely started, and what little of it he had experienced had been filled with pain and misery.

  "His mother?" I asked, doing my best to keep my feelings to myself.

  "She went home to get cleaned up.... They want to have a meeting with her later," he said.

  "And everything else?"

  "I spoke to her about it all, Morgan. She admitted to the restraints but only when he was violent."

  How was I supposed to argue against that? I hadn't felt a demonic presence within the boy, and yet, there was definitely something strange going on. Something that just didn't add up right. How did he go from having a soul to suddenly nothing at all? And if his mother was saying she had no part in it, that she truly hadn't abused her son—and the doctors were agreeing with her by saying the wounds were self-inflicted—then what exactly was I trying to prove?

  But I'd seen the fear in her son's eyes. That and that alone was enough to convince me that she wasn't telling the truth. I just needed to figure out how to make her admit to it.

  "I know you don't believe her, Amber, and I know you think I'm swayed by the fact that I've known her for a long time. But you didn't see the look in her eyes when I spoke to her. When she admitted to being forced to restrain her son.... Knowing what she knows now ... I'm not sure that's something she will ever get over."

  "I know you want to see the best in her," I said. "I know you want to protect her, but I saw the terror in her son's eyes, Graham. And that's not something I can ignore."

  "I know. Which is why I want you to work this case. No matter the outcome, Amber, I want you to investigate and whatever you come up with…." He paused and blew out a long breath. "I'll accept it."

  I stared at him, shock stealing my words. I'd never heard Graham admit that he might actually be wrong. Not that he really was admitting it, per se, but having him hand the case over to me was a damned sight better than his continuing on with the denial of any wrong-doing by Karis.

  "I'll take that as a yes, then?" he said.

  "Yeah. I mean, yes, of course."

  He nodded and lowered his gaze to his hands. "I am sorry, Amber," he said.

  "What for?"

  "Not telling you the truth before. I should have trusted you."

  "Yeah, you should have..." I said. "But for what it's worth, I get it."

  Graham nodded and then cleared his throat as he lifted his gaze to mine. "Anything to report on the case?"

  And just like that, it was all back to business once more. "Nothing yet. We might have a lead on something, but Marcel seems to be playing everything rather close to the chest."

  "Do you trust him?"

  I shook my head. "Not particularly," I said. "He's not exactly forthcoming about anything and that concerns me. Makes me wonder whose side he's really on."

  Pursing his lips, Graham nodded and folded his arms across his chest. "Can you handle him?" he asked. It seemed like such a straight forward question, and if he had asked it of any of the other Elite, I'd have thought he was asking whether they physically capable of restraining Marcel if it came to it. But when he asked me, I knew it had nothing to do with physicality and everything to do with magic.

  There was just one slight issue: I had no idea if I could honestly say I could handle Marcel if he stepped out of line. He'd saved my life, sure, but I had a feeling that if it came down to the wire, he'd swap my life for the ones he truly cared about in a heartbeat. While, normally, that might not have been a problem, his abilities were enough to give me pause. He was far more trained than I was; his grasp on magic and the laws associated were extensive. I worked by instinct, instincts which nine times out of ten served me well. But it was that one-tenth that tended to be the most dangerous; it made my power unpredictable and utterly untrustworthy.

  "I hope so, and anyway, I've got Victoria on my side." It was a small lie. I hoped I had Victoria on my side. The switches in feelings from one day to the next between Marcel and Victoria was honestly enough to give me whip-lash. It was certainly enough to give me pause and to consider where her loyalties truly lay.

  "She's pretty capable of handling herself," Graham said with a smile. "Just promise you'll stay safe, Morgan. We lost a lot of good people out there yesterday. I don't want to add you to the number."

  "You won't."

  Graham smiled, but there was an edge of sadness to his expression that I wasn't used to seeing in him. He was always positive, even when it wasn't honest. "Keep me informed of any developments," he said.

  "Will do.... And whatever happens here, you'll let me know, right?" I asked.

  Graham glanced back in through the glass window, at the small boy in the bed. "I'll call you," he said.

  I didn't answer. There wasn't any point; it was as much as I was going to get from him, and it was honestly more than I had any right to ask for. But I had so many questions, questions I desperately wanted answers to. Like, why was he so invested in Peter's case, even at the expense of other cases the Elite were working? I could understand him wanting to be there for Karis, but this seemed to be more than was necessary, even by Graham's standards.

  I left him there, staring through the window at what was left of Peter. There would be time for questions later, but right now, I had a job to do, and that involved putting a stop to Jasper before he could do anymore damage to the people of King City.

  24

  "I really hope you know where we're going," I said from the backseat as I stared out the window at the dense forestry that seemed to be getting closer and closer to the SUV windows with every mile we drove.

  "I do." Marcel sighed. "Take a right up here," he said, addressing Victoria, who was driving.

  She spun the wheel and we bumped across several pot-holes filled with muddy water that splashed up the sides of the car, covering the windows and
compromising my view.

  Giving up on the view from the side windows, I leaned over into the middle seat and stared out through the windscreen. The low-hanging branches overhead scratched and tore at the roof like the fingernails of a creature straight from Hell's pit.

  The car lurched to a halt in front of a chain that appeared to be strung across the road. The large sign pinned to it swung back and forward in the breeze. It read NO ENTRY.

  "Great, dead end," I murmured.

  "Not a dead end. We just have to walk from here," Marcel said, popping open the passenger door and hopping out onto the dirt road.

  "Did he tell you where we were going?" I asked Victoria, whose dark-eyed gaze met mine in the rearview mirror.

  "No. Just that it was a lead we needed to follow," she said.

  She wasn't lying. Hell, she wasn't even trying to keep the truth from me, and with a disappointed sigh, I climbed from the backseat.

  The road was rutted, the surface dotted with pot-holes and tracks of vehicles much larger than ours … but the tracks were old. Marcel was already on the other side of the chain barrier, and he gestured for us to follow him.

  Once on the other side, Marcel held out a small plant in a yellow pot. It looked strangely familiar, and the more I stared at it, the more it reminded me of some of the plants I had seen in Ireland. The small, yellow flowers looked like something I'd seen my mother using in her herbal remedies.

  "What is it?" I asked, taking the plant from him.

  "It's Tormentil," Marcel said.

  "Néalfartach," I murmured, remembering my mother cutting up the roots to make remedies for toothaches and stomach upsets.... The memories came back to me in a rush, and when I lifted my gaze from the plant, I could feel tears running down my cheeks.

  "You know it, then?" he asked. His gaze had softened.

  "It grows in the bogs back home," I said. "Why are you giving it to me? And where did you get it from? It doesn't grow here."

  Marcel smiled and shook his head. "So many questions. The answers will be apparent soon enough," he said, and turned back to the path.

  The air was filled with the smell of wet dirt and standing water. It wasn't unpleasant, it just wasn't a smell I was used to, and as I ducked beneath the barrier, I felt it seeping into my skin and hair. Clinging to my clothes, it was the kind of smell that would follow me home, and no amount of washing would get rid of it.

  "Is there a swamp near here?" I asked as my boots squelched into a particularly deep, water-logged hole.

  "You'll see," Marcel said cryptically as he led the way down the road, if you could even call it that.

  We trudged after him. The smell of swamp and rotting foliage increased with each step and I fought the urge to clamp my hand over my nose. The gaps between the trees grew smaller the further in we travelled, and I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if we were ambushed. Getting into the woods would be a huge problem; the trees and briars would probably do more harm to us than anything else.

  Of course, it also meant it was impossible for anyone to stalk us through the trees … and yet, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched.

  We rounded a corner in the road; it opened up onto a huge swamp. From where I stood, I couldn't make out where the water began and the road ended. The water was far too murky, its surface a swirl of browns and greens that hid whatever lay beneath its surface.

  From the corner of my eye, I spotted what looked like a structure near the water's edge, but the minute I turned to look at it properly, it seemed to disappear, just like a mirage in the desert.

  "You can see it, can't you?" Marcel asked, his eyes focussed in the direction I thought I'd seen the shack.

  "What am I supposed to be seeing?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

  "Don't play stupid, child. The fact you can see it all proves what I've been thinking all along."

  "What have you been thinking?" I asked, suddenly curious.

  "Your magic stems from death, rot, decay. That's why so many who come near you die."

  His words hit home, and I clenched my hands at my sides. Victoria placed a hand on my shoulder and I shot her a glance over my shoulder.

  "That's not true," I said, gritting the words out.

  "It is, Bokor. You and I know it ... and so does she..." he said, pointing in the direction of the shack.

  I followed the direction he pointed, and the shack came into view. The wood was so old, it had taken on the same browns and greens of the swamp’s surface. The trees had grown in around it so tightly that it was difficult to tell where the shack started and the trees ended. There was a small wrap-around porch, and on the steps, a woman sat, watching our exchange closely.

  "Let me do the talking," Marcel whispered urgently as the woman beckoned us over.

  I nodded without saying anything, a headache beginning to form between my eyebrows as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. The woman was young one moment, and the next, she was stooped and reminded me of a kindly grandmother. Her onyx skin, smooth and blemish-free, glistened in the light with the undertones of sapphires—and then, before I could blink, it was wrinkled so much that it was difficult to see her eyes beneath the folds of skin.

  The only thing about her that remained constant was the sparkling of her eyes, eyes so dark it was almost impossible to tell the iris from the pupil. They were lit from within with an intelligence and wisdom that sent a shiver down my spine. Staring into her eyes made me feel as though every one of my secrets were laid bare to her, that she alone could see into the truth of my soul.

  She beckoned again, and I started toward her before my brain caught up with what my legs were doing.

  "I brought you a gift, Gran Ibo," Marcel said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a handful of what looked like seeds.

  The woman he'd addressed as “Gran Ibo” looked him over coolly, her dark gaze peering down at his hand before she nodded gently.

  Marcel spread the seeds across the ground, and as though they'd been called, the air was filled with the rustling sounds of beating wings. Bright yellow birds descended from the trees surrounding the shack, their vivid plumage catching the rays of the sun through the foliage, causing the clearing to become a sparkling beacon in what had otherwise been a dull brown and green landscape.

  "Are they canaries?" I asked, raising my voice above the chattering of the feeding vibrant sea of brilliant yellow birds.

  "They belong to Gran Ibo," Marcel said, his gaze never leaving the face of the woman who stood on the steps leading up to the shack.

  The seeds were gone in a matter of seconds and the birds took to the air once more, disappearing into the trees, their vibrant colours hidden among the leaves. Silence swept in once more, and Gran Ibo's eyes fell upon us.

  "And you, child? What have you brought me?" she asked, her voice rich and melodic.

  "Me?" I asked, gesturing to myself as her eyes bore into mine.

  "You are the only other Bokor here." She paused and ran her eyes over me from head to foot. "Though you are not truly one of mine. Nonetheless, your power speaks to me, and for that, you, too, are my child," she said finally.

  Marcel's hand nudged mine and I stared down at the plant in my hand.

  Raising it before me, I held it out in Gran Ibo's direction. "I've brought Néalfartach," I said.

  "Tormentil," she said, the excitement in her voice unmistakable. "I don't have that one. There aren't many Bokor native to Ireland." She frowned. "Though there have been a few, they just did not know it until it was too late.”

  "I'm not a Bokor," I said, and Marcel prodded his elbow into my ribs cutting me off.

  "She doesn't understand the honour it is," he said, giving me a meaningful sideways glance.

  "Quiet," Gran Ibo said, silencing Marcel with a wave of her hand. "Why don't you believe you are one of us, child?"

  When she put her full attention on me, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention, and the skin on my back
crawled with what felt like hundreds of tiny insects.

  "I believe I'm a shadow sorceress," I said, unable to keep the words inside my mouth.

  Gran Ibo studied me for a few moments longer before, finally, she threw her head back and laughed, the sound echoing off the trees and bouncing back to where we stood. She held her sides and bent over, her body changing constantly, making me feel nauseous as my brain was incapable of keeping up with the continuous visual disturbances.

  When she paused to draw in a breath, she scrubbed her hand across her face, wiping away the tears that tracked down her cheeks. "I had forgotten how truly young you were," she said.

  "Gran..." Marcel started, but she glared at him and he fell silent.

  I glanced over at him as a muffled sound escaped his lips, now inexplicably sewn shut. The heavy black thread reminded me of the thread used on the Voodoo doll that Darcey had returned to me. My heart came to a shuddering halt as I watched the panic in Marcel's eyes mount.

  "Some do not know how to remain silent," she said. "They force me to do terrible things."

  "Can he breathe?" I asked, but Marcel shook his head in an effort to silence me.

  "He has a nose, has he not?" Gran Ibo asked.

  The question seemed rhetorical and yet I felt a compulsion to answer her. "Yes."

  "Then he can breathe."

  I clamped my mouth shut, gritting my teeth to stop anymore pointless questions from slipping past my lips.

  "You say you are a shadow sorceress, and I am familiar with the title, yet I would call you a Bokor," she mused, beckoning me forward.

  I moved toward her and paused at the bottom step. She closed her eyes and her entire body vibrated with energy, making the constant flitting of her form worse.

  Nausea washed over me and it took all of my power not to vomit at her feet. I might be incapable of keeping my mouth shut, but I was pretty sure Gran Ibo wouldn't find me so endearing if I introduced her to the food I'd eaten earlier that day.