Touch of Shadow (The Shadow Sorceress Book 5)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  She paused and stared down at me. "What ails you?"

  "Your magic makes it difficult to look at you," I said. It was definitely the wrong thing to say, or at least it felt like the wrong thing to say, and yet once again, I couldn't stop the words from slipping from my mouth.

  She stared at me for a moment longer before closing her eyes again. The flitting stopped and I felt the earth beneath my feet shift suddenly. When I looked at her again, she beamed down at me, her smile wide and inviting. The crown she wore on her head glittered with what looked to be thousands of tiny diamonds that seemed to be embedded in her dark hair. Her red dress wrapped around her body as though it was moulded to her; it fell from her hips in a cascade of heavy fabric that brushed the floor in places. Her bare feet peeked out from beneath, her toe-nails painted a deep red to match the dress.

  "Come sit with me and tell me what it is you seek," she said to me, reaching out to take my hand.

  "Only if they can come, too," I said, gesturing to Marcel and Victoria, who still stood in the same spots from when we'd arrived.

  "Of course. All are welcome, once they know their place," she said, glaring at Marcel.

  I took her hand, and Marcel gasped from somewhere behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I watched as he rubbed his lips. The heavy black cord was gone, leaving not even a trace behind that his lips had been sewn shut in the first place.

  "You seek answers, child," she said, leading me up the steps and over to the chairs scattered around the porch.

  "We're working a case," I started to say, but she shook her head, and I fell silent.

  "I do not mean those questions. You seek the answers for the questions in your heart," she said.

  Biting my lip, I remained silent. Was it possible that she could tell me what I wanted to know about what I truly was? I knew I was a shadow sorceress. I knew that what I was came with immense power, but what that power truly entailed ... well, I was still pretty damn hazy about that. And it wasn't as though I had someone to ask. The only other shadow sorceress I knew was locked away in a preternatural supermax prison with zero chance of a private conversation.

  But the case needed to come first. We needed to know what Jasper planned, and more than that, we needed to know how to stop him. I'd felt his power, and if I was honest, it felt an awful lot like the kind of power Gran Ibo seemed to wield.

  "Ask me the questions of your heart," she said, settling into the rocking chair opposite me.

  "I really want to," I said with a sigh. "You've got to believe me when I say I would love to pick your brain about a whole ton of stuff, but there's something else I need the answers to."

  She pursed her lips and gave Marcel a dirty look as he stepped up onto the porch. Victoria followed, but I noticed her keeping her distance, and once she reached the top step, she paused, her dark eyes following Gran Ibo's every move.

  "You have a lot of cheek coming back here," Gran Ibo said to Marcel, ignoring me.

  "You know I wouldn't come if it wasn't important," he said, dropping his gaze to the worn wooden floorboards.

  "What is it this time?" she said, sighing as she folded her arms across her chest.

  "I brought this," Marcel answered, and tugged the small vial of Heddou's tears from inside his jacket.

  Gran Ibo's expression slowly changed as she stared at the vial in his outstretched hand. In a blur of speed that surprised me, she snatched it from his grip and held it up to get a better look at the contents.

  "He is dead, then," she said, her voice flat and void of emotion.

  "Not yet, but I have felt his spark, and there is not much left," Marcel said.

  It hit me then: it was Heddou they were discussing. I'd been inside his head, heard his voice, but I hadn't checked to see how his body was truly fairing. It hadn't even occurred to me to check the spark of life that existed within him. And while the doctor hadn't exactly been hopeful about his condition, she also hadn't said outright that he was dying, either.

  And yet, based on how Marcel and Gran Ibo spoke, Heddou was as good as gone.

  "And my daughter?" Gran Ibo asked, glancing back up at Marcel once more. "How does she fare?"

  "That's why I'm here," Marcel answered, keeping his gaze trained on the floor.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched as Gran Ibo froze in the chair, her body going as still as a snake that lies in wait for its prey. Nothing moved, not even her chest, and not a hair on her head stirred despite the quickening breeze.

  "Amber is correct; we are working a case," he continued, and I had to wonder if it was deliberate or if he just hadn't noticed the stillness of the woman in the chair.

  "You work a case? You bring your petty human considerations to me and no news of my daughter? Why would I help you when you have done nothing for me in return?" she asked, drawing up onto her feet. She looked taller, her head almost scraping the roof of the porch as she towered over Marcel.

  "It's not like that. Your daughter is connected. You know I would not bring petty considerations before one as powerful as you.... You who are as old as time, merciful and beloved by all who know the loa."

  "Do not patronise me, boy," she said, the anger in voice fading a little.

  "It is not patronisation if it is the truth," Marcel said.

  "What say you to this?" she said, turning on me as suddenly as she had turned on Marcel. "Am I beloved by all who know the loa? Am I beloved by you?"

  I felt the words catch in the back of my throat and I dug my fingernails into my hands to stop the first words on the tip of my tongue from tumbling out.

  Sucking a deep breath in through my teeth, I closed my eyes and fought to control my thoughts, but the harder I sought order in my mind, the more I could feel Gran Ibo in there, pulling everything closer to chaos.

  "Get out of my head," I said, digging my nails into my hands hard enough to draw blood.

  "What?" she said, recoiling from me as I drew forth my power and tried to push her out.

  "I said get out of my head." I pushed my magic against her, but she was stronger and she'd managed to get a grip inside my mind.

  I felt it like fingers in my brain, digging into me, and I cried out as she squeezed.

  "Amber! Do not fight her. She is a goddess," Marcel said, his hand touching mine softly.

  "Goddess or not," I gritted out as something warm and wet tricked down my face, "I did not give her permission to go poking around inside my head."

  I scrubbed my hand across my face, and it came away stained red with blood from my nose.

  "You are strong for a child," Gran Ibo said, "but I could break you if I so chose."

  Despite her lips moving, I couldn't tell if the words came from her mouth or from inside my own head.

  "Get out!" I said again, shoving harder with my magic.

  "Bokor don't give the orders," she said.

  "Gran Ibo, why press her? You don't need her; you have your body, and you said yourself she is but a child. She does not yet have the wisdom necessary to worship a goddess as feared as you," Marcel said.

  The pressure inside my head eased and I slumped back in the chair, my breaths coming in small gasps.

  "Are you hurt?" she asked.

  A smart reply hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I held back. I couldn't feel her inside my head anymore, and the urge to blurt everything out had passed. For that, at least, I could be grateful.

  "I'm going to have a killer headache," I said when I finally found my voice.

  She stared at me and finally a small smile creased her face. "I don't think I will ever understand the sense of humour of the very young," she said.

  She reached a hand out toward me, and without thinking, I shrank away from her touch. When she shrugged and let her hand drop away, I felt the tension in my shoulders ease considerably.

  "Ask your questions and then leave," she said, her voice cold and aloof.

  "Do you know why we're here?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  When she
didn't elaborate, I sighed. Clearly, I'd offended her, but as far as I was concerned, she'd offended me first by poking around inside my head, forcing me to answer questions without wanting to. Fionn had taken my free will from me. His plans to make me a slave still left me feeling dirty and used every time I thought about them. Gran Ibo had tried something similar; it had been far more insidious, but it was still stealing my ability to choose as far as I was concerned, and there wasn't a chance in Hell that I would stand by and let that happen again.

  "Kalfu is up to his old tricks again," Marcel said.

  "And that is my business why?" she asked.

  "Because he's one of yours and he is creating havoc. He has taken a human body and is raising the dead ... creating armies and abusing the souls of the dead," Marcel said, passion causing his voice to rise suddenly. "And he is the reason I have no news of your daughter."

  Gran Ibo shook her head. "That's not possible. He wouldn't dare touch her; he knows the punishment for that kind of disobedience," she said.

  "Yet he has her. He has taken Widelene and means to use her in whatever plan he's running now," Marcel said.

  I didn't recognise the name, yet hearing it fall from Marcel's lips was enough to cause the hairs on my arm to stand to attention. From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Victoria rubbing her arms as though to put some lost warmth back into her limbs. The heat of the day had caused my sweat to bead on my upper lip and down my spine, but that didn't change the fact that, at the mere mention of a woman I didn't even know, every ounce of heat I had in my body drained away through my feet and down into the ground.

  "Liar," Gran Ibo said, anger causing her dark eyes to glitter. "Get out, get away from here, and never darken my door, ever—"

  "You know I love her, you know I would never lie about her," Marcel said. "Please, help me, Mama."

  His words held the same reverence of a prayer, and as soon as he said it, Gran Ibo stopped. She closed her eyes, and for the second time that day, I felt the ground beneath my feet shift suddenly. Power flooded the small porch, making the air thick like honey. Her body vibrated just like it had the first time, jerking and moving like something that had been sped up beyond any mechanical abilities. My eyes watered as I tried to follow her movements and failed.

  When she opened her eyes again, her movements halted and she met Marcel's gaze with her own.

  "You speak the truth. I cannot sense my daughter..." she said. Tears welled in her eyes before they spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. "You will bring Kalfu to me and I will deal with him."

  "How do we bring him to you?" I asked, remembering the fight with Jasper. He'd damn near killed me, and if it hadn't been for Nic intervening, then Jasper or Kalfu or whoever he was would have killed me.

  "The power you wield is strong enough to stop him, but you have to stop standing in your own way," she said.

  "I don't mean any disrespect, but the last time I faced him, he very nearly ended me. So how am I supposed to capture him and bring him back to you?"

  She nodded thoughtfully and disappeared into the shack, the screen door slamming noisily after her.

  "You go too far, Amber. You forget who you're talking to," Marcel warned, his voice low and urgent.

  "I don't know who I'm talking to," I said.

  "She's the oldest of the loa; the body she wears is her own, for she who came before all others needs no skin but her own."

  It sounded like he was reciting some kind of poem, or story learned long ago, but I could taste the truth in his words, and it wasn't just because he believed them.

  "But she is not mine, Marcel. I don't follow Voodoo, you know that."

  "It doesn't mean you shouldn't respect her for who she is. You are one of hers whether you wish to be or not. Where do you think your power for the dead comes from?"

  The door slammed open once more and Gran Ibo reappeared with a clay pot in her hands. She thrust it in my direction, giving me no choice but to take it or further insult one of the oldest loa in history.

  The moment my fingers touched the pot, I felt its power. There was magic itself baked into the clay, the kind of wild magic I associated with Victoria. She didn't so much have power as she was power—the pot felt the same, and as it buzzed in my hands, I sucked in a deep breath. Pins and needles danced up and down my arms. It felt as though I was holding one of the electric fences from the fields back in Ireland. It wasn't painful to hold the pot, but it sure as hell wasn't comfortable either.

  "This will hold him, if you can call him from his vessel," she said, eyeing me carefully.

  "How do we call him from his vessel?"

  "How do you children say? ‘That is for you to figure out’," she said with a wide grin.

  "Thanks."

  The pot wasn't going to be much use without a way to get Kalfu from Jasper, and I had a sneaking suspicion that neither one was going to be particularly willing to give the other up. So straight out asking them was pretty much out of the question.

  "If Widelene is truly dead, then bring her home to me," Gran said suddenly, turning to face Marcel.

  "Of course," he said.

  I started for the steps, but Gran Ibo grabbed my arm; power snapped against my skin, making me cringe, and I fought the urge to jerk my arm from her grip.

  "He means to use you," she said, her eyes searching my face.

  "Who, Marcel?"

  "No. One every child trusts implicitly." Her words were cryptic and they didn't help the pain in my head that was rapidly building.

  "Use me for what?"

  "You give life. A life to take, a life to give.... Those who hold the power to give and take are akin to gods, but the choice will not always be an easy one to make. And I fear, when the time comes, child, your choice will be taken from you...." She leaned in toward me, her breath tickling my face. "Perhaps it would have been better for all if the Man of Faerie had kept you as his thing after all."

  I jerked away from her, terror turning my knees to jelly. "How dare you?”

  "You do not know what is coming, child, but when you do, you will see there is no malice in my words, only concern." She straightened up once more and I backed away from her.

  Marcel's hand on my shoulder made me jump and I turned to face him. The look of pity in his eyes made me sick. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to pity me, and yet it was the one thing I could never seem to escape. Drawing out of his reach, I clattered down the steps and strode toward the trees.

  "Wait up!" Victoria called after me, but I didn't halt until I reached the trees near the road.

  Closing my eyes, I let my head drop back as I sucked in several deep swamp-tinged breaths.

  "What did she say to you?" Victoria asked from somewhere on my right. Opening my eyes once more, I turned slowly and stared back in the direction I'd just come from … but the shack and Gran Ibo were both gone. Only the trees crowding close to the swamps edge remained.

  "Where did she go?" I asked Marcel as he caught up to us.

  He glanced back over his shoulder and shrugged. "Hell if I know. Gran Ibo likes to keep her place hidden. She only reveals it when she's ready to and not a moment before. Clearly, she's done with us. Who is the Man of Faerie?" Marcel added, confirming my suspicion that he had heard every word to cross Gran Ibo's lips.

  Victoria stiffened up next to me. The hiss of breath she drew in rapidly told me of her displeasure at Marcel's question.

  "What does he speak of?" she asked.

  "Gran Ibo said everyone would have been better off if I'd remained as a slave of Fionn," I said with a sigh. The memory of his touch, the feel of his breath against my ear, and the terror of being unable to take any control over my own body left me in a cold sweat.

  "Then she is not the wise woman everyone claims she is," Victoria said.

  "You know of her?" Marcel asked.

  "I am a changeling. You do not live as long as I have without knowing what other kinds of preternatural creatures exist in the
world alongside you, and whether they want to eat you or not," she said, without any trace of humour or irony.

  "I would hate to see anything try and eat you." Marcel grinned.

  "You would be surprised at the creatures that have tried."

  "And failed?"

  "I'm standing here, aren't I?" she said, her tone suggesting that she thought him utterly stupid.

  "As much as I'd love to carry on listening to this riveting conversation between you two, I think we've got bigger fish to fry," I said, moving back up the road away from them both.

  "She didn't give any clues as to how to draw the loa out of Jasper," Victoria said.

  "Nope. Other than handing us a cookie jar, she didn't do much at all," I said, unable to hide the bitterness from my voice.

  I left out the part where she’d left me feeling utterly terrified. I still had nightmares about the things Fionn had done to me. The thought of still being under his control now.... It wasn't something I wanted to contemplate, not even for a second. But what had she meant about it being better for everyone if I'd remained his? She didn't strike me as the cruel type, and yet that had been more than cruel.

  Of course, just because she didn't strike me as cruel didn't mean she wasn't. My ability to read people seemed to be pretty crap.

  "So, who is Widelene?" I asked, turning to Marcel.

  He glanced at me, shock registering on his face before he covered it once more, his expression closing down until he was utterly unreadable again. "She is Heddou's right hand," he said matter-of-factly.

  "I think I've met her," I added, remembering the woman that had brought Nic and me into the house the first time I'd met Heddou.

  "You would know if you had. She is incredibly beautiful, with skin like honey, and eyes any man would willingly choose to get lost in."

  "Not exactly how I would describe her, but it's probably one and the same. She was extremely beautiful and was hanging out with Heddou. She was our escort, in fact...."

  A pained expression slipped past Marcel's defences, his eyes darkening with anger, the emotion there one moment and gone the next.

  "He does not know the jewel he possesses."