Of Shadow Born (18 page)

"We know you're here," he told it. "Show yourself and let's get this over with."

It laughed, a raw, painful-sounding chuckle that made Kade's throat ache in sympathy. "So cold," it answered in a voice that was meant to be female. "Don't you want to know who you face?"

"What does it matter? You won't answer honestly. Your kind never does."

Melanie touched his shoulder, fingers curling. "Kade, wait."

"Aren't you all the same kind, under the skin
? No matter which bloodline you follow, you're all shadow-born. Shades, insubstantial. You don't count for anything," the shadow taunted.

"If we're all the same," he reasoned, stepping toward the figure, "then you've just discounted yourself. No reason to fight at all. Why not turn around and go back
where you came from?"

The shadow tsked. "Would, but you've got something I want."

He heard the intruder move, though he lost track of where she'd gone. Melanie had a hand fisted in his shirt again and pulled insistently.

"Kade, I know that voice. I'm sure I do. It's on the tip of my tongue."

"Better stick it out so he can read it." The voice came from beside them now. He'd half-turned toward it when she went on. "Too dark, too slow, too bad."

He could count on one hand the times he'd been tossed as though he weighed nothing. Ordinarily it took someone bigger and stronger than he was to move him that way, but the lingering imprint of the blow
— cold hands slapped against his chest — felt too small for that to be the case now.

He was airborne for a moment, then crashed to the floor on his back. Something popped inside, a rib perhaps, and the answering wave of pain stole his breath. Muscles
spasmed as he rolled to his side and shoved himself back to his feet.

Before he could charge the intruder and force her out of Melanie's reach, she gasped and spoke, her voice gone high and sharp. She'd worked out the name at last and the word dripped with disbelief.

"Noura
?
"

The shadow laughed again. "Got it in one. Surprise."

Melanie could hardly catch her breath with her heart hammering fitfully beneath her ribs. On an ordinary day, in an ordinary world, she'd have felt relief at her friend's arrival. Instead she knew something had gone horribly wrong.

"You don't belong here," she whispered. "Noura, you can't be
here."

"But I can and I am," her co-worker insisted. She moved closer, the glint from a lamp marking her shift of focus as it reflected in her eyes. "I warned you."

"Warned me. Warned me to whuh?" The word gusted out of her, an incomplete sound as she remembered that odd morning.
We wouldn't want anyone else to get hurt.
"You meant it."

"Have I ever made an idle threat? Of course I meant it. Then and now." She paused and
her expression crumpled into one of disbelief. "You didn't. Oh, you
fool
." That was directed toward where Kade had been thrown. "Bad enough to bring her here, but to carry the tablet with you? Did you really think we wouldn't find it? Or that you could keep her safe?" Another click of her tongue. "Pity."

"Leave him alone." Melanie startled herself with the force
of her words. She'd sounded strong just then, but in truth she felt terrified. Noura was a friend, a confidante. She had no business being here and certainly none working for
them
. "If you're here for the tablet, then you'll have to deal with me. I'm the one who fixed it, after all."

"Melanie, don't." She could tell Kade was in pain by the thickness of his voice. "You're not ready to fight them."

Noura laughed, or near enough. "Neither were you. Not much of a fight when you don't stay on your feet."

He stood now with a barely audible grunt. "Try me again."

Laughter echoed through the apartment. "What, you think that having a warning makes a difference? No wonder they don't use you as a bodyguard anymore."

She moved before Melanie could twitch to interfere, a blur of movement, darker shadows within those already gray. Though her eyes had
mostly adjusted to the light level Kade preferred, Melanie only found it easy to track things that moved slowly and in predictable ways.

Nothing about Noura counted as easy to predict. Not her presence and not the speed of her attacks. Melanie heard flesh meet flesh. Kade grunted again, the shadows jumped and Noura's voice came from a dark pool across the room.

"You're always so quick to fight, Kade. Can't we just talk?"

"Always?" Melanie frowned into darkness. "How long have you known him? You didn't say anything to me." Then again, she hadn't said anything about working for the enemy, either. "Did you know all along? Have you been watching me?"

"She's not who you think she is. They're using her," Kade said gruffly. "She's not your friend anymore."

"How melodramatic
," Noura's voice answered from somewhere behind and to the right of Melanie. Something grazed the small of her back, a fleeting touch. The unpleasant knot in her abdomen pulsed with a chill that radiated to her fingers and made her scalp tingle.

"Whatever gets the point across." Bodies collided again, close enough that Melanie felt the impact shudder across her skin. Noura grunted this time, a higher and softer sound than the ones Kade made. Melanie was jostled out of the way as Kade's shoulder caught her between her own and he and Noura two-stepped past, bent double and struggling
to keep their grips on one another. Kade's silhouette straightened and he tossed Noura the same way she'd thrown him.

She didn't land. The shadows enveloped her and she disappeared.

Silence reigned for a moment, broken only by the drip of Kade's leaky sink faucet and the sound of him catching his breath.

"She's gone?" Melanie could hardly believe the fight was over.

"Not for long."

True to prediction, she reappeared with a banshee's shriek. This time, she lashed out at Melanie, a fist catching her beneath the chin. Melanie's head snapped back hard enough
to make her see stars.

Then Kade thundered past her, arms full of the struggling woman. He didn't stop until they'd both hit a wall. He held her
there, pinned in place by his weight.

"I don't understand." Melanie finally found her voice and the first thing that slipped out sounded weak to her ringing ears. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, counting teeth and tasting blood but finding nothing broken or missing. She balled her hands into fists and pressed on. "If this isn't Noura, then what is she? She looks like Noura. She sounds like her."

"I
am
Noura," the other woman insisted, her voice strained as she struggled. "Get your boyfriend off of me."

The knot of anxiety pulsed in her abdomen. Melanie stepped forward without thinking. She had to save her friend. Kade was hurting her. If she let that go on—

She stopped and shook her head. Noura had never before shown any sign of being anything but human. She hadn't known anything about the tablet when the pieces showed up. Ordinarily, she was charming, but not great at humility, something Melanie believed played a big part in successful lies. She couldn't have bluffed her way through ignorance this long and not given up the plan to steal it in the first place.

Kade had to be right.

"She's a puppet," he said over his shoulder as if she'd spoken out loud. "Like the guys in the bar. Just more complicated." He shoved his arm beneath her chin, forcing Noura to bare her throat.

Noura just laughed. "So you'll what? Kill me to remove the threat? Scatter me to the four corners? Go ahead," she dared. "Get rid of the girl. Of course, you'll have to deal with the consequences. And your conscience."

Melanie heard her take in a ragged breath, then she coughed and her hands curled around Kade's arm. "Can't breathe," she rasped and dragged air in again. "It's me, I swear it's me. Mel, make him stop,
please
."

Melanie moved again, not stopping this time. She laid her hand on Kade's arm and felt muscle bunch and shift beneath her palm. "Kade, if she's a puppet then Noura's still in there. Right?"

"Here. I'm right here. He's crushing my throat."

Kade shook her and Noura made a high sound of alarm. "It could still be an act," he rumbled. "We can't trust what she says. Don't believe anything."

"Don't let him kill me, Mel. I'll prove it. Ask me something only I would know."

Melanie racked her brain, thoughts chasing around inside her skull with little sense or reason. What did Noura know that these shadows wouldn't duplicate? New projects at the museum were publicly announced. Her personal information like middle name and mother's maiden could be found easily enough.

But her tastes were uncommon. "Hot dog," Melanie blurted. "What does Noura like on hers?"

As much as she could, the woman in Kade's grip relaxed. "Relish and mustard on the bun before the dog," she reported, relief clear in her voice. "Chili and mayonnaise on top."

Melanie's stomach threatened to rebel as surely as it did when they walked to the hot dog cart together. She heard herself laugh, but couldn't quite manage true joy. "It's her, Kade. It's Noura."

"Because of a hot dog."

"No one else could hold that down. Please." She tightened her grip on his arm. "You'll be right here. You'll protect me, but let her down. Trust me."

Another tense moment passed. Kade murmured something hard to hear, a low stream of half-voiced words that nonetheless had a rhythm. It sounded something like a chant. Then he let her go and took one abrupt step backward. Noura's clothing rasped against the wall as she dropped to her feet. "Talk," he commanded.

"Easier to do when I can breathe," Noura countered, biting off the words. "Is he like that all the time?" Her gaze swung to Melanie. "Hands-on and rough?"

Melanie felt Kade tense more than she could see it. Her own shoulders tightened. She lifted her chin, a prompt of sorts. "Talk," she echoed. "If you're really Noura, why are you doing this? I thought we were friends."

Noura laughed and let her head hang. "Friends," she repeated. "Did he not explain? Do you not understand? This is a war that's been going on for three thousand years. What does friendship mean in the face of so much time?" She looked up again, her gaze unflinching. "What does family mean? Brothers, sisters, wives. In a war, all men are tools. Weaknesses are exploited. Trusts are broken."

Melanie rubbed a hand up and down one arm, hoping to kindle heat beneath her skin instead of the bone
-deep chill she felt. "Then you're helping them willingly?"

Noura paused, tilted her head and smiled a terrifyingly satisfied grin. "Willing has so many different meanings."

"Puppet." It could have been a curse. Kade spat the word as if it tasted foul.

Noura flinched and sucked a sharp breath through her teeth. "Vessel," she shot back, glaring at him. "Instrument. A good one, too." She lifted a hand and Melanie braced for the attack, but it didn't come. She curled and flexed her fingers, studying them instead. "Small, fast, harmless-looking. You'd be surprised the number of places we could take this body."

Melanie felt sick. Worse, she felt betrayed. "Then you lied. About knowing the answer to my question. You guessed."

"I got it right, didn't I?" She tilted her head again and her posture relaxed, shifting into something more like Noura. One hip cocked out to catch her weight. A casual cant to her shoulders that made her seem perpetually poised for a shrug. "Come on, Mel," she said, voice
warm with Noura's intonations. "Do you really think anyone could duplicate me? One of a kind, remember? Isn't that what you said?"

"Noura wouldn't do this." Melanie was certain of that.

The thing in Noura's body grinned. "Noura is opportunistic. Don't pretend surprise at that revelation," she scolded when Melanie drew her shoulders back. "It doesn't become you and we know it's not sincere. You know as well as we do that she has an interest in her own advancement and that she's been willing to do questionable things to get it in the past. The museum interview, for starters."

There was another thing no one else could know. Noura had an uncanny knack for ferreting secrets out of near-strangers. She could find the most obscure information about almost anything, if she took an interest. Sending her to research a technique or piece of art inevitably led to a long discussion on the gossip surrounding the piece.

She'd used that talent to investigate Dr. Andruss before she interviewed with him. She'd confessed as much to Melanie on a night when they'd both had too many drinks. She’d met with people who'd gone for the position before her under the pretext of curiosity. She found out the sort of jokes that made him laugh. She learned which answers bored and which irritated him. When her turn came, it was less an interview and more an audition.

The act got her hired, ethical or not.

"So we made her an offer she couldn't refuse," Noura went on.

"You threatened her." Kade all but growled the accusation. "You tricked her into agreeing. Forced her, maybe hurt her to be sure."