Of Shadow Born (2 page)

"I needed the time."

"You've been hiding," he countered. "Kicking your own ass, letting your guilt fester. How's that working out, by the way? Feel any better about yourself?"

The boss didn't pull punches. Kade knew that about him already, but before things went bad, he'd gotten used to the bluntness. Now it felt a little too much like a blow to the gut, which was no doubt the point. "Yeah, actually, a little." He didn't bother keeping the challenge out of his voice. His father wouldn't like it. His father wasn't here. "I'm working on letting myself off the hook."

Garamendi paused just inside the doors to take a clipboard thrust at him by another one of his team. He scanned the paper quickly then scrawled his name on the signature line.  As he handed it back, his gaze flickered up to Kade again.  It lingered, he measured, then let out a quiet grunt of assent. "A little. Keep working on it. I need you at your best."

They were moving again, toward a battered metal desk that waited in the darkest corner of the building. There were no trinkets scattered between the stacks of tidy paper. There wasn't even an empty chair waiting to be claimed. The shadows at the deepest point seemed to move, almost rippling, and Kade recognized the anchor for what it was.

"I didn't say I was coming back," he pointed out, though he followed a few steps behind Garamendi.

A few steps that spared them a collision when the commander stopped abruptly and turned back to face him. "Look, I get it," he said. "What happened to your brother and your dad was a tragedy, but the world didn't stop because we lost them, Kade. It's still turning, Penumbra's still out there, and I need you on the job." His expression gentled almost to apologetic. "You're not the only one who lost a good team. You want to talk about need? I need you."

When Kade used the word, it was a confession. An admission that he'd been too badly broken to just get up and dust himself off. He'd been forced out of action for fear that the next blow he took, physical or mental or both, might shatter him completely. Destroy him.

Garamendi never said need. 

They stood studying each other for a long moment. Protests about not being ready rose to Kade's lips and fell away, unspoken. He'd told himself when he left a year ago that he would go back, one day. He'd expected it to be farther off, when
he
chose it, but Garamendi had a point. The world wouldn't wait for him.

"One mission. For now. And I work by myself."

Garamendi went from solemn to amused in a second. He laughed and shook his head, then turned and headed for the pool of shadow. "We'll talk about that back at HQ."

Kade didn't get a chance to argue. The boss man simply stepped into darkness and was gone.

Chapter Two

Can't breathe!

Melanie Kendrick grabbed her inhaler for the third time in less than an hour. Her hands shook, her vision blurred and her pulse pounded against her temples. A cold sweat dotted her forehead and prickled down her spine. She pondered bolting for the door.
Stop. Think!

The day had started as usual: a long shower, quick coffee stop and a sprint for the train. She sat in the same seat beside the same handsome-if-silent businessman most days of the week. She'd worn the same deodorant and perfumes for months without so much as a cough, and yet, the moment she'd touched that old piece of pottery...

"I'll smack your hand if you take that again." Noura Michaelides, her colleague, best friend and personal nuisance all rolled into one, wielded the dusting brush like a weapon, wooden handle pointed toward Melanie. Only the faint lines at the corners of her eyes gave her amusement away. "You're squirming like a kid who needs a bathroom break. Any more hopped up on that stuff and you might just explode."

Or have a heart attack.
That panicked thought flashed through her mind when the tightness came on, but she hadn't collapsed and it didn't hurt, exactly. Statistically possible, yes, but — no. She couldn't go there. Noura had a point. She'd be fine.

She pocketed the atomizer and held up empty hands, ignoring the way her fingers twitched. Out of sight, out of mind and temptation. "I'm done, I promise."
Just keep breathing.
Noura studied her, eyes narrowed, then put down the brush and planted her hands against the table's edge. "Let's get out of here." Her chair legs squeaked against the floor as she stood and stretched. Melanie watched her gaze flicker up to the clock on the wall behind her. "We've been working non-stop all morning. Do you know it's almost twelve-thirty? No wonder you're suffocating. We've breathed up all the air."

Melanie smiled but shook her head. "Can't leave yet." Yes, she'd been pulling long hours on this project and she deserved a break, but their lab had never handled something this important. The artifacts from Giza had been sent rush delivery. Everything hinged on their flawless restoration. The owner was a private collector with very deep pockets. One very much inclined to give back if the work met his exacting expectations.

Hard not to read a threat into the directive, but she didn't have a reason to worry. No one complained about Melanie's work and never had. There were no disciplinary notes in her permanent file. She didn't cut corners or shirk her duties. She gave every job, no matter how small, her personal best.

But maybe she'd gone a little overboard this time. Pressing herself to be perfect wouldn't help her nerves, or her asthma, for that matter. Making herself work through cramps, hunger pangs and bathroom breaks just made her more likely to make mistakes the museum couldn't afford.

There it went again, another shiver up her spine and a sudden band of tightness across her chest. She looked to the lab door, half expecting a face to be pressed to the glass, watching her every move. Her hands felt heavy. All she held was the broken pot shard, but she could almost swear it felt warm. This couldn't be her asthma. Maybe she'd started having anxiety attacks like her mother. God help her if that was so.

"I
said
." Noura nudged her shoulder. "Have you discovered some great truth of the universe? Suddenly you're giving that thing deep, meaningful stares." She gestured at the pottery piece.

A piece Melanie abruptly put down. "It's nothing," she lied as the tightness disappeared again. "Just my eyes getting tired and my nerves humming like mad. You're right. We should get out." She definitely needed to clear her mind. She stood and crossed the room to the wash station, peeled off her gloves and scrubbed her still-trembling hands.

Behind her, Noura tsked and went to a window. She tugged at the latch, but it didn't budge. It couldn't. Every lock had been fused and sealed to prevent exactly what she was trying to do. "It would help if we could open windows."

"So we can ruin artifacts?" Melanie pulled a paper towel. "I'm sure Dr. Andruss would say our lungs are less valuable than most of the pieces that pass through this room."

"Well, Dr. Andruss can bite me." Noura rested her butt against the window sill. Hands tucked behind her, she looked every inch the picture of mischief as she wrinkled her nose. "He might as well be three thousand years old himself."

True, maybe. The director of the Sentinel's antiquities program certainly preferred rules and procedures to experimentation and impromptu creativity. Still, he'd hired her after a single interview and sung her praises for their entire hour-long conversation. He'd practically gushed over her letters of reference. She should come to his defense. He deserved her loyalty.

She couldn't resist the joke. "Four."

Noura grinned and came back to the table. "Come on. Let's go get lunch. If anyone tries to stop us, I am totally not against using your condition to make them feel bad."

Melanie arched an eyebrow. "My condition? You make it sound like I've got leprosy."

"Trust me, if it was that, there'd be a whole lot more screaming going on. Not to mention disinfecting." She made a show of backing away, hands up and not touching anything.

Melanie smiled wryly. "Good to know you've got my back in a pinch, Nour." Then she shook her head. "And I said break. I'm not scheduled to take lunch until one."

Noura heaved an overdramatic sigh and peeled off her gloves, making sure to snap the latex. "Rules, rules. They're made to be broken, you know? Especially when there's a medical emergency."

"Would you stop? I'm not that bad. Look." She took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled without coughing. "All better." Except the lingering sense that she was being watched. She'd make tea tonight. She'd use the white noise generator she'd bought and listen to ocean waves crashing or something. She'd meditate or take a long bath and soak off some stress.

"Fine," Noura said. "But I'm going. All this trying to convince you gave me a headache that can only be cured by pastrami and sauerkraut on handmade rye." She tossed her gloves in the trash bin and headed for the door.

Melanie glanced over her shoulder at the clock now proclaiming it almost twelve forty-five. Close enough. "All right, all right. Let me get my purse. But don't get any ideas. You're buying."

Noura beamed. "Brilliant. The sandwich guy at Market Square by the wharf promised he'd save lunch for me."

The sandwich guy. So that explained the sudden push for food. "You should just ask for his number."

"It's not like that." Noura fiddled with the strap on her purse. "We're just friends."

"Friends with potential benefits. Didn't you tell me he had great hands?"

"For shaking. For handing over change. It's not like that," Noura insisted again. "Now can we go?"

Melanie grinned. "We can go."

She wadded the paper towel in her hands with her cast-off gloves and pitched the mass toward the corner trash can. It dropped neatly into the bin without touching the sides.
Two points.
It might not impress anyone in the grand scheme of things, but she'd made thirty-one baskets in a row since she started counting two weeks back. When she hit fifty, she'd have a night out and a good stiff drink. Maybe she'd get lucky and find a sandwich guy of her own.

~

She was beautiful in the most gloriously mundane way. She moved with the sort of grace that stirred his blood, but more than that, her power intrigued him. How a child with so much potential had been missed was hard to understand, but dwelling on the past solved nothing. It was not too late.

Both sides could benefit from having someone like her on their side. She had a love of antiquities, all but a requirement in the game. She respected the history and the craftsmanship that went into the pieces she touched. This assured she would use a gentle hand with them, damaging nothing and revealing crucial secrets to those who watched closely. She was brilliant, if not clever, and curious if not charismatic. She could still be taught and shaped.

But only if he moved quickly. Icarus was aware of her now and had already made plans to scoop her up. Not smart plans, judging by the choice to bring the broken toy soldier home, but any action from their side meant he couldn't waste time, himself.

The pair brushed by him as they wandered down the pier, Melanie bending toward her smaller, dark friend, then straightening with a shake of her head as the other laughed. Sunlight caught in her hair for a moment, making the shadows between strands kindle a fiery red before it faded back into a more muted color. All part of the disguise she didn't even know she wore.

He breathed deep in the wake of her passage. Her perfume was subtle, not too sweet, hardly noticeable unless you sought it out on a breeze. Understated and soft, not drawing attention. No one would notice when it disappeared from the world until it was too late to bring it back.

That was one step too close to melodrama, he thought with a chuckle of his own. Of course he would have her, eventually, but she would come to him willingly, not because he'd kept her captive or forced her to be at his side. He had a strong will and powerful desires, but he wasn't crazy. Just determined to see the world acknowledge its mistakes.

And not let Melanie Kendrick become one of them.

~

Sunshine and fresh air wouldn't do Kade a damned lick of good. Not in his opinion, anyway. Not that he'd been asked.

Ironic, really, being sent on a stroll in broad daylight. The Icarus Unit had taken its name from the myth of the boy who flew too close to the sun. Its members excelled at stealth and dark-time dealings. Most of them went out of their way to avoid doing anything in the light.

Someone shadow-born, like Kade, worked much better in the depths of darkness than out in the open on a San Francisco pier. And yet here he was. The breeze across the water cut the heat of daylight, but he still felt weighted down by the sun. It made him slow and clumsy, an easy target. Nothing he wanted to be while checking out an assignment he still wasn't sure he'd accept.

"Earth to Kade? Come on, buddy. Take a look."

He definitely didn't want a partner. When he'd run with his family, he knew them almost as well as himself. He could usually predict when and where they'd be. He knew how far he could push them and what they needed in return to make them all better. He knew them and things had still gone sideways. He was here, they weren't, and he didn't want to re-learn how to trust somebody new. He'd argued about it for a good two hours. Arguments that inevitably got ignored. Always did when someone felt the need to save your ass. Especially if the rescue came courtesy of Garamendi.

When Kade's father brought him and his brother to the IU's attention, Garamendi had been an operations chief, someone Kade met and immediately categorized as important but not a friend. For the first couple years, their paths rarely crossed. The Kade boys were best at infiltration, in and out before anyone knew they'd been there. Garamendi's teams were packed with heavy hitters, the kind who didn't care about leaving messes or making noise.

They’d climbed the ranks together from different sides of the desk. Kade and his family were assigned to more sensitive cases, and Garamendi got promoted from operations to division to regional head. The higher they climbed, the more contact they had, until Garamendi made director and Kade's team became the go-to gang for retrieving artifacts. He’d had Garamendi's personal number on speed dial.

Then everything went wrong. He'd lost his father, his brother, and his purpose in one night. He walked away, gave it up, tried to forget who he'd been. He should have known they were still watching. Maybe they'd set up the take in Rio in the first place.

"Kade, you've got to see this." Farris had moved ahead and stood by the railing, a pair of binoculars in his hand. He held them out toward Kade and waggled them in invitation. "You're going to miss her. Come on!"

Kade set his jaw but moved to catch up. He'd agreed to this, no matter the means by which he'd been convinced. He'd do this job and
then
he'd decide whether he came back or not. Even if he had to go toe to toe with Garamendi again.

He fitted the binoculars securely against his eyes. The swipe of a thumb focused the view through the lenses until he could clearly see across the gap to the other pier Farris faced. He got a good look at people shopping. A little girl sharing her lunch with a pushy seagull. No fights, no fear, not a trouble to be seen. He glanced down at the other man, now leaning against the railing, elbows supporting his weight, and what was that smug look about? "You want to tell me what I'm supposed to see?"

At least that straightened him up. "What do you mean?" He snatched the binoculars out of Kade's hand. "They were right — no, they're still there. Just moving." He sighed like the sight made everything right with the world. "And just watch them move." His focus didn’t waver as he offered the binoculars back, which meant he bounced them off Kade's chest. "Look again."

Movement was a clue at least. Kade refocused and found his attention drawn to two women talking animatedly. Well. The shorter of the two was animated, hands moving almost as fast as her mouth. The taller looked more collected. Reserved, but interested...and interesting.