Of Shadow Born (5 page)

Neither figure answered. One of them fired. She wasn't sure which. It hardly mattered. She heard the crack, heard Kade's shout as he yanked her backward. Her shoulders hit his chest so hard that she lost all that gathered breath.

She felt the bullet pass through her body, a white-hot fire that speared through the knot of sickness.

And disappeared.

The world snapped into fast-forward motion. Kade whirled with her and she found herself abruptly pressed against the bar.

"You
stay
here," he ordered, expression dark. "And you
don't
move. Until I come for you, you're a shadow. Don't talk. Don't think. Just. Stay."

Close.
This is too damned close
, Kade scolded himself as he rolled up his sleeves. There were too many bystanders for his taste, innocent or otherwise, but the battle had erupted here. He didn't have it in him to give ground.

"Here," he called as he stepped forward. The phantoms scanned the room, still looking for Melanie. They knew they hadn't finished the job and as long as avenues to get it done existed, they'd keep searching. For now, Kade served as a distraction. Both figures turned his way.

Their disguises were well thought out, neither one too remarkable, neither standing out in memorable ways. When the panic in the crowd wore off, the buzz of adrenaline would muddle recollection. None of the observers would remember details.

Kade didn't need them. He didn't care about the color of their eyes. All that mattered was stopping them, here and now.

Despite the earlier flurry of movement, phantoms slowed down once they crossed fully into the world. In their normal state, they could and often did react at the speed of command. They were the flickers at the edge of sight as a person fell asleep. The shadowy figures lurking in the corner of a room that disappeared when the victim looked at them directly. Impossible to corner or cage, they had no thoughts of their own, serving only as puppets for a master who could be blocks, or miles, away.

But unleashed in man's everyday world, they were bound by the rules governing everything else and hampered by a lag between the master's thought and reflex speed. That lag explained
Kade's fingers closing on a throat that yielded like living flesh. When he lifted the thing off its feet, it kicked and gagged like a human might.

There were gasps and murmurs in the crowd, of course, but those too would fade away when the action was over. No one would remember Kade's impossible feat of strength.

"Spare me," Kade snarled as the man —
thing
— twitched. "We both know what you are. The act's not going to work."

"We both know what
you
are as well, shadowborn." The phantom followed his command, no longer struggling in his grip.

No matter how many times Kade had seen their eyes go flat, no matter how often he'd fought creatures that could dissolve and reform in an instant, it still sent a wave of revulsion shuddering through his bones. Nature of the beast.

It curled its fingers around his wrist and then, obeying its master once more, it smiled, a thin, humorless shift of expression, and stabbed its fingers through his skin until they curled around bone.

Someone screamed. Kade saw her point in his direction. The pain distracted him and broke his focus. The interruption gave the other phantom time to act.

Kade should have disarmed it. It was too late by the time he heard the sound of the cocking gun. He wheeled, the phantom he held still trying to separate Kade's hand from his body. It didn't feel the bullet that slammed into it from behind when its counterpart pulled the trigger. It had no defense against the fierce word Kade hissed between his teeth. It blew apart, shattering its shell of a body into a fine dark grit, like someone had set off a bomb inside a ceramic doll.

Kade didn't apologize for the vulgar display of power. He did what had to be done. Inevitably someone in the crowd would want to play hero, determined to put himself in harm's way if Kade delayed too long.

So he dove for the remaining phantom, catching it around the waist. They crashed to the floor and skidded some distance, polished wood doing little to slow them down. Neither of them were concerned with the splinters of wood embedding themselves in the phantom's back or the chairs that toppled in their wake.

It had already begun to fade, its body softening and thinning beneath Kade's weight as they thumped to a halt. It spread out beneath him, dark tendrils of smoke-like shadow sinking through the spaces where the floorboards met.

But the fight had not bled out of it yet. It freed a hand from the knot of Kade's shirt and caught him across the cheek. Pain blazed as skin split, spilling blood that smelled sharp even to Kade's nose. Inhuman, alien. A reminder of what he wasn't and his duties to protect those who were.

The phantom swung again, this time aiming for Kade's throat. Kade caught it at the wrist and slammed its hand back to the floor.

Though exploding phantoms looked dramatic and satisfied the goal of getting rid of them, a strong enough master could reassemble the pieces and send his servants back to finish the mission, their resolve sharpened by a need for revenge. Those twice or three-times formed got progressively harder to fight.

The solution was to make resurrection impossible.

The words of the spell came easily to mind. Kade had an opening, since the puppet master had begun to call his creation home. He'd be concentrating more on that than defending the soulless thing he'd made. Kade pinned its other hand and kicked its legs apart. He met the depthless gaze and smirked. "Not tonight."

"Kade, what are you doing?" Melanie's voice, too close for her to be safe. He glanced up and found her standing at his shoulder, a hand pressed against her stomach as though the bullet that had passed through her had left a real wound. Lines of tension showed on her forehead and her lips were a shade paler than they should have been. "We need to get out of here. Stop playing around."

Not now.

"I told you to stay," he said as the phantom beneath him solidified. It regained strength and tested Kade's grip, trying to close the distance to Melanie.

"I don't follow orders barked at me by someone I just met. They've got one of the doors open," she said. "Can we leave? We should leave." Decision made, she stepped away.

Kade couldn't afford to let go. "No! Melanie. Melanie, wait. Look at me. Please look at me?" He craned his neck to keep an eye on her, willing her to turn around. "I need you to stay here." He wet his lips. "Please."

His attention had to be divided between watching her decide and wrestling the phantom down again. Each time Kade looked over his shoulder, the phantom strained upward, determined to buck him off if it couldn't work its way free.

"I need you," he blurted, truth tangled up in almost-embarrassing desperation. "I need your help. Please."

Now she slowed, stopped and turned. She'd given him a moment. So what if she was still in harm's way? She'd listened. If he could see her, he could help her. If she ran...

One thing at a time. "What can I do? What
are
you doing? You never answered me."

"Taking care of a mutual problem." He focusing on the struggling thing beneath him again. "I need you to repeat the words you hear me say. Every syllable, in the same order. You can't miss one. Can you do that for me?"

"Not when it's this hard to hear." She moved closer without prompting.
Too close
, the voice at the back of Kade's mind warned again. She knelt before he could tell her to back away. Her shoulder brushed his and the smell of her perfume, or maybe just her shampoo, surrounded him. She tucked her hair behind an ear. "Better," she announced. "Okay, now tell me what to say."

The phantom fought desperately, gnashing its teeth, corded muscle standing out in its neck. Having its intended target so close and yet untouchable must have been torture. Something like pity stirred for one brief moment in Kade's heart. He set his jaw and snuffed it out.

It wasn't a language that Melanie had ever heard before, and she'd studied some of the oldest and most obscure. Not ancient Sanskrit or Arabic or even Aramaic, though it could have been a cousin. At least in the same family.

Just like always, she was thinking too hard. Repeat the words, he'd told her, syllable for syllable, missing none. Hard to do with people shouting. Harder still when the man Kade held down began to scream.

The night could not have gotten any more bizarre if she'd taken drugs. First her sudden forwardness with Kade, a man she didn't know at all. And then the attack, or whatever this was. A close call and pure luck, she decided. The cramps had made her see things. She couldn't possibly have dodged a bullet. Even more impossible, it couldn't have simply passed through as if she was a ghost. The gunman missed. That was the only explanation.

Nothing explained how a man dissolved.

And yet, while she watched and echoed Kade's nearly unpronounceable words, his captive did just that, writhing and moaning and howling with pain. It made her stumble over the unfamiliar syllables. It made Kade curse and start again.

And then, when she thought that neither she nor her ears could take any more, it ended. The man on the floor gave one last, desperate heave, then went still as stone and faded away. He left no trace. He left no clothes. He simply drifted apart like so much smoke blown by a breeze.

Melanie blinked a few times at the place where he'd been, then gathered the shreds of her sanity and climbed to her feet. "I think," she told Kade's shoulders and the top of his head, "that I'd like to go home now. It's been...an interesting night."

"It's been a mess," he countered, unfolding as he stood as well. He shoved a hand through his hair, mussing its already-careless style. "Home sounds like a good plan. Let's go."

Another portion of her peace of mind shattered, not unlike the gunman. She closed her eyes briefly, determined to stop that comparison before it went too far. Her eyebrows lifted as she looked at Kade again. "Let's? Let us? As in we?"

Kade summoned something closer to a smirk than a smile. "Yeah," he said, reaching for her elbow. "Us as in we."

Melanie backed just out of reach. "I don't recall inviting you." The seduction she’d been planning suddenly seemed like the worst idea she’d had in a decade. At least.

"I didn't ask." He stepped forward, taking up the space she'd retreated. When he reached again, there was no avoiding him.

But caught didn't mean complacent. She tugged against his grip. "I'm more than capable of getting home on my own. I'll call a cab if that will make you let go of me."

"Room for two in a cab."

She'd hardly noticed that he had her moving, but now the cool air sweeping through the pub door that listed on its hinges grazed her cheek. It distracted her with the promise of freedom. Outside, in the middle of the milling crowd, maybe she could shake him off, lose him between bodies.

She might as well have announced her plans out loud. As they crossed the threshold, Kade slid closer, his arm banded around her yet again. He tucked her against his side in a way that made it clear there'd be no shaking him off as he steered her down the street toward home. He murmured apologies as he shouldered past bystanders. They shifted out of his way without complaint.

"My friend," Melanie tried. "I met somebody here."

"You can call her in the morning." He kept her moving as if she stood on a conveyor belt. She felt like she could dig her heels in, leave gouges in the concrete, and she'd still end up where he wanted her to go.

And a small, traitorous part of her thrilled at the notion. That bit didn't want to leave his side. He'd protected her. He'd fought off whoever
— whatever — those men were. She'd be a fool to send him away. Didn't she feel better now that they were leaving?

She frowned at herself, forced to admit she did. The aches that had plagued her
had faded almost to nothing. She prodded at her abdomen discreetly, seeking out the places that had doubled her with pain. No sore spots, no tenderness. How could that be?

"You have a couch?"

The question jarred her out of her inspection. When she looked up again, her apartment building was clearly in view. How fast were they walking? How long had she been staring at her navel? She glanced over her shoulder and saw no hint of the crowd they'd left behind. "What? Yes, of course I do." She stumbled on the next step. He kept her upright, bearing up her weight. They kept moving forward. "Why?"

"So I have somewhere to sleep
that isn't the floor."

"
What?
Wait." This time when she put her foot down, he let her jerk them to a halt. She slipped away from the curve of his arm and felt like she could breathe for the first time in hours. She leveled a finger at him when he moved toward her again. "You are
not
moving in with me. You're not even staying the night."

He stepped forward again and she backed away, teetering on the edge of the cur
b. He shoved his hands into his pockets and watched her, but he stayed where he'd stopped that time. Melanie let out the shallow breath she’d been holding and nodded in relief. He'd have to free his hands if he wanted to grab her. That second of distraction might give her more of a fighting chance.