SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (49 page)

It was through her music that she lived.

That my mother had lived
, Caterina thought, recalling the passion she had felt as a small child when her mother had played the piano for her; the way her mother’s fingers had coaxed life from the keys much like she now did with a stroke of her bow and the deft touch of her fingers on the strings of her cello.

Or at least like she had up until the cancer had put an end to her music, bringing her life to a close. Except now she was being told something different.

Caterina had never thought about eliminating the tumor. Every prognosis so far had been that she was terminal. Now these new doctors were telling her that she might not only live, but that she might actually see again too. She didn’t dare believe that she would be able to get her old life back completely, as well as her sight but . . .

"You think I'll be able to recover? To see again?" Caterina asked, needing to be sure she had understood correctly.

"The risks are great, my dear," Dr. Wells urged gently.

"But you qualify for the human trials because of the advanced state of your illness, Ms. Shaw," Dr. Edwards added, annoyance at his partner evident in the staccato beats of his voice.

Her advanced state which could possibly bring death even with this treatment
, Caterina thought. Not that she feared death. What she did fear was letting the pain in her head rob her of the one thing she could not live without.

Her music.

She knew without hesitation that it was worth any risk to regain that part of her. To drive back the illness so she could play her cello once more and reanimate her heart for as long as she had left if the treatments couldn't stop the tumor.

"What do you need me to do?"

Chapter One

Six months later

Mick Carrera understood what kind of man he was.

Ruthless.

Determined.

Skilled in the art of killing.

People came to him when no one else could handle their problems because Mick either solved their problems or eliminated them – if Mick thought elimination was justified. Some scruples remained buried in his soul, a secret he closely guarded. In his line of work, having scruples equated to weakness.

Dr. Raymond Edwards had presented him with the kind of job that possibly ended with elimination, although Edwards hadn’t come right out and said so during their short telephone conversation. The doctor had skirted around the subject with the skill of a ballroom dancer, insisting time and time again that all he required were the services of a security specialist to assist with a problem at their facility.

Mick’s initial misgivings made him wonder why he had even come to the doctor’s office for this additional discussion. His typical clientele preferred meeting places that were much less public, but then again, maybe such transparency meant that the doctor had been truthful about the nature of this assignment.

He scoped out the office as he entered, taking note of the fact that there was only one entrance in and out. Not good in case of the need for a quick escape.

As he passed a credenza located beneath a wall filled with diplomas, framed news articles and photos, he noticed a small bronze statue of a horse mounted on a heavy marble base.

The size and weight of the statue would make it a handy weapon for either cracking open a man’s skull or breaking through the plate glass windows which lined one long wall of the office. The clear windows were now darkening, the color becoming as deep and dense as squid ink and likely for the same reason – concealment.

Mick had noticed all the high tech security on his way through the entrance of the building. He had expected it even while worrying about it. He knew his image would end up saved on a hard drive somewhere from the assorted closed circuit cameras, but if Dr. Edwards was on the up and up, this was one job that was too good not to consider.

“I thought you might like some privacy,” the man behind the desk said as he rose and offered his hand.

“Dr. Raymond Edwards,” the man said.

Mick shook his hand and nodded. “Mick Carrera.”

As Mick sat, he caught a glimpse of another security camera behind the desk, aimed directly at his chair. When Edwards tracked his gaze, he said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Carrera. I’ll make sure all traces of you are erased from our systems.”

“I appreciate your understanding,” he said, even while wondering again why a supposedly distinguished scientist like Raymond Edwards seemed compelled to seek out the services of a man like him. He wondered what else the good doctor had erased from the company’s security videos.

Dragging his attention to the man seated behind the desk, he listened as Edwards offered a rather lengthy introduction about the work that his biotech company did and their many accomplishments. Edwards' manner was outwardly confident and business-like, but Mick couldn't help but notice how the doctor kept his right hand on the face of the file on his desk and fiddled with one corner of the thick folder, thumbing it again and again. The curled corner of the papers confirmed that Edwards had opened that file more times than the good doctor wanted him to know.

SHADOW FALL

by Erin Kellison

Table of Contents for SHADOW FALL

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dear Reader

About the Author: Erin Kellison

Books by Erin Kellison

Shadowman – Preview Chapter

Shadow Fall: Epigraph

The Faerie have no concept of time, breath of life, or gift of death. They are Other, neither good nor evil, and therefore capable of both extremes. They inhabit the twilight Shadowlands, a
between
space that buffers mortality from the hereafter, where magic is thick, influencing human dreams and nightmares.

The greatest of the Fae, Shadowman, also known as Death, guarded the veil and couriered souls across the divide for millennia upon millennia.

One day, Death fell in love and abandoned his post. As a direct consequence of his actions, the boundary between mortality and the Shadowlands thinned and is now…
permeable
to beings on both sides.

—from
The Shadowlands Treatise
, by Talia Kathleen Thorne, The Segue Institute

Shadow Fall: Prologue

A fist to his jaw snapped Custo’s head to the side. His ear roared as a storm of broad heat spread across his cheek and behind his left eye. He shuddered with the swell of ache that followed, each beat of his heart searing a lightning strike of pain through his skull as dark clouds gathered in his mind.

Focus.

He flexed his hands against the bonds that cut into his wrists—not to escape, that was impossible—but to control the wicked-slick fear that might wheeze out of him in a weak moment.

He was going to die. The trick now was to die well. No sniveling allowed.

Spencer’s face loomed into Custo’s blurred view. His brown hair was close-cropped, just shy of a buzz. A black earbud connected him to the rest of his team, the covert government agency that investigated paranormal activity. They were supposed to be the good guys, but something had gone terribly wrong. Spencer had always been a bastard, but colluding with the wraiths made him a traitor.

“Just tell me where Adam is, and I’ll let you go. There’s really no need for this—we’re going to find him anyway. He doesn’t need to know it was you,” Spencer said.

A wet, warm trickle found the channel beneath Custo’s nose. The coppery smell filled his head.

Adam would know, and worse, Adam would forgive.

A rough scrape—metal on the floor. A coin of light pressure on his foot.

Custo cracked his eyes.
What now—?

Spencer had positioned one of Adam’s sleek chairs directly in front of his own and levered himself into the seat, close enough to bump knees. With Spencer’s weight in the chair, the pressure on Custo’s foot increased. A bone ached, burned, then snapped with a sizzle of white-hot sparks that shot up his calf. Reality slipped out of focus for a fraction of a moment.

Spencer sat back in the chair, a friendly smile on his face. “Really, I’ll let you
walk
right out of here. Just tell me where Adam is.”

Spencer loved games, loved winning. The only way to thwart him was to beat him into the ground, or not to play. There was no winning today. It was better to think of something else.

Custo focused beyond Spencer, scanning the bedroom for a distraction. The New York City loft was typical Adam Thorne—clean lines of modern, uncluttered wealth in industrial grays and blacks, accented by bold colors—a strong red in the case of the bedroom, which detailed the side table and the low Asian bed centered on the opposite wall. In the abstract painting above, the red deepened to a
sangre
splatter.

Sangre.
Blood. Custo dropped his gaze to the wide-planked wood floor.

“You must know where he is.” Spencer gripped Custo’s hand, his urgency overriding his previous levity.

I thought he was here. We were supposed to meet here.
Adam had brought Talia to the loft for safekeeping. Custo was to rendezvous with them, and together they would strategize an offensive strike on the wraiths’ locus of power. Adam had even checked in with Custo several times over the course of the evening to monitor his progress.

Something must have happened, and Adam and Talia bolted.

“He tells you everything.” Spencer found Custo’s index finger. Lifted it away from the arm of the chair.

Draw this out, and maybe they can escape.

Custo’s breath caught in his chest as his finger came to a burning right angle with the back of his hand. He gritted his teeth—a molar had loosened—and waited for the—

Pop. Custo shivered under the break of his cold sweat, then surged against the bonds that held him to the chair. Too fucking tight.

He just had to hold out a little longer. Long enough for Adam and Talia to get to safety.

“So sorry,” Spencer said, pulling the finger back into alignment. He twisted it this way and that. The little bones screamed. “I think it’s broken.”

Very funny. Only nine more to go.

“What about that freak Talia?” Spencer lifted the middle finger. Custo tried to pull his hand back, but the damn ropes held him firmly to the chair.

Talia. Yeah, she was a little odd. No doubt about it. One scream and her dark daddy Shadowman came to the rescue. Handy having Death for a father.

Death. Custo watched as a female wraith glided from the corner of the room and settled onto Adam’s bed to lounge against the pillows, her hungry gaze meeting his. A thin, pale brunette. She looked human, and at one time she was, but something had changed her and made a monster of the woman. A soul-sucker. The Segue Institute, a private organization that had teamed with Spencer’s government group, had been dedicated to discovering the source of the human-wraith transformation and curing it, if possible. The focus had shifted to full war when Talia deduced that wraiths were monsters by choice, forgoing humanity for immortality.

Pop. Custo’s hand twitched in an acute spasm of agony, double that of the first break. He breathed deeply, lungs straining for control.

Spencer selected another.

Heart lurching in his chest, Custo ground his teeth together as the pressure on his thumb increased to liquid fire, but pissed himself anyway.

Spencer lurched back with a laugh. “Whoa, buddy! Ya scared to die?”

“Not as scared as you.” Custo’s voice was gravel, the sound rumbling from his chest.

“I’m not the one who peed my pants.”

The sour-sweet smell lifted into the room and burned through the coppery scent of blood.

“You”—Custo put his tongue to his loose tooth—“you turned coward the moment you sided with the wraiths.”

The wraith woman winked. “On the contrary, takes nerve to be in the same room with a hungry one.”

Spencer ignored her. He gave a huge sigh and rolled his eyes heavenward. “You just don’t get it, Custo. You never did. There’s no fighting immortality. Adam and I have been over this a million times. What the wraiths do may not be pretty—feeding on the life essence of their human forebears—but it is a natural evolutionary step toward conquering Death. I merely read the writing on the wall.”