Shadow Bound (24 page)

Zoe’s gaze found her and focused. Her eyes were wide with alarm. “What’s going on?”

“I wanted to have a private chat with you,” Talia said softly, careful of her voice. “Just you and me, with absolutely no interruptions.”

Zoe swallowed audibly. “What about?”

“Adam.”

“Uh…What about him?”

“Where is he?”

Zoe’s eyes flicked to the right, preparing to lie. “I don’t know. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No, he didn’t.” Damn him. “But I know you know.”

Zoe fidgeted with her feet, but met Talia’s gaze. “I have no idea. Honestly.”

Honestly? Even now Zoe’s emotions communicated her duplicity.

“You’re lying. You know where he went.”

“I don’t. Now let me go—you’re scaring me.” Zoe pulled her hand out of Talia’s grasp.

Talia knew the dark would swallow her, deafen her, choke her with its absolute vacuum of stimuli. She let the horror of that isolation settle in for a moment.

When Zoe began to shake, Talia touched her shoulder lightly and leaned into her ear. “I’m a banshee. I’m supposed to be fucking terrifying.”

“Let me out of here right now.” Zoe’s heart had to be beating furiously. The surrounding shadows trembled with her. Her terror swept across the fluid veils.

Talia was unaffected. The little brat was going to spill if Talia had to make her pee her pants in fright to do so. “Tell me where Adam went.”

“I don’t know.” Zoe shrugged definitively. Her eyes shined with tears, reflective like mirrors in the magic of darkness.

Talia kept her voice whisper low. “Then we’re at an impasse. We’ll just have to stay right here until we can come to some kind of agreement.” How to speed this up? Her turn to lie. “However, you should probably know that it may not be good for you to remain in my shadows for any length of time. These are the shadows of death and will by nature have an adverse effect on your longevity.”

Zoe rolled her eyes, batting away the wetness. “Abigail says I live to old age.”

Talia’s laugh burned in her throat. “Abigail can’t see the fae. There’s no way she could see this coming.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me.” Zoe crossed her arms over her chest.

“But I am hurting you. Right now. How bad it gets is up to you.”

She released Zoe’s shoulder and stepped back, allowing the screaming nothingness to inundate her again. Talia whipped the veils to quicken her thinking process, to goad her fear into real panic.

Zoe’s chest hitched as her breathing became irregular. Her heart beat frantically as black eyeliner ran down her cheeks and her trembles turned into full-bodied shakes.

Stupid kid. All dressed up to welcome Death. Truth was, she didn’t welcome death any more than anyone else.

As if in agreement, Zoe spoke, “He went to the
Styx
. To destroy the demon Death Collector.”

Shock washed Talia’s skin with ice. She dropped her shadows abruptly and the veils hissed back out of existence.

“He went where?” It was her turn to be horrified. “How did he plan to accomplish that? I thought only I could call Shadowman!”

“Adam found a way.” Zoe stepped back, her hand reaching for the doorknob.

Talia lifted the shadows again, flung out a hand, and held the door closed with a wave of darkness. “What way did he find?”

“Uh…I…” Zoe didn’t finish her answer, and Talia didn’t want her to. The implications were already spinning. Back at Segue, Philip had spoken of a way. An ancient death rite. To usher an immortal monster out of the world, someone had to sacrifice their life. A life to balance out death. Adam had fought the idea then. But now, he couldn’t possibly intend to—He did.

Over her dead body.

Talia grabbed at the back of her skirt. When the clasp wouldn’t come undone, she yanked hard on the fabric at the waistline, ripping it. The skirt puddled at her feet. The slip
followed. She didn’t have time to wrestle with the corset, not when Adam could be facing the demon at any moment.

“There was no stopping him, Talia.” Zoe’s words tumbled out in a rush. “Abigail said he was going to go, no matter what. He wouldn’t listen to her when she said he couldn’t win against the Death Collector. She couldn’t stop him.”

“Maybe
she
couldn’t,” Talia snapped back, throat aching, “but
I
could have.”

Damn Abigail and Zoe to hell. How hard would it possibly have been to lock him in a room for a couple of days? How hard would it be to counter his decision with one of their own? Change the future.

“We acted in your best interests. Me and Abigail
and
Adam. What will be, will be. You need to heal. If his way doesn’t work, then your scream is the only thing that can save us. You can be safe here.”

“You’ll tell me exactly where he is and how to get there, or I swear I will kill you myself.” With no other clothes available, Talia yanked on the skinny black leggings Zoe had worn before the party. Talia shoved her feet into Zoe’s discarded combat boots.

Zoe’s gaze hardened. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Talia’s voice rasped. No way to scream. Frustration at her weakness had her snapping the laces as she tightened them.

“Won’t. When you’re healed, then—”

“By the time I’m healed, Adam will be dead.” Talia stood. “And why should I care about saving the world if Adam isn’t in it?”

Talia ignored Zoe’s stricken face, took her roughly by the arm and made for the rear exit, dragging her out into the night.

“There’s no stopping him,” Zoe said.

“There’s no stopping me either,” Talia said. “Where do I go?”

When Zoe hesitated, Talia gripped harder and shook. “Where, damn it?” Her voice broke and she had to work for air.

“The ferry waits at the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin.”

“Ferry to where?”

“The
Styx
. It’s a boat, the Death Collector’s lair.”

Talia gathered shadow as she pulled Zoe down the slim lane of the alley to its junction at the street. Not a busy street, by any means. Dirty, littered, undoubtedly dangerous. Gang tags decorated a boarded building on the corner. A few blocks up, cars chased each other through a busy intersection. They could get a cab there.

The combination of anger and shadow gave Talia the strength to haul Zoe’s sniveling ass down the three blocks to the intersection. She’d have preferred to have left the girl back at the club, where she’d be safe, but who knew what important tidbits she’d left out? Talia didn’t trust the girl for a second.

For that matter, she didn’t trust Adam either.

Stupid man. What did he think he was doing? Going off and leaving her with a bunch of freaky babysitters. She’d kill him when she found him, if he weren’t already dead. And if he were dead, she’d call his sorry ghost back from Beyond and kill him all over again. Stupid,
arrogant
man.

When Talia reached the corner, she held her free hand up in the air while Zoe sulked.

“The Death Collector will kill you,” Zoe said. Her expression was partly mutinous, partly imploring. “I won’t be party to your death. You can’t make me go.”

“Oh, you’re going all right.” A taxi pulled up to the curb.

Talia opened the door and pushed her inside. Roughly.

“Where to?” the taxi driver asked.

“Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin,” Zoe muttered.

The cabbie shook his head. “No, ladies. They haven’t caught the Riverside Park murderer yet. I’m not taking you there.”

Zoe mouthed the word
wraith
with a look of triumph. “The park borders the dock,” she explained. “Someone or something in the park is preying on stupid people who venture there. It’s all but deserted now.”

Talia ignored the implied insult. “Sir, I’m going straight to the dock. I promise I won’t linger in the park. I’ll be safe.”

The man shrugged and pulled away from the curb into traffic.

Zoe sneered over her shoulder at Talia. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to do. How can you possibly help Adam now? All you’ll accomplish is to ruin the world’s chance at destroying the Death Collector.”

Talia smiled. “Not so. If Adam fails, and if I fail, then there is a world full of people who can give it a try themselves, sacrifice themselves to kill the demon.” Her voice grated painfully over the words, probably ruining all the healing she’d done that day. But her words did the trick.

Zoe went white.

“That’s right. Anyone, even you, can teach the Death Collector to die. You can lecture me all you want when you’re prepared to face him yourself. Until then, shut up and let me think.”

Okay. So the scream was gone. She still had her shadows. She couldn’t kill the demon, but maybe she could rescue Adam’s sorry—but mighty fine—ass. He rescued her, once upon a time. In that alley in Arizona, he’d pitted himself, weaponless, against a wraith and they’d come out alive. She could do the same for him now. Damn him.

The taxi traveled down West Seventy-ninth, dipped under an overpass rumbling with traffic, and turned into a wide circular drive surrounded by trees, presumably the lethal Riverside Park. The black ribbon of the Hudson River glimmered beyond, the city lights twinkling on the water. Its smell infiltrated the cab, yeasty and rotten.

Goose bumps spread up Talia’s back and across her scalp.

“Stop here,” Zoe said. She gestured to a break in the concrete barrier. “Down the steps. Keep to the sidewalk. You’ll want the
Charon
—it’s moored at the dock on the far right. The
deserted
one, you know, as in deserted because everyone knows to stay away. The ferryman will take you to the
Styx
, but please don’t make me go. I’ve seen what the wraiths do. I want to live.”

“If you’ve left anything out…” Talia began hoarsely.

“I haven’t. Go on and die now, if you want, just leave me here.”

“Fine.” Talia got out and slammed the door.

“Lady?” The driver asked, leaning out his window. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Talia didn’t look back as the taxi pulled away. She followed the concrete road to the steps, and then jogged down those to the center of the lower level of the concrete circle. A deserted café was dark and shuttered. The place echoed with silence.

Though deep in her shadowy cloak, Talia’s heart hammered as she traveled down the sidewalk and across the jog path. The gate to the pier was open, as if the ferryman were expecting her.

Something knocked against the planking with a lonely, hollow sound. Exactly the sound her heart was making in its own mooring.

At the end of a walkway, a man stood, leaning on a staff. She couldn’t make out much about him, but by the hunch of his shoulders, he seemed very old.

Talia released her cloaking veils as she approached.

He blinked up at her sudden appearance, but didn’t stop chewing on the gristle of his white-bearded chin. His face was weathered and wrinkled like a brown paper sack. The
faded plaid shirt he wore was far too warm for the summer night.

“Hello,” she said.

He chewed.

Talia frowned. “I need to get to the
Styx
. I was told you could take me.”

The old man chewed his whiskers again. “It’ll cost you.”

Damn it. “I don’t have any money with me, but I will come back tomorrow and pay you whatever you ask. I promise.”

The old man grunted. “I’ll take you to the
Styx
for a lock of that gold faery hair.”

The man seemed out of myth himself; Talia was not surprised that he could name her origins.

“A lock of hair?”

He nodded and gestured to a boat with an open-air seating area in the back. The interior was dirty, with a crust and smear of brownish red covering the rear seat. Probably blood.

Talia’s stomach rolled with nausea. “Okay.”

The old man pulled a pocketknife out of his pants pocket. He held the wood handle, glossy with age and handling, and flicked open a blade. He reached up and cut a curl from the mass on Talia’s shoulder.

“Done,” he said, sniffing at the curl. “Climb aboard.”

Talia scrambled down into the boat, sat at the edge of the malodorous filth, and held on for dear life.

The old man went to a grimy control panel and started the engine roaring. He angled out of the slip, away from the hum of the city, and into the lurching dark waters of the river.

No going back now.

T
HE
Charon
left the glittering banks of the Hudson behind. Talia tensed her body against the deep vibration of its engine and the choppy bounce of its progress on the water. Her nerves already had her stomach roiling. She couldn’t afford the extra encouragement of the boat’s movement. At least the speed of their passage brushed away the onboard smell of decay and whipped her hair in a sweet wind of revitalizing water spray.

They angled into dark waters spotted by the gleam of other boats, small and large. In spite of the considerable haze of the city’s light pollution, the sky above was brilliantly starcrusted, as if heaven had finally brought its attention to the goings-on of Earth.

Faster, faster,
Talia urged.

The shoreline fell behind. All hope of safety dimmed as the lights grew smaller. They traveled into an ocean of rippling darkness, as if toward the end of the world. She sought no refuge now, no hiding place from monsters or herself. All that was in her past. Running away was not an option, not when everything that mattered—good and bad—lay in front of her.

And suddenly, hell loomed on the deep.

The
Styx
was a great upside-down anvil of a war cruiser, its deck blazing with the kind of light that drew misguided
moths. The armored vessel hulked under the starlight, a product of industry and war, fitted and braced against nature.

Talia’s heart stuttered at the sight. No doubt the
Styx
had long seen the
Charon
’s approach. The demon Death Collector had to know someone was coming—another person ready to trade their humanity for immortality.

The old man brought the boat alongside the great ship with a wrenching scrape and idled near a narrow ladder. He turned, the pallor of his skin sickly yellowed in the ship’s light.

“The
Styx
.” He cocked his head at the wall of gray steel.

Talia’s nausea peaked as the wind died and the
Charon
rocked. She clenched her teeth against throwing up and gripped the side of the boat as mute terror blanked her mind.

“You want me to take you back?” The old man didn’t look like he cared much either way.

Talia shook her head slightly, so as not to be sick.

She could do this. Only yesterday her shadows had protected her and Adam during the failed attempt to save Custo’s life. And in shadow, she could manipulate objects with her mind. The combination of abilities would get her to Adam and then get them both to safety. She wasn’t asking for more than that. The destruction of the demon who called himself the Death Collector could wait for another time.

Right now was for Adam.

Her fear transmuted into an electric clarity that ran in a bristling current, just under her skin.

Talia stood, gathering shadow from the night. The cold, veils of darkness hung off her shoulders in billowing layers, at the ready. She pulled them more tightly around her to mask her boarding as she took hold of the ladder.

The rungs were chilly and wet on her hands.

A wraith—a woman with the slender face of an angel—leaned
down the ladder to look for the demon’s newest supplicant.

Talia waited, heart pounding. Below, the
Charon
pulled away, leaving her one choice. Up.

“Must have chickened out,” the wraith called to the others and ducked out of sight.

Talia continued her climb, and near the top she glanced about the deck. To one side, a raised helipad hosted a faster mode of transportation to and from the ship. Handy. Wraiths clustered nearby. Ten, twelve, their attention directed on a pair that were sparring. The cracking blows they landed each other would have killed any normal person.

With this distraction, Talia crawled on deck.

Across a flat gray expanse was a narrow doorway, rectangular with rounded edges, leading to the interior of a bulky metal structure.

She forced herself to breathe more slowly, her heart to ease its frantic pace. Freaking out would help no one. She’d start with inside rooms and work through the ship. Check every corner, carefully and methodically.

Buried in shadows, Talia kept to the edge of the deck as she moved toward the door. She insinuated herself along the natural shades of dark and light that fell in the sharp lines of the ship’s construction.

She glanced at the
Charon
, now a spark in the distance.

A deep-toned click and snap on deck brought Talia’s head back around.

The door was open, a figure just emerging.

A single glimpse of dense blackness, and time ground to a halt. The Earth stopped spinning on its axis. The ocean stilled and the stars winked out.

All of Talia’s senses were overridden by a roar of static in her ears.

The thing that crossed the threshold was
Wrong.
He might call himself the Death Collector, might style himself as a giver of immortal youth, but Talia’s mind and soul rang with the more apt term,
demon.

Had it not been for her grip on the side of the ship, Talia would have fallen to the deck in revulsion.

The demon was a snaking horror of black absence fitted in a sinuous twist around the body of a man. His human host. Deep in shadow, Talia could see the slick offal of the demon penetrating the host to his core. Whoever the man might’ve been was gone, his identity destroyed. Now his body, used and broken, shared his life with a terrible intelligence in writhing misery. Expression vacant, jaw slack, the man moved as if in a long nightmare, looking only for an end. Whatever end that might be was clearly beyond his caring.

The thought that Adam faced that horror stripped Talia of all hope that he might still be alive. The wraith soul-suckers were bothersome insects compared to the genocidal seethe of the demon. The only being powerful enough to destroy that
thing,
that condensation of defiling chaos, was Shadowman. Shadowman could be demon enough himself if need be. He and he alone could cut the demon out of the world.

A sudden pressure welled up inside her.

Scream. Now. Right now. Pour every drop of fae blood into one piercing sound. More instinct than impulse, the need was sharp and urgent.

Talia stifled a groan of abject frustration. Her throat ached to call her father, yet screaming was impossible with the constant suffocation that choked her. A wasted effort. Tears streamed down her face at her impotence.

She swallowed the gorge of sound with a shudder. Today was for Adam, but she would be back. She would open her mouth and shred the sky. The demon would know Death.

The wraiths on deck stopped their rough play and stood
in a thrall of attention, regarding the demon snake and his human host.

The host cleared the threshold and held the door to allow three snarling dogs to join him. Like great, rabid wolves, the dogs’ ears were pinned back, heads lowered. Their golden eyes peered in her direction.

No, not in her direction. They looked directly at her.

Talia stopped breathing and pressed her body into the metal wall at the edge of the ship as her heart gulped for oxygen.

The host’s face contracted into a half smile while the rest of his expression remained sallow and dumb, as if the demon had pulled a marionette string at the edge of the man’s sagging mouth.

“Banshee,” the host said. His voice grated as the demon puppeted him. “These are my hellhounds. They were bred in shadows far darker than yours. Shall I loose them to fetch you or will you come out and talk to me yourself?”

The dogs slavered in anticipation, wicked yellow teeth bared.

Talia’s heart clamored with alarm. Shadow had always been her refuge.

“Banshee. Though I have forever, I find I am impatient at present.” The host’s gaze slid to her. “I punish sneaking and subterfuge. Yours is the second attempt on my life tonight, and I guarantee that the other is regretting his actions now. I grow weary of being distracted from my work. Come out. Now.”

The second attempt on his life? Had to be Adam.

And if Adam “regretted” anything, he had to be alive to do so.

Alive. Talia clung to that as she released the shadow at her shoulders.

“Ah. There you are.” The black coil of demon turned his
host’s head. “Welcome, Banshee. You needn’t have boarded my ship like a diseased rat. The invitation has always been open for you.”

Talia remembered how months ago the wraiths had come to collect her for a “date” with their master. She’d discovered her scream too late to save Melanie.

Whatever the demon wanted with her—
No, thank you.

“I’d—” Talia’s hoarse voice broke. She tried again. “I’d rather die than become one of those things.” She flicked a glance at the gathered wraiths. One sneered back at her and worked his lower jaw in a threat, as if he could accommodate her declaration.

“No. No. That hungry life is not for you,” the host said. In his human eyes, a glimmer of surprise, contradicting the assurance of his demon-puppeted speech.

Perhaps the man was still in there after all.

“If you were to become a wraith,” he continued, “you could not bear me a child.”

Talia froze, midbreath. Her gaze shifted from the host to the demon and back again.

Bear him a what?

“Don’t look so shocked,” the host said. “If Death can get a child on a mortal woman, then surely I can get one on a Twilight half-breed. Our union will greatly accelerate the plans I have already put in motion with the wraiths, ensuring my success. The trifold combination of mortal, Twilight, and demon blood in one being will destroy the boundary between the mortal world and Twilight forever. No Death. And without Death, the heavens will fall as well, and I will reign over the ensuing chaos.”

Talia’s already tight stomach turned and she retched on the deck.

The host inclined his head. “Granted, our intercourse
will not be pleas urable for you, nor will the pregnancy. But I think the delivery will be worst.”

Talia swallowed to clear her mouth. “No. Never.”

She’d jump over the side first. Drown. There was no way she’d allow the demon to touch her. Not that way. Not any way.

The host’s lips pulled into a smile while his eyes wandered, at odds.

“We’ll see,” the host said. “How about we discuss the matter with your sweetheart? He claimed you were pregnant already, but that isn’t so, is it?”

Sweetheart. Yes, Adam was that, but also so much more. He was her Reason. He was her model of courage, of strength, of endurance. It would be pure joy to give
him
a child.

Talia’s eyes prickled with unshed tears. That future was all but lost.

“Jacob’s been playing with him for a while now.” The host worked up another false smile. “I should check on his progress. If I know Jacob, the upstart Adam Thorne should be all but broken.”

Talia raised her chin. The demon might know Jacob, but he obviously didn’t know Adam. Every cell of her body ached for what Adam must be suffering, but she had complete faith that the light of his soul was as bright as ever.

“You disagree?” The demon tried to inject mirth into the host’s tone, but he still sounded lifeless and sour.

Talia remained silent. She didn’t want to goad him to hurt Adam any more than he already had.

“Why don’t we go see, shall we? Let’s see how your Adam fares.” The host’s head jerked toward the group of wraiths. “Martin, bring our lady banshee along. I’m finally about to be entertained.”

“Blink once for yes, and twice for yes-right-now.” Jacob’s laugh puffed fetid air on Adam’s face.

Adam closed his eyes, shutting out the small, windowless utility room and his brother’s contorted expression. Adam tightly sealed his eyes so there could be no confusion:
Never. Ever. Would he become a wraith
.

He would have answered a definitive and resounding NO, but his mouth was taped shut. He’d have flipped Jacob the bird, but his hands were taped behind his back and had long since gone numb.

“How much do you want to bet you will?” Jacob sounded happy. Delighted even. The tables had been turned, and he was enjoying every minute of it.

Adam kept his eyes closed and assessed his situation. There was no getting out of here alive. Not only was he bound to a chair like Custo had been, but he was pinned to the chair by a knife in his side. The blade pierced the flesh at his side and was rammed into the wooded backrest. Hurt like bloody hell.

But maybe…just maybe…if he pulled hard and fast against the blade, he’d hit something vital and bleed out quickly. Maybe he could bring on Shadowman yet.

Something clicked—the latch of the door—and a rush of rotten air circulated through his holding cell.

A wave of dank hopelessness swamped Adam. He could name the source of the feeling: the demon and his host were back. The demon’s dogs whined in the corridor.

Adam gritted his teeth in a show of pain to cover his inner determination. Providence had just handed him the opportunity of a lifetime. Just a few more moments to let the demon get all the way inside the room and Adam would throw his weight to the side to drag the blade into his belly. He prayed the knife was razor sharp.

Ready, set, g—

A woman sobbed, low and hoarse.

Adam froze, his thundering heart clutching hard. He opened his eyes.

The demon snake and his host entered, grin jacked up while his eyes wildly tracked around the room. Behind him, Talia was grasped in the unforgiving hands of a wraith.

The sight was a sucker punch to Adam’s soul.

Talia. How? Had to be a trick.

Talia swayed forward with a choked cry, but the wraith brought her roughly back.

Not a trick. She was really there.

Adam’s myriad hurts vanished beneath a storm-surge of terror. The threat of Jacob’s kiss was nothing to this. In fact, nothing Jacob could do to his person scared him anymore.

Abigail had warned him that he hadn’t yet known true fear. He should have listened when he had the chance. True fear has nothing to do with what might happen to you, however painful or vile that might be. True fear is all about what might happen to someone you love.

The host canted his head toward Jacob. “I told you I don’t tolerate weapons aboard my ship.”