Shadow Bound (9 page)

Adam knew the answer was locked in a cell under Segue.

Jacob suffered from no disease or demonic possession. This was so much worse, something Adam hadn’t allowed himself to consider. Jacob was a monster by choice.

Talia watched Adam’s demeanor change. His gaze sharpened, face flooding with color. The curve of his jaw became
more pronounced. His grip on the table whitened his knuckles. If she were touching him, she knew she’d be feeling his dark passion all over again. One overwhelming goal. To kill.

“Does it really matter if it’s Jacob’s choice or not?” Armand whined.

Adam knocked once, hard, on the table and strode from the room. Talia knew exactly where he was going. She’d lost her family as well, and if there were answers to be had, a betrayal to identify, she wouldn’t be diverted. Adam was all about answers; he’d be heading to Jacob’s cell. She was glad she didn’t have to be present for the impending interview.

Custo also rose. “I think we’re done for the day. Thank you all for participating. This has been”—he glanced at Talia—“very interesting.” Then he rounded the table to follow Adam.

The room erupted into discussion.

Jim’s strident voice cut through the din. “What may seem like superstition to you, Armand, may indeed have a scientific basis. Take the Indian Fakirs, who can control their heart rate…”

“Been here a week and already stirring things up.”

Talia turned to the voice at her ear. Spencer.

“It was just an idea.” Talia gathered her notebook and pen and sidled around her chair to leave. She wanted to think through the idea herself. Outline how she arrived at the conclusion. Diagram the implications. Find a way to help Adam.

“Touched a nerve,” he said, following her. “Mind if I walk you to your office?”

She stepped back, out of reach. She’d had enough touching for one day. “Uh…I was actually going back to my room. I’m exhausted. My recovery is frustratingly slow going. A little later?”

His brows gathered in concern. “Then I’ll walk you there.”

“Oh, no. Not necessary.” Didn’t the man know an excuse when he heard one?

“Please. We can talk on the way.” Apparently, he did.

Talia gestured him toward the door. At least Spencer effectively parted the crowd.

“Dr. O’Brien!” Jim waved his hand over the group of people.

“She’ll talk to you later,” Spencer called back on her behalf.

Talia kept one step behind Spencer to the elevator, but once inside, had no choice but to hear him out.

“Adam told me that you can think outside the box when he was putting your hiring before the SPCI panel. I see now what he meant.” He flashed a charming grin. He’d have been more charming if he’d left her alone, though.

“I thought Segue was all Adam’s.”

Spencer waggled his head back and forth as if conceding a minor point. “The arrangement is more complicated than that. Adam began the institute, funds it himself, and decides on the research protocols, but he does so at the…sufferance of SPCI. When we discovered that Adam had captured, confined, and was studying a wraith, we almost shut him down. To make a long story short, we finally agreed on oversight, in the form of yours truly, and an active exchange of information.”

Talia kept her mouth closed, waiting as the elevator number blinked from one to two to three to four. The arrangement must chafe Adam. He seemed to prefer to be in charge of things.

“It’s actually in the best interests of everyone. Between you and me, SPCI is rather rigid in its approach to the wraith phenomenon. They never would have considered near-death as a line of inquiry. I have to admit that I’m occasionally
swayed by the unconventional ideas that get batted around here. Just now, for example.”

“Like I said, it was just an idea.” Talia stepped out of the elevator and started down the hall.

“So here’s my question: what would a person stand to lose if they made the choice to become a wraith?”

“Literally, their humanity.” Surely he could see that. “One look at Jacob and, in spite of his appearance, there’s no way to classify him as Homo sapiens. Only mythology and magic have labels appropriate for his kind. Hence, wraith.”

Talia stopped outside her door. She punched in her code and made a mental note to change it immediately. She didn’t like the way Spencer looked over her shoulder. The lock disengaged, and Talia opened the door.

Spencer raised a hand to stop it from shutting again. “And what is humanity, really?”

Talia frowned. She had no idea where he was going with this.

“Just playing the dev il’s advocate here. What is humanity? And doesn’t everyone lose it eventually? Is Jim’s Lady Amunsdale human?”

“I really couldn’t say.” Talia slipped inside. “That’s his area of expertise.”

“What I’m suggesting, Dr. O’Brien, is that human nature, in its very essence, is about change. No other species on this planet is aware of change. Aware of passing into and out of life to somewhere or something else. From body to spirit. Your work actually supports my conclusions—the tunnel, the bright light, moving from one state to another.” His hand flipped left to right to demonstrate.

“Yes. So?”

“Perhaps becoming a wraith is no different. A passage from one state to another, with the single difference of remaining on this plane of existence.”

Single difference! “You forget—they feed on their brothers and sisters.”

“That’s just the cycle of life. We are all predators, in our own way. We all do what it takes to sustain ourselves. Lie, cheat, steal, murder. They are no different.” He flashed his lopsided grin again.

He couldn’t be serious.

A weird light gleamed in his eyes. “Maybe they’re better.”

Talia’s jaw dropped.

Spencer abruptly laughed, brought his hands up to sur-render. “Hey. Just playing dev il’s advocate here.”

“Yeah, okay.” Talia closed the door in his face.

“
O
UT
.” The guards took one look at Adam’s face and left the outer atrium to Jacob’s cell.

Sudden movement on the monitor drew his attention. Jacob on his feet, running his hands through his hair to bring the lanky mop under control. Then he brought his face up to the camera while his body effected the grave and servile bow of a butler.
May I help you?
Always mocking him.

“You chose this.” Adam dropped his hands on the console for support.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Jacob inclined his head as if trying to understand what Adam implied.

Playing them both for fools. Not anymore.

“You chose to be this monster,” Adam clarified, careful to enunciate each syllable. “Your condition isn’t a new disease, an unanticipated consequence from using an exotic drug, or some strange possession. You
chose
this. You
want
this.”

“And?” Jacob blinked rapidly in an outward show of extreme patience at Adam’s stupidity.

Stupid is exactly what Adam felt. The idea that Jacob, the scion of the Thorne family, the prudent businessman and philanthropist, his fucking
big brother
would choose to become a monster had never occurred to him. The man Adam had known was brilliant, fearless, and vain in his responsibility
for the legacy of the Thorne family. This devolution was beneath him.

“Why?” Adam’s throat had tightened and the word came out in a broken croak.

Jacob straightened. “Don’t be dense.”

“You killed Mom and Dad. On purpose.” Fresh pain spread across Adam’s chest like blood from a mortal wound.

“Stop whining. They were going to die anyway, eventually.”

“You fed on them,” Adam said through clenched teeth.

“Like a babe to a mother’s teat.” Jacob sighed and grinned.

A hundred wonderful tortures sprang to Adam’s mind, held at bay these many years only by the burden of family duty.

But now, desperate fantasies grew in Adam’s mind like a dark garden of twisted flowers denied sustenance too long. Colorful creations that would trap and teach Jacob what a monster really was. Exercises in the limits of pain and loneliness. Acts that rivaled a wraith’s soul feeding.

First, Adam had to know why. “You had everything handed to you. Born to wealth, the best education, a loving family, opportunities to do anything you ever dreamed, a girlfriend who loved you. Hell, you had plans, years in the making, to build Thorne Industries to dominate global markets. Why this?”

Jacob shrugged. “I got a better offer.”

“What could possibly be better than what you had?”
You ungrateful son of bitch.

“I got Forever. This—” Jacob looked around his cell, mouth pursed in distaste. “—this will pass. The world as we know it will pass, and after everything is gone, I will still be here. Then I can do anything I want, whenever I want.
That’s
global power.”

“Tell me how you did it.”

“You know I won’t.”

“What if I want to join you?”

Jacob snorted. “You don’t have the kind of long-term vision necessary. You’re stuck in the past with Jena and Michael.”

“That’s Mom and Dad, to you,” Adam bit out.

“See what I mean?”

Rage burned in Adam’s chest, cauterizing the wound that was the loss of his parents. “I will end you. I swear it. I will find the way to undo this mockery of immortality, and I will tear you apart with my bare hands.” Already his hands itched,
ached,
to enact the madness in his mind.

“Is that any way to talk to your older brother?”

Brother? How could that…that
creature
call himself his brother? Just because they shared the same gene pool? Adam didn’t think so. Not anymore. Siblings could be disowned. All natural feeling of connection and obligation severed. Happened all the time.

Adam closed his eyes and willed his heart away from the wraith in the cell. Not his brother. He sought cold indifference. A removal of all feeling. Not his brother.

Jacob laughed. A light, gleeful little chuckle that poured gasoline on the fire of Adam’s rage.

Adam choked. He had to get out of there.

He stumbled to the door, tapped numbers into the panel, and tripped out into the corridor beyond.

The guards brushed silently by, eyes askance, and resumed their watch within.

Custo leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, waiting.

“Why are you still here?” Adam yelled. “Why aren’t you off living your own life, away from this constant nightmare? Find a woman, settle down, and have a bunch of brats.”

“That bad, huh?” Custo lowered his gaze.

“Talia was right. He chose to become a wraith. Admitted it freely, as if I should have known all along. And I should have.” Adam fisted and released his hands. They shook uncontrollably. He didn’t know what to do with them short of wrapping them around Jacob’s neck.

“Not you. It’s not in your nature to think that someone close to you can be that destructive by design. You save people. It’s what you do. It’s what you have always done.”

I was blind.

“Did you know?” Adam asked. Had Custo known all along as well?

Custo pushed off the wall and gestured toward the elevator. “No, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not here for him. I’m here for you. You’re the closest thing to family I’ve ever known. And family sticks. You taught me that every time you pulled my sorry ass out of trouble.” Custo’s mouth curved. “Remember that business with the boat?”

Family sticks.
What the fuck was family? Adam sure as hell didn’t have a clue anymore.

“I wanted to impress a girl,” Custo continued. “You took the blame.”

“You’d have been thrown out of school.” If Custo were trying to distract him, he was doing a piss-poor job. Memory lane was not exactly where Adam wanted to be.

“That’s part of why I did it, too. If I had been thrown out, maybe my family would’ve taken notice of me.” Custo had been dumped in a boarding school at nine. No visits. No communication.

“They never realized your value.”

Custo shook his head. “What I’m trying to say is that my family did take notice. My family was with me. I knew it the moment you told the cops that you stole the boat.”

Adam looked over at Custo. His right arm. His friend. In every way that mattered, his brother.

The anger inside Adam cooled somewhat, abated to a few degrees above that six-year-old steady burn. It allowed him to gulp at air and smooth his expression. He could live with this trade. Hell, he had been living with it, working toward answers because of Custo’s dogged support.

“Are we done being sappy yet?” Custo punched the elevator button.

“Yeah, I think so.” Adam fought to bring his shakes under control. Flexed the last of the tremors from his hands.

The door slid open. Custo glanced back as he entered. “By the way, if ever there was somebody who needed to settle down with a bunch of brats, it’s you.”

Bring children into this world? Never.

Through the peephole in the door, Talia watched Spencer swagger back to the elevator. She had to do something. Give Adam something. He might appear calm and controlled on the surface, but she’d felt the grief and pain that roiled beneath, and how close he was to becoming overwhelmed by the bright white fury that laced his being. He couldn’t go on like this for much longer.

And with Spencer spouting nonsense about how wraiths might be an evolutionary step up? No wonder Adam was sick over his brother.

The elevator pinged, Spencer stepped in, and the doors…finally…closed.

Talia eased out of her apartment, took a sharp right, and opted for the stairs. She coded herself into the stairwell and hurried down to the main level of the hotel portion. She exited by the kitchen, where the stairs terminated, and chanced the elevator—yes, empty!—to the office and laboratory subfloors.

If Adam already knew so much about her anyway, he might as well know what she’d discovered about Shadowman, her
father. The research that had almost cost her life in the heat of Arizona.

None of it suggested how Shadowman could help kill Jacob and set Adam free. She didn’t even know what Shadowman was. A ghost, like Adam suggested? That didn’t feel right, and it didn’t account for her abilities either. And why would Jacob fear a ghost?

Talia coded into her office and headed directly for her laptop.

A thought niggled in her mind: What Adam needed—though she’d never tell him,
no way never
—was that other dev il, Death, the dark thing with the red eyes inside the black wind of her scream. The monster. The one who slaughtered the wraiths with a sweep of his scythe, and took Melanie down, too. Then had the perversion to—Talia shivered with the memory—to caress her cheek.

That monster could kill Jacob. Easy. Jacob should fear
him.

She selected the file of images she’d been amassing, her research on Shadowman. ctrl A. Opened them all. She could give Adam this much at least.

They blinked one by one, layering onto the screen. As she waited, her mind turned inward, shifting the puzzle pieces of her origin around:

Jacob feared Shadowman, whom she’d met upon her momentary death, who likely had her ability to alter perception. But it was the monster who could kill him, called by her scream.

Two entities, and she was connected to both. One desired effect.

The heuristic rule of Occam’s razor said the simplest theory was the best.

Why
two
entities? It made no good sense. Not unless…

Her stomach turned. The room suddenly warped around
her, and she clutched the table before her. It couldn’t be, could it? Was her heritage so horrible? Her birthright so despicable?

Yes.
Somehow she’d always known. It’s why she was alone.

If she tried, she knew she could probably fit the puzzle together now. If she could summon the courage to face the truth, she could probably name Death. He was her father, Shadowman.

Adam left Custo in the elevator and headed to his office, grim anticipation redoubling in his blood. If Jacob had chosen to become a wraith, then someone must have offered him the choice. Jacob was never going to give away the identity of this individual, but perhaps the algorithms of The Collective tracking program could be modified to isolate the general location of the source.

Adam turned a corner to find Talia rapping on his door. His pulse quickened. His gaze darted up and down her body, but it was hard to get a sense of her curves when she was still wearing the shapeless clothes Patty had selected. He hoped new ones would come in soon. She was too young and pretty to be dressed like that.

“Can I help you with something?” If she was here, then maybe she wasn’t angry anymore. Maybe he could have a real discussion with her. Work through her idea, see if her unique talents offered any solutions.

Talia jumped and whirled. Her hair slipped, strand by strand, from a knot at the nape of her neck. He didn’t know why she bothered—the curls obviously rejected constraint.

“Sorry for startling you.” Adam slowed his approach. First day on the job and she’d shaken up Segue. Of course, that’s what he’d hoped. He’d wanted answers, and she’d given him one big enough to turn his world upside down.

“Do you have a minute?” She tucked a strand behind her
ear. Her eyes were strained. Sad, maybe. Or worried. Something had bothered her deeply.

“Of course. Come on in,” Adam said, coding the lock. He reached around her to the lever that opened the door, his body surrounding hers for a moment. Her scent hit him, dark and sweet, an exotic fragrance more suited to her shadows than sterile Segue. The combination made him want to drop his head into her hair. Breathe deeper. His weight on the handle opened the door and she moved out of his circle and into his work space.

It took a moment for his head to clear before he followed her into his own office.
Employee,
he reminded himself. He couldn’t ward off Gillian with that excuse and then pursue Talia. Besides, Talia was messed up enough as it was. She didn’t need him complicating her stay here. Damn her fairy eyes.

“What can I do for you?” The door closed behind him. His gaze automatically flicked to the monitor—Jacob reposed in a corner, a small smile of satisfaction on his face, still gloating from their argument—and then back to Talia.

“First of all, I need to change the code on my apartment door,” Talia said. She glanced at Jacob as well, her expression carefully circumspect, but she didn’t comment. “Spencer saw me punch it in.”

“You invited Spencer to your apartment?” Adam had already warned her about the implications of SPCI being aware of her abilities. She was too trusting. Next time he sparred with Spencer, he was going to make sure he kicked his ass extra hard.

In her room. Damn.

“He followed me up. Wanted to discuss my ideas about immortality and choice. He spoke as if becoming a wraith weren’t such a bad thing after all. As if what they did wasn’t…abhorrent.” She frowned, a worry line forming between her
brows. She, who’d seen what the wraiths were capable of and had been hunted herself, would not be able to tolerate any mind games on the subject.

“You want me to talk to him? Tell him to lay off?”

“I can fight my own battles, thanks. I just want my pass code changed.”

Adam sighed. “Spencer has master codes, regardless. As do Custo and I, for security reasons. We have to be able to get inside any room in the event of an emergency.”

“I don’t want him or anyone else going in my room.”

“Talia…” he argued, but his heart wasn’t in it. The thought of Spencer touching her, of him making himself at home in her apartment, took all the strength out of Adam’s argument. He didn’t want Spencer in there either.

And Segue Security? Perhaps in this one case, a modification was called for. Something along the lines of Talia Security. “All right,” he conceded. “I can disable his access to your office and apartment, but I am going to retain mine and Custo’s. Nonnegotiable.”

She nodded. “I can live with that. Thanks.”

Adam swiveled to face his computer. Called up the security system. Indexed Talia’s account. Entered his administrative override. “What do you want your new code to be?”