Shadowglass (23 page)

His eyes brightened as he studied my hipbones. “So . . . Your power is that Kane did not know you?”

“I guess. Kind of.”

He poked at my skirt, dubious. “I do not know you. Show me.”

Dread crept beneath my skin like a prickly rash. “You what?”

“Show me how you tricked him.”

Horrid light dawned. I swallowed cold nausea. “You want me to . . . ?”

He grabbed my hand and kissed it, his lips a warm tingle on my knuckles. “Touch me like you did him. Trick me so I know how it’s done. I must know.”

I tried to yank away, but the rope savaged my wrist and his lips lingered, tasting me, his tongue curling sweetly around my thumb. I struggled, anger flaring. “That’s got to be the worst line I’ve ever heard. Custard mountain, loverboy. In your dreams. No way.”

He did something swift and hard under the table, and my wrist ropes jerked free.

My wings sprang tight and ready before I realized what was happening. I had only a second of freedom, and I wasted it stunned.

He grabbed my hands and jammed them down beside my head, pinning me harder than the ropes and just as effective. My wrists knobbled on the table, bruising in his smooth fingers. His strong chest crushed my breasts, squeezing away my breath. His full mauve lips hovered close to mine. His eyes dazzled me, and that crooning banshee voice twinkled with persuasion. “Obey. Obey, or I drink. I’ll have your secret one way or the other.”

My blood boiled, searing my veins with electric fury. Heavensent or not, he was just another bully, using brute strength to get his way. If I defied him, he’d drink me, whatever that meant, but it couldn’t be good.

Sacrifice my dignity for safety. Humiliation or pain. Story of my sorry life.

But safety wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. If Indigo gave me one thing tonight, he gave me that. And pain didn’t scare me anymore.

Satisfaction licked in my veins like deepest pleasure, and my anger filled me, sexual, stroking me inside like a lover. I jerked my head forward, pressed my forehead into his and grinned at him, defiance blazing in my heart. “Fuck you, Akash from the sky. Show me what you got.”

He grinned back, sharp like a spike in my heart, and mashed his lips onto mine.

Blood, salt, dust. Hard lips dragging on mine, impossibly strong. I couldn’t wrench my head away. His tongue squirmed between my lips, forcing into the gaps between my teeth, levering my mouth open. I clenched my teeth, but he forced my jaw apart, and the jagged edges of his teeth jammed in mine and I couldn’t close my mouth.

Oh, this was worse than Joey’s slimy webbed fingers. My face hurt. My lips sliced open on his teeth, and blood ran into my mouth and down my chin. His tongue raped me, hot muscle scouring my mouth, invading, tasting, searching. I squirmed my throat muscles to avoid him, but he wrapped his tongue around mine and pulled, hard.

The skin inside my mouth stretched horribly, like a sock pulled inside out. Pain seized my throat. I yanked my wrists, but he crunched his fingers tighter, and my bones grated, hot spikes thudding in. Sickness clenched a fireball in my stomach. Perversely I willed it to explode, to splash up into his mouth and taste really bad.
Drink this, asshole
.

He sucked, a banshee growl rumbling deep in his throat. Suction yanked my tonsils taut, and at last my stomach heaved, the horrid cramp a ferocious delight.

But it wasn’t vomit that came up.

It was something fat and spiky like a hot rambutan, scraping inside my chest with angry claws as he dragged it out of me. It fought, this spiky thing, wriggling like a trapped rat, and ghastly terror watered my guts.

He was drinking me. Whatever fairy strangeness I had, he’d swallow it whole and throw the wrapper away.

A scream swelled my larynx. I fought his awful grip, thrashing my head and my arms and everything else I could move. But he just held me down and forced his tongue in harder.

My desperate cry smothered in his mouth. My jaw wrenched tight. The spiky ball ripped up inside my neck, tearing my throat to stinging shreds. My muscles weakened like melting jelly, and I tried to struggle, but my strength was gone. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. The sound of my own death screeched like claws on a blackboard in my ears, sharp with cruel mirth and glassy shards of mirror.

But my last desperate rageflame flickered bright. He wouldn’t get me like this. Not without a fight. Mirrorbright courage flashed my muscles with one last defiant spark, and I sucked in a shuddering flower-scented breath through my nose.

Confusion, disbelief, the oppressive silence of his beloved sky. Loneliness, the raw disgust in some dark-haired waif’s blue eyes tearing at his heart. Desperate yearning for squalid sensation he doesn’t recognize or understand. The awestruck realization of helplessness with a demon’s claws embedded in his throat. Solitude. Lust. Fear. Despair.

I exulted, blood rushing fatally from my brain.
Just like a stupid little fairy girl, Akash from the sky. Just like the rest of us you despise so eagerly from up there. You’ve fallen to earth, and you’re one of us now. You’ll never win.

For an instant, his grip froze, and he faltered.

And then he flew off me, his teeth jolting away from mine like I’d smacked him upside the head.

Cool air flooded my bruised mouth, the bloodstained taste of freedom. The spiky magicball sprang free with a thrash and a cheeky giggle, and dissolved bubbling in my stomach. I gasped for air. Fresh, delightful dust roughened my torn throat.

Relief washed me with warm droplets. I flopped my aching head to the side, an exhausted smile stinging my torn lips, and that warm relief crackled to ice on my skin.

Akash sprawled panting on his back in the dust, spit and my blood dripping from his lips. A bleeding blue-haired banshee knelt astride his throat, one shiny black-clad knee jammed into his larynx. Her pretty lips stretched in a vicious snarl. A familiar spiked blade shone wickedly in her hand.

My skin quailed. Mina. Joey DiLuca’s girl.

Joey stalked forward into the light, his brass-topped black cane tapping on the concrete. He kicked Akash in the ribs, eliciting a soggy sigh. “Mirror, shithead. Now.”

I snapped my head back around, tension stopping my breath in my lungs like a cork. Joey stood with his back to me. Mina was distracted by her prey. Maybe they wouldn’t see me.

I flexed my limbs, testing. Akash had untied my wrist ropes. Only ankles to go. Quietly, I pushed myself up.

Pop.

My wing joints, crackling as the pressure came off them.

I snapped still like an icicle. My heart squeezed tight, waiting for Joey to spin around and chew my skin off.

But he was too busy kicking Akash in the guts to notice me. He jammed his sharp cane into Akash’s knee and twisted, fabric and skin tearing. “Mirror. Give.”

Akash just stared up at him with a bloody grin.

Cautious relief calmed my nerves.
Heh. You’re an idiot, DiLuca. Pain’s not gonna convince this guy. Too much like what he’s after
.

Inch by inch I stretched forward, keeping my sore wings flat to raise no shadow.

“Mirror or you die.” Joey’s voice slithered, reptilian, and Mina crooned happily, toying with her knife’s edge at the metal studs in Akash’s eyebrow. Her own were torn ragged, missing, her lip and nose scabbed. Indigo did that at Quang’s. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

My spine flexed, thankfully smooth and silent now, and I stretched forward, making myself as small and low as I could. My breasts slid down my thighs and squashed into my kneecaps, and I slid out a stealthy arm and curled it under the table. Prickly rope brushed my fingerpads.

Akash squirmed on the ground with a smooth, sexual groan that gave me shivers. “You can’t kill me, hellspawn. But I’d like your body. I’d peel the skin from it and let the snake out.”

I strained forward, searching for the knot. There, knobbly and damp, the rope fat with my water. I picked at it with urgent claws, my pores sweating cold despair. Damn thing wouldn’t come undone.

“Just slash the fucker,” Joey ordered. Metal scythed. Blood spattered, that distinctive runny ketchup sound. Mina giggled, and Akash howled, a horrid mix of laughter and tears.

I wiggled my claws in tighter, working the knot loose. The rope inched aside, agonizingly slow.

“Last chance, pretty boy. Mirror.” Shadows dipped as Joey knelt.

Akash spluttered wet laughter. “Come take it.”

At last, I wormed my claw in and dragged the knot apart. The rope slackened, and I slid silently off the table onto the floor, my heart pounding a hole in my rib cage.

The table’s shadow shrouded dark, and for a few seconds I lay there, blinded, my ragged breath frighteningly loud in my ears. Free, wings and spiky magic gutball intact. But Joey and Stalkerboy would fight it out and keep the mirror, and I’d be back where I started. Unless . . . What was that?

I squinted. My eyes adjusted, and shapes slowly emerged on the floor in front of my nose. Pebbles, a discarded nail, dusty tumble-weeds collecting under the table. And beside them, a shadowy, glinting steel ball.

Mirror. Tumbled from Akash’s pocket when he fell. Hiding under the table for me to find.

I stared, my pulse skipping. The mirror rolled a few inches to the right and wobbled, beckoning.

Breathless, I snaked out a swift arm. The metal crooned softly in my hand, a warm and satisfied noise I now knew only I could hear.

—
Knew you’d be back,—
it whispered, smugness dripping like acid.

The urge for revenge itched my sticky palms. Anger shook my forearm. I burned to throw the ugly thing against the wall and watch it shatter.
Teach you to screw with my mind, squidgy.

I crunched my teeth, swallowing raging violence like vomit. I folded my wings in tight and wriggled like an earthworm toward the light’s edge and safety, the mirror burbling with satisfaction in my hand.

Darkness only a few feet away. The table stood between Joey and me. With luck, he wouldn’t see me before I made it out.

Grit scratched my elbows and scraped on my grounded belly. I kept crawling toward the darkness and safety. Behind me, the wet smack of flesh on flesh, a reptilian hiss. I didn’t care who’d hit whom. I glared at the mirror in my fist, my mouth tightening as I wormed along.
Kane’s welcome to you, nasty thing. You’ll get yours. Just get me out of here alive.

Akash sang, his unearthly voice grating with hatred like glassy shards. My ears curled in protest, hurting deep inside. I jammed breath into my lungs so I wouldn’t pant and give myself away, and kept crawling.

Finally, my nose poked into darkness. Then my chin. Then my wing tips. I scrambled to my feet in the dark at last, fresh relief spreading comfort through my aching limbs. I’d made it.

The thing lurking in the shadows grabbed my elbow.

Shock iced my lungs. My skin screamed shivery warning. I yanked free, my heart walloping, and stumbled backwards into the light.

A banshee shriek rose, warbled with shock. “Fairy’s getting away!”

I skidded, fluttering mad wings for balance, and my arms waved wildly. The rust-flecked mirror glinted bright for everyone to see, and in the shadows, a dark metal chuckle rang out.

Too late, hot iron scorched my nose. Familiar heat slithered over my skin. Indigo?

Joey dropped Akash with a soggy thud, green and scarlet splashing from his hands. Black scales sprang out on his forehead, spreading to cover his face like fast-motion fungus. The pale skin on his hands rippled and blackened to shiny taloned fins. His eyes glowed like green neon, and like a snake on the strike, he launched himself at me across the table.

I shrieked, unbalanced. Black fins scythed an inch from my nose. Neon venom splashed my face, and that familiar slimy stink electrified me.

Drops seared my skin like acid, rotten leather-stink churning my stomach. I jerked away with a panicked flutter, and my hands flew up to ward him off. But he didn’t attack me again. He just slithered a steely black flipper around my wrist and twisted, hard.

Agony razored up my forearm. I screamed and struggled, fury crunching in my throat, but I couldn’t break his unearthly grip. He wrenched harder, and my bones protested with a sick crunch. Despair clotted in my heart. I clutched feebly at the mirror, but my numb fingers wouldn’t respond, and Joey reached out glossy black talons and plucked it away.

Easy as you please. Stupid, weak, useless fairy girl.

Frustration whipped my skin raw. I squealed and kicked at him, trying to pull my arm from his weird grip. “Get your rubbery hands off me, creep.”

He flipped the giggling mirror away into his jacket and yanked me forward by the shoulders. The scales on his face retracted beneath fresh, pale human skin, and he threw a lickerish grin at the shadows behind me. “Pretty thing. So breakable. Perhaps we’ll finish our game.” And his forked tongue slipped out, and he wrapped it quivering across my lips.

Wet. Cold. Wriggly like a worm. The stink of cold spit, laced with meat.

My skin caterpillared. Bile swamped my mouth, choking me. He grunted, and licked me again. I squeezed my lips together and struggled madly.

And then Mina screamed. A horrid, gurgling, desperate scream that chilled my bones.

A rich metal whisper split the air like a warm blade. “Game’s on, snakeboy. Think again.”

Joey whipped around, one hand slipping off my shoulder. With a furious wriggle and a jerk of wings, I yanked free.

Indigo clamped his sharp blue chin on Mina’s shoulder, one arm folded around her waist, ultralong blue fingers plastered over her mouth and nose. His wings stretched tight above his head, poised on an icy edge to flit backwards, and rusty glitter sparkled the air.

Mina’s eyes bloomed huge and bright like garnets. Her feet scrabbled and kicked, but he evaded her easily. Her chest heaved as she tried to sing, to make any sound at all, but all that came out was a muffled
mmph!
as her lungs searched for air.

Joey cursed, and swiped for me, but I leapt away, circling the table toward Indigo and Mina. My limbs shook, tense. My mind squirted in little circles, and common sense slashed at my courage with stinging claws, demanding my attention.
Don’t be stupid. You’re not safe. Run away before it’s too late. Lock your heart away.