Erin Kellison: Shadow Fall

Shadowman’s tone was as awful as Annabella’s expression, and Custo almost intervened. But she lifted her chin, returning the bastard’s cold glare, and said, “I think I started with the chocolate, and then an éclair, no wait—” She inclined her head dramatically to remember, then continued, all brat, “I think I hit the comfort food first, some cheesy au gratin delicious dish I can’t name, but my mom would probably love the recipe if you wouldn’t mind getting it for me—”

Custo grabbed her hand to shut her up, but she brazenly continued in Death’s face, “And then the chicken pot pie, with the best spring peas I’ve ever—”

“Point is she ate the wolf’s food,” Custo cut in. “Could be worse, right?”

“Look at her. She’s bound to Shadow, and yet as a human, even one with a gift to draw from Shadow, she cannot tolerate it indefinitely. Eventually she will weaken, and the wolf will overtake and possess her.”

“Is there a cure?” Annabella asked.

“He has to release you,” Shadowman said, “but I don’t know why he would with your power. I think he’d bring you to heel”—her chin went up again—“or let your body die, and keep you from passing into the Hereafter.”

The set of her jaw and the intensity of her black eyes told Custo she’d use every atom of her contrary spirit to make her submission miserable for the wolf. If she had to go, she wouldn’t go easy.

Custo was ready to beg. “Is it in your power to help her, to force his cooperation? Can you kill him?”

“The hunter is elemental, immortal. I can order him back to Shadow, but Annabella would eventually have to follow. He set out to capture her, and that’s exactly what he has done. There is no ‘cure’ for a choice. Even one so seemingly insignificant.”

So, better to fight now, when Annabella was at her strongest, than to run and be hunted again and again until they wished for an end. Any end.

“I like a good fight,” Adam said, coming up beside Custo. Adam was already beat to shit, his pretty, aristocratic nose swelling under blackening eyes.

Luca joined them. His face was scabbed with blood, eyes heavy with losses from The Order’s ranks. I’m with you, too.

Hell of a way for Segue and The Order to come together, but at least some good was coming out of the nightmare.

Annabella was shaking her head. “This is between the wolf and me. Has been from the beginning. I can do things with Shadow. Magic. I can make him hurt.”

But eventually he’ll overpower you, Custo added mentally to himself. Not good enough.

There was no way he could bear Annabella submitting on her own, alone. At the very least, he’d be by her side, even if it cost his embodied soul. It wasn’t worth much without her anyway. They’d fight, and they’d pay for their mistakes together, in blood and pain, which was nothing new for him.

But they couldn’t win.

Last time he died, he had nothing to lose but his regrets. This time…everything.

Someone had to win.

Adam had Talia and their babies. Custo couldn’t allow him to help, and in so doing invite more loss and misery into the world. Or Luca, whose end would be as final as Custo’s.

And Shadowman?

“I tricked you once,” Custo said, “and I am sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it right before… he comes?”

“I can’t exactly trade you to Hell now, can I?”

No. “Other than that.”

Shadowman’s eyes slanted to the ruin of the tower. To the arsenal now littering the white stones. The weapons would have to be carefully tucked away until The Order could rebuild.

“I need the hammer,” Shadowman said.

“Take it,” Custo said.

Death’s nostrils flared. “I would have already, if I could touch it. But I need an angel to hand it to me.”

Luca bumped Custo’s arm. “No. It’s forbidden. Don’t add this mistake to the others.”

“Who are you to talk?” If Luca had listened to Adam in the first place, the tower would still stand. If the hammer would bring Kathleen and Shadowman together, then so be it.

Custo climbed the steps of rubble and found the hammer in the dust, the same one he’d handled in the tower’s armory. The shaft was solid, a dark wood rubbed smooth by handling. One side was wide and blunt, the other a rounded knob. A blacksmith’s tool. Custo had no idea what Death would do with such a thing when there were some awesome blades littering the area, and he didn’t care.

When he turned back, his heart stopped.

The wolf was padding slowly across the street, his bunched shoulders rolling with the stealth of his advance. The wolf barked once, and Annabella fell to her knees.

“Hunter,” Death said, “there is no need for that. You’ve leashed her already.”

Custo leaped down from the white rubble as the wolf morphed into an almost-man, naked, hairy, potent, and vicious. His body was built for power, muscles thick and corded. His expression was feral, but had lost that rabid craze that had cost him the fight at Segue. He was back to cunning, to searching out and exploiting weakness.

He’d set traps, and one had sprung. He was here to collect his prey.

Custo helped Annabella to stand and, handing Shadow-man the hammer, said, “I won’t let you have her.”

“You can’t stop me,” the wolf said. To Annabella, he barked, “Come.”

The blackness of her eyes seemed to throb, the thin lines on her skin growing thicker. Annabella swayed, but obstinate as ever, said, “No.”

“Come!”

Annabella blurred, the Shadow within her hazing toward the wolf in obedience, but the rest of her was rooted in the rubble. Custo put his arms around her waist. Her slim frame trembled, every trained muscle overriding the compulsion of Shadow.

How long could she keep it up?

An hour? A day? And yet, what else could she do but refuse and endure? She’d fight until her body broke. Annabella was made of willpower, had honed it, like her body, for most of her life. She was by nature a fighter.

“Come. Now,” the wolf growled across the war zone that was the street. His disgusting stuff was getting hard as if he anticipated dominating her.

Rage pounded in Custo’s head. He put Annabella behind him. That monster would not touch her while Custo was living.

Annabella reached around Custo’s body to flip the wolf the bird. God, Custo loved her.

Adam’s thoughts filtered through Custo’s worry. I’ve got six guns trained on him, waiting for your signal.

To fight the wolf with conventional weapons was to prolong the inevitable.

Luca added, I can think of three of The Order’s blades that would cut him out of the world.

That might take care of the wolf, but what about Annabella? The Shadow was making her ill. She’d have to return to the Otherworld eventually to survive, and the wolf would be waiting for her.

No. Shadowman had stated the only possible way: the wolf had to willingly release her. But what circumstances would compel the beast to do such a thing when Annabella’s power was almost in his grasp?

The wolf needed a better offer.

Custo slanted his gaze toward Luca. “You said my presence on Earth, my body, was a choice?”

“No.” Luca shook his head. So he’d thought it, too. You have no right to offer your body, your great soul, to a dark fae. Annabella would give him free access to Earth, but with you he could breach Heaven.

Hence, a better offer. It was a simple solution: Convince the wolf to release Annabella in exchange for him instead. A mortal for an angel.

A sharp pinch brought Custo’s attention to Annabella. Her eyes were huge in her face, the lines of her skin like old, cracked china.