Shadow City Read online

  Alexander tensed, his Blade peeling back the bars of its cage and lunging forth. Tyler fell back a step, but his own Blade was rising to the killing edge. He needed a Prime to keep him steady. Niko stepped between them.

  “Enough,” he said, his back to Tyler as he watched Alexander carefully. He dipped his gaze to seem less challenging. “Maybe you have a good reason to be so sure that stepping up to Prime will mean that Max won’t come back. If so, I’d like to hear it. Nobody wants to push you if it means losing her forever.”

  Alexander opened his mouth. Words jumbled in his throat, but nothing made sense. He spun away, staring at the boiling column of smoke, trying to think. But all he could think of was this was something he could do to get Max back. And if Niko was right, he had no choice.

  “All right. I will do it,” he said a minute later. He would rather regret doing something than regret doing nothing. He swung back around. “But if you are wrong, I will make you hurt more than you ever dreamed you could, and then I will kill you.”

  “It’s a deal,” Niko said. He reached out a bloody hand, and Alexander shook it slowly. “Let’s go tell Giselle about it.” He glanced at the billowing column of oily, trapped smoke. “And that.”

  Tyler dusted himself off, his beast settling down. “She’s going to love this. Not to mention Oz. He’s going to have kittens.”

  “None of his concern, now, is it?” Niko said with a shrug. “His job is to look after the Sunspears. This is Shadowblade business. If he doesn’t like it, he can bite my ass.”

  “Or kick it up to your ears,” Tyler pointed out.

  “Let him try,” Alexander said softly. “No one fucks with my Blades without answering to me.”

  His two companions looked at each other, then at him. “You sound like Max,” Tyler said. The muscles of his jaw jumped with suppressed emotion.

  “Not as easy on the eyes, though,” Niko said.

  “I’ll remember to tell her you said that,” Tyler said. “When she comes back.”

  If she comes back, Alexander thought darkly. But hope continued to grow despite himself. Damn her. Where the hell was she?

  MAX HIT THE GROUND AND FELT HER RIBS BREAK. Again. Her breath exploded, and she sucked in air, coughing as fire circled her ribs and sand filled her throat.

  She rolled onto her back with a groan, spitting grit as she tried not to breathe. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. Instead, she made herself get up.

  She put her hand down to help shove herself to her feet and fell onto her shoulder as her arm gave way. She sat up again, scowling down at it. No fucking wonder.

  Splintered bone poked through the skin of her forearm, and two of her fingers were pointing in unnatural directions. The pain of her wounds was almost negligible. Which meant that either she was getting used to it, or her nerve receptors had gotten bored with the repeated torture she’d been inflicting on herself and had gone off to find something better to do. Like go to Jamaica, maybe.

  She sighed and shook her hand to straighten things out, making a face as the ends of her bones ground together. Disgusting. It would only take a few minutes to heal back up—the perks of being a Shadowblade. Though maybe her body would get bored with that, too. Just at the moment, she wouldn’t mind dying.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Mind if I take a second or two to heal up before you try to kill me again?”

  Scooter did not answer for a whole ten seconds. “Now?”

  Fuck. He was worse than a four-year-old. Add in the fact that he was at least part god, and she’d better get her shit together quick, because he was going to start in again whether she was ready or not.

  “You do realize that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different outcome, right?”

  Max heaved herself up, staggering in the deep sand before facing him.

  Scooter was sitting cross-legged on a flat tree stump. As if any tree had ever lived this far underground. But this was his house, and he got to decorate it the way he wanted, underground tree stumps and all. Maybe she should try to talk him into bringing in a load of feather beds for a softer landing. Of course, he’d probably say that would only encourage her to fail. The bastard.

  He was beautiful in an austere, otherworldly way. He was also scary as hell. He could kill her without even twitching an eyebrow.

  His skin was copper brown, and his black hair hung straight to his waist. His eyes were obsidian from corner to corner, except for flecks of drifting blue light. He rippled with muscle, his face square and blunt-featured. He wore only a pair of buckskin pants. Magic thickened the air around him, making it hard to breathe.

  “There is no other way,” he said. “You will learn or die.”

  “Death is beginning to look better and better.”

  He didn’t crack a smile. “Time is short.”

  Time is short for what? Max bit down on the question before it could get away. He hadn’t answered it the first hundred times she’d asked, so why would he start now? Nor did she snidely point out that he was the one with the countdown watch; she had all the time in the world. Except she didn’t. Not if she ever wanted to go home. Instead, she yawned widely and twisted to crack her spine. “Let’s get on with it. I’m starting to miss all that tasty pain.”

  He made no motion, nothing to warn her. But suddenly, she jerked backward, propelled through the air like a rocket. Her body tensed, and she felt the magic from the angel feather embedded in her hand pull against the force of Scooter’s magic. She slowed fractionally. Her mind whirled. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to imagine a door. It was easier to do this time. Practice makes perfect. She reached out to open it. Before her mental fingers could close on the knob, she slammed against the rock wall. Bones snapped, and her lungs burst like overripe fruit. Her head cracked against the knobby stone, and she went blind.

  The next thing she knew, she was falling. Her head spun, and she couldn’t breathe. She felt herself slowing as the power of the angel feather embedded in her hand took hold. She clenched her fist around it, more from habit than intent. Her mind was fragmented, like loose pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Coherence was impossible. Still, she tried to pull back on the feather’s magic. She needed to fall.

  According to Scooter, most people found the door to the abyss between worlds accidentally when they tripped over the threshold of life and death. He wanted Max to find the door so that they could travel together. She had no idea where or why or for how long. He wasn’t saying. As for the door, she wasn’t at all clear about why he just didn’t open it for her. With all his power, he was perfectly capable. But he said she had to do it herself, and since she had no choice, she agreed. So, he was doing his best to bring her to the brink of death. A couple of times, she’d thought she’d gone over the edge, but he’d brought her back. It’s good to be a god. If only he had a better way of showing her the path into the abyss. Apparently, he wasn’t omnipotent. Too bad for her.

  Suddenly, time seemed to stop. For a split second, Max could feel every artery, vein, and capillary in her body. Each cell seemed lined in diamond fire. She caught her breath—slow, so very slow—pain igniting as fiery needles pierced her healing lungs. She thrust it away impatiently. She needed to think.

  Other pain gnawed at her. It caught her head in a steel bear trap. A searing ache wrapped her ribs, and her tongue throbbed where she’d bitten into it. She tasted the coppery flavor of her blood, and her stomach lurched. For once, she could neither ignore the hurt nor draw strength from it. Her mind wouldn’t focus. Instead, she pulled away, retreating down into the depths of herself, into that cold place where she didn’t have to feel anything at all. It was her fortress and armor. It gave her strength to do what she had to do when things got too hard.

  She slipped inside, feeling everything else slide away. Her focus sharpened. She could still feel every cell of herself, her blood pulsing, her heart squeezing and releas
ing. She visualized a door again and reached for it. Her hand went through it, and the vision dissolved.

  Fury flared inside her and then tugged away into the frigid chill of her inner fortress.

  Into the frigid chill of her inner fortress.

  Realization struck her at the same moment she bounced onto the ground. She lay there, the burst of agony a distant feeling. She concentrated on her newfound knowledge.

  Ever since she’d been tricked into becoming a Shadowblade, Max had used her inner fortress as a haven, a way to survive the endless torture, the helpless fear, the hate, and the betrayal. In order to overcome Max’s furious resistance, Giselle had tortured her until she could no longer fight the layering on of the Shadowblade spells. In order to keep herself sane as the years went on, Max had created the fortress. But now she knew it wasn’t just a bulwark of emotional and mental protection; it was her door.

  Scooter was right. He couldn’t show her the entrance into the abyss. But she’d found it anyway.

  She reached out to her body, still hyper-aware of every sinew and hair. She gathered herself and yanked. It was like dragging a house through the eye of a needle. She strained, refusing to give up. She might never find this clarity, this control over her body, again.

  The world wrenched.

  Max tumbled down into the dark cold of her stronghold. Everything went black.

  She found herself hanging motionless in a starless night. In the distance, tangles of colored thread and thicker yarns spilled across the sea of ink. Flutters of rainbow caught her attention. Streaks and tatters, droplets, and bits of confetti. They swirled and drifted. Clouds of them formed and then dribbled away in streams or dove like flocks of starlings. They spun on invisible whirlwinds and fell like rain.

  This was the abyss between worlds. The tangles of thread were pathways to other worlds. Scooter had told her that much. The dancing colors were bits of magic. All around her, she could feel movement, like ocean currents. They moved in all directions, pulling and pushing at her. She held herself still, with no idea how she did so. She wanted not to move, and so she didn’t.

  Now what?

  She looked down at herself. She was naked. Bruises splotched her chest and stomach. No doubt, her back was a purple patchwork quilt. As she watched, the splotches started to turn green and then yellow as her healing spells kicked in. She drew a shallow breath. Her lungs and ribs ached, but she could breathe.

  There was no sign of Scooter. She frowned. He didn’t usually let her out of his sight. She was lucky to get privacy to go to the bathroom. So where was he? She caught her breath. Maybe he couldn’t find her here.

  She could escape.

  She severed the thought. There wasn’t any place she could go where he wouldn’t find her, except maybe the abyss, and she sure as hell didn’t want to hang here forever. Besides, she’d promised to help him, and that bound her in unbreakable chains.

  Her mouth flattened as another possibility occurred to her. A wave of emotion crashed over her, and she doubled over. She could go home. Just for a few minutes. Long enough to—

  To what? To say good-bye? To tell everyone what she should have told them long ago? To see Alexander?

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the acid burn of tears and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. Guilt and loss spun through her, shredding her from the inside out. Her stomach churned. She had avoided thinking about him since Scooter had taken her. But now the dam broke, and she couldn’t stop the flood. Guilt was the worst. Recrimination. Longing. Loss. Fear. Dread.

  She forced herself to straighten. It was her fault. She’d had every chance to say something, and she’d balked. She’d let her fear take over. Fear of what?

  Betrayal.

  Even now she could barely admit it. After Giselle—her best friend then—had trapped her in the life of a Shadowblade, Max hadn’t trusted anyone. She’d lived only for revenge. Then Alexander had come along. He’d proven himself to her over and over. Hell, he’d almost killed himself helping to save her family. The memory of his mangled body sent a tremor through her. She hadn’t thought he could survive. And how had she repaid him? She squeezed her eyes shut on her tears. She didn’t deserve to cry. Like an idiot, like a coward, she’d wasted their last moments together.

  Fury and frustration rose in an inferno. Not just for Alexander but for Scooter and for herself. She screamed, deep and primal, her neck tenting with the force of it. Abruptly, she snapped her mouth shut, swallowing her emotions. She squared her shoulders and flexed her fingers. She was wasting time.

  She looked around. Scooter had never talked about how to leave. The one time she’d been pulled inside, it had been a spell, and it had spat her back out again just as quickly as she’d arrived. So, now what?

  She closed her eyes. She could still feel every particle of herself pulsing. Going out must look the same as going in, right? It seemed reasonable, anyhow. What was she worried about? She could only die once.

  She pulled herself back down inside, half certain that the fortress would be gone. But it was there. Going back through was just as hard as before, and for a second, she didn’t think she’d have the strength to drag herself through. But then she found herself sprawled on the warm sand.

  Scooter knelt beside her as she panted. “You did it.”

  “Thanks for the news flash,” she said, sitting up and reaching for her T-shirt. She pulled it over her head and shimmied into her underwear and pants. The hyper-awareness of her body faded, but didn’t vanish. She was pretty sure she’d be able to go back when she wanted. “What now?”

  He stood, giving her a hand up. He wasn’t much taller than she was, and he smelled musky and earthy, like the mountains after a rain. “You must eat. You need to refuel. Then we will go.”

  “Go?”

  “To Chadaré.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s Chadaré? Where is it?”

  “It is inside the abyss. It is the city of shadows.”

  Max nodded as if that made sense. “OK. What are we going to do there?”

  “Exactly what you were made to do. We are going to Chadaré to hunt.”

  He smiled. The expression sent chills up Max’s back, and the Shadowblade inside her leaped instantly to a killing edge. Her mind flattened, and her senses sharpened as the predator took over. Her teeth bared in an animal snarl as her body tensed, ready to kill.

  ALEXANDER LEFT TYLER TO KEEP WATCH ON THE column of smoke, while he and Niko returned to the mountain fortress.

  Much of the surface of the main mountain had been melted from Xaphan’s battle fire and was frozen in a landscape of melted black ripples and bubbling pools. The trees were scorched for miles from the wildfires he had caused.

  Four weeks ago, he and Tutresiel had been sent by the Guardians to attack Horngate. Giselle had refused to serve in their war to destroy most of humanity and return magic to the world. To punish her, the Guardians had sent a rogue witch and the two angels to wipe out the coven. But then Max had tricked them. Using a magical hailstone, she had wished for the Guardians to forget all about Horngate, then had offered the angels a chance to join the covenstead and be free of their Guardian masters. Both had agreed—being owned by a witch was better than being owned by the deathless Guardians. Alton, the rogue witch, was imprisoned in the bowels of the mountain, still awaiting Giselle’s judgment.

  Since the attacks, Xaphan had been a great help. Giselle had been drained nearly to death, and the fire angel’s healing abilities had guaranteed her survival. Tutresiel, on the other hand . . . Alexander’s lip curled. That bastard could rot in hell for all he cared. He did not trust him in the slightest.

  “Whoa—what’s going on?” Niko asked as the power of Alexander’s Prime spiked and rolled off him in palpable waves.

  Alexander shook himself and pulled his Prime back down, grimacing at his lack of control. He was walking the fine edge between sanity and going feral. It would not take much to push him over the edge. He looke
d at his companion, one eyebrow quirking. “Are you sure you want me for a Prime? I may be more dangerous than not.”

  Niko shrugged. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere, so we have to deal with you one way or another. Besides, even without Magpie’s prophecy and Max wanting this, you suffer from the same terminal sense of responsibility she does. You’ll keep it together, if only because that’s your job. And oh, yeah, she’ll kill you if you don’t.” He grinned at Alexander and slapped him on the shoulder. “We have faith in you.”

  “That is comforting,” Alexander said dryly.

  “Remind me to send you a bill for the therapy. I’m not cheap, you know.”

  “Funny. Word is that you are both cheap and easy.” Alexander stiffened, his voice dropping. “Speaking of which . . .”

  They had come to the main entrance of the mountain fortress. Below, a quick-flowing river snaked through the valley. Across it were rows of greenhouses where a great deal of work had been going on in the last eight weeks. The Guardians’ war on humanity was turning the clock back to a fairy-tale time when magic ruled and there were no factories or tractors or grocery stores.

  In an effort to restore magic and magical creatures to the world, the Guardians had unleashed a torrent of wild magic and not-so-natural disasters, from hurricanes and tornadoes to earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. The goal was to prune humanity back to nearly nothing so they could not crush out magic again. Already, most of California’s central valley had been turned into an enchanted forest, and chances were, every human caught up within had been transformed into some kind of creature or had been eaten by one. Enchanted forests were not safe places for anyone, least of all ordinary humans.

  There was little enough news about what had happened elsewhere in the world. But one thing was for sure—the grocery shelves were increasingly bare, and Horngate was going to have to produce all of its own food before winter hit. More, if they wanted to help the people in Missoula and the surrounding area. Giselle would want to. So would Max. All of that would not be so difficult if the coven were healthy and whole and if Shadowblades and Sunspears didn’t need to eat a minimum of twenty or thirty thousand calories a day just to fuel the spells they were made of. As it was, the next six months were going to be rough.