Seduced by Shadows ms-1

by Jessa Slade

  He was flying.

  Then falling. The freezing water shocked through him, jolting his heart as if it hadn’t been beating before. He flailed through the slap of wind-pushed waves, back toward shore.

  Free of tenebrae stench and scum and sting, Archer hauled himself up onto the rocks. He huddled for a moment beside his filthy clothes, wracked with shivers.

  A jogger and her dog passed above him on the sidewalk. The dog caught his scent, yelped, and bolted ahead, the oblivious jogger swearing and staggering to keep up.

  He held his breath as he donned his clothes again. His cleaning service was going to double their fees again. Or maybe this time they’d just lock the doors when they saw him. He wouldn’t blame them.

  He’d been drawn, against his will, to stand outside the hotel. He’d looked up and seen the golden beacon of her hair.

  His heart stopped then, as he watched her lean dangerously over the void. He would catch her; that’s why he had come, why he’d been drawn back, why he’d been put on this earth for so many years with a strength he used only for annihilation. . . . Then she pulled back out of view, never noticing him so many stories below her.

  He went out to destroy.

  That, he reminded himself, was truly why he was here.

  He trudged back to the sidewalk. He wouldn’t ask any cab to pick him up, and he wasn’t in the mood to call Zane for a ride. The league hotel was closer than his loft, and he kept a change of clothes there.

  So despite his best intentions, he found his weary steps turning toward the one place he’d decided was off-limits.

  He knew the league had been out in force the night before, having encountered other lingering shreds of etheric energy. Only Haji, a closemouthed talya whose blinding speed with the enormous curved blade did his boasting for him, walked the otherwise quiet halls on the residence floor.

  They nodded as they crossed paths. Archer turned at his private room, fumbling for his key. Then he hesitated.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Haji had disappeared into the elevator. He glanced in the other direction down the hall.

  He closed his eyes. His enhanced senses, battered and raw as his flesh, prickled.

  When he opened his eyes, he was standing in front of a door not his own. He knocked.

  He stood there, hearing nothing but the shush of blood through his veins. He swayed a little on his feet, half asleep. Finally, the door opened.

  “You weren’t going to answer,” he said.

  “My first reaction.” Sera blocked the entrance with one arm braced across the opening, her stance forced casual. “Was that the right one?”

  “Probably.”

  “I didn’t think you’d leave.”

  “Probably not.” He studied her through heavy-lidded eyes. From her soft yoga togs, he couldn’t tell if she’d just gotten up or was getting ready for bed. His pulse kicked up a notch, and he stopped himself from thinking any more about her bed. “Can I come in?”

  “I suppose we don’t need more gossip with you standing outside my bedroom door.”

  “Technically, it’s a suite, not just a bedroom. So this could be league business. And technically, manly warriors don’t gossip; they relay information.”

  She stepped back. “Just so the information they’re relaying is not that you’re fucking me.”

  He winced as he stepped inside. The outer room looked hotel generic except for a blanket thrown over the couch beside a haphazard pile of books. “I came to apologize for that.”

  “For not fucking me?”

  “Can you not,” he said with great dignity, “use that word now.”

  She raised her eyebrow. “Squeamish?”

  He raised his arms, mutely displaying the spatters and stains.

  She sighed. “Fine. Apology accepted. Go take a bath.”

  Images kaleidoscoped through his mind, raising more than his pulse this time. “I am out of practice with relations between men and women. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Our relations were fine. Twice fine, as I recall. I wasn’t hurt.”

  He managed not to grit his teeth. “I didn’t mean physically.”

  She rubbed her forehead. “When I accepted your apology, that meant we don’t have to talk about it anymore. I know office romances never work out.”

  He frowned. “Since when does evil keep office hours?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Naïve young apprentice falls for sexy older mentor. Seduces him. Ruins his chance for tenure. Sacrifices her chance to learn who she is on her own.”

  Despite the sexy-mentor remark, he was regretting the impulse that led him here. “You wouldn’t have survived the possession without me. And I’m no league sycophant.”

  She crossed her arms, her expression blank as any battle-trained talya. “Right. That would be just a little too much like a relationship.”

  He backed toward the door. “I should go. I wanted you to know that Lenore, my fiancée, would not have wanted me back.”

  She let her arms fall slack at her sides. “You can’t know that. You didn’t see her again.”

  Sera was nothing like Lenore. Lenore had been a vivacious brunette who’d made clear that while she might marry a well-to-do farmer’s son, she would never pluck her own chickens. At the time, his going off to war had been terribly romantic to both of them.

  He just shook his head and caught a flicker of emotion as Sera’s eyebrows drew together. Mostly bewilderment, he decided, recognizing the uncertainty he felt himself.

  “You run like storm clouds,” she murmured. “Sometimes I see the light hidden behind, but mostly you freeze everyone out. Does winter ever end with you?”

  His face felt encased in ice. “Not so far.”

  She shook her head. “This isn’t why I let you in.” She lifted the pendant hanging around her neck. “I wanted to tell you, Bookie identified it. The stone is a weapon. A soul cleaver.”

  “Never heard of such a thing.” He’d had his nose against it, with his mouth on her nipple. He’d been cleaved, all right, of his instinct for self-preservation. Heat washed through him, and he struggled to focus on the stone, not the enticing curves behind it.

  “You wouldn’t know it. It’s djinn.”

  That focused him.

  She lifted her chin with a hint of desperate bravado. “Aren’t you even happier you rejected me last night?”

  He fixed his gaze on the pendant and stepped closer. She stood unresisting as he cupped his hand behind hers, the gray stone suspended in their nested hands.

  “Bookie thinks it’s dangerous,” she murmured.“Maybe the djinn-man knows I should be playing on his team.”

  “We are dangerous. But you aren’t djinn-ridden.”

  She glanced up at him, uneasy hazel eyes glinting with demon light, green and brown and violet in a mesmerizing swirl. “After you saw the reven on me, you said you weren’t sure.”

  “I am now.” He overrode the question forming on her lips. “If you worry, your demon is teshuva. You think a djinni would choose someone who frets about being evil? If half the wickedness in the world arises from not caring, the other half definitely comes from not questioning.”

  “Oh, I have questions,” she said fervently. “How about some answers finally? What should I do with it?”

  “Bookie had no suggestions?”

  She hesitated. “Not really. Other than not becoming a traitor.”

  Archer tightened his grasp. The stone stayed cold, but her skin warmed under his. “Maybe the difference between teshuva and djinn is not so clear-cut as we’d like to believe. More a continuum.”

  “You’re saying one wrong step and I could slip over to the dark side?”

  “I’m saying maybe the shadows are relative.” In some strange way, the thought was a relief. It left room for improvement, for options.

  For hope.

  He let a touch of Southern cadence soften his words. “If ever I turned away from you, Sera Littlejohn, I’d do
so not in hatred, but because I’d want no one else at my back.”

  The curve of her collarbone brushed his fingers as she slowly exhaled. The innocent contact pained him. He released the stone, and with it her hand.

  “Thank you for that,” she said softly.

  “Thank you for forgiving me for last night.”

  “I didn’t go quite that far.” She tucked the stone under her sweater, and he sighed to himself. “I’m no saint to offer forgiveness.”

  “No saint. Demon-ridden. And demons don’t lay blame for anything. It’s the other side that withholds absolution.”

  “Since we’re both demon-ridden,” she said, “maybe we should just let it go already.”

  He inclined his head. “The naïve apprentice surpasses the master.”

  “I said mentor,” she reminded him. “Not master.”

  He smiled. “My mistake.”

  “You won’t make it again. Zane is teaching my first lesson in fighting this afternoon.”

  He tried to look solemn. “I shall be duly afraid.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Weren’t you leaving?”

  He bowed and left.

  Despite years of sporadic residence, his room was barer than hers. He imagined the tart comment on her lips and fell into bed, the stench of destruction lost in the lingering perfume of honeysuckle.

  Archer woke hours later, showered, and e-mailed his night’s counts to Bookie, then headed down to the kitchen where Niall stocked a gourmet larder, though the copper-bottomed cookware shone from lack of use.

  There’d been a lot of broken dishes in Sera’s apartment. He wondered if he had the cojones to ask her if she actually knew how to cook.

  Maybe if she hadn’t joined Zane’s fight club yet. He grimaced and poured himself a glass of organic orange juice.

  Niall had once tried to engage him on the topic of sustainable agriculture, but Archer had looked him hard in the eye and reminded him he wasn’t a farmer anymore. That shut Niall up, though it hadn’t stopped his sighs at the mountains of empty wrappers of decidedly nonorganic doughnuts, nachos, and things that could be microwaved in his otherwise-pristine kitchen.

  Archer settled at the counter just as Ecco sauntered in, rubbing the back of his neck. The talya grunted something unintelligible. Archer nodded coolly.

  Ecco grabbed the juice from the fridge and sat at the far end of the bar. He took a swig from the carton.

  Archer raised one eyebrow. “We have glasses.”

  Ecco swallowed another deep draft. “I’m going to drink it all. Why bother?”

  “Because a feralis wouldn’t.”

  Ecco stared at him.

  Archer sighed and elaborated. “Because we’re civilized human beings.”

  Ecco laughed. “I saw the laundry you left for pickup. You had to double-bag it. Obviously you spent a very civilized night.” Suspicion brightened his eyes. “After you peeled that veneer a little too close to the bone, did you come home and put that boner to good use? Did our sweet new talya make you feel like a gentleman again?”

  Archer put his glass down gently—or gently was his intent. The glass shattered. Shards pointed up from the circular base like a screaming malice mouth.

  “Never,” he said softly. And he did speak softly, though the annihilation-class harmonics raised shivers in the broken glass so the jagged teeth sang discordantly. “Never speak of her again.”

  Ecco sat back. “That’ll be tough. She’s part of the league now.”

  Archer reined in his cold fury. “Then treat her with respect, as you would any of us.”

  “Do I respect any of you? But anyway, she’s not like us.” Ecco’s expression clouded. “Everything’s changing. A female possessed. Ferales hunt in packs now. Malice leaving the shadows. I smell djinn on every quarter of the winds, and it drives me mad. Are we truly losing this war?”

  “At least no one will make you use a clean glass.”

  Ecco glared. “You go out as furious as any of us. More. So quit pretending you don’t care.”

  “I’ve lost wars before. It’s not as hard as you think.”

  Ecco crumpled the OJ carton and pitched it. The container bounced off the wall into the recycle bin. “You call us garbagemen, right? Hard to charge into the apocalypse when you’re hip deep in your own trash.”

  He rose and sauntered toward the door.

  Archer lifted a hand to halt him. He’d never thought of the brutish Ecco as prescient or even particularly lucid, but the talya’s conviction struck him hard. “I’ve seen you at least knee-deep in ferales guts, and you didn’t use the word ‘apocalypse’ then.”

  “Knee-deep? Oh yeah, I remember that. Good times.” Ecco shook his head. “This is different.”

  Archer let him go. Interrogating Ecco worked no better than asking a woolly caterpillar how it knew to grow a woollier coat when the coming winter would be harsh. He grimaced at the homespun analogy that came so easily to his mind after years of denial. Yet another change.

  He’d talk to Bookie about the stone, about Sera, about the never-ending battle that seemed balanced at a turning point. And on his way to the lab, maybe he’d stop by the ballroom and contemplate the source of Ecco’s unease.

  CHAPTER 14

  In the hotel ballroom, Sera eyed a pair of fencing foils crossed on the wall. “I wouldn’t want to face even a malice with just those.”

  “Once upon a time, those were the weapon of choice,” Zane said. “They say ferales weren’t so large as today.”

  Sera blinked in the misty daylight bouncing off the wall of mirrors. “Demons evolve? Fascinating.”

  “Before my time. I’ve only seen them big and scary as shit.”

  “I’d still rather have this.” She walked down to the machine gun display. “Doesn’t quite go with the theme of the room, but feels more reassuring.”

  “The theme of the room is ‘Save your ass.’ ” Zane grinned. “The league teaches combat skills from the martial arts, swordsmanship and marksmanship, wrestling and tumbling. But possession gives you all the raw fundamentals of gutter fighting.”

  Sera wrinkled her nose. “Gutter fighting?”

  “Anything goes and there are no style points, because in the world of demon destruction—Hey, what’s that?”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw him swing a closed fist. Her pulse ramped into overdrive, and her heart picked up a strange syncopated beat, as if assimilating another rhythm. His fist seemed to slow, trailing an afterimage.

  She threw up her elbow and deflected the blow, then spun on the ball of her foot, put herself behind him, and shoved him away. “What are you doing?”

  “Testing.” He rubbed at his forearm. “You pass.”

  She scowled. “No more pop quizzes.”

  He turned her toward the mirror, urging her with a smile when she resisted. “Did you feel the demon ascend?”

  She stared into her own violet-flecked eyes. “Maybe.”

  “You’ll learn to call on it, to use the power of evil for good.” He brushed one fist over the ragged hem of his cutoff sweats. The reven below his knee was a simple geometric wave—it lacked the intricacies of her mark or the raw boldness of Archer’s. “Sometimes, you won’t want to turn it off. It’s just easier to let the teshuva run rampant.”

  She shifted uneasily. “Sounds a little too much like the kind of demons the preachers warn against.” She tried not to remember the sound of her father’s cry—anger, fear, and hatred like a writhing ball of biblical serpents.

  “No doubt. Let’s try some moves. The teshuva may win the night, but training can save you some flesh and scars.”

  When she’d contemplated taking Betsy’s self-defense class, she’s never imagined needing it to slay demons. Probably that went without saying. She’d thought it would build strength and confidence, be a good workout. Now, she had all the strength she could need and had lost confidence in anything she ever knew. At least it was still a good workout.

  She pante
d through a third cycle of the stylized routine. “Any reason the demon couldn’t give me buns of steel along with immortality?”

  Zane ogled. “Why mess with perfection?”

  She rolled her eyes back. “You know what I mean.”

  “You’re still human, mostly. And your life isn’t in danger, so the demon stays latent.” He drummed his fingers against his thigh. “Maybe it’s not supposed to be too easy.”

  She dropped into a lunge and tried not to topple over. “Trust me, it’s not.”

  “I mean redemption. Doing the wrong thing seems easier.”

  “Stagnation and decay are inevitable.” She slowed to let the routine seep into her muscles. “Entropy is the fate of the universe.”

  Zane scowled. “Bummer.”

  “All else being equal,” she amended. “Our presence infuses fresh energy into the system.”

  “But we can never give up or rest, or the other side—chaos—wins.” He stared down. “We’ll never win.”

  “The hardest moment in my old job with hospice patients was accepting the moment there was nothing left to do.”

  “Then they died,” he reminded her. “We don’t do that. Not easily, anyway.”

  “Point being,” she said with exaggerated patience, “I had to be satisfied with just being present, that being there was all I was meant to do, and it was enough.”

  He glanced up. “And were you satisfied?”

  She wondered when she’d decided that her old job was just that—old, in the past. And that it hadn’t really been enough. She wrinkled her nose. “At least you get to kick the ass of the things that annoy you.”

  “Now so do you.” He raised his fists. “Let’s fight.”

  “Enough.”

  The voice from above brought them up short. In one of the balconies overlooking the ballroom floor, Sera caught a glimpse of a darker shape.

  “Archer.” Zane tipped his head back with a ready smile. “What do you think?”

  To her disgust, she found herself holding her breath to hear the answer.

  “She drops her guard on left-side attacks.” Archer stepped to the front of the balcony. The weak sunlight left shadows to curl down his arms into the demon mark.