Dark and Dangerous: Six-in-One Hot Paranormal Romances

by Jennifer Ashley

  Zoe led him down the hall to a staircase. The landing, vibrating slightly with the music below, lengthened with rooms off to each side. They took the second to the right and straight on until they reached a starry curtain, which Zoe pulled aside.

  In a rocking chair sat a dried-up old crone of a woman in a tentlike, flowery house dress, presumably Abigail, though far too old to be Zoe’s sister. Her eyeballs were covered with a dark, brackish film that did not clear when she blinked. Her hair was stringy gray. The room smelled sharp and stale, like illness.

  Adam glanced around. Sickbed, sink, stacks of books—lusty romance novels from the look of their covers—and on the bed, an open package of store-bought chocolate chip cookies, which made his stomach rumble. But there were no surveillance systems in this room; the tech center had to be somewhere else in the building.

  “You’re cuter than I thought.” Abigail’s voice was clear, young, even, at odds with her appearance.

  Which made Adam look a little closer. “Who are you? How did you know where to find us?”

  “I’m Abigail. And I knew where to find you because I saw you there.”

  Now Adam could see the family resemblance; she spoke in cryptic taunts like her “sister.” He had no patience for this. He needed to collect Talia and get to safety.

  “Oh take a cookie and sit down. You’re safe enough here.”

  Adam hesitated, then perched on the corner of the foot of the bed. He forced his voice to controlled courtesy. “Thank you for your help and for the medical assistance you’re providing my—” What was Talia to him anyway? Employee? Lover? “—friend. If you knew where to find me, you may have some idea of the circumstances that brought us there. So I would very much appreciate it if you or your sister would be more forthcoming with answers.”

  Abigail pressed her lips together in a grimace of disapproval. “Life’s short; you should try and have a little more fun.”

  Adam chuckled with bitter irony. “Not possible at the moment.”

  “Then quit being so dense. I could see you in the tunnel because I have the Sight. My Eye has been drawn to you for a while now—” Her mouth quirked up to one side. “By the way, that was some very nice work earlier. Up against the window like that. Very nice.” She fanned herself with her hand.

  Adam frowned, his mood black, but she continued, “Don’t begrudge me a little vicarious pleasure—I’m thirty-three years old, and what my Eye has shown me has turned me into an old woman.”

  Adam swallowed thickly. “Can you see the future?”

  “I see many futures.”

  “Many?”

  “As many futures as there are choices.”

  “Do I defeat the Death Collector in any of them?”

  “No.”

  A wave of helplessness rolled over him. So all this was pointless. The Collective was going to win after all. He couldn’t breathe. He braced his hands on his knees as a devastating roar filled his head.

  Abigail clucked with her tongue. “Look at you. So arrogant. So self-important. You’ve gone and cast yourself as the hero. Do you really think this war is about you?”

  Adam’s head snapped up.

  “Now I’ve finally got your attention. The demon does not die at your hands. I see only one ending for you, the same ending everyone in this world must face.”

  Death. The knowledge took a painful, disappointed moment for him to process, but deep down he’d always known that he would not survive this war. He thought of Talia, Death’s daughter, and the pain mellowed. If she were anything like Death, the end of his life couldn’t be all that bad. He warmed slightly inside at the memory of her soft darkness sweeping over him. Not that bad at all.

  But what about the rest of the world? The wraith war? “Does anyone else defeat the demon?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Who?” But he already knew the answer.

  Abigail’s eyes wrinkled with her smile. “Clap if you believe in faeries.”

  Shadowman. “Then Talia’s voice must heal so that she can call Death.”

  “Let me be clear,” Abigail said. “My Sight does not permit me to see the fae. Not the one you call Shadowman—”

  Adam’s breath caught at the depth of Abigail’s knowledge. Someone had had the answers to his riddles all along.

  “—nor the woman downstairs. The lives of the fae are not their own, their destinies are bound, existence predetermined by the function they were born to fulfill, and so I cannot see the paths before them. My Sight can only see those of the mortal world. You and me and Zoe and the poor man whose body hosts the demon. I cannot see the demon himself.”

  Adam’s heart stalled. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What do you mean ‘the poor man whose body hosts the demon’?”

  “A demon has only as much power as a mortal gives him. This poor soul gave the demon his free will in exchange for...”

  “Power,” Adam finished.

  Abigail’s mouth made a disappointed moue. “No. Power is your weakness. You like to be in control, the one making decisions. The man who hosts the demon was tormented by fear. He was afraid to live, afraid to die, afraid of people. He wanted to live without that fear. To have peace.”

  Adam was disgusted. All this because of fear. Unbelievable.

  Abigail lifted an eyebrow. “Do you know what it is to be afraid? Truly, deeply afraid?”

  “Of course.” Everyone is afraid. But trade yourself to a demon because of it? No.

  She chuckled, mocking him.

  “I’ve been afraid,” he said again. “Have you seen my brother? I’ve stared down his gullet as he prepared to suck the life out of me. It was fucking terrifying.” The memory alone had his heart accelerating, his stomach tightening. Yeah, he’d known fear.

  Abigail seemed unimpressed. “There’s worse.”

  Adam couldn’t possibly conceive of worse and pressing the issue was irrelevant anyway. He returned to his original question: “Can I kill the host, and therefore the demon?”

  “Like a happy, convenient loophole in the sticky problem of the demon’s immortality?”

  “Yes. Exactly,” he said, though he didn’t like the sarcastic tone she’d used to restate his question.

  “You’d kill the man, but not the demon. Sooner or later—probably sooner—the demon would simply find another host.”

  “So we’re back to the beginning: Talia must scream to call her father, and then Shadowman will finish this.” Adam rose. If there were no new answers to be found here, he had to get Talia moving before anyone caught up. He rose.

  Abigail shrugged her shoulders. “That’s one way to do it,” she mumbled. She hunkered down into her chair and didn’t elaborate.

  Adam wasn’t biting. He’d had enough of her games. “Can you tell me where to find the demon?”

  “You thinking of joining The Collective?”

  Irritation tightened the muscles across Adam’s scalp. He’d had just about enough of this. He bit back his desired response and said, “No. I need to know where to find him so that I can get Talia into position safely.”

  “I think you underestimate her.”

  “Can you tell me or not?”

  She sighed a world of exhaustion. “I see water. I see the Styx.”

  “Are you being needlessly cryptic again?” Spouting about ancient Greek mythology when he needed a modern address.

  “I’m being literal,” she bit back. “The Styx is a ship, just an aptly named ship. Buy a ticket on the Styx and you buy a ticket to the underworld.”

  “Can you see anything else? Anything that will help me or Talia?”

  “No, that’s all—” Abigail broke off, her gaze shifting past Adam’s shoulder.

  He turned and found Talia, framed by the field of stars on the curtain dividing the room.

  “Welcome,” Abigail said behind him. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

  Talia gazed at the old woman in the chair. Light touched strands of gray hair, tu
rning them to silver. Her skin was crumpled, sagging flesh. And there was something...odd about her that went beyond the dark glaze that covered the woman’s eyes.

  Adam took Talia’s shoulders and searched her face. “You’re okay, then?”

  “I’m—” Talia’s already thin voice broke. She delicately cleared her voice so the burn in her chest wouldn’t flare up. She tried again, keeping her words whisper soft, though the sound still came out stilting and rough. “I’m fine. Amalia, the doctor, says I was very lucky. I need to take it easy, rest, and after a while I will be back to normal.”

  Normal. Not likely. The Earth-made component of the gas might’ve been slowly wearing off, but the Otherworldly part slicked her throat and lungs like malevolent oil. Neither water nor hacking coughs cleared it.

  “This just confirms my suspicions,” Adam said. “If they wanted to kill you, they’ve had ample opportunity. They want you alive. The gas was meant to incapacitate us long enough for them to get to you. Did she say how long it would take for you to recover your voice?”

  “I dunno—” Talia shrugged. The vibration of her vocal cords made her throat ache. Breathing through both her nose and her mouth seared. And that dark stuff coated, suffocated, and made her lungs scream for undiluted air. But she wasn’t about to burden Adam with the last part. The man was burdened enough.

  “You shouldn’t speak.” His hands tightened on her shoulders as his jaw flexed in frustration. He dropped his forehead to touch hers, to rest there, mind to mind. His concern filtered into her consciousness. “Okay. We need to find a safe place to wait out your recovery. Somewhere solitary and inconspicuous. In the meantime, we can plan.”

  Talia nodded shallowly, not wanting to jar their moment of intimacy. She really wanted to walk into the circle of his arms and curl against his chest, but his words from the loft, “another world, another time,” kept her back. She knew that Adam cared about her, but his priorities were unchanged: war first. That truth burned more deeply than the chemical gases she’d inhaled, though he was right. She was born to end this war.

  “You can stay here for a while,” Abigail said. “It’s safe. I don’t see a future where The Collective searches the building.”

  Huh? Talia replayed the old woman’s words in her mind. It made no sense.

  “What—”does she mean? Talia meant to ask, glancing up at Adam as her throat flared with pain and eroded her words.

  Adam broke contact and turned. “This is Abigail, and she can see the future. Or lots of futures, depending on what people decide to do.”

  “Can she—” see mine? Talia brought her hand to her chest.

  Adam shook his head. No. “She can’t see faery futures.”

  But...Talia made a cutting motion with her hand down the front of her body, symbolically halving herself.

  “I know,” Adam answered. “You’re half human. Abigail says she still can’t see your future. Apparently, your father’s blood runs a little thicker than your mother’s.”

  Can she see yours? Talia gestured to Adam.

  “Bits and pieces,” he answered, looking away.

  Which “bits and pieces”? Talia wanted to shake him.

  Talia’s gaze flew to Abigail, who merely raised an amused brow.

  If the woman could see Adam’s future, she had to be able to glimpse something of Talia’s as well. Adam had to be there when she screamed, when Shadowman ended the war. And after? What happened after? Did Adam’s future include her?

  “You can stay here for the time being. We’ve prepared a room for you down the hallway. You’ll get used to the noise from downstairs. When you’ve rested and”—Abigail twitched her nose—“cleaned up, it would be nice of you to come downstairs and make an appearance.”

  “I don’t think it would be a good idea to show up in a public place,” he said. “I don’t want to tempt fate by allowing a club full of people to see us.”

  Talia agreed with him.

  “But they’re all here for you.” Abigail looked directly at Talia as she spoke. The force of her statement had Talia stepping back.

  “What—” do you mean? Apprehension escalated wildly in Talia’s body, tension flexing the small and large muscles of her aching diaphragm.

  “This is no club,” Abigail explained. “This is a celebration. A Death Fete. We gather to celebrate you, Banshee, and your father, Shadowman. We have long recognized that the demon who calls himself the Death Collector is chaos in the making, a disease that threatens the world. The deathless creatures that have roamed New York’s streets finally have the attention of a faery who can do something about them. We celebrate because an end is in sight. We’ve waited many years for this day.”

  Talia brought her hands to her heating cheeks. “I— I—” Everyone was waiting for her? Face a roomful of people who knew what she was? Who her father was?

  Adam’s arm circled Talia’s waist as he spoke. “If you know so much, see so much, why didn’t you seek out me or Talia before?” His voice was even, but Talia felt the anger he concealed. “You could have stamped out the threat before so much damage was done. So many lives lost.”

  “We could have, but my Sight revealed that route held no victory. The only way we could defeat the demon was if you found Talia.” A smile played about Abigail’s mouth.

  “Why?” Adam lashed.

  Talia could guess. She caught the dart of Abigail’s eyes seeking hers. Abigail held her gaze a fraction of a second, but more than enough time to read Talia’s expression, then sit back with a sense of smug satisfaction. Abigail knew.

  Old Talia could never have faced a single wraith, much less the leader of them. But she was different now. The months running from the wraiths, each moment in that burning alley in Arizona, her respite at Segue, the understanding she’d found in Adam—all of it had changed her. Allowed her to function through her fear. To seek answers in spite of her terror. To accept herself and her dark gift. And, remembering Patty’s sacrifice, learn to embrace her fear for something bigger, more important than herself.

  Now, if need be, she could scream in the face of an immortal demon.

  Apparently Abigail could read faery futures after all.

  Adam opened his mouth to ask again, but was cut short when Abigail gasped. Her eyelids flickered as her head fell against the back of the rocking chair. She moaned loud and low.

  Adam looked to Zoe. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “Another vision,” Zoe answered.

  If possible, Abigail seemed to grow even older before Talia’s eyes.

  Curious, Talia reached for shadow. The layered veils slipped around her shoulders as her senses sharpened. She didn’t fight the darkness, but let the boundary to the Otherworld flow freely around her. This was, after all, what she was born to do.

  “I see a man,” Abigail wailed.

  Talia observed Adam as he crouched at Abigail’s chair to catch the clues her vision divulged. Shadows circled him, gathering and rolling off his broad shoulders like a thunderstorm.

  “A man searching...” Abigail repeated.

  But Abigail was different. Wisps of smoky blackness filtered through her body, collecting in her eyes, sharing space with her spirit.

  The woman should be stark raving mad. Perhaps she was, a little.

  In the penumbra of Abigail’s shadows, Talia caught a glimpse of her vision.

  Yes, the face and body of a man appeared, and he was searching, entering the bottom floor of the building that Adam had once thought safe, but had turned out to be a trap.

  A trap.

  “Who is it?” Adam asked.

  “Custo,” Talia answered. And he was walking right into it.

  CHAPTER 16

  “It’s Custo,” Talia repeated as she peered into the dense haze of shadow seething around Abigail. Then the image slid away.

  “He was supposed to meet me at the loft.” Adam’s voice was thick with controlled emotion.

  Talia looked wildly around at the over
lapping waves of darkness, trying to recapture the slippery vision of Custo. She let her eyes relax, inhaled the seductive dark wisps that she’d kept at bay all her life, and let them fill her.

  Potential futures sparked into existence in her vision, proliferating until there were as many glimmers of “might be” as there were stars in a clear night sky. She noticed how each discrete decision affected another, and another, until choices formed constellations of possibility that had no reference to probability. It was difficult to isolate one person. One event. To index one segment of time. At last she caught a sliver of Custo, a flash of his fair eyes.

  Her heartbeat accelerated as she strained to make out his location and what he was doing, but she could only see shimmers of motion and the occasional delayed reflection of his environment. The glint of steel. A wash of vertical concrete. The glitter of the rising sun beyond a tall, wide window, now punctured with fist-size holes.

  Talia let the shadows slide on her skin, caressing her face and stroking her body. If she didn’t fight them, if she allowed the strands to insinuate themselves around her limbs, hug her curves and wrap her in darkness, then her sight grew clearer.

  Her vision doubled, then tripled. Another Custo approached the loft’s building and surveyed the coded pad at the door. Yet another Custo followed at his heels, taking the sidewalk at a jog. One cut across the street on a diagonal. Another walked to the crosswalk at the corner, just as a car circled the building, Custo in the driver’s seat.

  “I don’t get it. Which one is him? Which one is real?” Talia looked to Abigail for clarification.

  “None of them is real until he acts,” Abigail answered. “These are just possibilities. And you are only seeing the versions of him that go to this building. There are probably many others who elected not to come. To opt out of this fight.”

  “No,” Adam said with conviction. “There are no other versions of Custo. He is a man of his word. Custo will meet me at the loft.”

  Adam was right. Each and every one of the Custos she saw, in spite of their small differences in approach, concentrated on the coded panel at the building.