Shadow Touch

by Marjorie M. Liu

  This was not one of them. As soon as Artur left, she retreated to the kitchen with Amiri. The shape-shifter wanted to fix something to eat, and Elena desired some familiar company. She was stuck here, and that made her angry. If she had to look for one more minute at the people who were doing the actual sticking-of-her-feet to this place, she was going to hurt someone.

  Elena thought she might eventually appreciate the company of Artur’s friends, but she did not know them. There was a history that she was not part of, and she did not yet feel comfortable mingling or asking questions. To be honest, the three men acted far too busy to be bothered. They were Very Important People with Very Important Jobs, and she … she was just the wannabe. A poor organic farmer from Wisconsin who could perform the occasional miracle.

  Which made her lonely, in addition to being angry. That was not her way. She did not get lonely. She said as much to Amiri, as his strong, dark hands mixed together eggs and flour and green onion. Oil spit and crackled in a cast-iron pan.

  “What is it John Donne says? ‘No man is an island, entire of itself?”

  “I always thought that saying was crap.”

  “Oh, Elena. Arguing with the great thinkers …”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “And I know what I used to tell my students. I would say, ‘No man is an island, but oh, if only.’”

  Elena snorted, leaning against the cracked plastic tabletop. Its surface felt sticky beneath her elbows. Amiri poured the batter into the pan, and the air smelled good and hot with grease.

  Then, suddenly, Artur was inside her head. She had wondered at his silence, at the absence of his warm presence, and to feel him again came as a shock.

  But to hear his words, to hear that name … Oh, oh, oh!

  “Elena,” Amiri said, as she began to leave the kitchen. He turned off the stove and ran after her, catching her arm just as she entered the living room.

  “It’s Artur,” she said, and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at her. “Beatrix has him.”

  “What?” Dean shot to his feet. He had been analyzing maps with Koni, while Rik hung back, just watching.

  Blue appeared from the alcove. “How do you know this?”

  “We have a … a link. I can hear his thoughts.”

  “Can you hear him now? Where is he?”

  Elena tried to reach for him, but slammed up hard against a barrier. Like being brain-dead—or maybe just a normal human. She could not reach him, and the horrible part was, she had put the block there herself. She had not been able to bear his protests, his denials. Of course she was coming for him. Of course she would find some way to save him.

  And, of course, knowing where he was would be a great big help with that.

  “I can’t reach him. I … I don’t know.” Elena fought hard to remember. She had felt the impression of darkness—a dark heart, a dark room, with a hand on her hand, and beyond that the statue of a man with wings. She felt bits and pieces of Artur’s memory seep slowly into her consciousness. It was so frustrating, not being able to recall more. “He was in a church, I think. A … a tower. The name of it starts with an M.”

  “I think I know where you’re talking about,” Koni said, unbuttoning his pants. “I roosted there once.”

  “He said to tell you that the meeting between the syndicates is being held tomorrow at eight P.M. in the Tanganka Theatre.”

  Dean blew out his breath. “All right, Koni and I will head over to that church. Blue, can you handle the recon on the theater?”

  “I’ll help,” Rik said. Amiri said nothing. He watched Elena. She knew what he wanted to do. She felt the same.

  “I’m going with you,” she said to Dean. He was a short man, not much taller than herself, but at that moment he had the authority in the room, and that made him big. She hated that. Dean shook his head.

  “Artur will kill me if anything happens to you.”

  “Wuss,” she said.

  “Hey.”

  “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  He gave her a look that clearly said he did not think she could hurt a fly. Which was true, but Dean wasn’t a fly.

  “We don’t have time for this.” Blue walked between them both, his gaze hard. He tried to stare Elena down, but he was no Charles Darling. Elena didn’t bat an eyelash. Maybe that hard-nosed stubbornness gave her some credibility—or maybe Blue was smarter than Dean, and knew better than to underestimate her. Either way, he backed off, but with the same message as his friends. “You can’t go, Elena. Dean’s right. Besides, if you get hurt, we lose our only potential link to Artur. You need to stay here with me and keep trying to contact him. That’s the best use of your energy.”

  Spoken like a politician. Elena did not bother disagreeing with him. She would bet the farm—quite literally—that there was nothing she could say to change this man’s mind. All he saw was an unknown, a woman who had yet to prove herself. Fine. She knew how to play games, too. She was becoming a master at them.

  Poor little innocent farm girl, my ass.

  “Okay,” she said, and glanced at Amiri. He did not trust her acquiescence—she could see it in his eyes—but he respected her enough not to challenge her motives.

  “Perhaps I may go with you,” he said to Dean. “I know Artur’s scent.”

  “Yeah.” Dean shrugged on a shoulder rig, arming himself. Over that he put on a lightweight jacket. Koni moved into the bedroom. Elena glimpsed his naked backside as he pushed down his jeans. Light enveloped his body. Elena heard the flapping of wings.

  “You need anything?” Dean asked Amiri.

  The shape-shifter shook his head and held up one hand. Light shimmered, muscles ripping into fur, the fine lines of claws. And then, quickly, he was all human again.

  “God, that still skeeves me.” Dean ran out the door. Amiri gave Elena one last lingering look—of reassurance, maybe, or just compassion—and followed him. Elena turned around. Blue was already tucked away in the alcove, pulling up computer files on the theater. Rik joined him, moving right behind his shoulder to peer at the screen. A little dolphin pup, eager to please.

  Don’t be unkind. You understand how he feels.

  And she did—she knew what it was like to be adrift, alone, desperate to find some place, some kind of responsibility. A definition of her identity and person-hood. But she was past that now. Elena knew who she was. She knew what she had to do.

  She walked to the window, reaching deep within her heart for Artur. Again she hit that barrier. Again and again, she was denied. Elena stared out at the street below her, soaking in the masterful architecture of the inner city, the fine curves and lines of buildings made to last. Stonework that would remain in this world much longer than her.

  Elena listened to Blue and Rik. They were wholly absorbed in a discussion of surveillance and electronics. She remembered what Rik had said about his hearing, that it was not anything special outside the water. She thought about Blue, and had to gamble that he faced similar restrictions. Only human, up to a point.

  She was quiet. She was lucky. They underestimated her. Elena left the apartment and they never noticed.

  She walked down the sidewalk and started moving, just to get away, far away in case they came looking. She limbered up her mind, chanting Artur’s name in her head like a prayer, unable to understand why she could not reach him, why it was so easy sometimes, and then when it mattered: nothing. She tried to watch where she was going, following the ebb and flow of the crowd, but it did not matter that she became hopelessly lost. Elena was free, away, and coming for him. Somehow coming for him. Standing still felt too much like letting him die. Letting him lose his mind to the worm, to pain.

  Elena had the first inkling of trouble when a small body ran hard into her legs. A cherubic face peered up at her. Elena glanced around. She had walked herself into a quiet side street, walked herself right past a group of boys idling against a wall. They looked rough, hungry. Elena remembered feeling that kind o
f hungry desperation, except it was not hers—it was Artur’s—and looking at these boys was like seeing what he once had been. It hurt. It hurt badly.

  They began moving when they saw her looking at them. Kicked off the wall in slow motion, like a pack, turning circles in the street with noises in their throats. They said words to her in Russian. Elena did not run. She wanted to—knew it made sense, like all the books said to do—but she could not bring herself to flee from children, no matter how lethal they might be.

  The oldest could not have been more than fifteen. He was gaunt, sharp like the knife that flashed in his hands. Dirty skin, dirty hair. Elena did not take her gaze from his face. He said something and looked at her bag, the one Mikhail had given her. Elena slowly pulled it over her head and tossed it to him. She had some money tucked in her pockets, but her papers were in there, however useful they really were. She hated to give them up, but only because she was sentimental.

  The boy did not look inside the bag. He kept staring at her face. His gaze dropped to her breasts. Elena did not like the way his expression changed, that hunger changing to a desperate curiosity.

  This is how it begins, she thought. Things you never think will happen. She wondered at this boy, living so wild on the street, maybe hungry for some love, a taste of what others had, wondering if it was good, if it was something that would make him a man, wondering if yes, this would add a little sweetness to an otherwise nightmarish life. Never knowing or imagining that to do such a thing would start yet another nightmare.

  He steadied the knife and looked into her eyes. The other boys, the older ones, were smiling. The young ones just looked confused. Elena got ready to fight.

  And then something small and wicked sprouted from her young mugger’s upper arm, and the boy howled, dropping her bag. Blood stained his clothes, spreading down, down, a fast drip that hit the ground in a rainfall of red spatter. Everyone turned to see who had thrown the knife.

  Brown hair, green eyes. That familiar cold smile, like chewing ice. Charles held up another knife, twirling it through his fingers in a complicated dance that was both hypnotic and terrifying. The boys, despite their numbers, knew when to cut their losses. They ran. Elena did not.

  She stooped to pick up her bag and slung it over her head. Charles Darling ambled close. The knife was gone, though Elena did not know where he kept it hidden. She wondered if it was the same one that had nearly killed Artur. She felt very calm.

  “I enjoy how we keep meeting like this,” he said. “I would have caught up with you earlier, while you were still on the train, but I was unavoidably detained.”

  “You’re good at finding me,” she said. “One might think you’ve got a sixth sense.”

  “One might.” He smiled. “And very good on healing Mr. Loginov. That was a lethal cut I gave him. A bad way to die.”

  “You know where he is?”

  “Oh, yes. L’araignée has him. I’m supposed to bring you to her.”

  “I could always refuse to heal her.”

  “That is why she has Mr. Loginov.” He rubbed his chin; his tongue darted out, moistening his lips. “I feel a little jealous.”

  “You already belong to her.”

  “No,” he said. “I feel jealous because you belong to him, and vice versa. This time, Elena, she did not take Mr. Loginov to possess him. She took him to possess you. She knows what he means to you.”

  Elena wanted to close her eyes and die. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? Being owned by her?”

  “There are benefits.” He held out his hand. “Come with me, Elena. You know you can trust me not to kill you. Yet.”

  “But if you get the chance?”

  “Oh,” he said. “What a lovely dream.”

  Elena took his hand. It was the most difficult thing she had ever done in her life. His skin was cold, like death. Charles Darling looked down at their connection of flesh. Palms rubbed.

  “I have never met a woman who can kill me,” he whispered. “I like that about you, Elena. It makes me hot.”

  She almost stopped his heart, but then he looked at her—really stared—and she could tell he meant it. Those were not words calculated to make her afraid. He was sincere.

  Which meant she was almost as fucked-up as he was.

  “Take me to Artur,” she said. “Do it now.”

  He did.

  They took a cab and drove past beauty: St. Basil’s Cathedral, a chaos of color and shape; bold statues of dead men, defiant and immortal in memory; high spiral towers, wooden needles striking the gray sky; even the wide boulevards—classic in line and design. Elena could appreciate none of it. All she could think of was Artur, and with him, the strange circumstances of fate that had seen her kidnapped and then psychically linked to one man, even as she held hands with a serial killer. She thought snowballs must be freezing in hell. Which might just explain the frigidity of Charles Darling’s skin.

  “I’ve read that severe trauma at a young age creates people like me.” He looked at her, a smile haunting his lips. “I prefer to think I was born this way, ready-made.”

  “I suppose it only makes sense,” Elena said. “If I could be born with the power to heal, then the world is certainly capable of producing the opposite.”

  “Which always attract,” he said. “I think that is what disturbed Rictor so very much. He could see inside my head and look at the truth. He knew that you and I were perfect pieces of the same puzzle. Symmetry. Poetry.”

  “You and Rictor had an interesting relationship,” she said carefully.

  “He hated me. He hated what I did, and that I could flaunt it at him. He was powerless to stop me.”

  “Not so powerless.”

  “He could not kill me. Death is the only thing I respect, Elena. If you cannot give me that, then there is nothing. You are not worth life.”

  “Survival of the fittest?”

  “They are the only people who will inherit the world.”

  “And because you were not allowed to kill Rictor or me, what does that make you?”

  His eyes narrowed. Elena clarified. “I’m just saying. Are there really all that many benefits to wearing a leash?”

  He never answered her. The cab stopped. They got out.

  The building was old, with remnants of charm that was the same charm permeating every other piece of the long stone row running the length of the boulevard. Nothing deviated or stood out. Simple lines and a stark silhouette against the dull sky.

  Inside, the decorations were tastelessly ornate. The front door opened into a dark narrow hall that had been assaulted by the color red—red and gold—in a variety of flower patterns that bore no relation to anything found in nature. Gilt everywhere. Mirrors covered the walls. Candles burned in sconces. The polished walnut floor reflected light.

  Charles led Elena down the hall. They passed two large men sitting in chairs, looking like they were waiting to hurt someone. She almost expected them to be wearing white, and wondered if perhaps they had, not so long ago. A thug was a thug was thug, no matter what he put on.

  Charles opened a door. Inside, Artur lay on a long couch. She tried to go to him, but Charles held her back.

  “He’s not dead,” Charles said. “Though I doubt his life will last much longer.”

  “I still have mixed feelings about that,” said a new voice. Elena turned just as a woman appeared in the doorway behind them. She was very tall and very skinny, with the kind of frame that would probably look nice on television, but in real life was just awful. Her eyes were as cold as Charles’s grip, her smile just as cruel. Elena recognized her from Artur’s memories.

  “So,” said the woman, “the infamous Elena Baxter. I meant to visit you during your stay at the facility, but I never got the chance.”

  “This is Ms. Graves,” Charles said. “The fly to the spider.”

  “Your insect jokes got old a long time ago,” Graves said. “I understand the metaphor, but really.”

  On the couch,
Artur stirred. Elena still could not breach the barrier between them. She had been inside his dreams before, but that was a natural sleep. She wondered if their separation was due to the obvious sedative keeping him under. She needed to touch him and make sure there was nothing else in his head. Nothing like a worm.

  “I like your fear for him,” Graves said softly. She closed her eyes. “It tastes very good. Very … pure.”

  “What are you?” Elena asked, disturbed by the expression on her face.

  “An empath,” Charles said, when Graves remained silent. “She feeds on emotions like I drink pain. Her cousin is much the same. Isn’t that true, Graves? The spider doesn’t like blood as much as she likes the hurt that goes with it.”

  Graves frowned. “I will never understand why she humors you, Charles. You talk too much.”

  “She likes men who can talk.” He smiled, sly. “She likes me, too, for the other things I do for her.”

  Which was disturbing on many different levels. Again Artur stirred, signs of restlessness, and Elena said his name out loud. Graves gave her a sharp look. She reminded Elena of the dead doctor, and Elena wondered: If Beatrix Weave and Graves were cousins, had he also been a relation? How odd to think of the Consortium in such a way. A family business.

  Wow. Dysfunction.

  Elena heard the whir of a small motor, the slippery tread of wheels. Charles tightened his grip on her hand. Graves threw back her shoulders, a small triumphant smile softening her face.

  Beatrix Weave rolled into the room, a small blond woman, fragile, even. Her body was not entirely shriveled, but it was obvious she had been without its use for some time. Her eyes were completely black. No whites, no definition of color. Just darkness through and through. Elena had never seen eyes like that on a real human being. She was so terrible, so utterly disturbing, the emotions Beatrix stirred in Elena’s heart went beyond simple fear. All Elena could muster was a sort of numb awe, a sense of looking into the abyss, and all that stared back was emptiness: endless and undying.