by Lizzy Ford
She was three steps down the hallway when it hit her. Shanti sucked in a breath, horrified.
Kaylee’s dark stillness.
The lingering energy of Hell.
Shadowman’s general absence.
Shadowman was caught in limbo. And so was Kaylee’s soul.
Kaylee wasn’t alive. She was animated, but it was the power of Hell keeping her on Earth.
“The first one who figured it out wins a special prize.” Eddy’s approach behind Shanti had been silent. His arm blocked her path, and his lean frame rested lightly against her left arm.
Shanti froze. Somehow, he understood what she knew. Was it her energy? She didn’t have his ability to suppress what she felt and prevent it from reaching her aura.
“You get to choose your prize,” he continued. “Silence or your tongue.”
“I’m right,” she said, mouth dry. “She’s what? A zombie?”
“Someone who dies, if she leaves my side for an extended period of time. Which is worth considering, if you two plan on running off at some point,” Eddy warned. “You’ll kill her. I’m her link on this plane.”
Shanti wasn’t the only one connected to the assassin. She found herself breathing in his scent and wondering what his face looked like, if she traced her fingertips across his features. His frame was wiry, lean, which she knew from their first meeting, when he’d grabbed her. He was strong and solid.
He was an incarnated demon. Or something similar. She had no idea, and he allowed no traces of his true nature to slip past his defenses.
“Silence,” she said, aware he was waiting for her decision. “I think it’s better she doesn’t know that yet. How can she live like this?”
“It’s working.”
“How can you live like this?”
“Me?” Eddy chuckled. “I thought we agreed to break up earlier.”
She flushed and smashed her elbow into his chest before knocking his arm away.
“There’s my girl,” he said, unfazed.
Shanti continued down the hall, counting her steps.
“I’m fine, by the way,” Eddy called after her. “Always nice to know someone cares!”
What an asshole, she thought. Even if he weren’t a psychopath, she couldn’t ever see herself with a complete ass.
“It won’t last,” she said when she reached the bottom of the stairwell leading upstairs. “You can’t keep something like that a secret for long. And even you can’t sustain that level of energy.”
“It better work, or half the people in this house end up deader than they currently are.”
“Because your life is connected to hers.”
“Bingo. That was the agreement,” Eddy answered.
“With … Him.”
“It’s in His best interest.”
“But not in yours,” she pointed out. She tilted her head again, struggling to pinpoint any flare or flux of his energy. “Aren’t you afraid of what happens?”
“Nah. Been through worse.”
“That’s truly … insane,” she said, amazed anyone could look forward to a trip to Hell. “None of this makes sense.”
“You mean us.”
“Non-us.”
“Maybe your fearless leader thought he could save me. Or sway me. He can’t, of course, but he must think highly enough of you to believe you stood a chance to change my mind. Take it as a compliment. I’ll take it as an insult,” Eddy reasoned.
Shanti hadn’t considered her bond to the assassin could be meant to do anything other than make her life miserable. Was he onto something?
Why didn’t I know to ask when I saw Pedro? Was this why the spirit guide corps as a whole was constantly frustrated by Pedro? Because he knew the answers to questions they hadn’t known to ask?
“Do you want to be saved?” she asked thoughtfully.
“Nothing in any world could do that.” His energy remained stable, his tone as well. “Thanks for the talk, sunshine.” He turned and left, his footsteps padding down the hallway.
Was everything a joke to him? Was he capable of caring about anything, even his own soul?
Why in the hell had Pedro matched her with a sadistic murderer incapable of being saved?
Shanti followed Eddy’s directions and found herself in the master bedroom, where Kaylee sat, crying.
Her frustration fled at the sniffling. Shanti moved towards the sound and perched on the bed beside Kaylee.
“Men suck,” she started.
Kaylee gave a teary laugh. “Yeah. They really do.”
Twenty-Two
Shanti’s instincts sent a cry of alarm. She snapped awake on the bed beside Kaylee, who had fallen asleep crying. Unwilling to leave her, Shanti had stretched out to sleep next to her.
The house in general was quiet, and no one’s energy was present in the room aside from theirs. Kaylee’s aura was dark and still once more; she was in zombie mode, which creeped Shanti out almost as much as her stay in the basement. Kaylee was the sixth corpse in the house, except no one other than Shanti and Eddy understood that to be the case.
Puzzled as to what had awoken her, Shanti shifted off the bed as gently as possible so as not to disturb Kaylee. She stood and swept her foot in front of her, stepping two steps at a time after ensuring her path was clear.
When she reached the door, she counted back the steps she had taken to the stairs, walked down and paused once more.
She heard nothing. Sensed no one.
But something was … wrong. Or off. She couldn’t tell for certain which was true. Had Eddy or Nathan done something to trigger her instincts? Or had the house been discovered by 3G?
She strained to identify any trace of danger.
Nothing.
“Hey, sunshine. You need to move. Fast.” Eddy’s whisper came from the direction of the front of the house.
“I don’t sense –” she began to reply.
Someone barreled into her. Someone who could hide his energy.
She landed on the carpeted floor beneath Eddy, who attempted to not fall fully on her. He rolled them and then wrapped an arm around her, pulling her with him behind the sofa in the formal living room.
“What the hell?” she muttered and wriggled.
He kept her against him, his strong frame tense. “They’re using infrared and I’m not sure what else.”
Shanti went still. “3G?”
“Yep. Looks like they found us!”
“How can you be happy about that?”
“I like a good fight. Murder, mayhem. I’m good at direct confrontation.”
She shook her head. He was absolutely crazy.
Eddy didn’t release her. They sat in the quiet, hunkered down behind a sofa, his arm tight around her. The warm electricity she experienced whenever they touched trickled into her, soothing her tense muscles and helping her relax.
It was the wrong moment to relax, she knew, but she wasn’t able to help the sensations inside her or the strange urge to shift closer to him.
Did he feel any of this? Or was she alone being tortured by an attraction to a monster?
None of her senses picked up on any indication from him that he was aware of her in the same manner she was of him.
A sound, too soft for her to make it out, came from upstairs. Shanti listened hard. It didn’t come again. If it was Kaylee, she could have gone to the bathroom. Fortunately, it didn’t sound like she was headed down the hallway towards the stairs.
“Ah. Laser guided weapons. So un-creative,” Eddy said.
Shanti kept her attention on any movements or sounds originating from upstairs.
The soft sound came again. Not a footfall. Not snoring or the sound of running water or a door closing.
When it came a third time, she shifted away from Eddy.
Shanti started to stand. Eddy snatched her back against him.
“Something’s going on upstairs,” she said and strained. He held her fast. She positioned herself to unleash a barrage of se
lf-defense moves to dislodge him.
“Can you see the lasers?” he asked, entertained. “Because I can. You’d be hit before you reached the stairs.”
“Can’t have your precious gateway being shot!” she snapped. “Kaylee’s in danger. I can’t explain how I know it, but she is.”
“Can’t have that now, can we?” Eddy loosened his grip and shifted around her. “Stay here, sunshine. I’ll check it out.” He released her and bolted, taking with him the comforting warmth.
A gunshot was followed by two more.
She held her breath, waiting for the pops of sound to quiet before listening for Eddy. The assassin had made it to the stairs. She didn’t smell blood, leading her to believe he’d made it without being shot.
Shanti waited a moment. She tracked his movement down the hallway above her head. Then she heard it – the sounds of a struggle. After a split second of indecision, Shanti shifted onto her tiptoes. She took a deep breath and sprinted.
Bullets whizzed by her. She hit the wall behind the stairs and then scrambled up. The bullets stopped when she reached the top, and she slowed as she went down the hallway.
The energies of a dozen people were ahead of her, none of which were Kaylee’s. They radiated the steady auras of guides. Concerned, Shanti entered the melee in the master bedroom and smashed a kick into the back of one of the people fighting Eddy. The attacker whirled to confront her. She punched, kicked and swept his legs before slamming her heel into the guide’s throat.
He gagged and wheezed.
Shanti ducked a blow aimed at her head, her senses picking up the energy that was too fluid for her to sense in time. Whirling, ducking and twisting, she waited for her attacker to lower his guard. When he did, she went in hard and fast, smashing her heel against his nose and knee into his groin.
Too late she sensed the blow coming from behind her. Shanti whirled – but Eddy was there first.
“Don’t listen to instructions, do you?” he asked, strain in his voice as he held the wrist of the man aiming for her head while simultaneously keeping a hold on the other guide to his left.
“I don’t need help!” she retorted and slammed her elbow into the attacker’s face. She gave him a knee to the groin then clocked him as he fell.
“I know. He’s all yours.”
Somewhat placated that Eddy didn’t think her weak, Shanti focused on the next attacker and sensed Eddy behind her, his back to her. He trusted her skill to let her cover his most vulnerable side, his back.
Why did that make her happy?
Within minutes, their attackers lay on the floor, most unmoving and one wheezing. Sensing her balance off, Eddy reached out to steady her. Shanti straightened and swiped his arm away, breathing hard.
“We need to leave before they bring reinforcements,” Eddy said.
“But, Kay-”
“She’s gone. Nathan went out for more supplies.”
Shanti started in the direction of the large window beyond the bed, not believing him.
“We don’t have time,” Eddy said. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her towards the door.
Shanti wrenched free. She sensed him reach for her and lashed out as hard as she had with the 3G guides attacking them.
Eddy moved with inhuman speed, predicting her blows and deflecting them with firm gentleness, the same he’d shown her during their first encounter on the road in Maryland.
“I’d love to fight you, sunshine,” he said. He snatched her fist mid-punch and whirled her, yanking her against his strong form. As before, he used an arm bar around her neck certain to kill her, if she resisted. “But maybe we can pick a better time and place. Cool?”
Unable to resist, Shanti growled in frustration. She made a mental note to learn a defense strategy against the move he’d used against her twice.
“We straight?” he asked without releasing her.
“Fine,” she muttered.
Eddy released her. “Then let’s go!” He grabbed her hand and guided her – quickly but carefully – through the bodies in the bedroom and into the hall.
Shanti went, hating that her guide stick was elsewhere. She could read energies to navigate people but she needed help avoiding inanimate objects and stairs, which she had learned the hard way long ago.
“When did you figure it out? About us?” she asked as she blindly allowed Eddy to guide her.
“As soon as I saw you,” he replied.
Shanti mumbled a few curses. “That’s why you didn’t shoot me, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t shoot you because I had six rounds and didn’t want to waste them.”
For the first time since they’d met, she caught something different in his energy.
He was lying. Shanti was too surprised to know what to ask or even if she’d read the tiny fluctuation correctly.
Eddy didn’t take them to the stairwell. The windows on the main floor shattered, and tear gas tickled her nose as it floated up the stairs. The shuffling movement of 3G members moving through the ground floor came next.
Eddy continued to one of the other rooms down the hallway. He slung open a glass door. Fresh, cold night air swept over her. It was laced with the scents of gunpowder.
Eddy stopped. Her free hand tapped the air beside him until she found the cold metal railing around the balcony.
He let go of her hand. “Can you swim?”
“Can I what?”
Before she realized why he was asking, Shanti was soaring over the balcony. She stifled a scream as she fell.
She hit the water of the pool in the backyard. Shanti sank beneath the surface, her skin jolted into hypersensitivity by the freezing water. She began kicking and surfaced, gasping and furious.
A splash sounded near her, announcing Eddy’s dive off the balcony.
Shanti began swimming, arms extended to feel for the side of the pool.
“Other way,” Eddy said as soon as he surfaced.
She changed her direction. At the moment, 3G was a greater threat than Eddy. She reached the side of the pool. The sound of Eddy pulling himself out was followed a second later by his hands gripping her wrists. He hauled her up and out.
Shanti’s toes reached the cement border. Eddy released one wrist as she planted herself firmly on the ground once more.
“They found my arsenal,” he said, disappointed. “It’s a shame, really. I hate wasting my toys.”
Shanti frowned. Nothing about Eddy was subtle. She heard him fish something out of his wet pocket and then a click.
“Eddy!” she exclaimed. “We’re in the middle of –”
“Better duck, sunshine!” He pulled her away from the house. She didn’t understand their direction until they reached a shed with rough wooden walls. He pulled her between it and the fencing then wrapped one arm around her and knelt, supporting her in the space between his knees. “Three, two, one.”
An explosion ripped through the neighborhood. The shed rattled but held. Flaming parts of the house, and likely those in it when it went up, rained down around them. Heat rolled over them. Shanti careened back against him, her sensitive ears ringing painfully and senses overwhelmed by the energy radiating off the explosion.
Eddy steadied her. “Let’s see those cockroaches survive this,” he said, sounding satisfied. “Great way to cover up a multiple homicide.”
“You’re crazy!” she cried.
Shanti struggled to right herself. Unlike sounds, where she could cover her ears, she couldn’t turn off the ability to read energy. The world was ablaze with it, her surroundings a mangled mess. She held her head, struggling for balance within the chaos. Her breathing was harsh, her equilibrium askew to the point the ground felt as if it moved beneath her.
Eddy’s free hand went to her forehead. A flow of energy – cool mixed with warm – pushed into her mind, suppressing the chaos.
Shanti rested her head back against his shoulder as the sensations released her.
“You into kinky shit by chance?�
�� he asked. His hand circled her neck, and he squeezed gently.
A shiver went through her, one she was embarrassed to acknowledge as pleasure. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Shanti demanded but didn’t move.
“Yeah, I thought so. This soul mate business is not happening, but if you ever want to f-”
A second explosion went off, drowning out his words. Shanti braced herself. Eddy’s palm returned to her forehead, and more soothing energy flowed into her.
“That’s our sign to leave,” he said.
“What about the others?”
“Nathan will find us.”
“Kaylee can’t be away from you for long.”
“3G won’t make it easy to find her. We need to retreat and plan. I might have a last resort idea.” Eddy’s hand dropped. The energy remained, calming her mind. He stood and helped her up.
Something told her the cheerful assassin’s idea was going to be terrible. Shanti didn’t ask, though, afraid to hear him admit the truth.
“How long can she survive if she’s not with you?” she asked, concerned.
“Not long.”
“A few days? A week?”
“If we’re lucky, a day. But as long as I’m within about a tenth of a mile of her, that should be enough.”
“Holy shit! Why would you agree to something like that?” Shanti demanded.
“It was a spur of the moment thing.”
“At what point did turning someone into a zombie sound like a good idea anyway?”
“Is this one of those relationships where you’re going to complain about me leaving the toilet seat up?” He grabbed her arm and began walking along the fencing. “Let’s get a few things straight. One, when the Fallen One himself asks for a favor, you do it. Two, if you run, I’ll cut off some body part you like. Or one I like. I’m not gonna lie. There are a few I’ve been looking at.”
Maybe she had pissed off Pedro without realizing it. That would explain pairing her up with a man who belonged in an asylum for the criminally insane. How was this her life? Her reality? Her fate?
