The Shadows and Sorcery Collection

by Heather Marie Adkins

  “Impatient faery.” He chuckled.

  “We’re not a race known for our ability to wait. Instant gratification is a trait of ours.”

  Warren dipped to kiss me, his hips settling between my legs. “Press pause for me. If I die tomorrow, I want to go remembering this.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is imminent death a possibility?”

  “Not right this moment.” He grinned and sank into me.

  He moved so torturously slow, I thought my body would revolt. But the heavy weight and warmth of his body on mine, in mine, chased everything away. We were hands and lips and limbs.

  I wrapped my legs around him and enjoyed the ride. If I died tomorrow, I wanted to remember this, too.

  When I left the suite an hour later, Warren had already passed out again, one long leg flung across the spot where I had slept beside him. His mahogany hair glittered in the sunlight streaming through the curtains. He looked beautiful. Innocent, even.

  Coffee in hand, I headed for the elevator, peeved to realize my knees were still weak.

  I found the lobby slightly less full of mayhem than it had been the night before. The crowd of people outside had dispersed, though a select few remained, camping out on the sidewalk. Since Lila and Everett had released a statement regarding Senka and the earthquake, I didn’t fully understand what they hoped to accomplish sleeping on the sidewalk outside Headquarters.

  The guard at the lobby elevator greeted me with a pleasant morning grunt. He swiped his Com and gestured me into the elevator.

  “Security’s been overridden,” he said in a raspy wheeze. “Just push the button.”

  I thanked him, then rode the elevator in silence. I’d never lived in a world where I could enter Senka's tomb without Lila or Everett. You’d think this wouldn’t shake me so much, considering the princess had physically touched me last night. But it did.

  Everything had changed.

  I left the elevator for the eerie hush of the underground. The doors rattled closed behind me as I made a beeline for the guards’ box.

  Senka sat where I had left her six hours before, her hands folded primly in her lap. She reacted immediately to my presence, her lips twisting into a grimace slightly closer to a smile than her previous attempts. She reached for me happily, and I accepted her cool hands.

  She looked different. Warmer, skin darker, cheeks flushed. Her vacant stare had focused more, until it seemed she really was meeting my gaze.

  Then I realized why the princess looked so healthy. Her nighttime guard, pestered into sitting with her so I could sleep, sat in the corner.

  Mummified.

  20

  From apples to people. Lovely.

  I pulled up the screen on my Com, eyeing Senka warily as I radioed for backup. Her smile widened and settled more comfortably on her face, more like it belonged there.

  Despite the way her pretty face brightened, a chill set in my bones. I had to focus on keeping the unease out of my tone as I requested aid from dispatch.

  Then, the super fun part, I texted Lila: Wake up, Queen Bee. We have a problem.

  Her response came almost immediately: Shit.

  I assumed that meant she was on her way and under the impression our “problem” was more of a “catastrophe.” I definitely didn’t need to disabuse her of that notion.

  I sank into a free chair—one of those uncomfortable folding metal monstrosities that were only good for ass-bone torture. “Did you touch your guard, Princess?”

  Senka’s glittering eyes shifted to my face. Her gaze moved slowly, as if she could see the story of my life upon my brown skin. Finally, she met my questioning gaze.

  And smiled.

  Lovely. I didn’t know if she was a damned sociopath or just incapable of understanding exactly what she’d done.

  I stood up, too creeped to stay close to her. I wandered to the dead guard, briefly noting the irony in my preference to hover over Night of the Living Mummy instead of Senka.

  The guard sat comfortably in her chair, one hand resting on her lap and the other wrapped around a coffee mug half full of dark brown liquid. She looked out over the tomb, a magazine open in front of her. Her blonde ponytail looked as silly and shiny as it had when she relieved me. If it weren’t for the rough, puckered leather of her skin, dried prunes for eyes, she might have looked normal.

  Nothing indicated she’d been paying any attention to Senka. If Senka had snuck up on her, she would have reacted. A hand thrown out, chair pushed back, something.

  But it looked like she withered away by proximity.

  Back-up arrived in the beefy form of John Nesbitt.

  “We have got to stop meeting like this,” he joked, offering me a high five.

  I slapped his palm, cheered by his jovial attitude. “I’m gonna start thinking you like me.”

  “Not a secret, Nez. We go too far back.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and whistled at the withered husk that had once been the night guard. “Fuck. Senka do that?”

  “Don’t touch it,” I said before he got too close to the body. “I don’t know if it’s residual.”

  Nesbitt jerked his hands up in an I-surrender stance. “Okay. That’s terrifying.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m not one-hundred percent certain being in the same room with her won’t suck us dry.”

  Nes and I both glanced at Senka, who was calmly running her fingers over the computer's keyboard as if we didn’t exist.

  “Other than call in our illustrious crime scene team, I don’t really know what to do.” He rubbed a hand vigorously over his shaved blond head—chopped sometime between the councilman's murder and this.

  Little details like that always reminded me there really was life outside the job. I wasn’t great at remembering that for myself.

  “It's not like we can try her for murder,” Nes continued. “She’s Senka.”

  “Not to mention she doesn’t seem to have any control over it,” I said, a note of warning in my tone. “She’s not a villain.”

  John’s gaze gentled. “You don’t have to tell me that. We owe her our lives.”

  Suddenly, Senka’s gaze left my face and traveled to Nesbitt. She shook her head, as if frustrated she couldn’t speak, and extended a hand to him.

  As John stepped forward to take her offered fingers, I firmly shoved her hand back to her lap.

  “No, princess. You might hurt him,” I told her.

  Something like understanding flickered in her black eyes. She clenched her fist and bowed her head.

  John looked distraught that I had kept him from touching Senka. I could have launched into the samba with the dead guard's withered body, and I had a feeling he would have still wanted to touch her.

  I understood that loyalty.

  “Have you alerted the Reins?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Lila is on her way.”

  “Lila is here,” our reina interrupted. She swept through the door in a long white dress that looked oddly angelic next to Senka’s dark purple. Her messy blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, and dark rings encircled her sapphire eyes. When her gaze landed on the guard, she sighed.

  “It appears her touch can be deadly for people, too,” I offered helpfully.

  “I gathered,” Lila said wryly. “This poses a problem.”

  “I’m not sure this is the biggest problem we have.”

  Lila ignored me. “You have to get her away from here. Take her to the tenth encampment. Somewhere where she can’t hurt anyone else.”

  “There are plenty of people to hurt at the encampment,” I pointed out.

  “Where she can’t hurt anyone who matters.”

  Her flippant dismissal sent irritation crashing through me. “If they’re alive and not causing us any issues, then they don’t deserve to die.”

  She looked at me scant-eyed. “Since when do you champion the shadow touched?”

  Since I slept with one. Not that I'd go anywhere near that subject with Lila. I didn’t want to c
atch her in one of her moods and end up a puddle on the floor. Shit, I hadn’t totally come to terms with just how well I'd come to know a shadow touched.

  “Taking Senka away from the core isn’t any safer,” I went on. “What about the darkness? As far as I can tell, considering people aren’t dropping dead from shadows all around us, she’s still protecting the Hollow. If I take her away, we lose that. The core will no longer be safe.”

  Nesbitt, who had remained respectfully silent through the exchange, spoke up. “Are you telling me she’s protecting us from the darkness at the same time she’s killing us?” He pointed at the dead guard.

  “Not on purpose, I think.” I remembered the flush to her cheeks as she drew energy from the apple. And now, how much more normal she looked after draining the guard. “I think her magick is trying to heal her body. Pull life force from around her to balance the weight of the darkness.”

  Lila remained silent for a moment, tapping a finger to her lip. “Well then, we have to put her back below where she can’t hurt anyone.”

  I opened my mouth to argue—we couldn’t just bury a fully conscious Senka, after all. But I didn’t get a chance to speak.

  Senka stood so swiftly I barely followed the movement. With an elegant swing of her hand, she sent her chair flying across the room. Metal hit drywall with preternatural strength, and plaster crumbled to the ground.

  Nesbitt, who had been silent during our exchange, unholstered his weapon and aimed it at Senka.

  “Stop. Idiot.” I put a hand to the barrel of his Luger and shoved it down.

  Senka towered over Lila, though she didn’t seem to be looking at her. The princess's small hands clenched into fists at her sides—the only indication of her residual anger.

  I retrieved Senka's chair and placed it behind her, then gently guided her back into it. “Obviously, she doesn’t want to go back.”

  Senka finally looked up, acknowledging my presence. She threw her arms around my neck and whimpered like a scared puppy.

  The angle was awkward, but I couldn't bring myself to untangle from Senka's frightened, groping arms. I patted her back and squeezed her tightly. “I won’t let them take you,” I whispered in her ear.

  Senka relaxed, her face pressed into my neck. Her steady breaths brushed over my skin. Still, she held on to me.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Lila gestured to the two of us and our tentacle embrace. “She could hurt you. Suck you dry.”

  I extracted myself from Senka's arms. “She didn’t hurt me last night.”

  Lila glanced at the dead guard. Our crime scene techs had yet to arrive. When the crime occurred in your own building, and the guard was so dead you could start a fire with her withered corpse, I guess you placed the scene low on the priority list.

  “Why do you think she hasn’t hurt you?” Lila mused. “She's touched you more than anybody.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Senka touched my forehead. She opened her mouth, her jaw twisting as if it had forgotten how to function. She gaped once, then twice. A single, rasping word escaped her lips. “Bricks.”

  I froze, stunned. Senka had spoken.

  Senka touched my bare chest right above my tank top. Her cool finger traced a square on my skin. “Bricks,” she said again. Her cool fingertip repeated the square right next to the first.

  As if she were building a wall.

  Brick by brick.

  “My walls.” My voice was breathless with the realization. I glanced at Lila. “She can’t get through my walls.”

  Lila wrinkled her nose. “Your walls?”

  Years of friendship, and I’d never shared this with her? Though, maybe it made sense. My father was part of a life before Lila and the SEB.

  “The Res is so close to the Rim, you learn early to guard yourself against the darkness,” I told my rapt audience of two. “Most of my clan can do the same. The ones with strong wills and strong magick, anyway. My dad taught me how to build a metaphysical wall against the darkness.” I smiled at Senka and traced a square on my chest. “Brick by brick.”

  “So she can’t get through your magickal barrier. Interesting.” Lila paced the floor across from us, her hands worrying at the folds in her dress. “Maybe for the time being, she would be safer on the reservation. Close enough to the core, but not as far as the encampments.”

  “I said most can protect themselves. Not everybody.” Like Mai, who had lived most of her life without our father. For the first time, I berated myself for never teaching her how to build the wall.

  “Send those who can’t protect themselves into the city. We'll find somewhere to put them up for the time being.”

  “Without Senka to gather the darkness, the city will be in danger.”

  “I don’t know what else to do!” Lila snapped, losing her perfectly affected cool. “We can’t have her killing everybody around her.”

  Nesbitt blanched and took a step back. Senka whimpered.

  “Stop, Lila. This isn’t helping.” I’d never seen my Reina in this state of half-hysterics. Not over anything unrelated to her faltering marriage.

  Senka’s hand was smooth and cool in mine. I stared into her endless black eyes. “She’s so full of darkness. We have to get that out of her.”

  “And get her back in the ground,” Lila added.

  Senka leapt to her feet and threw her chair again. This time, she aimed for Lila. Lila easily defected the blow with a flip of her fingers and magick. Nesbitt didn’t draw his gun this time, which seemed an interesting window into his thoughts. Lila's callousness towards Senka had clearly made him more likely to protect the wall over the reina.

  I put my arms around Senka and squeezed until her shoulders slumped and she loosened. I guided her into a different chair.

  Lila sighed. “Why does she keep doing that?”

  “She’s been alone underground for a hundred years. This is her first human contact—first contact with the world—for a century. I wouldn’t want to go back either.”

  “She doesn’t have a choice. It’s her destiny as Rasha’s daughter.”

  “Nobody should be destined for something they don’t want to do,” I murmured.

  Senka gazed up at me. Emotion had started to return to her face. Right now, she looked on the edges of fearful. And sad.

  Senka was just like me; bound for a life of serving her clan because her mother said so.

  21

  I sent word ahead to the Res via a uniformed SEA officer, explaining to my mother what had happened and instructing her to get everyone out who couldn’t protect themselves against Senka.

  Whether or not she would listen to me was anybody’s guess.

  Lila disappeared into the council’s meeting room for yet another oh-fuck-what-do-we-do meeting that would likely degrade into eleven geriatrics shouting at one another and end with still no plan set in place. I felt for her, but she wasn’t the one babysitting the Queen of Darkness.

  “So you get to meet my mom,” I told Senka as I pushed the button to call the elevator.

  Senka’s mouth worked into an O shape as she tested the word. “Mom.”

  I grinned. “Before long, you’ll be talking. Then I’ll teach you how to fire a gun.” I patted my new Taurus.

  Senka returned my smile.

  That smile fled fast when the elevator doors opened. Her dark gaze shifted wildly around the small, metal box. She shrank away with a tiny moan.

  “No, no. Princess.” I reached for her hands, twisting our fingers together. “This is just an elevator. It’s going to take us to the surface. Above. Not below.”

  She shook her head and tugged at my hands. She held a worrying amount of strength in her slight, angular form.

  I dug my heels into the floor and pulled her into my arms. Her electrified hair sparked and waved in my face as I murmured, “You’re safe. I’m with you.”

  The stiffness in her body eased. Her arms wrapped around my waist and she returned my embrace. “Safe
,” she whispered, drawing the sound out.

  “Safe,” I promised.

  I held her hand all the way to the lobby.

  I knew how to drive a car; I just didn’t prefer it. But in deference to the fact that three people would not fit on my Ducati, I glamoured the bike to hide it from prying eyes and led my ragtag band of shadow touched misfits to an unmarked patrol car.

  Seeing Warren emerge from the elevator to join us had done things inside me I couldn’t explain. His hair was clean and styled into a point, and he wore clean, borrowed blue jeans that rested low on his hips beneath a plain white t-shirt.

  He grinned at me as he drew near. Not just the wolfish grin he flashed around—this smile said he knew the most intimate places of my body, and he had every intention of knowing them again.

  He hadn’t seemed overly concerned at being introduced to Senka, as if he had already known. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the least if he had.

  Like most cars in the Hollow, the sleek, black SEB Charger ran on fairy dust and prayers, and looked a little worse for the wear. I guess a hundred years could do that to a hunk of metal and human engineering, no matter how many times it was magicked to keep running. I tapped the security code into the keypad on the door, and the locks released.

  Warren opened the front door and gestured for Senka to get in. “After you, Princess.”

  Senka eyed the interior warily.

  I slid behind the wheel and patted the passenger seat. “You get to sit right next to me.”

  “Do you remember cars?” Warren asked.

  Senka shook her head but the motion held no conviction. She traced her fingers over the door, as if trying to recall memory by touch. I thought maybe the memories were there, right beneath the surface, so close she could feel them, but so far she couldn’t find them.

  Warren offered Senka a hand, and before I could tell him not to touch her, she accepted his gentlemanly gesture, her small, pale hand alighting on his. I held my breath and tried to not envision him mummified as he helped Senka into the car and buckled her seatbelt.