The Shadows

SIX

SALVATORE’S RESTAURANT, OUTSIDE OF LITTLE ITALY, CALDWELL

With a curse, iAm ended the call that had just come through on his cell phone and braced his upper body on the counter in front of him. After a moment of arrhythmia, he yanked on his wool peacoat, the black one with the forty in a hidden pocket on the left side and an eight-inch hunting knife stitched into the lining on the right.

He might need the weapons.

“Chef? You okay?”

He glanced across the industrial kitchen at Antonio diSenza, his executive chef. “Sorry. Yeah. I gotta go—and I already started the mise en place.” He picked his cell phone back up. “You can finish it tomorrow.”

Antonio took off his toque and leaned a hip against the massive twelve-burner stovetop. All the equipment used for dinner service was cleaned up, the lingering steam from the dishwashers making the forty-by-twenty-foot kitchen seem like something out of the Amazon rain forest.

Too quiet, iAm thought. And the brightly lit place smelled like bleach instead of basil.

“Thank you, chef. Do you want me to stew the tomatoes before I leave?”

“It’s late. Go home. Good service tonight.”

Antonio wiped his face off with a blue-and-white dish towel. “Thanks to you, chef.”

“Lock up for me?”

“Anything you want.”

With a nod, iAm left the kitchen and cut through the tiled delivery hall to the back exit. Outside, two of his waiters were loitering around their cars and smoking, their tuxedo jackets off, their red bow ties loose and hanging from their open collars.

“Chef,” one of them said, straightening.

The other immediately came to attention. “Chef.”

Technically, he was more boss than chef here at Sal’s, but he did do a lot of the cooking and recipe R & D himself, and the staff respected him for it. Hadn’t always been that way. When he’d first stepped in to take over the Caldwell institution, he had not exactly been welcomed. Everyone from the waiters to the chefs to the busboys had assumed he was an African-American, and the deep pride and tradition of Italian ownership, cooking, and culture would have worked against anyone who didn’t have Sicilian blood in his veins.

As a Shadow, he understood the deal better than they knew. His people didn’t want anything to do with vampires or symphaths—and certainly never those rats-without-tails humans. And Sal’s was one of the most famous restaurants in Caldwell, not just a throwback to the Rat Pack era of the fifties, but a place that had actually served the Chairman of the Board and his slick boys. With its flocked wallpaper, hostess stand, and formal everything, it was Sardi’s north—and had always been owned and managed by Italians.

Over a year into his ownership, though, everything was all good. He had proved himself to everyone from the customers to the staff to the suppliers, not just stepping into Salvatore Guidette III’s shoes, but filling them. Now? He was treated with respect that bordered on worship.

Wonder what they’d think of him if they knew he wasn’t from Africa, he did not identify as American—and more to the point, he wasn’t even human.

A Shadow was in their midst.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he told the two men.

“Yes, chef.”

“’Night, chef.”

iAm nodded at them and strode around the far corner. As soon as he was out of sight, he closed his eyes, concentrated, and dematerialized.

When he re-formed, it was on the eighteenth floor of the Commodore, on the terrace of the condo he owned with his brother. The glass slider was wide-open, the long white drapes billowing in and out of the dark interior like ghosts trying and failing to escape. There had been two possible destinations for him: here or shAdoWs, and he’d picked their bachelor pad because of what was waiting inside.

There was news from the s’Hisbe, and all things considered? iAm would rather be the messenger to Trez than the male they’d sent.

Putting his hand into his coat, he found the butt of his gun and stepped inside. “Where are you.”

“Over here,” came the deep, quiet response.

iAm pivoted to the left, toward the white leather couch that was against the far wall. His keen eyes adjusted in a heartbeat, and the enormous black shape of the Queen’s executioner came into focus.

iAm frowned. “What’s wrong?”

The sound of ice cubes in a club glass twinkled across the silence. “Where’s your brother?”

“It’s opening night at the club. He’s busy.”

“He needs to answer his phone,” s’Ex said roughly.

“Has the Queen given birth?”

“Yes. She has.”

Long silence. With nothing but the sound of those ice cubes to break it up.

iAm inhaled and caught the scent of bourbon—as well as an acrid sadness that was so great, he released his hold on his gun.

“s’Ex?”

The executioner burst up from the sofa and strode over to the bar, his robes swirling after him like shadows thrown in a great wind.

“Care to join me?” the male asked as he poured more into his glass.

“Depends. What’s your news and how does it affect my twin?”

“You’re going to need a drink.”

Right. Great. Without further comment, iAm walked over and joined s’Ex at the bar. It didn’t matter what went into which glass, whether there were ice cubes, if there was a splash of tonic. He drank what turned out to be vodka down and poured some more.

“So it wasn’t the next Queen,” he said. “The young that was born.”

“No.” s’Ex went back over to the couch. “They killed it.”

“What.”

“It was . . . decreed. In the”—he waved his glass around over his head—“stars. So they killed the infant. My . . . daughter.”

iAm blinked. Drank some more. And then thought, Jesus, if the Queen could do that to an innocent young born of her own body, the s’Hisbe’s leader was capable of anything.

“So,” s’Ex said more evenly. “Your brother is once again Her Majesty’s prime concern. There is a mandatory period of mourning and I shall depart to join in that. But following the Enclosure Ceremony and its attendant rituals, I will be sent to collect the Anointed One.”

The Enclosure Ceremony was the formal entombing of the sacred dead, a right that was reserved for members of the royal family only. And the mourning would last a number of nights and days. After which . . . it appeared their reprieves had run out.

“Shit,” iAm breathed.

“I am happy to inform your brother, but—”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“I thought so.”

iAm sat down in the chair next to the executioner. Looking over, he traced the male’s features. s’Ex had come from worse than the lower class; the male had been born of servant parents but, through his brawn and smarts, had risen to seduce the Queen. It was an unprecedented ascension through the strata of social levels.

“I’m sorry,” iAm whispered.

“Whatever for.”

“Your loss.”

“It was decreed. In the stars.”

The male’s casual shrug was belied by the way his voice cracked.

Before iAm could say anything further, s’Ex leaned in. “Just so we’re clear, I will not hesitate to do whatever is necessary to bring your brother home and provide him bodily to the purpose for which he was born.”

“You’ve already said that.” iAm likewise sat forward and locked eyes. “And get real, you don’t actually believe that astrology bullshit, do you?”

“It is our way.”

“And that means it’s right?”

“You are a heretic. So is your brother.”

“Lemme ask you something. Did you hear the infant scream? When they killed your kid, did you—”

The attack was not unexpected, the executioner launching at him with such force his chair was blown backward and the pair of them ended up on the floor, s’Ex straddling iAm while shaking with rage.

“I should kill you,” the male growled.

“Get angry with me if you want,” iAm shot back. “But be honest, at least with yourself. You’re not quite so duty-proud anymore. Are you.”

s’Ex shoved himself away and landed on his ass. Putting his head in his hands, he breathed hard, as if he were trying to pull a composure job—and losing the fight.

“I’m not going to help the pair of you anymore,” the executioner said hoarsely. “Duty demands to be served.”

iAm sat up and thought that the constellations under which his brother had been born were like a disease, something unvolunteered for, embedded in the life that was lived, a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

Trez’s detonation had been put off for oh, so long. It would not be denied any longer, however.

Not for the first time, iAm wished that he had been born before Trez. He would much rather have been the one cursed, the bearer of the burden. It wasn’t that he wanted to be imprisoned for all his life, with nothing but repeatedly trying to impregnate the heir to the throne for a pastime, but he was different from Trez.

Or maybe he was fooling himself.

What he was clear on? He would do anything he had to in order to save his brother.

And he was prepared to get really damn creative.

By the time Trez came back to check the private lounge, Rhage had woken up from his coma, trance, nap, whatever it was. And although V’s verbal diarrhea had been a real ball slapper, as the owner of the club and the guy who’d attacked first, Trez felt like he needed to make sure the Brother was okay.

“How we doing in here,” he said as he reentered.

As Hollywood slowly sat up, it was clear he was trying to reenter reality, returning from some mental destination that had been far from the club.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” V muttered as he took out a hand-rolled and a lighter. “You back?”

“You can’t smoke in here,” Trez said.

Vishous cocked a brow. “What’re you going to do? Kick me out?”

“Don’t want to get shut down on my first night.”

“You got bigger problems than the Department of Public Health.”

Fuck you, V, Trez thought.

“You need something?” he asked Rhage. “I got all kinds of things that don’t have alcohol in them.”

“Nah, I’m all right.” The Brother rubbed his face and then looked over. “So you’ve bonded with that Chosen, huh—”

“I even have food, if you want—”

“Come on, man.” Rhage shook his head. “You just tried to eat my lunch.”

Trez glanced at his watch. “Actually, it was over an hour ago.”

“I mean, whatever—what’s the problem? Why don’t you get with her.”

“You’re still a little pale.”

“Fine, fine. You wanna hit the mute button, that’s your business.”

Cue. Awkward. Silence.

OMG, this was the best fucking night, Trez thought. What next, a meteor hitting Caldwell?

Nah, probably just his club.

“Sooooo . . . I’ll take the drugs,” V said, pocketing the cellophane packets. “You get any more—”

The third goddamn flash in the room was bright enough to blind, and Trez put up an arm to cover his face as he fell back into a defensive stance.

“Oh, fuck!” one of the Brothers barked.

Bomb? Deadly slayer retaliation?

All that new electrical wiring failing on an epic scale?

Or maybe he shouldn’t have given the universe a suggestion about the whole meteor thing.

As Trez blinked the spots in his vision clear, it turned out to be a case of None of the Above.

A figure was standing where the great burst of light had flared—a figure that was about as impressive as a garden gnome gone Goth: Whatever it was was four feet tall, covered from head to foot in black robing . . . and evidently the source of illumination: From beneath the hem, brilliant light glowed. Like maybe La Perla had gone Las Vegas strip under there.

Abruptly, Trez stopped breathing as he put the math together and came up with the impossible. Holy shit, that was the—

“Hello, Mother,” Vishous said dryly.

—Scribe Virgin.

“I have come for a purpose.” The female voice was hard as crystal and just as clear. “And it must be served.”

“Really.” V took a drag on his hand-rolled. “You gonna take candy from a baby? Or is it kick-a-puppy night?”

The figure turned Her back on the Brother. “You.”

Trez recoiled, his head banging into the wall. “Excuse me?”

“You’re not supposed to make inquiries of Her,” V bit out. “Just FYI.”

“Me?” Trez repeated. “What do you want me for?”

“You are summoned by one of mine own.”

“You taking him to Disneyland?” V muttered. “Lucky you, Trez—but She’s probably only tight with Maleficent, the Shadow Man, Cruella—”

“How do you know so much Disney shit?” Rhage cut in.

“Come with me,” the Scribe Virgin said, extending her robed arm.

“Me?” Trez blurted a third time.

“You have been summoned.”

“Selena . . . ?” he breathed.

Rhage shook his head. “Should I just get the marshmallows? ’Cuz you are about to get toasted for those questions, buddy.”

That was the last thing Trez heard before a swirling vortex of energy claimed him and carried him off to God only knew . . .

. . . where.

As the sense of having been transported disappeared, he steadied himself on his feet with a shout, both arms punching out from his torso, his head spinning so badly he figured he was going to dreidel it to the ground.

A sudden awareness of his surroundings stopped all that.

Parkland. He’d been relocated to some kind of postcard-perfect parkland, rolling green lawns interspersed with top-heavy trees, blooming flower beds and, in the distance, white marble buildings of Greco-Roman extraction. Except the horizon struck him as all wrong. A forest boundary offered a verdant stretch of green off in the distance, but there was an unnatural quality to it, the same trees seeming to mark the acreage, as if nature were on a repeat pattern. And overhead, the sky was likewise an all-wonky, its milky brightness appearing to have no distinct source, like there was just an enormous fluorescent light up there.

“Where am I?”

When there was no answer, he twisted around. The small robed figure was gone.

Great. Now what did he do?

Later, he would wonder what exactly made him turn and start walking . . . then running. A noise? His name? Some instinct . . . ?

He found the body on the far side of a rise in the undulating ground. Whoever it was was facedown, in the traditional garb of a Chosen female, the soles of the sandals—

“Selena!” he shouted. “Selena . . . !”

Skidding to a halt, Trez dropped to his knees. “Selena?”

Her black hair was a mess, the traditional twist of her chignon ratted and sloppy, falling over her face. As he lifted the tangle, her skin was paper white.

“Selena . . .” He wasn’t sure whether she was injured or had collapsed, and with no medical training, he had no clue what to do.

“Breathing, are you breathing?” He put his ear down on her back. Then he leaned across her and took her arm to check for a—

“Oh . . . God.”

The limb was stiff, as if rigor mortis had set in. Except . . . when he placed his two fingers on the inside of her wrist, there was a pulse.

Selena moaned and her foot twitched. Then her head jerked against the grass.

“Selena?” His heart pounded so hard, he could barely hear anything. “What happened?”

No reason to ask if she was okay. That was a resounding fucking no.

“Are you hurt?”

More moaning as she seemed to struggle against something.

“I’m going to roll you over.”

Bracing himself, he took her arm and began to try to move her—but he had to stop. Her position did not change, her contoured limbs and stiffened torso were so rigid, it was as if he were dealing with a statue made of stone—

“Oh, shit!”

At the sound of Rhage’s voice, Trez jerked his head up. V and Rhage had materialized out of nowhere, and while he had always liked the two of them, at the moment, he could have kissed the pair of warriors.

“You gotta help me,” he barked. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

The Brothers knelt down, and Vishous went for that wrist, checking the pulse.

“She can’t seem to move. But I don’t know why?”

“She has a pulse,” V murmured. “She’s breathing. Shit, I need my stuff.”

“Can we get her to . . . where the fuck are we?” Trez demanded.

“Yeah, I can transport her—”

“No one moves her but me,” he heard himself growl.

The position paper was hardly a bene in this situation. The bonded male in him, however, didn’t give a fuck.

Conversation rolled out between the Brothers, but damned if he heard any of it. His brain was tripping over itself, snippets of the past couple of months filtering through as he tried to look for signs that there had been something wrong with her.

There had been nothing that he’d seen, or heard of through the grapevine. If she’d only collapsed, it might have been the result of offering her vein too much, but that wouldn’t explain the fact that her body had seized up in the way it had—she seemed to have literally turned to stone.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Rhage.

“Give me your hand.”

Trez put his palm out and felt himself get lifted to his feet. Before they could talk at him, he said, “I have to carry her. She’s mine—”

“We know.” Rhage nodded. “Nobody’s going to touch her without your permission. We need you to pick her up—then V will help you both back, okay? G’on now, gather your female.”

Trez’s arms were shaking so badly, he wondered whether he’d be able to hold her in his arms. But as soon as he bent down, a profound sense of purpose wiped away all the nerves and trembling: The goal of getting her to the training center’s clinic gave him a physical power and a mental clarity that he had never known before.

He would die in the effort.

God, she weighed so little. Less than he remembered.

And beneath the robes he could feel her hard bones, as if she were wasting away.

Just before that whirlpool effect overtook him again, his eyes shifted to a thick row of stocky trees that were broken by a trellis. On the far side of the arch, there was a courtyard of some kind in which marble statues of females in various poses were set up on pillars.

Had she been on the way there?

For some reason, the sight of those statues terrified him to the core.