Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

consumed by Shadow. Therese’s hold turned into a clinging cringe as she found herself at the edge of one world and the beginning of another.
    A shrill, startled scream from Zoe, and Layla advanced down the vestiges of the hallway. Either Therese would let go, or she’d be forced to cross, as she should have all those years ago. Zoe had to get out now, or be lost to Twilight. This was exactly the reason Shadowman needed to return to his post.
    â€œLeave me the body!” the child wailed at her ear. “I need the body!”
    â€œNo can do,” Layla answered. There was power in mortality; Shadowman had taught her that. Maybe it would buy her enough time for him to find her. Too long in Twilight and there wouldn’t be much left to find.
    An electric wave rolled toward her, and the remains of Segue were demolished, particles lifting into the air like snapping sparks from a fire. Layla could feel the advent in a hum that buzzed her senses and tightened her womb. Heart seizing in terrible ecstasy, she leaned into the crossing.
    Therese released her hold, sobbing, “The body!” Her voice weakened with each syllable as she fled the tide, and then she was gone.
    Layla ran through the trees in the direction of Zoe’s room, the hotel now a thick forest of dark trunks and craggy branches. Roots elbowed out of the earth to stop her progress, but somehow her feet only glanced on the surface as she darted forward.
    â€œJust stay the fuck away!” Zoe yelled, voice low and ripped with emotion.
    Over there. A rising bramble blocked Layla’s path, and she forced her way through. She could see Zoe and Abigail inside a small, squared-off clearing beyond, not unlike the dimensions of Abigail’s bedroom. Zoe, dressed in Segue sweatpants and a T-shirt a couple days past clean, her black hair ratty, stood in front of her sister. Her face was blotchy pale, her eyes were wild, and her expression was equal parts grief and horror. She was braced to fight.
    Abigail stood directly behind her in a faded green housedress. Her eyes were hollow, jaw was slack with exhaustion. Her posture listed to the side. The only clue that she was still alert was the whimper that escaped when a swarming cloud of Shadow skimmed her skin, as if seeking a point of entry. A second flitted around her shoulder. A third patch of darkness webbed up her calves.
    But Zoe didn’t strike at these. She fought the air as if someone or something was in front of her, preparing to attack.
    â€œGet back!” Zoe screamed, swatting at nothing.
    Had madness already set in? That quick?
    â€œShit!” Zoe darted to the side in front of Abigail, who was now overcome with visible shivers. She jabbed. She flailed. But at what?
    â€œZoe!” Layla called.
    Zoe’s attention snapped in her direction, but she didn’t look as if she believed her eyes.
    â€œI’m coming,” Layla said. The thorns on the small branches snagged her clothes and scraped her arms as she pushed forward.
    â€œThey’re everywhere!” Zoe hollered back. She circled around her sister, grabbing her arm to keep her close, to pull her back from the invisible dangers.
    Layla peered into the surrounding trees as she trampled forward.
    Coming, coming, coming, soft voices whispered around her. But she couldn’t see who spoke.
    At the edge of the overgrowth, she felt a wet brush on her neck. A lick. She whipped back to find a creature craning over her shoulder, tall and thin, with backward limbs like a praying mantis’s. He was naked, gray, with wagging human genitalia.
    â€œKiss me,” he said, voice reedy.
    Layla stumbled and fell into the clearing. The impact jarred her senses, and in the hard blink of the fall, a dozen . . . things sprang up around her.
    â€œWhat the fuck are they?!” Zoe screamed.
    Layla skittered back from the insect man, bumped into another. Blue. With sketchy human features on a humping shell of a head. Its eyes lit.
    Coming, coming, coming, it said to her.
    Layla lurched upright, but now she was surrounded, too. “No idea.”
    They were queer, deformed creatures, each with some attempt at a human feature on a misshapen body. Their curiosity had a predatory quality, a wow in their eyes, like they’d found shiny toys or treats, and even better, ones that talked. Their wonder kept them from leaping en masse. They weren’t fae. Then what? And so many of them.
    Layla’s breath came