Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

Talia and Shadowman, wherever he was. They were everything she’d ever needed and so much more.
    The only thing left to do was fight, though she had no hope whatsoever of survival.
    â€œI cut the thread of your life myself.” Scissor Lady raised a brow, as if to coax Layla to some kind of realization.
    â€œYou cut . . .” Layla looked at the scissors again.
    Oh, crap. This was bad.
    Out of Scissor Lady’s body, another woman stepped with engorged, exposed breasts leaking milk. She held a spindle in her hands, shining threads wound about her like spider’s silk. “Layla Mathews née Kathleen Marie O’Brien. I spun your life.”
    And this was where bad met worse.
    â€œI measured the twenty-eight years of your life.” A third woman, an old woman, leaned out the other side, a rod in her hand. Her hair was a soft patchwork of cobwebs. Wrinkled and bowed, her hands gnarled with age, she seemed the weakest of the three. Until Layla got a load of the Shadow in her eyes.
    Maid, mother, crone. And of the three, Scissor Lady was the leader.
    This wasn’t any old fae Layla faced. This was the bitch of them all. “You’re Fate.” What had Shadowman called her? “Moira.”
    â€œWhen I say your life is over,” Scissor Lady said, “then your life is over. Shall I show you the ragged end?”
    â€œNo.” Layla didn’t want to see it.
    â€œOr would you like to crawl under my skirt?” Scissor Lady swept up the material. “You can bide here as long as you like.”
    It did look inviting. A dark, close space where she could hide.
    The three women circled around her like witchy forest nymphs. At first their feet kicked up tree leaves, the colors dream bright, even in bits. Then they kicked up gray ash.
    Smell went utterly dead. The air, cold.
    Layla trembled but slowly lifted her gaze and found the treescape transformed into the black-and-white emptiness of Death’s heart. The skeleton trees branched like great, ominous cracks in the universe. The ground was a snow of dust. Even the fae women paled, the color contrasts broadening, delineating into the nulls of dark and light.
    This was a vast sepulcher for the soul, once Shadowman’s, now hers.
    â€œYou want Shadowman?” Scissor Lady asked. “Well, here he is.”
    No, this was the part of himself he’d wanted to cast away. With him gone— dead? —this was all that was left.
    The brightness filled her eyes and parched her skin like sunburn. She could feel the place leaching from her the memory of color, the stuff of her dreams.
    The Fates circled, buzzards awaiting the break of her mind.
    Not going to happen.
    Layla charged Moira, feet digging into the powder and lifting great billows into the air.
    Bring the bitch down like a wraith. Grab for the scissors. Stab.
    Her footfalls lifted huge clouds of lazy ash, obscuring the way. And when they thinned, the witch was suddenly on the other side of her, never changing the pace of her stride around her prey.
    Layla coughed, choking on the powder.
    A wasted effort. Blind violence would accomplish nothing. They were playing with her.
    Layla shielded her eyes from the glare of the white. If she could just have a little darkness, maybe she could puzzle this out. A little warmth and her blood might reenergize her nerve.
    â€œIt’s dark here under my skirt,” Moira called. “Warm, too.”
    No, thanks. Layla pulled her hands away from her face and lifted her chin. Last thing she wanted was to find herself under there.
    â€œYou might last a little longer.”
    Lie.
    â€œYou’re fading already.” The three laughed.
    â€œNo. I’m still here.” She pushed her shoulders back to prove it.
    Moira tilted her head in pity. “You don’t even know your name.”
    Layla blinked stupidly. Wracked her brain. Her heart stalled.
    Moira was right. She had no idea.
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    Shadowman sat in the passenger side of a vehicle, a “Hummer” some angel had called it. The driver said he was going as fast as he could, but Shadowman could still count every tree, dried leaf, and scrag of grass, or so it seemed.
    This was powerlessness. Acute, miserable, an agony of utter dependence.
    Climbing out of the cave had been a blur of hitching breath and clumsy, bleeding feet. At the mouth, clothes were waiting, though he didn’t care if he went naked. He needed to get to Segue. He should