Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

the street. “A tourist to our small town, Ms. Layla Mathews.”
    Layla. The one who played whore to Death. The one who threatened the existence of the gate.
    â€œMs. Mathews single-handedly took down the criminal.”
    The whore had the gall to lift her face to the camera and wave. Rose knew that she was waving at her. Mickey never did anything to Layla. Mickey was the soul of sweetness.
    Rose’s vision went red as a wave of heat swept her.
    â€œMs. Mathews!” The reporter jogged around the officers to get a microphone in Layla’s face.
    Layla smiled at the camera as she ducked into the passenger seat of the SUV. “I’m just glad I could be of service,” she called out. And then winked for the world to see.
    Rose started to shake.
    Mickey was loaded into the backseat, a cop on either side. Not that they looked like normal police officers, much less small-town police officers. The gray uniforms they wore didn’t fit well, straining at their arms and thighs. Those were some of Segue’s soldiers, beefy and stupid.
    The SUV took off out of Middleton, heading up the mountain and into the tall trees, but not heading for the jailhouse, as would be expected. Layla had to be taking Mickey to the Segue compound and was telling her so. That hateful place.
    Mickey. Twelve years! Oh, how the world was cruel.
    Rose stamped her foot. Her chin trembled. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She had promised herself that she’d never go back to Segue. Death lived there, the monster of everyone’s worst nightmares.
    She bit the wide knuckle of her bad hand. Debated. Decided.
    â€œGate?” she said aloud. The last time she’d called, the gate hadn’t answered.
    This time the familiar kat-a-kat-a-kat rattled her bones.
    She looked up at the ceiling as if talking to God. “Layla’s got my Mickey. I’ll do anything”—except face that Death monster—“if you help me save him.” kat-a-kat-a-kat: One last chance to kill. Your best chance to kill her.
    â€œNo, see . . .” she said. The gate didn’t get it. “That m-m-monster lives there. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill Mickey.”
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: Death has fallen. He can’t touch you. Go get your Mickey. Make the ground run with blood. You have nothing to fear.
    â€œDeath what?”
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: Death is now weak and mortal.
    â€œHow?” She could hardly believe it, though her heart and mind were already halfway back to Segue. No Death?
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: He brought it upon himself.
    Of course he did. A creature like that. “Then I can kill him?”
    kat-a-kat: Easily.
    Rose grabbed her car keys off the counter, then dropped them on the pavement outside when she got a look at the Mack trucks at the stop up the street. That red one just turning in, the one with the fire painted on the sides, was muscle on wheels, mean with bulk, like a giant steel boar, nosing the road while its tusks belched smoke. That truck should be able to take the wall at Segue.
    A couple of run-run-pushes of her favorite arm and Rose was there in seconds.
    She fastened the panicked and wheezing driver to the front grill, just in case those soldiers got the idea to blow her off the road with a missile or something. The driver’s ride-along wife, a dumpy sack of potatoes, sat next to her, whimpering in a mess of tears and snot.
    Rose let her bad hand do the steering when she got upward of ninety on the straightaway. The growl of the engine stirred her blood. When she hit the turns of the mountain, the narrow two-lane road wasn’t big enough for the truck and oncoming traffic. A VW Beetle almost pitched over the edge but managed to skid to a stop.
    Middleton was empty when she barreled down Main and took the corner that would lead her to Segue. They had to know that she was coming. That she wouldn’t stop. If they thought they could cow her, they were going to get a surprise. She knew their secret: Death was as good as dead.
    The gate was retracted, for her convenience no doubt. She followed the lane that led to the main building, but she veered onto the stiff grass in view of the forward-facing windows. No one fired on her, so the man on the grill, still bobbing his head, had done his job. Rose dragged the sack of potatoes out of the cab with her and put a claw to the woman’s fleshy throat.
    â€œI’ll kill her if I don’t see Mickey right now!” Rose