Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

everything.
    He grasped the wooden haft of the hammer tight, but he could feel her soft mortal skin under his hands again. The satin glide from the slope of her waist to the swell of her breast. He stroked his thumb in the hollow at the base of her throat, then followed with a brush of his mouth. Her back arched. Heat flared between them, a fire for the ages, far beyond the sear of his forge. His death-tuned senses had perceived the clamor of her heartbeat, and now he held the memory of the wild rhythm in his head and used its passion to strike the glowing piece of metal on the anvil.
    Together they had created a child, Talia, now a woman with a family of her own and a strong protector by her side. Talia had fought a nightmare scourge of wraiths to come into her own fae power.
    Now there remained only the second part of Kathleen’s last wish, to find a way back, a way to be with them both.
    Death thumbed the edge of the metal with his other hand, found a slight thickening, and lifted the hammer again. Taking a deep breath, he gathered his intent, focused his mind on the object of his creation until he shook with power, then brought the tool down. . . .
    The shadows stirred.
    Sudden weakness diminished him.
    The hammer slipped from his grip and clattered to the floor.
    Shadowman panted, dismayed, as he regarded the hammer. It was hard enough to create and sustain the corporeal form of a human body. But to hold the hammer, that hammer, took all of the power, will, and memory within him. The tool had been created by angels and was near unbearable to a fae’s touch.
    Kathleen!
    The last time he’d dropped the thing, it had taken him hours to lift it again, and by then, the fire had died. He gulped the smoky air and roared at the heavenly object.
    â€œSorry,” a voice said.
    Fae Death brought his head up and jerked around to find Custo, the angel who’d given him the damn hammer in the first place. Custo always seemed to be present when Death needed him, but most especially when Death did not. Like now. Custo’s olive-gold skin was lined with veins of Shadow, which meant the angel had the power to cross through fae Twilight to any other place on Earth, including this warehouse. But it was the angel’s light that had banished the death shadows just enough for Shadowman to lose his grip on the hammer.
    Too late, Shadowman detected the even beat of the angel’s mortal heart. Damn the boy. What does he want now?
    Shadowman tugged on the shadows hovering like storm clouds around the angel. Immediately the darkness delivered an echo of Custo’s emotions: Curiosity was dominant, but anchored by determined control and personal conviction, though what that conviction was, Shadowman could not fathom. The fae could sense feelings, but thoughts were the purview of the divine.
    Bare-handed, Shadowman lifted the spearhead from the anvil and plunged it into the glowing coals of the forge. The fire leapt into red-gold curls, but the skin-crackling burn did not signify. Not as Death finally let cold Shadow take him, succor and restore him.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Vitality pulsed through Shadowman’s form with old magic. As always, he could not escape the distant call of his discarded scythe, the hoary blade clamoring from the twilight Shadowlands to be lifted in place of the hammer.
    No. Never again. He was done with death.
    Custo crossed fully from Twilight into the mortal world. His pale inner light pushed the darkness of the room back, revealing the scarred floor, old piles of discarded rope and rotting crates, the dingy windows of the warehouse. “I . . . uh . . . came to see . . .”
    Shadowman knew the moment Custo’s gaze hit the gate. Death watched the angel’s eyes narrow in examination, then widen in horror. Custo stumbled backward, his fear pervading the space. Shadowman could taste it, bitter and sharp, could smell it, rank, could feel the terror that made Custo shake.
    â€œOh, God,” Custo said, breathless. “What have you done?”
    Death crouched to protect the hammer where it lay on the floor. He brought his deep cloak around, as if the fae folds could possibly hide something divine. Custo could not have the hammer back. Not when the gate was so close to completion. Not when he was so close to Kathleen.
    â€œYou told me yourself that she is not in Heaven,” Shadowman said. “And you gave me the hammer. What did you think I would