Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

its mouth.
    Another group of angels had rigged a makeshift forge, and nearby, an anvil, black, with a horn on one end, much like the one he’d used to create the gate.
    The hammer rested on the anvil. How he hated the slippery, contrary thing, but he’d wielded it on Kathleen’s behalf, and now he would wield it on Layla’s. Strange how each of her lives echoed the other.
    â€œI found this in the warehouse,” Custo said, coming up behind him. Khan felt no sear at his approach. In this place, Shadow was stronger than even Custo’s angelic light.
    â€œLeave it, and move out of my way.”
    Next to the hammer on the anvil Custo placed the black flower Khan had created as a trial piece for the blooms that adorned the gate. Three petals, one for each of the worlds, surrounded and protected an inner core, a soul. The iron, of course, was black— black for deep Shadow, black for Death. He’d welded the flowers onto the vertical bars along a clinging vine. They had represented his hope that Kathleen could survive in Hell, her spirit intact, until he could find her.
    Then she’d found him.
    â€œI thought you might try the flower first, then move on to the gate.” Custo, who’d agreed to kill Layla if The Order found this tactic to be ineffectual.
    Khan turned to face him.
    â€œShadowman, if it wasn’t me, it’d be somebody else,” Custo said, his gaze steady, though a sick desperation rolled off him. “The gate has to be destroyed.”
    Khan stoked Custo’s discomfort. “Haven’t you killed enough innocents?”
    Khan knew Custo’s past. The life he’d led before his passing had been filled with as much violence as good. If not for his last selfless act as a man, his existence in the Afterlife could have been very different. And now he was preparing to walk the fine line between darkness and light again.
    â€œI gave you the hammer. It’s my responsibility.” Custo regarded the hellgate and shuddered. “There’s no way that thing can remain on Earth, but I don’t want Layla to die. I’ll help you in every way that I can. Just tell me what to do.”
    kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
    Movement brought Khan’s attention around. An angel walked toward the gate. He moved slowly, as if in a dream, sickness and terror in a dirty cloud around him. The angel stretched out his hand toward the handle, fingers reaching. The gate had him in its thrall.
    â€œBran!” Custo barked.
    The angel stalled, confused. Looked around.
    And then he was dragged back by two other angels. He went limp, his gaze filled with horror and longing as they moved him out.
    No one was impervious to the gate’s draw.
    Custo turned. “What can I do?”
    Khan picked up the black flower and shoved it, bare-handed, into the glowing coals of the fire. Heat the metal, bang it down.
    â€œYou can take your friends and get out of here.”
    â€œThe Order will not leave you alone with the gate.” Custo shook his head. “Not with your Layla in the balance.”
    â€œFine. Just you then. The rest are to wait outside.”
    Khan stared at the hammer, taking in its shape and the small line of shadow along the inside of its head and shaft cast by the glow of the fire. He summoned old darkness from the depths of the cave and gathered the cold, wet stuff to him for strength.
    He reached for the hammer. His hand passed right through.
    Taking a deep breath, he tried for it again. And clutched at nothing.
    Shadow billowed off his shoulders in great cracking waves, but still he couldn’t grasp the shaft.
    â€œShit,” Custo said under his breath.
    Khan could sense the confidence shifting within the angels in the cavern. They would all have to learn patience. Either that, or prepare for war.
    â€œAfter you gave me the hammer, it took hours to lift again for myself.” Hours of acute frustration. Each time he’d had to set it down during the creation of the gate, he’d known it would be a trial to pick back up. “And I did not have a choir of angels breathing down my neck.”
    â€œRight.” Custo turned to the angels gathered around. “Everybody out.”
    â€œHe’s not to be trusted,” said Ballard.
    â€œIf Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Custo returned, “a gate to Hell can’t be destroyed in five minutes. Get out or I’ll help you out.”
    An angel lifted his voice