Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

do?”
    Custo shot him a look of acute alarm, his green eyes deepening to black. “It was a favor. I didn’t know what your purpose was. I can read only mortal minds.”
    Shadowman could sense the angel’s inner conviction transforming into a pressing intent to act. The shadows of the warehouse floor roiled as Custo added, “The fae are, as usual, utterly obscure and insane.”
    â€œFae Shadow runs in your blood now.” Death drew on the silky darkness, sucking the magic into his being, though Shadow could not possibly help him lift the hammer. Lifting the hammer took concentration and time. Shadow was a different kind of power, impulsive and sudden.
    Custo sighed. “Yeah . . . well . . . I guess you have a point.” From an affectation of easy stillness, he leapt, the fae ascendant in the blackness of his eyes.
    Death twitched a finger, and midair, the Shadows struck Custo down with a sickening head crack to the concrete floor. The boy would have been much better off using his angelic gifts. Shadow would forever and always obey Death first, even the small portion of it that ran through Custo’s veins.
    Custo brought a hand to the floor and grunted as he pushed himself up. “Be reasonable.”
    Reasonable? There was no such thing. Not in a universe that had consigned Kathleen to Hell, when he’d been the one to rend the boundary between the worlds. He’d broken the law that bound the fae to the Other side. He’d stepped into her room to view her painting. To speak with her. To touch her. If anyone was at fault, it was he.
    Shadowman grabbed at the hammer. His hand passed right through it.
    Kathleen! he thought, and tried for the hammer again. The tip of his finger budged the shaft slightly. So close . . .
    Shadowman thought of her pale face, her gold hair, her violet eyes, but it was the memory of her smell, tinged with the chemical musk of her paints, that helped him close his hand around the grip of the hammer. He forced all his strength into his clenched fist. Mass, that contrary mortal magic, had always defied the fae.
    Custo stood, shaking his head, and regarded the gate again. “You can’t think for a moment that The Order will suffer that . . . that . . . thing on Earth.”
    â€œThat thing ?” Death mocked, standing again.
    â€œThe Order would call it an abomination.”
    â€œAnd what would you call it?”
    â€œSeriously fucked up.”
    Shadowman gripped the hammer, a tool of the angels. With it, he could forge the gate. Barbed and brutal, the gate’s only decorative element was a few spare flowers, the kind that could grow in the harshest, darkest clime. Three wrought-iron, triangular petals were folded close to guard the core. The blooms were his desperate hope, a symbol that Kathleen could endure beyond, her soul bearing the empty pitch until he could find her.
    â€œAre you going to tell them?” Death asked.
    â€œI’m part of The Order,” Custo said. “The angels can read my mind. I couldn’t hide this if I wanted to. And I don’t. We’ve had enough trouble dealing with the last forbidden passage you created between the worlds. Wraiths are still plaguing humankind. There’s a war out there. Don’t open up a way even more dangerous.”
    Shadowman glanced at the gate.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat, the gate answered, trembling on its posts. The gate had been talking to him like that since it had been mounted.
    And he knew he could not wait to retrieve Kathleen from Hell. There was no higher purpose in her presence there that he could fathom. No order or justice to her damnation. He broke the law, but Kathleen suffered in Hell. There was nothing to do but fetch her back.
    â€œLook ahead, if you can,” Custo said, the green forcing out the black in his eyes. His urgency, thick and pungent, saturated the shadows. “I beg you to look ahead.”
    Shadowman gripped the hammer tighter. The gate was nearly complete. Soon, very soon, it would be ready. The fae existed in the now, the present moment, but he could see that far into the future.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
    The gate already clamored to open.
    â€œWhat do you think a gate to Hell will do to the mortal world?” Custo’s burnished skin gleamed in the dark. He was all angel now, fighting once again for the people on Earth. “If you can pass through it, what do you think will come out our way?”
    Nothing