Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

the woman leaning on the transparent wall. One-half of her was girl next door, though blood splattered her clothes, and the other half was reptilian, a lizard claw tapping lightly on the glass.
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    Khan found Talia backed up into a corner of the nursery, her children crying in her arms. The room was dark with her own Shadows as she attempted to cloak the babies, but there was nowhere for her to run. And she was too clumsy with the children in her arms to attempt a concealed dash. A wight hung in the air, its limbs ravaged, face hollow. Whether male or female, it long ago ceased to matter. Its smell polluted the air. The wight swatted a rocking chair out of the way as it lunged toward Talia’s position.
    Khan sent a jut of Shadow its way and its maw hung slack, its body gasping into decay, dead, a stain and stink in the pretty room. Adam would take care of that.
    The door shuddered. Behind it a wraith, probably the wight’s master, attempted entry.
    â€œA moment,” Khan said to Talia. Adam’s stalwart doors didn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop darkness. A wind rush of black anger, and the wraith’s flesh went slack as well.
    Down the hallway, wraiths were a thick press of teeth and menace intent on reaching Khan’s daughter and her children. They crawled the ceiling and walls, blocking human escape.
    Khan seethed. Where were Adam and the security he promised? Where was Layla?
    He briefly sought her light among the souls in the building. She was not present. Not here. Whether that was for good or ill, he did not know, which frenzied him like a sudden madness.
    But he couldn’t leave Talia and the children to this danger.
    Fast. Hurry. Now.
    Khan cast dark magic down the hallway to batter the wraiths from their perches. A wraith leaped at him. Khan grabbed his head out of the air, twisted to a double snap, and threw the rot out of the way. He flipped the wraith that dared to land on Death’s shoulder to the floor and stamped his skull while reaching for two more of the vermin. He took them each in course, the soulless living husks of once-mortals, wishing for steel to make his progress faster. He ranged through the building, casting them into oblivion.
    When all that was left was the reek of corpses, he sent fingers of Shadow throughout Segue to sense for other threats. He found the cold shift of a ghost, and another, and the blazing purpose of Custo, just passing through Twilight, too late to kill the wraiths.
    But nothing that could hurt his daughter.
    He returned to find Talia sitting on the floor cradling her children against her chest. She rocked them rhythmically. “Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhhh.” But her face was fae pale, her eyes large and hot with her own strong feeling.
    â€œWhere’s Layla?” he demanded.
    â€œWith Adam in the holding facility.”
    For the wraiths to come so far, there had to be another at work. The devil. And here he’d thought she was simple.
    Custo burst into the room. His gaze darted about, settled on the dead wraiths. “Holy fuck, what happened here?”
    Talia looked up at Khan. “We’ll be okay now.”
    â€œYeah, yeah,” Custo added. “Go get your girl.”
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    Rose Anne Petty. Devil.
    Layla had a hard time pulling her attention from Rose’s lizard arm up to the devil’s sweet twinkling smile. The flecks of blood on the woman’s chin were distracting, too.
    How did she get down here? How did she get past Segue’s front gate?
    Those poor soldiers.
    â€œCan you please open the door?” Rose had a slight Southern accent.
    â€œSure,” Layla said, blinking against a sudden dizzy spell. “Hold on a sec.” She looked up at the ceiling to address the security system. “Override code three, eight . . .”
    Wait. What the hell was she doing?
    â€œThat’s right,” Rose prompted. “Just open the door. I’ve so looked forward to meeting you.”
    Layla wasn’t as enthusiastic, but in a dizzy swim, the next number in the code, two, slipped out regardless. She bit her lips. She’d been warned that Rose would have extraordinary abilities. Angels could read minds; obviously devils could manipulate them. How . . . devilish.
    Okay. Steady . . . Think.
    Layla took a deep breath and shouted, “One, two, three!” Any numbers would do, as long as they were incorrect. One incorrect entry and the system would default to locked.