Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

with blood.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
    Now the gate laughed. It couldn’t be destroyed.
    Destroying the portal with heat and tools presumed it was made out of metal, but Shadowman knew different. Even if the black iron were melted away, still it would stand. Forever and ever until . . .
    kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat
    It was maniacal in its glee, riotous as understanding came into Shadowman’s mind. A wretched mistake among so many.
    The gate was not made of metal, heated and pounded into form. He might have set out to create it that way, but the hammer had defied him, had forced his mind elsewhere. The hammer had required something deep, deep within to lift and wield.
    The trick of the gate’s construction, then?
    Shadowman closed his eyes. A small breath, and already she sprang into his mind. Kathleen at her easel, gazing wide-eyed into Twilight. Kathleen under his hands, giving herself up, even as she seduced a dark lord. Her skin, her hair, her rising breasts as his mouth skimmed their peaks.
    The gate was not made of metal. Black, or otherwise.
    The gate was made of her memory.
    He’d set this trap, and so killed her himself, no matter who gripped the hammer. kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat: You created me to save her. Let me save her. I can save her.
    Death before him, death behind him. Every single thing he touched brought death. Even to the one he loved. He was cursed. If Moira were here, she’d be laughing. Stormcrow, Thanatos, Reaper. You are your nature; you are fae.
    I want to change. I need to change, he thought.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat: Perhaps you think you can end this madness? If you can, pick up the hammer yourself and strike her down.
    As if Shadowman could ever strike Layla. Crack her body. Make her bleed. The thought sent a blast of despair through the cave, the deep places in the earth bellowing, No! Nor would he let another. Not even if Layla asked him.
    His power, his ageless cruelty, stopped there. He was at the end of himself.
    Then massacre the angels?
    Shadowman eyed them from the folds of his dark cloak. Heaven’s soldiers, set on a beast they had no hope to bring down.
    Custo shook his head abruptly as if to clear his vision, or to get rid of a bothersome thought. What subtle things was Hell suggesting to him? Mortal minds, even mortal angels, were so weak. Eventually the gate would hit upon just the thing, and even Custo’s great soul would falter.
    The host advanced. A third broke away to circle and come at him from the left. Another third to his right. Conviction and purpose made them glow.
    â€œI stand with you,” Custo said, “but I don’t have it in me to kill them.”
    Of course not. He wouldn’t be an angel if he could. In fact, Custo would probably try to save as many as he could, while also protecting the gate. His purpose, like his nature, was at odds.
    But Death was no angel.
    â€œI’ll do what I have to do,” Shadowman answered.

    The walls of Segue stretched high as Layla ran through the center atrium to Zoe’s side of the building. The roof was gone, and in its place was a ceiling of nighttime stars, the barren tips of branches fingering their way overhead.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Zoe’s voice echoed, laced with fear. “Stay back!”
    A coded door almost stopped Layla, but as she gritted her teeth to find a working combination of numbers, the door itself became transparent, the frame an archway to the corridor beyond.
    Fae voices whispered, Coming, coming, coming, coming , with each of her panting breaths.
    When she rounded the hallway to Zoe’s room, brown vines crawled the walls, and standing in the way was Therese, the little girl ghost. Her hands were fisted, and a pout was on her face. Around her was an aura of another time, her patch of space a throwback to the hotel a century before. There, too, Shadow crawled, the climbing vines like stitches hemming the two realities together.
    â€œDead man, dead man,” she began to chant.
    â€œYeah, yeah,” Layla said, and rushed past the ghost. “Old news.”
    Therese made a grab for her, clawing Layla’s flesh and wrenching at the vessel she hoped to possess. Layla felt a jarring disengagement but moved forward anyway, the parasite on her back. Was it even possible for a ghost to animate someone else’s body? Layla wasn’t sticking around to find out.
    The right angles of the floor and walls came apart, the structure of the building