Shadow Touched (17 page)

The tall hedges broke with a turn of the SUV onto a long drive, and Cam sat up to take in as much as he could, and with any luck spot a certain Slight someone.

The mage’s compound was a revelation. Cam had witnessed the misty roll of Shadow before within Segue. And he attempted to touch the stringier, webbier strands that collected in Segue’s darkest corners, though they had always eluded his reach. But what he saw within the compound that constituted Martin House made him acknowledge that indeed a new age on Earth had begun.

Rolling lawns blanketed the rise and ridge before him, like the parks that often surrounded aristocratic homes in Europe. At the summit of the landscape was a very large, stately home, overlooking the land below. Anyone, any
human
that was, might see power, prestige, and wealth. Cam’s vision, however, was superhuman: Overlaid upon the mundane view of the mortal world, he saw the wild, craggy trees of Twilight, bowed with the weight and menace of eons of magic. He witnessed the fleeting scatter and dodge of the fae within, playing tricks already. He recognized the infinite resource from which Martin and any mage House could draw.

Shadow was upon the world. A Dark Age. And today he and Ellie were humanity’s emissaries.

Everything was changing, each moment more dangerous. That knowledge made him desperate to hold and protect the woman he loved. How could he convince her that his heart was just as bound to her as her shadow and always would be?

Color blasted his sight, and a queer sensation burned through his brain, informing him of the moment the SUV had crossed the wards, the barrier of protection that surrounded the greatest of the mage Houses. But the soul-rending, mind-fogging scent of Twilight was absent. Nor did he feel the throb of the fateful trees. His vision alone was affected—no, dazzled. This was the closest to “crossing” that he’d ever come.

He and Ellie were let out at the grand front steps, while the car continued around back with their luggage.

He took Ellie’s elbow to keep her close as the massive double front doors to Martin House were thrown open like a mouth about to swallow them whole. Shadows lurked within like dark spirits of those who’d gone before. Bad sign. They entered a grand foyer that bisected the house. At the far end, a bank of windows had the luminous greenish hue of foliage beyond.

“Mr. Martin will see you in the courtyard,” another attendant said. He had a slender build and showed signs of age around the eyes, but considering the men in the gatehouse, Cam was sure the attendant could hold his own.

Cam took a sec to look carefully around. No Slight yet. He made brief eye contact with Ellie—her shock at the ring had been tucked inside her. He’d try to explain himself later, beg if necessary. Pride was overrated and cost too much.

“Thank you.” Cam paced his longer stride to match Ellie’s. Together they walked through the foyer and exited into the green. Lush, dark vines defied the season, climbing pillars and brambling along the ground in profusion.

Near a silver-spilling fountain stood a very tall man, at least seven feet to Cam’s six-two, and a young blond woman, in her early twenties. The man had shoulder lines of muscle, and the eased stance of someone comfortable in his skin. He seemed youthful, but gray threaded through his brown hair at his temples. He turned his mage-black eyes upon their approach, and Cam got the impression of violence held in a still cup.

“Ah. The humans from Segue have arrived,” said the tall man, as if amused.

“Human” wasn’t an insult to Cam. “And you are greatmage Gunnar Martin?”

Cam tried to keep his attention on the mage, but noticed movement beyond, among the Shadowy trees of Twilight. Cam had heard about the fae encroaching on the world, but he had not taken the warning quite so literally. But then there was much more Shadow within these wards than there was at Segue. How close were the fae, really? It was a frightening question.

“I am Martin,” the tall man answered, identifying himself as the head of the House, thus Gunnar. “I was surprised that the famous Adam Thorne sent you, and did not come himself, his half-fae witchwife with him. Now, she would’ve been interesting.”

Witchwife? Try banshee. But Cam wasn’t going to quibble. “I look forward to the day when Martin and Segue can become allies, at which time, I’m sure you will meet Adam and Talia. In the meantime, I am Dr. Cameron Kalamos and this is my colleague, Specialist Eleanor Russo.” Cam used the introduction as an excuse to look at Ellie.

She appeared calm, but her eyelids were at half-mast, which meant she was holding her shadow in check. She was looking at the young woman to Martin’s side—pretty, young, fit—but not threatening. Which meant lethal.

“This is my daughter, Mathilde,” Martin said. “She’s a kind of specialist, too, and teaches at the Seminary.”

Ellie’s expression was sharp, hard stone.

Slender movement in the forest had Cam’s attention flicking over, just behind Gunnar. Something or someone seemed to draw closer.

Ellie finally spoke, but there was no veneer of friendliness to her tone. “What exactly do you specialize in?”

Cam watched the trees. There. Whoever it was had a familiar height and slow, creeping stealth. Had to be Slight. Draw and fire? End this now? What nerve to skulk around just as they arrived.

The lady mage, Mathilde, smiled. “I specialize in recruiting humanity and managing the tasks I set for them. A liaison, if you will.”

Cam glanced at Mathilde—he didn’t like a word of what she said or her condescension. “You’ve worked with humans?”

She smiled again, so brightly. “I have, yes. I have a great respect for what your kind can and will do for mine.”

The woman was baiting him for a reaction. Cam wanted to deny that humanity would cooperate with magekind at all, but this was also an information-gathering mission. “Can do for you in what capacity?”

“Oh, any number of things.” Mathilde lifted a hand toward Ellie, and Cam could see a trail of shadow that smoked in the air.

Cam put an arm out to nudge Ellie back. Mathilde would not touch her.

The stalker in the trees glimmered, then seemed to split into three advancing figures. Only one was real, but Cam didn’t have the luxury of concentrating on them at the moment to discern which of them he should worry about.

“Let me see you,” Mathilde urged Ellie. She used a golden, hypnotic voice.

“No,” Ellie said.

But her shadow writhed outward from her body and trembled in the air, half phased with Ellie’s flesh, half sparkling in amazing beauty—breast, shoulder, chin, cheekbone.

The only other person Cam had ever seen control Ellie’s shadow was an angel named Laurence, and he’d asked permission first.

“Stop it.” Fury reddened Cam’s vision.

Slight—all three of him—stepped into clear, unobstructed view and made a pitying face at Cam. Cam was almost certain that the one on the left was the real man.

That bastard could wait.

Mathilde, on the other hand, was going to die at the first opportunity. How dare she assault Ellie like that. Martin was toying with them.

Ellie, coolheaded now that she was separated from her shadow, reached up and squeezed his arm to wait—
not the time; wait and see
—while the deeper part of herself was snared by the mage.

Cam didn’t have the luxury of separated emotion. It took all of his control not to strike out, though he knew in the back of his mind that this was a game, posturing for dominance. Martin would humor greatmage Kaye Brand’s request to entertain Segue at his House, but that was it. This House would never treat humans as equals.

Mathilde winked at Cam, shot a glance at her father, much like a
Yes, I can handle her just fine,
and then released Ellie.

“A common use,” Mathilde said, “of your kind is for grunts to do our bidding, our cleaning, and even our fighting, if necessary. It won’t be long now.”

Ellie shivered violently beside Cam, now feeling the impact of the assault. But Mathilde might be able to do worse than she already had. For the moment, they had to bide their time and learn what they could. Still . . .

“You will find humanity is stronger than you could possibly imagine,” Cam said. These mages didn’t know whom they were dealing with.

Gunnar inclined his head in good humor. “You sound like Brand. But that’s only because she spent too much time among you when she was a stray. She’ll learn. She likes her power. She won’t give it away when she can take so easily.”

“And just think, Dr. Kalamos,” Mathilde put in, “with your Shadow-tuned eyes, you’ll be able to see everything as it unfolds.”

Cam could see the dark wood of Twilight all around and within the house. He’d witnessed a leap of color when he crossed the wards, which kept Shadow inside and concentrated it within the sphere of the House. It was a preview of the future, the Dark Age; the collision of the Other and the mundane on the same plane of existence.

War was coming, and if he wasn’t very, very smart, he and Ellie would be among its first casualties.

He glanced at Slight again. Dark brown hair, black eyes, pale, thin, deadly. He had a livid gash up his throat and across his jaw. Looked like a knife wound.
Go, Marcie.
A little to the left, and she’d have hit his jugular.

If an untrained human cook could do that, Cam could and would do worse.

E
llie heard the door of their suite close behind her. Then Cam’s arms were around her, but no matter how tightly he held on, she couldn’t stop shaking, not even to gawk at the suite’s ostentatious décor—a modern take on Versailles, gold-edged, cream-colored, claw-footed furniture. Geez.

“We need to get you out of here,” he said in her ear, his breath a kiss at her neck. “Find a way back through the wards or contact Adam. I thought that there’d be at least the
pretense
that we were guests, that they would make at least an overture of goodwill before threats.”

“It’s pretty clear what they think of humans, even freaks like us.” Just the thought of what that Mathilde had said, her tone, redoubled the deep trembling within Ellie.

“Deep breaths, sweetheart,” Cam replied. “That woman is pure evil. I’ll get you out of here somehow.”

Out? As in back to safe Segue?

“The
hell
you will.” Ellie pulled back slightly from his embrace. “You think I’m
scared?
” Damn those shakes; they came from her shadow. “I’m not scared. I’m
pissed
to the bone. I’m not going anywhere until I wipe that snide look off Mathilde’s face. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Up until a little over a year ago, she hadn’t been able to control her shadow at all; her dark self had been a wild thing, more dangerous every day. An angel named Laurence had finally restrained it, for only a few moments, after asking permission. Even then, the sensation of someone else’s will overcoming her own had been nothing less than an assault.

The peace and acceptance she’d found at Segue had made her certain she’d never live in fear again of not being able to control her shadow. She’d reached the end of her tolerance for that kind of terror back on her farm. She was not about to lose ground now. And not to that condescending bitch.

“You can have Slight”—Ellie patted Cam on the shoulder, as if to console him—“but if Mathilde tries anything again, she’s
mine
. Self-defense all the way, baby; you can still be the murderer.”

Cam stepped back, eyes blacker than ever. “So you’re still angry with me?”

Angry with everyone. A mage had just toyed with her, and the love of her life intended to risk his life needlessly to prevent the
possibility
of her shadow becoming insanely homicidal.

Okay, in this state, maybe she was a little aggressive—or at least the dark part of her was. Maybe she should take one of the deep breaths Cam suggested. She filled her lungs three times before her tremors abated. Strange how the body fed her shadow. And stranger still that Cam should know it.

Of course he would.

The ring is in his pocket,
her shadow said within.

But Ellie wasn’t ready for that. Her shadow might want to merge with him at every opportunity—
yes—
but her mind was still holding back for some reason.

Instead, she rose up on tiptoe and kissed his mouth, then glanced over his worry-worn face. She loved every single line and ached over each one too. Sometime in the past year she’d kind of lost track of how he looked to everyone else—young, fit, handsome, a little rough around the edges—and now he just looked like Cam. Her Cam. Who’d do anything for her. She’d have to be very alert for sudden heroics; she’d been concerned for a moment downstairs when he’d told Mathilde to stop what she was doing.

But he had to learn to let go and trust her, all of her. She couldn’t wear his ring until they stood on an equal footing. Maybe this visit into magekind was necessary; the future would require her to fight without a keeper, even one with a heart as true as Cam’s.

Her shadow twisted within, and Ellie knew why.

Because true-heart Cam now contemplated murder, which seemed so incongruous with his nature. She’d known he was getting darker. First his eyes. Then all his quiet work. His silences. But she’d paid more attention to the lusty optimism he used with her. Which was the real Cam?

Or did he come in parts too?

The thought unsettled her.

She stepped away from him, walked to the heavily draped windows and looked out. On the west side of the house, tucked in a wide fold of trees, was a series of spartan buildings—white, low, without any of the embellishment of the main house. They were situated in a square, four to a side, with a central plaza, similarly white, but with a scorched center.

Ellie inclined her head over her shoulder. “The Seminary?”

Cam came to her side. “I see Shadow and trees, and if I don’t try to look too hard, the occasional movement of a fae.” A sigh, long in coming. “You should know that I saw Slight while Mathilde was playing her little game.”

Ellie turned to face Cam fully. “And you had to let him go because of me.”

Cam looked down at her. “He was playing the game too—you know, come-and-get-me. He can’t hide from the puny humans for long without losing face. Sooner or later, tonight or tomorrow, we’ll meet.”

Ellie was wondering who the “we” included—something in the delivery seemed to exclude her. Only Cam and Slight, then.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m not hiding either.” No matter what Mathilde could do. The fact of the matter, which Cam had up until now ignored, was that no one was invincible. No one completely safe. Mathilde had proved that by controlling Ellie’s wild and unstoppable shadow. Well, by extension, Mathilde had to have a weakness too. And Ellie intended to find it. And if that woman tried anything else, Ellie would exploit it.

Cam’s black eyes looked tired, but he nodded. “I think I got that.”

Now they were making progress. “Well then, how about we dress for dinner, meet them head-on, and take no prisoners.”

“At a fancy dinner?” Cam was trying for a smile.

So Ellie gave him one back. “Why not?”

 

Martin’s table was like nothing she’d ever seen. Lavishly set, each place held a central gold plate surrounded by satellite dishes, as well as no less than eight utensils and three crystal glasses varying slightly in stem and breadth of cup, all on crisp white linen. The table was headed at either end by Gunnar and Mathilde, who was taking her absent mother’s place. They were surrounded by seated men in trim tuxedos and women in simple, glittering gowns, each mage with a straight back, careful black eyes, and an inscrutable expression—nothing remotely like Marcie’s dinners at Segue.

At Segue folks showed up in everything from sweats to lab coats—basically what they’d been wearing when their work was interrupted by the thought that something good was cooking in the kitchen.

Food made Ellie think of Marcie, when she’d been trying so hard not to.

Once—a lump formed in her throat—once, a couple months ago, the food never even made it to the big table in the dining hall. Everyone helped themselves and leaned on the kitchen walls debating what the blockbuster release of
Shadow in Sin City
got right and wrong about magic, and the merits of consulting with Hollywood so that the basics would at least be correct. Marcie had mused that “consulting” would get her close to a certain actor with a well-documented six-pack, and so she had humbly volunteered for the task, seeing as how she knew more about Shadow than anyone since she got bits and pieces from all the departments.

Had Marcie been scared? Ellie blinked back sudden tears and kept her mourning shadow tucked deep inside.

Gunnar and Mathilde didn’t deign to introduce them to the other guests. One or two black gazes flicked their way, but otherwise everyone took their cues from them and did not acknowledge the humans in their midst.

The soup had to be a vichyssoise, served chilled, the scent of leeks mildly pungent and savory, which Ellie could identify only because Cam had once taken her to a nice French restaurant on a date. The soup was ladled by a servant with washed-out blue eyes—therefore, a human—who kept his gaze on his work, his head otherwise bowed. Which reminded her that she was angry. And that she would never bow her head here. When the server finished and spoons dipped low, Ellie spoke.

“Do any of you happen to know a mage by the name of Slight? We were told that we might meet him here.”

The spoons, each held delicately in a mage’s hand, froze mid-scoop. Twelve black gazes, including her beloved’s, darted to her.

Cam squeezed her thigh under the table.

She tried some soup—got a cold, buttery mouthful of leek and potato—better than the French restaurant’s, but she still had to work hard to swallow over her bravado.

A sharp
ding
—metal against china—brought her attention down the table, to a mage who sat directly to the left of Gunnar, obviously someone important.

The mage’s upper body was more relaxed than the others’, his left forearm resting on the edge of his seat, and his expression had a strange derisive kind of amusement. “I know Slight.”

Only three words, but Ellie picked up a subtext she couldn’t translate. It made the superplucked eyebrow of one of the mage women lift, however.

Her shadow hissed within her, sensing danger. Who was this guy?

Gunnar’s gaze roamed, but he made no comment and applied himself to his soup.

“We’re here to kill Slight,” Ellie stated matter-of-factly. To see if that would get a rise.

The mage man stretched his face into a smile. “You don’t say.” The subtext was becoming clearer, something along the lines of “Ah, someone to play with.”

Mathilde, at the other end, sipped from her glass to cover her amusement as well. “Zander, you are too much.”

“Does this House protect him?” Cam asked. He kept his hand on Ellie’s leg—always with her.

Zander, his smile steady when Ellie looked back, replied, “Slight is not of Martin House. No one here has either the obligation or desire to protect him. He’s a stray. Like a mongrel dog—good for kicking.”

“I thought he worked for Martin.” Ellie tried her own subtext buried in tone:
I
know
he works for Martin.

“No, of course not.” Zander glanced at Mathilde. “Imagine using a
stray
.” The black gaze found Ellie again, and he lowered himself enough to explain, though it was clearly tedious to him. “He might work to gain Martin’s favor in some desperate hope to become House, but that is different.”

Different only in that Martin didn’t have to take responsibility for Slight’s actions. Otherwise, the same.

“Didn’t he attend your Seminary?” Ellie skated her vision right-left to keep an eye on both Zander and Mathilde. What Slight could do required training, and he’d very likely found it here.

Mathilde lifted her chin as if she’d just gotten an idea. “Perhaps you’d consider trying your shadow against some of the Seminary’s novitiates.”

“I might,” Ellie said lightly, but she wasn’t about to leave the topic. “Especially against Slight.”

“Of course, I cannot command his presence.” Mathilde took up her spoon again. “He’s not House.”

“You can’t command”—Ellie looked at Zander to ask—“What was it you called Slight?” She looked back at Mathilde without waiting for an answer. “A
mongrel dog?
”

The amusement dropped from Mathilde’s face.

Zander barked a laugh.

Ellie picked up her spoon as well and mumbled at her soup. “And she hopes to command humans? Huh.” The
huh
wasn’t supposed to be voiced, and it kind of came out like a
ha
.

Cam’s hand was warm on her thigh under the table. From that one spot she drew reassurance and strength.

“Be careful,” Gunnar Martin finally said, this time silky smooth in warning.

“Back atcha,” Cam said, not as smooth.

Ellie had no doubt her sweet man was ready to surge up from his seat. She’d kiss him later.

But her shadow, always driven by instinct, urged Ellie’s head up, her eyeballs away from Gunnar’s end and down the table about forty-five degrees. Ellie sharpened her gaze on a mage woman, maybe in her forties, who’d let her carefully composed expression slip—eyes lit, a corner of her mouth tugging upward—to reveal that she enjoyed Mathilde’s momentary discomfort, enjoyed it a lot.

Her,
the shadow said from within. The shadow was never wrong. Most people dampened or ignored their instincts, but Ellie knew different. Instincts were survival.

The mage woman must have felt the attention because her gaze flicked to Ellie and met her stare. The mage’s complexion mottled—white and blotchy red all the way down her neck and chest—though her expression was once again closed. She knew she’d been caught naked for a moment and was fighting the flush of distress.

She hated Mathilde
and
she was afraid?

Ellie took another spoonful of soup and relished the creamy snap of flavor.