Shadowglass (17 page)

Whose candy scent waters his mouth slyly when he’s not expecting it.

Whose lovely bleeding face swells his veins with cold-burning rage.

Suddenly he wants to slip the ring into his mouth, suck it clean for her, taste her insides on the warm iron. Bright self-hatred sweetens his fury. Like she’d want it back after he’d done that.

“Here.” Joey tosses the ring at her and stalks over to the dead spriggan, snapping his webs in and out in frustration. Good thing he already hates that thieving ironfairy. It means he can enjoy this ice-fresh loathing without it having anything to do with her.

The smug blue bastard stole Joey’s mirror. No other reason Joey’d want to rip those soft gray eyeballs out and swallow them whole. Certainly not a few bruises on his girl’s face.

Not that she’s his girl.

He squats, leaning on his cane. The body’s not stiff yet, and one scrawny red arm tumbles to the carpet. Joey flares his nostrils at foul spriggan sweat and stale beer. “One good thing from this. A dead Valenti rat.”

Mina folds herself beside him, her slender thighs smooth in tight leather. She scrapes up some blood and sniffs it, her torn nostril dripping. “Thought you said that blue prick was a thief.”

Lick that sugary banshee blood from her lip. Swallow her kiss. Taste her sweat.

Joey tightens his lips and concentrates on the corpse’s slashed throat. “He is.”

“So why not come at night when no one’s around, master? Why’d he do this?”

Stab wound, short and sharp, a single neat slash right to left. Blood mostly on the carpet, a fat green stain, only residual splashing on the corpse. Curiosity thickens Joey’s aroused senses. “Didn’t die in a fight.”

“What?”

“He was already on the floor, Mina. Did you hear what the fairy slut said, as we came up the stairs?”

“Some shit.” She shrugs. Her magical hearing is better than his. She just doesn’t listen.

“Some shit like ‘we don’t have the mirror’?” Joey drops his cane and crawls forward to sniff the corpse’s throat. Blood, spit, a trace of oil. That’s all. The evidence is too distant for his human senses, and his sinuses sparkle, itching to flower.

He doesn’t dare glance at Mina. Just slides his neck out and lets the scales sprout.

Let her look. It’s the truth, after all.

Vertebrae mutate in his neck, and his muscles stretch with a splurt of adrenaline. Keratin plates burst from his skin, warm black pigment spreading like blood. His vision dims. Colors die. Sounds fade, blotted out by a sparkling new world of scent and vibration. Electric cycles buzzing the air with static, tiny rhythmic shudders deep in the building’s steel-webbed foundations, the flicker of insects and dust in myriad starlight shades. His lips scale over, his mouth dries, his tongue sprouts forks between serrated fangs that slide from his gums like blades. Venom swells his palate.

The scales itch to slide down his body, to cover him. Heat flushes his balls, twitching his cock to hardness, and he grits shrinking teeth and resists, his skin crawling with need beneath nuisance clothes. Grunt. Slither. Swallow. But not all the way. Not everything, not in front of her.

He gasps with the effort of holding back, and slithers forward on misshapen serpent elbows to the body. His fins scrape on the carpet, and his skin vibrates, tingling. The spriggan’s skin is rough and cool on his scales, and he rubs his neck along the corpse’s chest with delight. His mouth opens, and he inhales, his tongue forks flickering right and left.

Sensory juices tingle his palate. A kernel of heat, slowly dying in the spriggan’s heart. The rapid cycle of the lightbulb above, the breeze as Mina shifts her fragrant hips, some distant footsteps vibrating the floor. The rich stink of dead spriggan blood, acrid with shock.

Joey slithers over sharp ribs, a curved collarbone, ripe spriggan muscles sharp with sweat and bristles. Wrist tendons, a cold slimy palm wet with blood. And underneath, almost too faint to detect, the sweet dusty taste of flowers.

Memory stabs bright into Joey’s quivering sinuses, and he grins with mobile jaws, his control stretching. Kane’s aberration. Akash, he called himself, dressed in a handsome human body but, like Joey, something quite different underneath. Kane was too angry to realize anyone watched, not the least a wicked snakeshifter with an enhanced sense of taste.

Triumph swells his warming veins, and he wants to slide naked on dead skin, warm his scales slowly with friction and failing body heat, pretend Dante’s still alive and Mina’s just a naughty knifegirl with whipcord thighs and everything’s how it was before.

But not with Mina watching.

With a hiss and a sigh he withdraws, and once he’s pulled back inside his clammy, tight human skin, he’s left with only a parched mouth, a raging thirst in his throat, and an aching hard-on.

And Mina staring at him, her bloody lips quivering in disgust or loathing. Or interest.

Tingles erupt in starved arteries, and Joey grips his cane and stalks to his bloodless feet. “Get up. We’ve an angel to chase.”

15

A
lley walls loomed tall on either side of us. At the far end, cars cruised by in the street, their sour exhaust rising under my wings and spiking pain into my skull. My breath tore my lungs ragged. My jaw still stung where Joey’s claws ripped me, and my mouth felt coarse and raw inside. I fluttered limply to dusty concrete, my abused wingbones protesting, and leaned my hands on my knees to recover my breath.

I sweated. I hurt. I stung. Damn it, this sucked. All except the part about holding Indigo’s hand, which I wasn’t anymore, because he’d dropped me from ten feet above the ground and now my feet hurt.

I’m not too good with flying at the best of times. Blaze can dart about like a dragonfly on heat, and Azure likes to swing from glowing streetlights and chase the moths, her hair fluttering in her own breeze. But not me.

Like usual, I barely scrape by compared with those two. And having my wings bent back by a mad knife-sporting banshee wasn’t helping.

I panted and squinted in the hot afternoon sun, the bricks knobbly and solid against my bare shoulder. Quang’s was a couple of blocks away. Any farther than that, and someone would notice us. “Are they following us?”

Indigo lighted beside me, luminous wings weightless in the sunshine. “Nope. They can’t fly, remember? Though neither can you, by the look.”

Ah, now I knew why he hadn’t abandoned me. He needed someone to taunt. My hero.

I scowled, still catching my breath, and scratched my stinging chin as I straightened. The cuts swelled under my fingerpads, inflamed. “Like I’ve never heard that before. I’m more of a ladylike flutterer, okay?”

Indigo giggled. Yeah, really. Not a giggly guy, my Indigo, but my efforts at flying sure raised a juicy one. Just when I think he’s a coldhearted centipede, he goes and does something like that.

I shook my wings at him in frustration, soaking him in droplets. “Water fairy, look. Water is my element. Air just gives me the shivers. Throw me in the ocean and see how I go then.” I love the ocean, diving under cool salty water, my hair streaming back in the gurgle of distant whale voices, jellyfish brushing over my skin. I fold my wings back and kick like a mermaid, and under I go. But my skin still shrivels like a prune if I stay in for too long, and I have to come up for air like everyone else or I’ll drown.

There’s always a catch, see. Azure will rip and suffocate in a wind-storm just like a human, and if Blaze gets too close to the fire, he’ll burn.

Our own elements, killing us. Welcome to life as a fairy.

“Okay,” Indigo said, shaking my drips from his hair, the ghost of that cute giggle still teasing his lips. “Next puddle we see, you’re going in.”

I scowled again, in case he missed the first one. “And don’t even talk to me about heights. In case you were going to, ya know, in which case you can just shut up right now.”

“I wasn’t.” Silvery blood rinsed down his forearm in my water, and his skin sparkled in the sun. Static crackled blue, outlining wet muscles.

Metal boy. Shiny. Wet.
Mmm.

Titanium rainbowed like oil as water dripped over his wrist. Definitely his left arm. Must have imagined things before, right?

His claws dripped, and current arced blue between his fingers. My skin tingled in sympathy. What would that feel like, if he touched me?

His gaze caught mine, burning, and swiftly I looked away, light-headed. “Okay, then.”

“Sure.”

“Fine.” Damn, my chin really itched like a bastard. I scraped it with my claws.

“Show me your face.”

“What?” I scratched again, harder, and blisters burst, spreading the itch.

He lifted my jaw with his finger, ducking his head to look, and clicked his tongue. “Joey really got you a good one. Already swollen. Wash it out.”

“What?” I say that a lot around him.
Gotta get some vocab, Ice.

He touched a cut. It stung, and my skin stuck to his finger when he pulled it away. He waved his fingertip before my eyes, showing me a blob of evil green goo. “Venom. Wash it out or your skin’ll rot.” He licked his finger clean and spat, wrinkling his nose. “Nice.”

Alarm tumbled my pulse downhill. “Venom?”

“Yeah. You know. Like a snake.”

“But he had his hand in my mouth. I coulda swallowed some!” Already my chin swelled, my flesh tight and hot. I swallowed, and it hurt. Frantic, I shoved my claws down my throat, scrabbling for my tonsils to make myself throw up.

Indigo grabbed my wrist and gently forced my fingers away. “Stop it. Calm down. It’s venom, not poison. Drink as much of it as you want. It won’t hurt you.”

I swatted at the scratches on my chin, panic tumbling in my pulse. “But what about these? I’ve gotta get to a shower—”

“No time. Wash it out.”

“What? How?”

“Water fairy, right? Before it sinks in, Ice. Now.” Urgency sparked his eyes rusty red, and panic tightened around my lungs like a rubber band.

“I . . . I can’t.” I flushed, not from effort but embarrassment, and water seeped on my skin like light sweat, not enough.

“What?” His turn for monosyllables, a whisper that didn’t engage my confidence.

I shuddered, my skin cold and horribly dry. I jerked my wings, but I’d already shaken off the water. My stomach flipped, cold, and I jumped up and down in frustration. “I can’t do it on purpose! I don’t know how.”

He swallowed, and his wing tips rippled coppery. “Shit. Okay. Calm down. We’ll fix you up. Come here.” He slid his hand around my neck and pulled me close, ignoring my jitters.

His powerful steely scent slid deep into my sinuses, and my head swam, light, either from the venom or from him. I flapped ineffective hands. “What are you doing?”

“Just stand there and take it, okay?” And before I could react, he nudged my chin up and opened his hot mouth onto my throat.

His lips burned me, gentle yet unyielding. My breath slid away in a hot rush of surprise that quickly melted into delicious pleasure. My skin sparkled under his kiss, all the way down. I closed my eyes. He kissed my throat, my jaw, the delicate place where my pulse trembled, wet openmouthed kisses that poured molten delight down along my collarbone and tugged my nipples tight.

Heat shivered down my spine to tingle between my legs. I tilted my head back, and water dripped over my chin, not just sweat now but the real hot water of desire.

His tongue stroked my slashed skin, stinging yet delicious. My veins constricted under the pressure, my pulse beating harder. So he was a taste fetishist. Just like I’d imagined.
Baby, you can taste me all you want.
His brittle claws teased my scalp and crunched in the dripping hair at the back of my neck, and I couldn’t suppress a whimper of delight.

And then he sucked, noisily, and I realized belatedly what he was really doing.

Not kissing me. Not licking my throat for the pleasure of it. Sucking out the poison. Making me wet all over, just to wash the venom out.

He released me and spat a mouthful of blue-tinged green slime onto the concrete. “Yuck. Gross.” He worked his mouth to get more saliva, and spat again, cleaner this time.

I licked my lips, still breathless and trembling, and my voice shrank somewhere on its way from my swollen throat to my mouth. “Thanks. I think.”

He glanced up at me halfway through wiping his mouth and halted, completing the remainder of the movement carefully. “Sorry. I didn’t mean
you
were—”

“I know. I agree. Pretty stank, huh?” I tugged my diamond-stuffed bag tight on my shoulder. The scratches still hurt. The bruise he’d so sweetly made there hurt, too. But it hurt worse, deep in my heart, that he’d said that. That I’d wanted him to touch me even though he’d done nothing but insult me all morning, and that even when he had his mouth on my throat and my pulse trembling under his tongue, the rest of me hadn’t tempted him for even a moment.

Just like Blaze said. Indigo wanted something. Only reason he was still here.

Water still trickled over me, warm and painfully obvious. Embarrassment curdled my guts, and I stuck my hand on my hip, trying to look pissed off instead of bewildered and aroused. “So, what do we do now? Run away? Hide? Jump in front of a tram?”

He fingered his bottom lip with one claw, mesmerizing. “I’m thinking strawberry, rather than chocolate.”

Infuriating boy. “Look, sorry if I’m a bit slow, but what the fuck?”

“Strawberry ice cream. That’s your favorite, right? You look like you could use one. It’s on me.”

I waved my arms in frustration. “You pick now to ask me out? And how the hell do you know what flavor I like?”

He shrugged, sensual. “You want some or not?”

“You wanna go for ice cream? Are you crazy? I mean, hey, I’m flattered, but did you forget that we’ve got Snake-Ass DiLuca and his bondage princess chasing us?”

Indigo caught my wrists and gently forced me to relax. “Which is why we’re going for ice cream. At Valentino’s. Think Joey’ll dare show his scaly butt in Angelo’s place?”

My wits flittered about like autumn leaves, and his hot grip on my wrists—I’ve always wanted him to hold me down and ravish me—wasn’t helping. My gaze stuck itself like wet leaves to his silvery mouth, and I peeled it off with a squelch.

Valentino’s. Ange Valenti’s café. Ange would probably be there himself, and even if Sonny was around, I still had a day or two’s grace. Grudging respect for Indigo’s wits soothed my irritated nerves, and I stopped wriggling. My fingerpads itched to touch him back, but I stilled them. “Good point.”

“Yeah. I thought so.”

“Indigo.”

“What?”

“You’re still holding me.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” He let me go, and hid his hands shyly behind his back.

Frustration jammed my nerves, and my wings quivered tight. Maddening, impossible boy.

I straightened, tugging my bag over my shoulder, and side by side we walked over smeared concrete toward the sun.

I stole a glance at him, so close beside me. This was either my lucky day, or some weird nightmare. Sunlight glinted on his silver-foil wings, almost too bright to watch. His lips shone, still silvery wet, and I remembered their warmth on my inflamed throat and wondered if he’d ever kiss me again.

His hand brushed mine, accidental, and he cleared his throat and tucked his hands behind his back again.

A warm hollow emptied inside. I felt like a blushing schoolgirl. Not that I ever went to school much.

A dragonfly zipped by, and he lifted a coppery claw and let the insect land. It preened itself in the sun, wings flickering. He sighed, short. “Look. Ice cream’s not like the diamonds, okay?”

I couldn’t help but glance down at my wrist, where my shinies danced in sunlight. My belly warmed.
So pretty. Mine.
I got a kiss with them and everything. But at what cost? “Whatcha mean?”

“I did what I did back there with the venom without asking. This isn’t an apology. But we need to talk, Ice.”

My skin dampened at the memory of his mouth on my skin.
Sure, let’s talk. About doing it again, only without the venom.
“Umm.”

“About this mirror, and what we’re going to do.” He flicked his finger, and the dragonfly darted away.

“Oh. Yeah. That.”

A fleeting glance, delicious. “Besides, I’ve been waiting for the chance to take you out.”

My stomach hit my kneecaps, and giggles ripped in to take its place. Yeah, this must be a dream. A psychedelic one, like when you snort too much banshee blue and pass out. I snickered. “Oh, you’re such a liar. I’ve only asked you about a million times and you always brush me off.”

“You always want to go for pizza. I hate pizza.”

Giddy warmth spilled in my heart. He hates pizza. Who knew?

A
fternoon sun burns ocher through cracked warehouse windows, dragging long shadows from machinery draped with the dirt and cobwebs of disuse. Dust motes spar in crisscrossed shafts of light, a cruel cage of silent accusation, and below stands Akash, his lips locked in a flame-tickled kiss with a slender silvery fairy.

His throat bulges with the fat throb of stolen magic. The fairy’s wings judder and crackle, but it can’t escape, trapped in the cruel strength of Akash’s arms.

Akash swallows one final time and pulls away. The fairy’s body slumps to the concrete, its dulled pearlescent wings crushing beneath its weight. Its pretty head hits the floor at a strange angle, and dust filters slowly into long black hair. Glassy eyes stare, blank, extinguished like its pretty flames.

Now those flames are Akash’s. Yellow fire ribbons from his fingers to flicker out a few inches from the floor. His nails glitter, drenched in fairyshine, and he smells gunpowder.

Just like the banshee’s song. Pretty. Pointless. No help against Kane.

Akash slams himself onto his ripped plastic stool and fidgets, unable to keep still or dodge the unfeeling sun’s glare. Strange stolen powers gibber and struggle inside him, bickering and gnawing at each other like an ornery crowd. He’s eaten firefae, banshee, black spriggan, green spriggan, earthfae, absorbed their fickle powers into his own, and he still doesn’t understand how Kane tempts them, or how to stop it. About him, nailed into crude wooden crates, more creatures wail and protest and scream, waiting their turn, and the air stings with sour fear.