Shadow's Curse

So focused was he on the crow, David was unaware of the man’s presence until he stepped from the long twilight shadows, the power moving over and through him like a storm wave buffeting the senses, dragging him under.

Imnada.

Yet not.

Human.

But much more.

He was large. Amend that—he was colossal. David, who looked up to few men, knew that in human form he’d be craning his neck to stare into this man’s dark impenetrable eyes. And he was old. Despite the lack of gray in his hair or lines on his face, wisdom burned in his eyes and age hung upon him like a cloak.

What do you want with me? Did Mac send you? Has something happened to . . .

He couldn’t complete the sentence. If Mac had been hurt or killed, it would be a nail through his heart.

If Beskin has harmed a hair on his head, I’ll rip him to shreds and gnaw on his bones. A growl rolled up the back of his throat, pulling his lips back in a show of long, deadly fangs, his fury lifting the hair all along his spine. And then I’ll do the same to any damned enforcer that crosses my path.

“The little dog owns a nasty bite.”

Where the crow had been now stood a woman. It would have been easy to mistake her for a boy, with her short cap of black curls, sharp-boned face, and imp’s grin. But as she glided across the grass, her cloak of ebony feathers billowed aside to reveal small upthrust breasts and rounded womanly hips, her skin glowing pearlescent in the gloom of the wood. She turned her rainbow eyes upon him and the fur along his back bristled, despite himself. He recognized her immediately: Badb, one of the true Fey. He’d never stood in the presence of one before. They didn’t bother themselves with the shapechangers. Never had. Not even in the days before the Fealla Mhor, when the walls between the worlds held many gates and it was easy to find the right path to cross over and back.

Perhaps this was because the true Fey knew in their hearts that the Imnada were different—their magic unlike any they had seen or understood. Even with all the Fey’s powers, they held no real sway over the shapechangers. The Fey were not their gods, nor were the Imnada beholden to them as the Other were for their very existence. How it must have galled them.

Here to pick at the corpse, carrion crow? You’ll have to wait. I’m still breathing, no thanks to you.

“Fine words from a hunter of cutpurses and a stalker of whoremongers,” Badb mocked, her crimson lips widening, but the giant of a man laid a hand upon her shoulder, and she retreated.

Interesting. What kind of man could control one of the Fey? A man with enormous power, was the answer that shivered up from the base of David’s brain.

“Can you put Mr. St. Leger’s fears to rest, Badb?” the man asked.

The girl closed her eyes for a brief moment. “Flannery lives. More than that, I cannot see. The shifters cloud my vision and all is hazy.”

David relaxed a fraction of an inch. I’ve been warned about her, but who are you?

The man shrugged. “A traveler . . . a friend . . .”

Friends are a danger. They make you care. I prefer enemies.

“Those you seem to acquire with ease,” Badb snipped, tossing her cap of curls.

“Gray sent me to bring you to him,” the man said. “And the book.”

It remains within the fair, but it’s not safe to return. There are men searching for me.

“Ossine?”

Men in service to Victor Corey, a gang lord. A man with half of London in his pocket.

“And why would this lord of gangs be searching for you? Does he also desire to study Zwanis Xhelho’s Book of Seven Forgotten Stars?” the man asked.

Corey hunts a girl.

“The woman you take north to Dunsgathaic.”

That’s no concern of yours. Who are you? What are you?

“You sense the answer, but you fight it. I can feel your resistance.”

David reached out once more, his mind pressing, searching. You’re Imnada, but you don’t bear any signum I recognize. It’s no clan or holding I know, which is impossible. As younglings, we’re taught them all by the Ossine as part of our learning.

“The Lythene died out long ago. I am all that is left.”

A thought niggled at the base of David’s brain. Some story heard at his grandmother’s knee. A legend only half remembered.

The Ossine would never have allowed an entire clan to just die out without working to save it. That’s one of their jobs—to chart the bloodlines and to keep the aspects feasible in new generations.”

“The Ossine have the power over life . . . and death,” the man answered. “They have grown in importance since I knew them last.”

David had no answer, but more than enough questions.

He’d no time to ask any of them. Badb stepped forward, her cloak trailing over the ground with a soft rustle. She placed a hand on his head, ignoring the tension stringing his muscles, his lips drawn in a silent growl.

“You are dying, shapechanger. The curse and the draught working in harmony threaten to kill you. It is only a matter of time.”

And whose fault is that, Fey? It was you and your companion who offered us this devil’s solution.

“Enough,” the dark-haired giant said. “If there are enemies in these woods, we must be swift away to Addershiels. Take us to retrieve the book. We cannot leave without . . .”

But David was gone. He tore away from them, losing himself in the deeper trees, muzzle lifted to the air, his body alive with fear and anger. She was in the woods . . . somewhere. He smelled the panic on her skin, he felt the mad gallop of her heart, heard her shout in his head.

Callista was in danger.

Through the thick tangle of ancient trees, light filtered weakly from above to lie green and gray upon old moss-covered trunks and sheened the pale leaves of ash and oak. He leapt over a rotten stump, slid on his belly beneath a web of bindweed as snaring as a spider’s trap. There. He veered free of the thick, grasping undergrowth to find himself on a beaten-earth track. Up ahead, the chase came closer. He heard the crack and snap of bracken as it was shoved aside in haste, a cry quickly stifled as she fell roughly.

I’m here. You’re safe. I’ll not let them harm you.

Callista broke through the trees, her hair falling free of its pins and speckled with leaves, his greatcoat dragging half off her shoulders, her satchel banging against her thighs. She skidded to a halt as she caught sight of him emerging from the night.

“David!” she gasped.

It’s me. What’s wrong?

“They’ve found us. He’s just behind . . .”

She stumbled forward, the satchel dragging her shoulder. David heard the twang of a broken wire and the squeak of a pivot, his body in flight before the spark hit the flint.

Spring gun.

A roar shook his blood, pain shot through his side, and he fell hard to the ground, the wind crushed out of him and every new breath shooting fire along his nerves, the trees swirling as if a great wind shook them. He heard a scream and felt a hand upon his neck, clutching at his fur.

“David! Please. Look at me. Don’t close your eyes.”