Shadow Bound

Life after death.

Adam frowned. He hadn’t pursued this approach; perhaps it was time he did. And this—heflipped to the front—Talia O’Brien came at the subject from a neatly objective point of view. He’d have to check her out. See if she was safe to come on staff at Segue.

“God, Adam, I don’t know why you have to be such a shit about this. All I want is a sandwich. You could at least answer me. Answer me, goddamn it!”

Adam flipped through the dissertation, past her analysis, to her conclusions. Something caught his eye, made his stomach tighten. He skimmed back again. There. On the bottom of page sixty-nine. Footnote 3b. A source claimed to have met an individual named Shadowman.

A memory stirred, a long-ago rant from a gleeful Jacob, his eyes bright and wild, voice shrill. “Shadowman can’t reach me!”

Jacob’s face had been bloody, their father limp on the floor at his feet.

Adam braced against the flood of pain the recollection triggered and stuffed the vision back in the small box in his head. Shut it. Tight.

He blinked hard to restore his normal sight, shook off the heat that had suddenly slicked his skin, and forced a cleansing breath.

In the intervening years, he’d searched the name Shadowman exhaustively, attempted to question (and goad) Jacob further, but had come up with nothing. Nothing.

Until now.

Adam’s heart hit his throat. Shadowman. Ms. O’Brien’s source had conversed with him, and Shadowman had returned her from death back to mortal life.

I’ll be damned. The Shadowman.

A strange sensation welled up in him, pushing at his chest, buzzing in his mind.

Near-death experiences. He should have thought of it before. Incredible lapse of imagination on his part. Here he’d been consulting wiccans, shamans, and holy men.

Adam pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. “Custo. Track down Ms. Talia O’Brien. PhD student. No— she’s probably been awarded her doctorate by now, out of—” he turned to the title page—“University of Maryland. I expect she’s got an offer and is teaching somewhere. Her field—damn, she’s covered just about everything—but try sociol-ogy, anthropology, psychiatry perhaps. Find out what you can about her. Use whatever resources you deem necessary.”

“I’ll get right on it. Any particular reason you’re interested?”

“For starters, her work is outstanding. You’ve got to read her dissertation. Tonight, if possible. I’ll leave a copy on your desk. Let me know when you’ve located her.” Adam had to get to the plane. Frantic energy coursed through his veins.

“Must be good. You haven’t sounded this excited since…well, in years.”

“You will be, too. Read all the footnotes, and you’ll see.” Adam ended the call and stooped to pick up his files. Budget would just have to come with him.

“Talia O’Brien.” Jacob drew the name out. “Sounds uptight to me, Bro. More my type than yours.”

Adam glanced into the monitor. Jacob was on his feet, face belligerently in the camera.

“I know what to do with her,” Jacob said with a grin. He licked his teeth in a gross parody of lust or hunger. Probably both.

“But I found her first,” Adam murmured, turning away. He buzzed for the guard.

Behind him the room shuddered. Adam knew the sound: Jacob kicking at the cell door. Pray to God the reinforced steel held. An unearthly screech followed. Six years and it still raised the hair at Adam’s nape. No bullet or blade could stop that monster.

Talia O’Brien.

Maybe she could help him kill his brother.

TWO

THE silk of Talia’s interview blouse slid beneath her fingers in a sigh of delight, but she didn’t have time to linger. Her gaze flicked to her bedside alarm clock. 4:12 P.M. Her flight left in a little under three hours, and she’d only marked off half the items on her pretrip list.

White blouse, check.

Warped male laughter filtered through her bedroom wall from the apartment next door. Tuesday night. Right about now, the guys would be getting high for band practice. On cue, a bass guitar bellowed an accusatory, boo, dop, boo, dopdow. Made the framed painting of one of her mother’s fairy-tale landscapes buzz. Made her teeth buzz, too.

Well, she wouldn’t have to put up with it for much longer.

Talia glided the blouse over her interview suit to latch at the hanger clip of a brand-new suitcase. Just looking at the clothes made her heartbeat skip. Including shoes, panty hose, slip, and two coordinated blouses, the ensemble cost her nearly a month’s rent. On sale. But she didn’t begrudge the expense a bit, not if she got the assistant professor position at UC–Berkeley.

Please, God, let me get this job. Talia’s silent prayer had been going around in her mind and accelerating her heart to near bursting since she’d received the invitation to visit Berkeley for in-person interviews. Please, pretty please, God. Just this one little favor…

“Knock knock.”

Talia turned to find her roommate Melanie at her door.

Oh hell. What now? The last thing Talia needed was a fight right before she had to leave. Tension climbed the ladder of her spine while the electric guitar next door squealed a chaos of rapid notes.

From her sleek, side-swept coif to her pointy heels, Melanie managed an urban sophistication on a student budget. She already had job offers, and she still had a semester to go on her advanced business degree. A perfectly plucked eyebrow arched as she brought up a hand holding a thick gold bar of Godiva hazelnut chocolate. Sweet heaven and rich, delicious sin wrapped in gold foil.

“Peace offering,” Melanie yelled over the band’s noise.

“Thanks.” Talia took the bar, careful not to touch Melanie skin to skin and be flooded with her negative emotional backwash. Talia forced a smile. She hoped the smile looked more natural than it felt. Melanie had been bitchy from the moment Talia moved in eight months ago. But the rent and location had been too good to move again.

“It’s for after the interview, to celebrate,” Melanie clarified. “I should have congratulated you when you defended your dissertation. It was shitty of me not to, so I’m sorry. I really wish you the best of luck. So… congratulations Dr. O’Brien.”

The music cut off at congratulations. The shouted Dr. that followed did wonders for Talia’s mood. Suddenly she could forgive anything. All her work was going to pay off. Not with money—not in the more esoteric social sciences. But soon—please, God— soon she’d have a great job at a reputable university.

Papers, publishing, grants. Oh, my.

Then her own apartment, though rent was astronomical near the Berkeley campus. No roommates, Melanie’s sudden goodwill notwithstanding, but maybe friends. Who knows? If she were very, very good she might get a real life. She might even pass for normal. Okay, that was stretching the fantasy a bit. She’d settle for inconspicuous.

“Why don’t we break it open and make the declaration of peace official?” Talia said. Just one square would go a long way toward calming her nerves.

“No. It’s for after the interview.” Melanie waved away the bar and stepped back over the threshold.

Okay, then. Girl bonding over. But this was nice. Ending on a good note.

Talia tucked the chocolate into her carry-on. No way on earth that delicious bar would survive the wait in the