Shadow Fall

Dark, shadowed, even ruined, yes. But not my choice. Custo tried to deny Shadowman’s hold, but still moved a single step, then another. Custo’s own hand reached out to open the side stage exit, and though his eyes strained for one more glimpse of Annabella, his legs carried him away from her.

Custo could breathe, but he couldn’t speak. What do you want with me? he asked with his mind. His skin tightened with the thickening web of Shadow; he could almost feel himself grow dim as it leached vitality from his core. Somehow he didn’t think Death was going to deliver him to Heaven a second time, not that he ever belonged there.

The music of the ballet suddenly muted with the close of the heavy door. The melody of the story was gone. Only the whine of the strings and the burr of the bass lingered.

“We made a bargain once,” Shadowman said. They strode the back halls of the center, their footfalls hitting the floor in perfect time. “I intend to use you in another.”

Custo made to respond, but couldn’t even grunt. Shadow choked him. By now Jens had to know that he was gone. He’d adjust the coverage for Annabella, or maybe…maybe stop the performance because of the wraith attack.

Custo’s hands cramped, so he knew he’d been reflexively trying to grip them. Even the clamoring beat of his heart was yoked in Shadow. Where are you taking me?

“If my Kathleen is not in Heaven, then she must be…elsewhere.” Death’s voice lost its loose sarcasm and took on bitterness. “She doesn’t belong there. I broke the laws of Faerie, not her. I used my power to cross. What justice is served by sending her there?”

Custo had no choice but to remain silent. He didn’t know anything about justice anyway.

“There is no justice,” Shadowman concluded. “So I intend to make another bargain, this time with Hell. A simple trade, like ours at Heaven’s Gate. You, for my Kathleen.”

The Shadow kept Custo from shaking involuntarily. They reached the back doors that led to the street. From inside, Custo could hear a wraith screech, gunfire, screams, among sirens.

Shadowman slapped his hand against the door and stepped out into the melee. Leashed, Custo followed at his heels, the fetid stench of wraiths blowing up his nostrils, into a scene of chaos illuminated by the overcast hover of clouds reflecting city light back on itself. The street was unofficially cordoned off by abandoned cars. Bodies, human and wraith, littered the area. A cluster of wraiths had made human shields of two Segue operatives, while several other wraiths crouched like spiders on the building walls, ready to strike.

Adam, his back to a building on the other side of the street, his face crusted with blood, whipped to aim his rifle at Shadowman and Custo as they exited. The wraiths let out a quailing chorus, cringing from Death.

In the past, Shadowman had cut down the wraiths with great sweeps of his scythe. His duty for all time was to render the dead out of the mortal world, and none were more dead than the immortal wraiths. The smell alone was proof of that. Custo had witnessed Death’s coming before, called by his daughter’s banshee scream, at the West Virginia location of Segue. Shadowman had struck with a father’s vengeance then, but he didn’t seem to give a damn now.

Death descended the concrete steps, and Custo was compelled to follow.

Adam lowered his gun slightly. “Custo?”

Custo couldn’t answer. Adam would know what to do for Annabella. Adam always knew what to do.

“Custo!” Adam repeated, louder. When he didn’t get an answer a second time, he transferred his attention to Shadowman. Custo caught the dawn of realization on Adam’s face.

“Shadowman, stop!” Adam glanced sharply to his side at the wraiths cringing from Death.

Shadowman halted and shot Adam a pained look. “Every moment I linger here is a moment of pain Kathleen endures in Hell.”

“I need Custo to help me fight,” Adam said.

“I need to trade him for Kathleen,” Death returned, icy.

Adam’s gaze flicked to Custo’s face, but Custo knew Adam could read nothing from his Shadow-webbed expression.

“I’m sorry for her. For you,” Adam said, looking back at Death. “But I cannot fight this war and protect Talia at the same time.”

Custo noted the slow descent of a skinny female wraith dropping to the pavement at the corner of a building near Adam, but obstructed from his view.

“My daughter can protect herself.” Shadowman turned, dragging Custo along.

“She can’t do anything,” Adam shouted after him. “She’s pregnant. Every time she touches Shadow, every time she uses her voice, she risks both her life and the lives of our twins. We are besieged until she delivers.”

Shadowman stopped again. The street’s shadows throbbed around him.

“What would Kathleen want?” Adam asked.

Death bowed his head.

“Didn’t she give her life to bring Talia into this world?”

“Twenty-nine years of pain in Hell,” Shadowman ground out.

“That was her trade,” Adam said. “Twenty-nine years for a daughter and two grandchildren. It was a good bargain. The best of bargains.” Adam’s eyes took on a strange sheen. “I need Custo to see that Kathleen’s legacy is safe. Join us, help us end this war, and we can find a way to free Kathleen that much faster.”

“You can’t help me free her, mortal,” Shadowman sneered. Then he threw his head back and roared to the sky. The air convulsed with his rage and ripples of power blew the windows out of the immediate buildings.

But Custo felt a contraction within him, a shudder of darkness, and then a scoring rip as the tendrils of Shadow released him. He fell to the ground in a heap, his head landing on shattered glass. Blinking through a haze of red, Custo saw Death continue alone into the night, then disappear beyond the strobe of police lights.

Custo planted a hand on the ground. His arm shook as he pushed himself to sitting. As he brought up his head, the female wraith darted toward Adam’s turned back, her jaw unlocking, jagged teeth extending. Custo gulped free air and shouted, “Adam!”

Giselle drew Prince Albrecht to the side of the clearing as a line of wilis flew down the stage like a severe arrow of white. Myrtha stepped out from the trees, holding branches of rosemary to symbolize remembrance. Like Giselle, each of the wili spirits had died betrayed by a man who’d pledged to love them.

The music lowered with condemnation as Myrtha cursed Albrecht in the language of the dance. She pointed at him, you, she circled her hands over her head, will dance, and then she crossed her wrists in front of her, until you are dead.

Giselle rushed forward, placing herself between her love and her queen, stretching her arms out to the sides to protect him.

It was too late. Myrtha had no pity. The wilis rearranged themselves on the edge of the clearing, cold and indifferent to the lovers.

Giselle did not join them. If Albrecht had to dance, then she would dance with him. Together they would pass the darkest hours of night, and her love for him would see him to the dawn.

She tiptoed to the center of the clearing. The music deepened and the notes lengthened, a sad violin singing over the dread of the curse.

She began a slow developpe to the side, stretching the limits of her ghostly form, then stroked the air and inclined into a melancholy, turning arabesque. The movements were effortless, boneless, as if, indeed, the laws of nature no longer applied to her.

Holding on to the moment, Annabella slowly focused her eyes on her surroundings. The stage, the two- dimensional trees, and the audience were all there, solid, but superimposed on a vast, darkening landscape of magic. The Shadowlands.

She’d done it again.

Her heart clutched. Her fear had the magic wavering, but she steadied herself with the knowledge that an angel watched over her.

Albrecht supported a soft turn. Where before the promenade had been a negotiation of skill and balance,