Читать книгу Ecstasy: The Shadowdwellers - Jacquelyn Frank - Страница 9

Ashla stood shivering in the darkened streets of Times Square.

She was almost used to the total lack of light, and even the eerie absence of sound in a city that ought to have been clamoring with noise, but what she couldn’t adjust to was the absolute barrenness of humanity.

How long had she been in this surreal, postapocalyptic version of New York? Had it been a week? Three? She had lost track. One of the most populous cities in America, and she had yet to see a single soul besides herself.

Ashla was a bit hazy on some of the details of when this all had come about, of how and why the world had blossomed into this bizarre, barren landscaping, but she did recall her initial reaction of pure panic. She remembered quite clearly the act of running around to all of the places where coworkers, friends, and even family were supposed to be.

Queens. The Bronx. Eastern Long Island. Eventually here, in Manhattan.

There was no one.

Oh, everything worked all right. Subways. Cars. Machinery. All of it as if the regular occupants of the world would return any moment to pick up and go on just as they always had. Only, there were some strange details missing. There was no television reception or projection. Lightbulbs, neon lights, and anything providing the smallest glimmer of illumination refused to perform their designated functions. That had truly freaked her out in the beginning. The lack of light had made the vast vacant spaces of the city seem somehow claustrophobic and paralyzing. It had gotten better, thank goodness, as her eyes had adapted to the total darkness with a surprising rapidity. She had even grown accustomed to the fact that it always remained nighttime and never turned to day like it should.

Things had definitely improved once she stopped thinking of reasons why there might not be a sun.

Another odd thing was the food. Food was always fresh for the taking, somehow replenishing itself as though invisible workers still carried out their daily duties of stocking and rotating it. She never saw any of it happen, it just did.

In the end, she had realized that the ideal course of action was to not spend too much time thinking about the details. She never got answers when she did, and only managed to scare herself witless in the process. Explanations escaped her for those and many other anomalous details, but she was weary of the constant heart-racing panic that overwhelmed her every time she thought too hard about her shadowed environs. Instead, she learned to enjoy things…like foods she’d never tried before, or sneaking into homes in Chinatown just to see how different they were.

There was one light, however. Moonlight. It was the one and only relief to the dark world. The growing cycle of the moon, with its inevitable turn toward fullness, would shed more and more beautifully pale light onto the world around her. Ashla didn’t even mind all the spooky shadows it cast in long black and gray streaks. She already knew no one was hiding in them.

In fact, her reality remained completely devoid of humanity, just as it had for the better part of a month now. Two months? More? Even time seemed to have given up on this lifeless wasteland that made no sense to her. She supposed she had given up as well, eventually trudging away from the overwhelming grief over lost loved ones and even abandoning her furious frustration at her suddenly senseless world. Now she simply wandered New York and the rest of the tri-state area trying to amuse herself.

Until then, she had never realized how vital the presence of others could be to a person’s sanity.

It had actually been fun for a little while, walking paths and places that were normally so heavily protected by security or warning signs, and examining all the strange inner workings of things she’d never questioned before. At least, it had been fun until she had taken a bad fall in a subway station and it had occurred to her that if she were hurt very badly, there would be no one around to help her; no one to rush her to a hospital for care; no one to care enough to keep her from rotting away from hunger and thirst alone in a dark, tiled tunnel.

She hadn’t gone belowground since that particular panic attack. Aboveground might not necessarily be less hazardous, but it was far less enclosing and she took comfort in whatever she could at that point. Ashla’s sense of security on the open streets was relative. She was safe from dark, creepy subterranean dangers, perhaps, but she was also left feeling even more alone as towering buildings soared above her, miniaturizing her and making her feel as though she were standing at the bottom of a great abandoned canyon. She had struggled with the ever-increasing fear that someday something might happen and she wouldn’t know what to do to help herself.

And then sometimes, some very awful bad times, she couldn’t even remember all the names of the people she knew. It was at those times that she truly became frightened. Down deep to the bottom of her soul terrified. Because those were the times when she feared she had simply lost her mind. After all, what other explanation could there be? What could possibly make her forget her beloved sister Cristine? Or even her brothers Malcolm and Joseph? Her parents. It horrified her to think there was anything that could make her forget what it had been like to grow up in her mother’s care.

She took comfort that today she remembered it all, and tried not to worry about tomorrow.

Other than all of that…

New York City was her playground.

Saks. Barneys. Macy’s. Bloomies. Granted, they would have been more fun if there had been some decent light to see by, but she compensated for it by shopping close to windows that filled with moonlight. She walked in whenever she wanted and walked out without needing to pay. Every day she picked a new store to get dressed in. She’d amused herself enough at the department stores, and dazzled herself in the Diamond District, but now she was gravitating back to the retro boutiques she had always loved. She liked the priceless vintage dresses, lace and beads and hand-worked details that were so rare in the modern world. So she made her way to her favorite shop and, before long, was slipping into an ivory gown with a tautly stitched empire waist, à la Jane Austen. It had a silk underlining and hand-crocheted lace over it in a perfect pastel cream. It was unique, delicate and beautiful, the style transporting her back to a time when men fought duels for the honor of a woman.

That was when she heard the first resonant clang of metal on metal.

She was so startled by the sound after so much silence that she threw herself against a wall and hid, her breath panting and her heart pounding for a full minute before working up the courage to sneak to the window.

“Something probably dropped. Toppled over. You’re just being a ninny,” she lectured herself breathlessly.

It was a plausible idea, right up until the moment she heard the second crash of metal against metal, the clang reverberating in the dim world and vacant streets. Understanding crystallized when she heard the hard sound of running feet coming toward her, and she strained to somehow hide and see what was going on all at the same time.

She glimpsed the dark shape of a man an instant before a second man plowed up into him and they both came flying toward her. Ashla ducked with a scream and barely got her arms up protectively before they barreled through the plate glass window in a shower of shards. Clothing racks and tables disintegrated as they broke the momentum of the two large-bodied fighting men. A sword, of all things, went skidding across the hardwood flooring, bumping to a stop against Ashla’s bare toes.

“Oh, yeah, Ash, you are definitely swimming in the deep end now,” she muttered to herself as she stared down at the weapon. A sword. Not an Uzi. Not a handgun. A sword. Ashla was beginning to realize she had never given her imagination enough credit until she had gone crazy. Now she had to admit that the sword was a neat touch to her little fantasy world. So were the men, for that matter.

She watched with dismay as they grappled with each other on the floor amongst the inventory and glass debris. They were both dark-skinned and had dark coloring. The larger man kept his hair long, whipped back tightly into a plait, the jet color of it gleaming in the weak moonlight filtering into the store. His brawny build filled out his clothing almost to test the integrity of his seams. Denim jeans in black hugged tightly to thickly muscled thighs, biker boots holding his braced feet in place against the floor. His shoulders bulged against the dark gray cotton of his dress shirt, and a necklace of some kind dangled almost tauntingly against the disadvantaged man’s cheek below him as they struggled for ownership of the remaining sword.

“Give up!” the brute spat down into the face of his adversary. “You know I will win this!”

“I’d rather kiss the sun,” was the gruff, straining reply from the slimmer man. It was true, Ashla observed with concern, that the other man was outweighed and, while of impressive physique himself from what she could tell, he was also outmuscled. This one’s hair was close-cropped at the back of his neck and around his ears, but there was a little bit of length to the top as it fell back to reveal a widow’s peak. The curve of his hairline made his squared jaw and prominent cheekbones appear deeply exotic. The ebony sheen of his wildly tossed hair set shadows on his already dark eyes, making him appear just a little wicked in his features. The impression deepened as he gave his opponent a slow, amused grin that belied his struggle to keep hold of his weapon. “Give it up, Baylor. You’ll not win this. Not today!”

The observation was more like a prediction as a knee levered up between Baylor’s braced legs, caught him hard, and sent him flying ass over shoulders above the other man’s head. Baylor’s back slammed into the floor, forcing a startled cough from him. Free of his opponent, the other man scrambled to his feet but did little more than stagger up against a nearby counter. His sword hung tiredly from one hand, the tip grazing the ground. He raised the back of a broad hand to his nose, which, Ashla realized, was bleeding. For all his determination and bravado, it was clear even to her that he was exhausted and had taken a serious beating. Despite the dusk of his skin tone, she could see the swelling and color of new bruises appearing on his face and battered knuckles.

The one named Baylor was on the floor groaning, trying to recover from a hard shot in the testicles that had to hurt even more than when a woman delivered it. Most men would consider the maneuver fighting dirty, but the weary man had clearly needed every advantage against the behemoth Baylor, and Ashla didn’t blame him in the least for resorting to such a brutal tactic.

“You…dare…to betray…our people,” the standing man gasped between difficult-to-draw breaths. He was hugging an arm to his side, his ribs obviously hurting him, and Ashla found herself actually worrying that he had broken one or more. She didn’t even know him, or what they were fighting about, so why, she wondered, was she starting to show concern for one side over the other?

“There was a time when you were considered the traitor, Ajai Trace,” Baylor growled. “History is written by the one who wins the coup.”

Baylor rolled over onto his hands and knees, panting hard and groaning beneath his breath as his movements sent obvious reminders of pain through his reproductive system. He looked up and suddenly Ashla found herself staring into deep eyes of black and menace. But as bad as the scowl initially was, the subsequent grin that showed his teeth was far worse.

“Well, well. What have we here?”

The snide speculation made Ashla cringe, but instincts she didn’t understand caused her to lay her shaking fingers to rest against the grip of the sword by her toes. She wasn’t going to use it, just…she would make sure it stayed out of his easy reach. Her gaze shifted to the other male and she was surprised and unexplainably grateful to see he had straightened and, as though in no pain at all, swiftly grabbed up his own sword and slid sturdily into the space between Baylor and herself.

“Come now, Trace,” Baylor drawled slowly as the other man’s blade tapped its tip to the jutting point of his chin. The implication was clear. One wrong move and his head would be singing farewell to his neck. “Look at the fear in her eyes. Look at how the Lost one trembles. Don’t you get it? It means she can see us.”

Trace was almost certain it was a trick of some kind. Everyone in their world knew well enough that the Lost couldn’t see a Shadowdweller. There was one exception, but even that required a ritual, a priest, and a damn good reason to want to make that kind of contact, which on its own was a preposterous likelihood. Still, Trace had glimpsed the cowering Lost girl shortly after they had come in through the window. Her reaction at the time would be understandable. She couldn’t see them, but she would certainly see the exploding glass coming toward her.

Trace let his gaze flick to his low right and back again, taking a quick mental picture of the female. It was impossible to miss her, really. She was everything his people weren’t. Fair. Blond. Wearing white. Fearful. In fact, he couldn’t seem to help himself as he looked back at her once more, getting a better look at just how light and white she seemed. Even her eyes were bright and the fairest shade of blue he’d ever seen.

And they were staring straight at him.

Wide, frightened, but inarguably fixated on him.

“Impossible,” he muttered aloud.

“Ha! Proof of your idiotic stubbornness,” Baylor mocked him.

“You will shut your treacherous mouth, my friend,” Trace ground out angrily, using the press of his blade on Baylor’s throat to force the other man to sit upright onto his heels. Even despite his quick obedience, the highly honed tip of the blade cut into his skin and started a river of blood flowing down his thick throat. As for Trace, his roaring temper had shifted from betrayed anger to a storm of fury. “Do you think this is how this will end? Do you really think I will merely take you into my custody and march you to your fate at the hands of my regents? After you follow me here to engage my ear in whispered plots and backstabbing sedition meant to pit one regent against the other? A sister against her brother? Oh, no, Baylor,” Trace assured in a voice that ground to a low and slow resonance of threat, “I am my Lord Chancellor’s vizier, and it is I who advises him, but while I would have you hanged publicly to be made an example of, Tristan would not see you as the threat you truly are.

“His Grace,” he continued bitterly, “suffers from the overconfidence of power and strength. A flaw only time will rectify. Also, there is his unshakable foundation of his trust in his sister’s loyalty, a factor which makes him laugh off plot-makers like you. It is a mistake many young regents have made. He forgets that voices like yours will always find the ears of the discontented and disloyal whether they succeed at their intended goal or not.

“Their reign is far too youthful to be given such a test, and our efforts at peace with the other Nightwalkers would distract him from realizing that. So no,” Trace assured the kneeling man, “this will not end civilly. It will end with my sword severing those seditious vocal cords of yours and keeping you from ever whispering your ill words to a single other ’Dweller.”

“It is against the law for one ’Dweller to take the life of another!” Baylor reminded him with a sneer. “A law you instigated, if I recall! How steady do you think this political body will ever be when its own lawmakers cannot abide by its own rules?”

“Do not quote my own laws to me, traitor,” Trace hissed through clenched teeth, pushing forward on his blade until Baylor squawked in protest. “Or do you forget that an attack on any of the ruling body is considered an act of treason and war? In war, the law is suspended with circumstance and proof of cause.” Trace leaned forward to close the distance between their gazes. “Do you forget the dagger you plunged into my back so soon?”

The gasp from the girl on the floor was unmistakable, and Trace cautiously kept pressure on his blade as he glanced toward her again. Sure enough, her eyes were tracking anxiously over the length of his back as if in search of the dagger he had just mentioned.

By the Dark, Baylor was right! The Lost woman could see him! She could hear everything they were saying. It was impossible, his logical mind demanded once again in knee-jerk denial, and yet…

Trace looked away. He didn’t have time for distractions. He knew Baylor couldn’t give a damn about some perceptive Lost. He was just using her to waste time and seek advantage. If Trace waited much longer, he was going to end up giving it to him. He doubled his grip on the hilt of his katana and braced his feet against the steadily increasing weakness of his body. He saw Baylor’s entire body tensing exactly like his own was, preparing to act in order to save himself. But Trace knew Baylor was waiting for him to pull back for a swing before moving, and it was a moment of advantage he refused to give, even if it made his task harder and more gruesome in the end.

Trace took a breath, and with a deeply ferocious cry to vent his anger and frustration, he plunged all of his weight forward onto the top six inches of his blade. It was his meticulous maintenance of the thing that did the best part of the work. Before Baylor could so much as flinch in realization, the finely honed blade sawed into flesh and critical arteries. The traitor’s gasp of understanding actually bubbled from the cut in his throat, the wet intake of air and blood the only sound in the end. Baylor’s hands reached around the blade that was killing him in a last-ditch effort to struggle, but he only succeeded in cutting himself to the bone of his palms.

Trace went to pull his blade free and step back, wanting to let the body fall where it was, as it was, but suddenly his legs turned to rubber and every muscle in his body relinquished the strength he had struggled so hard to maintain. He fell to his knees. Hard. His grip on his sword fumbled and released and a moment later he felt himself tumbling over the hardwood floor.

He knew it was because of the heavy wetness of his own draining blood that this was happening. Frankly, he was surprised he had lasted this long, never mind come out on top of a fight with a brute like Baylor. Trace had to admit it had been utter dread more than anything that had driven him. He had feared that Baylor might succeed in his unlikely plans to drive a wedge between the brother and sister regents. He had feared for the Shadowdweller people as a society if he did.

Then, even as he was aware of the edges of his consciousness fading, Trace felt the shaking touch of warm hands on his shoulders, turning him over gingerly while struggling with his weight. Golden hair, tickling in feathers against her skin, surrounded the woman’s head like a nimbus when she leaned over him. The cut was short enough to be a boy’s cut, he noted numbly. Why would such a beautiful woman, with hair of such an amazing color, want to cut it all off? He had never understood humans, even when they weren’t Lost. Or women, for that matter, of any race. The odds were definitely stacked against him understanding anything about this situation.

“L-let me help you,” she stammered, leaning over to cup his face between two soft hands. The skin of her palms brushed beneath his nose briefly, and Trace was caressed by a warm, sweet scent. Like honeysuckle and lilacs. Another anomaly, he noted, because the Lost should have no scent, nor warmth. Those were living human traits. The Lost were just lost; souls without the flesh traits of their bodies. But even if he were hallucinating, why would he concoct details like that? Trace didn’t think the warm scent of lilacs and humanity was something his own imagination could easily conjure up.

Trace faded after that thought, but found himself jerked back to awareness shortly after when the force of tearing fabric jerked at his body. He lifted his lashes despite their incredible weight and tried to focus on the woman who was struggling at stripping off his shirt.

“Leave me be. I’ll be fine,” Trace grumbled.

Well, it wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t as if she could do much to help him. He just needed to be left alone for a while. Just long enough so he could catch his breath, regroup, and find the strength to Unfade.

Trace gave no thought to the fact he was completely deluding himself and that he was in very real danger of dying. He also dismissed the knowledge that unconsciousness alone might send him spiraling out of his Fade, and even his pain-numbed senses were warning him that it was still daylight in Realscape. If he lost his grip on the secure darkness of Shadowscape, he would be burned up alive within a matter of moments upon returning.

So much for the idea that his breed was supposed to be immortal. He’d never understood the word “immortal” in that context. Their longevity of youth and the intense hardiness of the species as a whole might make them long-lived and quite difficult to kill, but at the moment he was living proof—or rather dying proof—that mortality was indeed possible. Be it the act of bleeding to death, a beheading, or sprawling into sunlight, his breed was most certainly capable of dying.

Trace knew there wasn’t much the Lost one could do for him. He didn’t even know why he could feel her in the first place. Also, the little thing was shaking like a leaf with her trepidation. Understandable, granted, considering all she had just seen, but nothing that would inspire him to set his faith in her. Not that he was known for setting his faith in the unpredictability of women lately.

Trace found a pocket of strength within himself, just enough to allow him the advantage of using her existing fear against her. He burst upward beneath her, making her squeal out a scream as he rolled her hard to the floor, following her with the weight of his considerably bigger body pinning her down. Her small hands clutched the front of his shirt, her fists tight against his pectorals, and she instinctively dug her heels against the wooden floor for purchase. This allowed him the unexpected and pleasant comfort of a cradle of soft thighs covered in silk as a resting point for his hips.

He found it strangely provoking, the way she shook so hard and gasped for breath beneath him. The push of the gown she wore accented the extraordinary symmetry of her rising and falling breasts. That scent, that sweet and innocent aroma of tender flowers and springtime warmth arose from her skin to envelop him. To his astonishment, he realized for the first time that this truly was a real woman he held trapped beneath him. This was no wraith, no Lost soul only. She felt of soft flesh and heated blood, as alive and vital as he was…for the time being. He held her helpless and vulnerable, despite his own weakening stamina, and there was something indelibly primal to that understanding that sent shockwaves of stimulation racing along the surfaces of his flesh.

The thought was actually sexual, Trace realized with a stunned inner laugh at himself. Of all the times! Here he was, on the brink of mortality, and all he was thinking of was how delicate and helpless this little blond mouse was…and how undeniably provocative she was because of it.

His goal in pinning her to the floor had been to scare her to death so that she would run away screaming and leave him to drop dead in peace. But his desires changed on the fly, and suddenly he was heavily distracted by the bright white and gold of her hair. He reached up for it, fondling one of the silky soft curls between his fingers.

“It never ceases to amaze me how this color seems to glow even in the dark and dim,” he murmured, also finding the texture to be supernaturally refined, almost as delicate as cobwebs.

“Please…d-don’t hurt m-me,” she stammered in between chattering of her teeth. “I…I can help you!” Her fear was both perplexing and bemusing, but even more so was her offer of help in spite of it. Trace supposed she was bargaining with him, offering him something to make her of value to him so he wouldn’t want to do her harm. It was actually quite clever of her.

“What do they call you?” he demanded suddenly, the hardness of the command in total counterpoint to the fingers still gently stroking her hair.

“Ashla,” she said obediently.

Her compliance mystified him. Had she been a Shadowdweller woman, he’d be nursing a few choice bruises by now, not to mention having his ears rung with tart insults. Trace wasn’t used to a woman like this. She seemed fragile enough to break. Small like a child. And yet…

“Ashla. You must leave this place. Do you understand? It is not a safe place to be right now.” Perhaps for more than one reason, he mused. The possibility that Baylor had arranged to meet companions did exist, and they could turn up at any time, but Ashla’s threat might be more immediate than that. Trace pressed a palm to the wooden floor, making to push himself up but succeeding only a little. Still, it was enough to allow him a long appraisal down the length of her curving side.

By the Dark, he groaned inwardly, I must be losing my mind. An effect of blood loss. Something. Anything. What else could explain this hard surge of predatory need pumping through him? The force of it on his already drained system made him light-headed, and he could feel the room beginning to spin.

“You need to go,” he rasped, using one last effort to roll his weight off her. The last thing he wanted was to trap her beneath him as he fell into dead weight and then eventually death. The little Lost rabbit wouldn’t be likely to survive such a gruesome and endangering experience.

He sprawled over the floor to her right, closing his eyes when everything around him lurched and spun wickedly. Damn, he thought bitterly, this is an annoying way to die. Never mind the anticlimactic resolution to his fight with Baylor and the fact that he couldn’t warn his regents of bubbling trouble, but to never have a chance to figure out what it was about this woman that so tantalized and intrigued him, that felt like the true tragedy.

Ashla wanted to obey his command to leave with all of her heart. She wanted to run fast and hard until the entire world fell away from her and snapped back into the normal, sane place she was used to and craved so very badly.

But despite all of that, she couldn’t find it in herself to leave him like he was. He was obviously injured, and very badly at that. There weren’t many things she could count herself any good at, but she had the potential to help him if she had to.

“I’m not going to leave you here without any help,” she said with a firm bravado they both knew she didn’t feel. She lifted her chin and met his eyes, hoping this would make her determination more convincing.

He chuckled, a dry, breathy sound that went eerily well with the amazingly faceted darkness of his eyes as he looked at her. “There is no help. You’ll learn that soon enough,” he said.

His defeatist words slid past her barely noticed. She was caught up for a moment in the wondrous way his irises nearly matched the black depths of his pupils, except there was something like starlight in those dark centers, and the black coffee color surrounding them gleamed like painstakingly cut precious stones. She found it impossible to look away until his long, sooty lashes fell over them with his waning consciousness.

Ashla shook herself to the ready.

“Who knows, you could be right,” she muttered as she leaned over him. “For all I know, that’s because you went around chopping all their heads off. And me being the idiot I am, I’m going to try and help you so you can get strong enough to lift your scary sword again and…and…”

The implication was clear enough. She didn’t need to voice what she clearly couldn’t. It shouldn’t have affected Trace one way or another, what a wraith thought of him, but for some reason the taste her remarks left on his tongue was deeply bitter.

“Look,” he growled on labored breaths, indignant emotion fueling him for the moment, “I said I’m not going to hurt you.”

“That’s what the bad guy tells every stupid woman in all those stupid movies, and she always ends up dead or worse. Which I guess makes me really, really stupid.” She peeled back the fabric of his torn shirt and turned extraordinarily gray right before his eyes as she took in the scope of the cuts and slices he’d received from both Baylor and the plate glass he’d come through. “Oh, God, I…” She gagged low in her throat and reflexively went to cover her mouth, but an inch short of the mark her eyes focused on the blood from his wounds that was soaking her palms and forearms and the movement screeched to a halt. The rusty smell of fresh, abundant blood must have hit her a second after that because she flung herself away from him and vomited violently.

But to Trace’s surprise, she turned back to him as soon as she had minimally composed herself. She began grabbing clothing from nearby tables using them to wipe away the blood on his chest. She then applied pressure to the worst of his visible wounds, all the while, continuously weeping huge, silent tears. It was as though the emotional woman and the physical one were acting completely independent of each other’s reactions. He was compelled to reach for one of her slim wrists, grasping it and holding it firmly even when she startled hard in his hand. Tears rained off the slopes of her cheeks as her worried eyes flicked up to confront him.

“You do not have to do this. You have every right to be afraid in this strange world you no doubt have little understanding of. And anyway, these wounds are nothing. The mortal blow was in my back, and there is nothing to be done for it. These others are incidental. Listen.” Trace squeezed the remarkably small hand he held gently, overcome with the idea that he could shatter her small bones if he pressed too hard. Strange he should think so. The women in his world were strong and powerful, sturdy and bold. He hadn’t thought he would even know how to treat a female who might be so delicate, not to mention overly sensitive, as this one surely was. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

She was already shaking her head in vehement negativity. The defiant stubbornness it signaled simply floored him. What was she thinking? She spoke truth of logic, that from her perspective she had no way of knowing which of the fighting males had been the more just and honorable, that she was likely setting herself up for trouble. She was plainly scared to death to be near him and wanted absolutely nothing to do with his bloody, gored body, and yet she would not take the surcease he offered to her. She wouldn’t leave him.

The woman was clearly an idiot.