At her back, Custo suddenly stiffened. Annabella felt his arm around her waist. It tightened as he lurched forward, then stopped himself. “Abigail is—” He halted for a second, his chest suspended midbreath. “—Adam, Abigail!”
“Move,” Adam said, as he slapped the door to the side and pushed Zoe out of his way.
“Stop!” Zoe shouted. “What the fu—?”
A scream from above cut the air, then strangled into silence.
“Abby!” Zoe screamed back. All bitchiness dropped from Zoe’s tone, leaving only gut-wrenching, frantic worry. She disappeared into the darkness after Adam.
Annabella tried to follow, but Custo held her back. “No, I think it’s the wolf.”
She bucked against the hard bar of his arm across her middle. “Then you’re the only one that can help. We have to go.” She tried to drop her weight to escape him. “You can’t let him hurt her.”
His hold tightened further, but Annabella could sense a hesitation, a moment of deep, conflicted thought.
“Damn it,” Custo said. “You stay with me. Touching me.”
“Yes! Fine!” Her head flushed with the return of circulation as he released her, only to take her hand and drag her through the underbelly of the building.
They burst into a large, windowless room. Its walls and floor were painted drippy black, and a bar took up the far wall, lit with eerie red light. They hurried up a scarlet runner that led to a slightly raised dais. Behind the stage was a short hall, papered with cheap, neon flyers announcing disturbing rocker bands.
Not her kind of club.
Up a narrow flight of steps and down a horror-movie hallway, they found Zoe and Adam crowding another doorway. Zoe was half in, half out, her face fearful, as if she couldn’t quite decide whether to go to her sister or run from whatever was in the room. Adam’s jaw was set with grim resolution.
Their expressions sent a vicious, electric shiver up Anna-bella’s spine that spread across the cold sweat dampening her body.
“Let her go,” Adam said to whoever or whatever was in the room.
“So,” a female voice trembled, as if in the throes of deep pleasure, “this is what it is like to be made flesh.”
“Leave her alone!” Zoe shouted with a painful warble, her love for her sister stripping her naked.
The fear in her voice resonated painfully within Annabella. Her throat grew tight in sympathy, even as her belly quailed against discovering what was in the room.
Adam glanced over his shoulder, spotted Custo, and stepped back. Annabella stumbled after Custo as he slowly moved forward to take Adam’s place at the door. She wrapped an arm around Custo’s middle so the wall of his strength was between her and Wolf; then she stole a quick glance over his shoulder.
A woman sat in a rocking chair, gnarled hands clutching the armrests, aged beyond any believable sibling relationship to Zoe. Her thin white wisps of hair floated off sallow skin, colorless lips working into a parody of a smile. Her eyes were blackened with pulsing Shadow.
Annabella’s blood ran cold.
The smile reached its grotesque apogee. “You can’t hurt me,” she taunted.
“Wanna bet?” Custo started forward.
From behind, Zoe yelled, “That’s my sister!”
Custo halted again. “Release Abigail. She’s not worth it. Her body is wasted, near death.”
Annabella shuddered with a sudden realization, her fear turning sharp and cutting within her. Where before Wolf had simply assumed whatever form he wanted, the soldier and Jasper, now he possessed, sharing the old woman’s body. The how was more than obvious: Adam had said that Abigail was so full of Shadow that her eyes were stormy with it. Now Abigail was full of Shadow wolf, the blackness of her gaze hungry, predatory, and…unnatural.
The union was wrong, but there was nothing they could do about it. Any harm Wolf took, the woman would as well, and by Zoe’s account, Abigail was already weak and ill. Zoe had blamed them for killing her sister; it seemed her accusation was dead-on.
Annabella fought a tide of nausea. She thought of her mom and brother, safe at home. If Custo and Adam had come knocking, she would have barred the door, too. And then some.
“Yes, a joining of fae and mortal, less satisfying than I’d hoped”—the old woman’s head cocked sharply; her nose twitched as she sniffed the air—“but nevertheless…potent.”
One of her knobby hands uncurled, splaying its fingers, palm up in front of her. A condensation of light appeared above, while her eyes grew blacker still.
The magic pulsed, thrumming over Annabella’s skin, loosening her joints and muscles, sending languid ease over her limbs, her core contracting with pleasure. The sensation was wrong, too. She didn’t want to feel this, not here, not now. Not from him.
The magic within her responded anyway: It was pure possibility. Pure potential. The same kind she used to weave a story with her body and mind. Annabella couldn’t draw her gaze from the shimmer above the woman’s palm.
By nature Wolf could change his form, but he couldn’t do more than that. He couldn’t cross back and forth between the worlds, couldn’t make or see or create like people in the mortal world, like she and Abigail. But now Wolf had discovered access to mortal power; they’d led him right here to Abigail’s doorstep.
The wolf, Annabella corrected herself. Not Wolf. He already had enough power over her.
Annabella rose on tiptoe to whisper in Custo’s ear. “Can we push him back into Shadow?”
Custo gave a short shake of his head. “He’s anchored in her body. It’s a refuge until she dies.”
Annabella regarded the old woman’s twisted expression, then had to look away from what she found there. “It’s not a refuge. It’s a rape.”
She had let this dark creature touch her, dance with her, tap into her fantasies. The memory was both revolting and humiliating in the extreme, enough to really tick her off.
Annabella stepped out from behind Custo, channeling her fear and anger into action. “You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”
“You said you would join me,” the old woman whined. The light in her hand evaporated into the air. Her arm dropped like a stone into her lap, her palm spotted with blisters.
“Get that monster out of my sister!” Zoe was hysterical.
“I’ll go if Annabella comes, too,” the wolf offered, lips peeling back into a toothy smile.
Annabella shivered, recoiling.
“You can’t have her,” Custo cut in. “I won’t let you.”
“It’s your choice, Annabella,” the wolf said, “not his. Come with me and end this. I know how to make you happy in ways no one here can conceive. You have a body made for weaving magic; I am made of magic. Join with me.”
Annabella’s heart flooded her body with an oh, yes! wave of blood. She considered the offer for a split second, but the oily black throb of the woman’s eyes decided it.
“I can’t,” she said, though Zoe’s sobs turned her stomach with pity and guilt.
A hand roughly shoved Annabella away from Custo, as Zoe burst through. “Take me. Just leave my sister alone. She’s been through enough. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Adam caught Zoe and dragged her back. Tears smeared black makeup down her cheeks.
“You can’t manipulate Shadow,” Custo said, “so that creature doesn’t want you.”
The talent was inborn, though Annabella understood that it took many forms—anything with vision, she imagined—but then the talent had to be nurtured and honed over years of sacrifice. Just look at Abigail. Her ongoing intercourse with Shadow had brought her prematurely to the brink of death.