The Shadows Read online

  She wasn’t about to argue. At this moment she needed time alone, time to compose herself.

  “Rest well,” he said before he turned and strode out of the room.

  Hannah stared after him. He was delicious—the way he moved, the flex of muscles in his back and shoulders, his snug leather pants molding to what looked like a very tight ass.

  All too soon he had vanished from sight

  She shook her head to rattle the thoughts out.

  Drow magic.

  But he had given his word, and she believed him. She actually believed that this man, someone she’d always thought to be a traitor due to past events, was truthful.

  At least in this.

  The strength of Garran’s character—from her usually right-on intuition—told her he was a good man, even if she didn’t agree with what he’d done before she’d met him. He did what was in the best interests of his people.

  Hannah rubbed her temples with one hand as she shut the arched wooden door with her other then walked to the bed and perched on the edge of it. She couldn’t get the man out of her mind.

  She could imagine the feel of his lips—what he would taste like, how it would feel with his mouth on her breasts, the silk of his hair in her hands, his thick hardness pressed against her belly.

  Hannah squeezed her eyes tight and took a deep breath.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow things would be different. She would act the diplomat, maintaining the five Cs. Calm. Cool. Composed. Collected. Controlled.

  She opened her eyes again and stared at a tapestry of a Drow couple, and the collar around the woman’s neck.

  Or not.

  4

  In her human form, Ceithlenn struggled to catch her breath as she stayed in the shadows, away from the lights illuminating the sidewalks and street.

  Fuck, but she was weak. Her legs trembled, as rubbery as Underworld grubs, and her normally keen sight wavered.

  Fury at her drained and vulnerable state boiled in a heated pool in her belly.

  The D’Anu witches, the D’Danann warriors, the human cops. This was their fault. She would make them all pay for what they had done.

  And Darkwolf. His betrayal will cost him dearly.

  But first, she had to regain the full strength of her powers. Then she would deal with them.

  Ceithlenn’s neck seemed to barely support her head as she turned her attention to the top of the rolling San Francisco street. Soon a pair of guardsmen would patrol the silent area and when Ceithlenn dealt with them, she would replenish her power and her magic for another night.

  For now, I must rest. Conserve my strength for what is most important.

  She sucked in a deep breath as she leaned back against the brick wall next to the window of the small neighborhood grocery store.

  What her body wanted to do was slide down to the sidewalk, curl up into a ball, and sleep. She clenched her teeth and braced her palms flat on the brick wall, the roughness of it biting her flesh as she forced herself to relax.

  “Balor,” she whispered to the night. “I will find you soon, my love.”

  Ceithlenn put her fingertips to her scalp and bowed her head. She brought forth an image of her beloved husband. His muscular form, the strong lines of his jaw and his cheekbones, and the empty eye socket in the middle of his forehead.

  “Where are you?” Her words drifted away with the ocean-scented breeze.

  With her eyes still shut tight, she focused, sending waves of energy, as much as she could release without sacrificing all of her strength. Her mind skimmed city streets, homes, buildings.

  Nowhere. She couldn’t sense him at all.

  An ache twisted inside her as if a Fomorii demon had wrapped its claws around her heart. Balor. He had been forced to transport somewhere in this city moments after he arrived.

  I must find him. I must.

  A shriek almost ripped from within her and she barely choked it down. She moved her fingertips from her forehead and clenched her hands into fists as she tipped her head back to look up at the fog-obscured sky.

  “Where. Are. You?” she said through clenched teeth. “I need you.”

  Something blocked her mental powers. Or Balor was somewhere her mind could not reach.

  If only bringing her beloved husband from Underworld had not depleted most of her strength and left her with little power. Since that day, feeding off human flesh and taking human souls gave her just enough of that strength and power to last from one night to the next.

  Instead of being able to gather great quantities of souls to replenish herself, she had only been able to dine on and claim the souls of two humans at a time, no more.

  Not enough. Not enough!

  Even though she gained strength whenever she claimed humans for food and their souls to feed her powers, if she attempted to take any more, it only replaced what power she had to use to steal the second pair.

  It was driving her out of her mind.

  Not for long, though. She knew deep in her gut that she would find a way to come back into her full powers.

  She filled her lungs again and cleared her mind as best she could. What energy she did have she held in reserve to change from her pitiful human shell. She would return to her glorious goddess form when she was ready to attack the guardsmen who would be patrolling the street at any time.

  The sharp snap of boot steps against concrete echoed up the incline of the steep street and relief flowed over her. Much longer, and she didn’t know if she’d have the power to take their lives.

  The pair of military guards appeared at the crest of the hill. She managed a smile at the thought that she was the reason for the government’s implementation of martial law. She was responsible for the almost silenced city.

  As the guardsmen approached, their images became clearer to her bleary sight. Both wore tan and brown camouflage and smelled of sweat, and one of them stank of cigarettes.

  Keeping to the darkness, Ceithlenn let the men pass her. She pushed away from the brick wall and stepped from the shadows behind them. She kicked a stone from the sidewalk and it clattered as it bounced and rolled across the asphalt street.

  The click and snapping sounds of the guardsmen’s rifles bit the quiet night as the men whirled and trained their weapons on her.

  The guards remained stiff-shouldered as one of the men shouted, “Don’t move. Hands above your head.”

  Ceithlenn obeyed. In her Sara form, dressed in human jeans and a T-shirt, with her short, punk-red bobbed hair, she knew she appeared innocent and just as weak as she’d been feeling.

  In anticipation of her meal, adrenaline shot through her veins and what strength and power she still commanded came to her in a rush.

  “State your name,” the same guardsman demanded. He wore a military cap and the bill shadowed his eyes. “And state your reason for being out of your home.”

  “Sara Jones.” Ceithlenn used the name of the warlock whose body she had joined with. She took a step forward but stopped at the sound of another sharp click of their rifles. She didn’t think they would shoot, but if they did her human shell would likely not survive. And that meant Ceithlenn’s death as well because she wasn’t in her goddess form.

  She had no problem faking the tremble in her voice as she continued, drawing on the lingering memories of Sara Jones, still stored in the occupied brain. “My sister is pregnant and her water broke. The baby is two months too soon. Our phone—we can’t get it to work.”

  “State your place of residence,” the same man demanded with no compassion and Ceithlenn decided she would kill him first.

  The heat of her anger almost caused her hair to flame and her incisors to lengthen. She didn’t have time for this shit. She controlled her transformation—barely.

  “Two houses down.” Ceithlenn put all the pleading she could into her voice. “We live in an apartment above a garage. I’m begging you. That’s why I came to find some guardsmen. To see if you can get someone to help my sister and her baby.�
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  The man who was about to be eaten alive motioned with his gun. “Face forward. Keep your hands up and I’ll follow you.” To the other soldier he said, “Radio for a doctor and backup.”

  Her entire body shook with the force of her rage. This was taking too much of her precious time and strength.

  Ceithlenn ground her teeth and turned her back to the men. The second guardsman spoke into the shoulder radio she’d noticed earlier.

  She concentrated on throwing enough magic at the men to block the transmission. Crackling noises and static came from the radio as the second man repeatedly tried to make contact.

  I will kill the first one twice. And another time for good measure.

  She moved slowly forward so the guardsmen would get closer. Just like I will kill all the witches and D’Danann when my full powers return.

  Her thoughts turned blacker as she thought of Darkwolf, the warlock who had betrayed her and Balor. I have something special in store for that traitor.

  She had to find the double-dealing warlock. The bastard who had Balor’s eye. The eye, once returned to the empty socket in the middle of Balor’s forehead, would easily win this war for them.

  With one glance of his mighty eye, Balor would lay waste to all within his sight.

  And then, with their army of Fomorii demons, she and Balor would slay any who barred their path to the Old World. In Ireland they would rule again as gods as they had two millennia ago.

  Ceithlenn focused on the sound of the boot steps coming up behind her.

  “Move it,” the soon-to-be-dead guardsman growled and nudged her with the barrel of his rifle.

  In that moment, Ceithlenn couldn’t have controlled the change if she wanted to. She shrieked and her hair flamed with the full force of her fury. In less than the time it took to blink her incisors lengthened, her claws extended, and her leathery wings unfurled.

  She whirled and projected her magic at the guardsmen.

  Both men froze. Only their eyes moved. The terror reflected in those depths fed her, made her stronger.

  Ceithlenn hissed as she grabbed the one closest to her by his neck and raised him up so his boots dangled above the sidewalk.

  She easily flung him so that he landed on his side, his head making a cracking sound against the sidewalk as his rifle thunked and rattled on the concrete before it settled. He lay on his side now, frozen but facing her, fear even more pronounced in his gaze.

  The second guardsman remained stiff and unable to move—all but his eyes.

  With a wicked grin, Ceithlenn looked from the first guardsman to the other. “On second thought,” she said in a low purr to the guardsman on the ground, “I will eat this one before you, and you will watch as I dine on his flesh, his blood, his soul. Your fear will feed me as you witness your own fate.”

  Ceithlenn scratched her nails down the second guardsman’s neck and found his strong pulse. She nuzzled his neck and inhaled before sinking her fangs into the sweet flesh. She ripped a chunk away and slowly savored it as the luscious taste of blood gushed down her chin.

  When she finished eating the flesh from their bones and drinking their blood, she would take their souls and regain some of her magic. She sighed at the blissful flavor of human meat and the intoxicating smell of fear.

  Silent screams from both men added fuel to her hunger and she pressed herself tighter to the second guardsman before she sank her fangs into him again.

  5

  Jake Macgregor’s muscles bunched beneath his T-shirt and overshirt. It was all Jake could do to restrain himself from slugging a hole in the wall of his sorry excuse for an office. Or knocking one of the many stacks of file folders on his desktop across the room.

  As captain of the San Francisco PSF—Paranormal Special Forces—Jake was expected to clean up this whole goddamned mess with Ceithlenn and the demons.

  Immediately. Without the D’Anu and the D’Danann.

  Jake gripped the Styrofoam coffee cup on his desk and crushed it in his fist, realizing too late it still contained a quarter cup of cold coffee.

  “Goddamnit,” he growled. The smell of black coffee rolled out along with the liquid that came just about too close to his laptop.

  He slapped scrap paper on the mess and pushed as much of the coffee as he could into a waste can he grabbed from beneath the desk. Damnit, no napkins, no tissue. But he could use a towel from his gym bag.

  It was almost surprising he didn’t take off the desk’s laminate top as hard as Jake rubbed the remnants of the coffee off his desk with the hand towel he snatched out of his bag. When he finished, he wiped the coffee off his hands just as hard.

  Not too much over a week ago, the day after it all went down, Jake had helped the witches make their escape with the D’Danann to that whatever-the-hell-it-was Otherworld place.

  He’d been in touch with the D’Anu witch, Silver, and the D’Danann warrior, Hawk, since then. They’d been working out the details of getting all of the witches and D’Danann back to San Francisco and setting up shop. It hadn’t happened yet.

  Jake glanced at a framed picture on one of his walls. From the time he was old enough to grasp the concept of baseball, he’d been a diehard Giants fan. The photo was of the San Francisco Giants, taken the last time the team had won the World Series.

  A close friend, Raul Jimenez, who’d been a star right-fielder with the Giants, had given Jake the picture. It was probably worth thousands—the photo was signed by every member of the team.

  Most of whom were now dead.

  That World Series Championship win came the year before Ceithlenn, the bitch goddess, had murdered thousands in the Giants’ stadium, including his friend Raul and other members of the team.

  That ever-present empty place in Jake’s gut grew larger with every person the goddess murdered.

  Locals had continued to call the stadium Candlestick Park, despite the stadium having been rebuilt and moved into the city—and renamed depending on what corporation was sponsoring it. Once it had been called Monster Park, named after a sponsor’s product.

  How fucking appropriate.

  Now, with the taint of what the goddess had done, the park held terrifying memories for the citizens of San Francisco. Jake couldn’t imagine calling it Candlestick Park ever again.

  A knock on the doorframe caught Jake’s attention and he turned to see Lieutenant Landers in the doorway, holding a newspaper. Like most of his officers, she looked like hell with blackish-blue circles under her blue eyes and exhaustion darkening her expression.

  “Got word, Captain.” Landers’s short blond hair was ruffled as if she’d just rubbed her hand over it. “Our new HQ is ready for occupation.”

  Thank God. Jake gave a sharp nod as he balled up the coffee-stained towel and tossed it into a corner.

  “Make sure every last one of our officers packs their crap and gets it to the warehouse on the QT, and in a hurry,” he said. “Grab only what’s absolutely necessary to the mission.”

  It hadn’t taken a hell of a lot to convince the owner to turn the pier warehouse over to the PSF. Martial law, combined with the police department’s authority to commandeer property under extreme circumstances, gave them all the power they required.

  “You’ve got it.” Landers didn’t move from the doorway. Instead she extended the newspaper she’d been holding and he took it from her. “Another one.”

  “Shit.” He slammed the latest newspaper on top of his desk, where the spilt coffee had been. The newspaper’s headline screeched BIOTERRORISM STILL SUSPECT IN STADIUM SLAUGHTER.

  “No kidding, Captain,” she said with her usual fire back in her voice. “A big steaming pile of it.”

  Every one of his officers knew that bioterrorism had nothing to do with what had happened in the baseball stadium where thousands of withered husks had been recovered. Husks of humans whose souls had been stolen by Ceithlenn.

  Souls that had helped her bring an ancient god named Balor to San Francisco.

>   Jake pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his burning eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a good night’s sleep. Maybe five months ago before all this freakish shit started happening?

  He shook his head as he looked up and met her gaze. “Thanks, Landers.”

  “We’ll get the sonsofbitches.” Her expression turned hard, her anger unwavering. Like him, she’d seen too many of their officers, countless men and women, die at the hands of the demons and the goddess. “One way or another, they’ll all pay.”

  His own expression was probably hard as granite. “Every last one of them.”

  When she left, Jake turned his back on the door and braced one hand on the wall next to the lone window of his office. For a long moment he stared out at the prime view of the pollution-coated block wall of the building across the street.

  He needed to get together his own belongings to hole up in the warehouse on the pier with the rest of his officers. Construction workers had been hard at it 24/7 getting the place prepared for the move. ’Bout time it was ready.

  Ceithlenn. He could never quite get the image of that flame-haired, leather-winged bitch out of his mind. Or the hideous malformed demons she commanded. At times it was like they were all in some surreal dream and not reality.

  Fuck, after months of working with the D’Anu witches and those winged warriors from Otherworld, he still had a hard time believing it all. Even after battling the demons himself.

  To think it all started with one power-hungry warlock, Darkwolf, who’d summoned the demons from Underworld.

  Teams of officers, witches, and warriors had tried to find Darkwolf. Last thing they knew, the warlock had kept the eye and vanished from the massacre. Darkwolf had taken Junga, the demon queen, with him.

  “What dark magic can Darkwolf do with that eye?” Jake muttered aloud. “Is the bastard going to give it to Balor or keep it for himself?”

  Jake faced the door of his office as he scrubbed his hand over his stubbled cheeks then pinched the bridge of his nose again with his thumb and forefinger. A goddamned nightmare. All of it.