Shadowlands Read online

  Today there was nothing noteworthy or eye-catching in Valory’s dress or appearance, no designer suit or four-inch heels—nothing, in other words that should make ordinary people notice, let alone follow her. Valory seemed a perfectly ordinary girl, her chestnut hair bouncing in a ponytail, her angular features striking rather than pretty. Khaki trousers, trainers, peach T-shirt with matching hoodie, backpack slung over one shoulder, mobile in her hand.

  The roving pack of watchers changed their pattern slightly, letting her pass unmolested, but incorporating her, making her the center. If Valory noticed them, she gave no sign. She walked entirely without self-consciousness. The years she had spent with the Collector were those in which a young woman normally begins to feel her power over men—something of which, Alejandro reflected, Valory had indeed learned, though not in the usual way, nor with the usual results. She was more watchful, more skeptical than was usual in woman of her age.

  Alejandro had been afraid at first that because of her years of isolation, and her singular ability, she would not be able to go out among people, especially in a crowded modern city such as Madrid or Toronto. But the press of people had been no trouble to her; she preferred crowds, in fact, and was probably feeling more comfortable here and now than Alejandro was himself. She diligently followed the route through Union Station that they had outlined for her, starting from the subway entrance, through the shopping concourse into the train station proper, angling into the embarking area, then up into the great hall, down the far stairs—

  Alejandro straightened. A man was standing off to one side, leaning against the now-deserted information desk under the central clock. His eyes trailed, seemingly unfocused, over the heads of the people passing, but in reality noting each one, as if checking them off on a mental list, though none received more than glancing attention. But when Valory walked by, the man’s head lifted, and his nostrils flared. He turned his head to keep his eyes on her as she passed.

  One of the wandering watchers gave the agreed-upon signal, but Alejandro was already in motion. As Valory moved farther away, the man pushed off from the edge of the desk and began to pace behind her, maintaining his distance, but keeping her always in sight.

  Rider, Alejandro thought. It was unmistakable, now that the man was moving. Not a Hound. Alejandro did not know all of the People who had remained in the Shadowlands when the Exile began—but he knew every Rider, and this one was a stranger. One of the Basilisk’s crew, then, and therefore to be caught in their trap.

  This was the part Nikos Polihronidis had not liked, the part that Valory had insisted would work. Mindful of her desire not to be smothered with protections, Alejandro had stifled his own protests. Valory had reached the staircase. Alejandro waited until he was certain the strange Rider was following her out of the Station, and when he was sure…he Moved.

  In the side of the overpass that lay on the west side of the train station was an alcove, a narrow space with an access door chained and padlocked at the rear. Alejandro had scouted the place carefully, he knew every crack in the concrete, especially the one where water seeped, every ripple of paint on the old steel door, the number of links in the chain, the brand name still faintly visible on the padlock. Ah, he had forgotten the odor of urine (strong) and of vomit (faint). Just as well. He stood as far back in the shadow created by the alcove as he could. Valory walked by the opening, not revealing in any way that she sensed his presence—or perhaps, he reflected, she actually did not. He was not sure, even now, precisely how her talent functioned. Surely, though, she knew he was already there. He called upon his Guidebeast, the Hippogriff, to steady his hands, and crossed himself automatically, grinning when he realized what he’d done.

  Footsteps approached and he readied himself. It was not the man who had been following Valory, but a younger, darker-haired man who evidently thought himself too cool to remove his sunglasses, even in the obscurity of the overpass. For a moment Alejandro thought he was mistaken, that this young man was the Rider he’d seen following Valory. But no, the coloring was wrong entirely.

  Next came two young girls walking in the opposite direction, one on her mobile, and both giggling. The one nearest him shot him a steady look as they passed. Outsiders. Then a long-legged dog, white, wiry-haired with liver-colored markings, entered Alejandro’s field of vision.

  He almost missed it, he was letting it go by him, but in the last second it turned to him and grinned, showing all its teeth and he stepped out from his shadow, twisting the handle on his walking stick as he moved, drawing the gra’if blade out of the wooden shaft, slashing downward with one smooth stroke and slicing deep into the thing’s shoulder. The Hound spun on its paws, paws that were changing to clawed feet even as it turned.

  It grew abruptly to five times its previous size, retaining its dog shape, though grotesquely misshapen and scarred as if by burns. This was definitely a Hound, not a Rider—where had it come from? Did the Rider Alejandro had seen somehow send it after Valory?

  It leaped upon him, and Alejandro had no more time to speculate, barely meeting its lunge with the cutting edge of his sword. Just in time he remembered the advice Nighthawk had once given him and looked away from its eyes, keeping his focus on the claws, and the teeth. His hands and feet moved automatically with the precision and grace polished by centuries in fields of battle, and the sands of the bullring.

  He struck, and the dog shape became a furred and armored lizard, tongue darting from its mouth. Ignore the changes, he’d been taught, and keep striking, no matter what you see. The thing morphed again, and Alejandro raised his blade high, stepping lightly to one side, arching his body as he had done so many thousands of times avoiding the bull’s horns in corridas. And just as he had done then, he jabbed at the shoulders, weakening the muscles there to make it lower its head. Feeling his own heart racing, and his breath coming short, striving to take air in slowly, to keep his hands steady. If only he himself could transform, if only he had dra’aj enough, he could take to the air and kill it from above.

  Then he saw it, the dip of the shoulder, the head hanging—just for a split second—at the right angle, and in that fraction of an instant he moved, faster than he had ever done in the Plaza de Toros, leaping up from his toes and leaning into the thrust, the full length of the blade passing through muscle, past bone, into the lungs and heart.

  He stepped forward as it fell, unwilling to let go of the sword, though it went against every tradition. Only when he felt the sting of a claw against the meat of his calf did he step back, withdrawing the blade. The Hound changed again, and again, almost rippling as its body settled onto the ground. Finally, it took the form of a man and Faded completely, leaving not a mark on the ground, only the blood dripping from Alejandro’s blade.

  And trickling down the back of his leg.

  Wolf peered out through the building’s smoked glass wall, realizing that the girl out in the sun-filled square wasn’t standing on the faint trail of Rider he’d been following all morning, The trail ended where she stood. It was her trail. Impossible. For a moment the world seemed to shift around him, as it did when passing through a Ring. Was he losing his ability to track? Ordinarily, that idea might have pleased him, now that he was no longer a— He pushed that thought away.

  Wolf examined her more closely. Trousers the color of sand. A sweater with a hood in an odd shade of orange. Canvas-topped, rubber-soled shoes. A backpack hitched on one shoulder. Not particularly tall for a human female, she was a little too thin, he thought. Her chestnut hair reminded him of the women he’d seen in Spain, where the color was popular. He stepped out into the sun. She glanced toward him, seemed about to smile, but then looked away.

  The girl appeared about to take a step back in the direction from which they’d come, at the same time looking around her and lifting the mobile phone she held in her left hand to her face. Between one breath and the next Wolf was behind her, his left arm pinning her arms to her sides, his right hand covering her mouth. She
smelled very faintly of vanilla.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “What are you?”

  [The rough heat of a lion’s breath, the slash of a scaled tail. A Chimera. A gray-eyed woman, whom he loves, and fears—though not as much as he fears himself. Guilt, old and new; and anger; and fear.]

  The images crashed against me—[flash of bright metal; swing of claw] thick, choking, like waves crashing against rocks. I struggled—not physically, though I was sure I was doing that, too—to hold my head, my self, up, away from the blanketing tide. [Place after place, beach, hillside, trees, pond, snow, lightning, stonewallrainsunshinesandrocktidewater; I AM HERE!] I’d felt this before, with Alejandro, I knew what it was. But Alejandro, that first time, had shaken my hand and let me go, and this guy, this Rider, this STORM was holding me tight.

  I focused on that, I focused on the physical, as if I were really drowning. On the arm tight around my body, and the hand against my mouth. On the hard body pressed tight against mine. On the warm cinnamon smell. I squirmed in his grip. A very hard body.

  The tide started to recede, the white noise of the city rising up to cushion me. I should have felt too warm standing this close to him, but I didn’t. It felt just right. When it occurred to me I shouldn’t be thinking about baby bear’s bed at that moment, I knew my psyche was mine again.

  The terror of the moment when he touched me faded, helped somehow by his voice. There was music somewhere in it, as if he was reciting verse, or as if he’d just left off singing, and his voice still rang with it. I’d known at once that he was a Rider [I AM HERE!], but maybe at one time he’d been an actor, the way Alejandro had been a soldier and a matador. There was nothing frightening in the warmth and strength of his body, or even in the way his psyche brushed against mine. [His shoes/jeans/T-shirt/jacket were really boots/trousers/mail shirt/tunic.] It was only that the suddenness, the grabbing, the hand over my mouth, had startled me. It didn’t, as you might think, remind the little girl inside me of the man who took me. That had happened in my sleep.

  I stopped squirming. There was a hot fury in this Rider, but it wasn’t directed at me, it was pointed somewhere else, perhaps at the gray-eyed woman who was so important to him, perhaps at himself. [Umbrella hooked to his belt really a sword.] The lion part of the Chimera was very close to the surface in him, very strong, very hot, but if I just waited for a minute, he would calm down and listen.

  My heart still hammering, I tried to relax, drew air in through my nose, willing him to figure out that I couldn’t answer his questions while his hand was over my mouth. He was confused [Riders; the trail; the scent; he was worried about his brother], wondering who I was and why I smelled like a Rider, but so faint, so very faint, like a trail almost cold. He’d been sent to find Riders, to give them good news. He was pleased about it [the news], but somehow saddened by it [the sending] at the same time. His hand relaxed.

  I was just about to ask him who he was when a bright light flashed in the corner of my vision and sharp bangs exploded all around us. I was shoved roughly from behind, two hands against my shoulder blades [a rescue! Knock the Hound on the ground; save her!]. Before I could speak to clarify things, there was a CRACK! of displaced air, much louder than the bangs of the firecrackers, and suddenly we weren’t in the square anymore.

  Alejandro could see Valory as he ran into the square. The Outsiders were with her and he started to relax, until he saw she was being held by a dark-haired man—the man in sunglasses!—and the others were trying to get her away from him. Just as he reached the outskirts of the group, he heard—and felt—the shift of air as the dark-haired stranger Moved, and he and Valory were gone.

  Nik Polihronidis ran from the back entrance of the train station just as Alejandro raised his sword. “That supposed to help?” The Outsider leader turned his back on Alejandro.

  “What happened here? Where’s Valory?”

  “It took her, the Hound took her.”

  “I killed the Hound,” Alejandro said. “You see its blood on my blade.” The blood dripped, falling toward the ground, but never reaching it.

  “Oh, like there’s only ever one Hound.” This from a tall man with a faint French accent.

  “Yeah, they’re called the Hunt for a reason, you know. They range in packs,” said the young girl who had looked at him as he stood in the alcove.

  Like Riders. There was something in that thought that bothered him, reminded him of something, but Alejandro pushed it aside, impatient that his mind could go wandering at a time like this.

  “Where is she, then?”

  “Like I said, it took her. The other Hound.” The girl slapped her hands together in a sharp crack. “Like that.”

  Alejandro shook his head. “The Hunt cannot Move.” He looked at Nik, but there was no answer in the other man’s face. Riders. Hounds. The one following Valory had looked like a Rider at first, and then again at the end. What did it mean?

  “I knew this was a bad idea, I should never have listened to you. Riders.” Nik spat the word like a curse. “As if you ever gave a damn about humans.”

  “Do you dare? She is my fara’ip. She is blood of my blood, bone of my bone. Who harms her, harms me.”

  “Really? ’Cause you look fine to me.” The French-sounding one was standing close enough that Alejandro could see his beard forming close under his skin.

  “Let me remind you that it was you came to me for help,” Alejandro said, his voice as quiet and cold as his gra’if.”

  A family—mother, father, and two preteen children—came out of the train station entrance. They were each wearing a sunhat, and their backpacks all had a bottle of water in the outside pocket. The parents glanced over, and without other reaction began to herd the children faster toward the entrance to the Air Canada Centre. The kids were talking about what they would get at the official NBA store, and did not seem to notice the gang of armed individuals standing in the open square.

  Alejandro made an effort to calm his breathing. All was not yet lost. It had been a Rider who had taken Valory, not a Hound. “This is not the place to take council,” he said. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped off his blade very meticulously and thoroughly before sliding it back into the wooden body of his walking stick.

  “Any ideas on what we should do now?” The tone in Nik Polihronidis’ voice was like a lash on Alejandro’s back.

  Alejandro looked at the cloth with distaste, before glancing at the human, right eyebrow raised. “Has anyone a match?” At his simple question, some of the tension began to ease from the air.

  The young girl standing behind Nik handed Alejandro a pink plastic lighter. He burned the cloth, making sure that there was nothing but ash left. This gave them all further time to calm themselves.

  “So where were you, then?” Nik said.

  “I was killing the Hound,” Alejandro said again. His tone was even, but he felt the heat underneath it. “You saw the blood on my sword. If you know so much, you know what blood it was.” Alejandro narrowed his gaze. “That was no Hound that took my Valory.” There was heat in his voice. “That was a Rider. Hounds do not Move.”

  Nik swallowed. “Okay,” he said, and Alejandro understood that it was, in its way, an apology. “Okay. So what now?”

  It was an honest question this time, and not a provocation, but Alejandro felt no better.

  His mobile rang. There were only two people who could have the number. Backing away from them, Alejandro pulled the vibrating phone out of his jacket pocket and looked at the display.

  Valory.

  It was Dogfang who came to report, changing repeatedly as he approached, unable to keep his Rider form long enough to speak. Excitement, Foxblood wondered, or was he badly in need of dra’aj? Strange how quickly they were all becoming accustomed to their stable shapes.

  “Go, eat something,” he said. “And make it quick. Send me someone who can speak.” The other scampered off, first on two legs, then four, then three. Fox looked down at his o
wn hands, as they (flicker) became hairless paws, the claws thick and twisted (flicker) talons dull with age, (flicker) pincers, leathery and cracked (flicker) hands, the fingers long and perfect.

  A change in the air, and Hook came in.

  “Pack Leader,” she said. Her Rider form flickered for an instant, almost like a tic, and then settled down again.

  “Where’s Claw? Why doesn’t he bring the report?”

  “He’s gone, he is.” This came out in a long hiss, and Fox frowned. Hook should be able to control herself better than this. He stood suddenly, taking her by the throat, lifting her into the air and giving her a shake before he threw her to the ground.

  “Do you think that’s an answer?” he said, letting the growl come out in his own throat. The other (flicker) became something long and scaly, and (flicker) was a Rider again. She stayed on her knees, though, one hand to her throat.

  “He’s Faded, Pack Leader. The old Rider, the Sunward one who keeps the girl, came with a gra’if blade and took him. But not without being marked, Claw—” she grinned, and her teeth were sharp. “He clawed him, for sure.”

  The first thought that blasted its way through the haze of rage that followed this news was “more for me” but Foxblood did his best to shake it off. That wasn’t a useful thought, no matter how true it might be. There was so much dra’aj here for the taking that the Hunt would never need to fight and turn on each other for it ever again.

  Right now one less meant fewer warriors, not more dra’aj.

  A thought flashed clearly in his brain. Would they still be Hounds, if their hunger was always fed?