Forged of Shadows ms-2

  Forged of Shadows

  ( Marked Souls - 2 )

  Jessa Slade

  THE WAR BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL HAS BALED FOR MILLENNIA, WITH THE MARKED SOULS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE. BUT THE NEW GIRL DOESN'T PLAY BY THE OLD RULES.

  Liam Niall never meant to be a leader. Having barely survived the Irish potato famine, he escaped to Chicago, where he lost half his soul and gained a wayward band of demon-possessed warriors. Now, as they face a morphing evil, Liam grows weary and plagued by doubt --- until a new weapon falls into his hands. Her name is Jilly Chan. To save her demon-ridden soul, Liam must win her for his battle ... and his bed.

  Waging a one-woman war against threats to the street kids she mentors, Jilly won't be any man's woman or weapon. But Liam --- with his hard eyes, soft brogue, and compelling hands --- is a danger to both her rebellious independence and her heart.

  Two halved souls sharing one fierce passion will sear a fresh scar across the city. Who's in danger now?

  Forged Of Shadows

  Marked Souls - 2

  by

  Jessa Slade

  To the Rose City Romance Writers (is there room here for a hundred-plus names?) for the cheering, the commiserating, and the whip cracking, as needed. Write on!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Much love to my family for their enthusiastic support during the “Year of the Book.”

  Deep appreciation for all the great folks at NAL for “Year of the Book: Part 2,” especially Adam Auerbach and Anthony Ramondo for this cool, sexy cover, and copy editor Michele Alpern for reminding me about antecedents.

  Deeper bows yet to editor Kerry Donovan and agent Becca Stumpf, who answered all my curious (sometimes anxious) e-mails during the wood ducklingesque transition from writer to author.

  Big, big thanks to my mentors (who don’t really know they’re my mentors), including Michelle Buonfiglio and Sue Grimshaw, for making books smart and superfun, and the PASIC authors for their knowledge and generosity.

  Credit (and kisses) to Rainstick Cowbell for the Seduced by Shadows theme song.

  And to all the readers, thanks for giving the words a place to go.

  PROLOGUE

  Gray dust clogged the frigid air. Filthy snow lay all around, streaked with ash and blood and some odd fibrous, gelatinous mess.

  He put his hand to his aching head. Bone pulped under the tentative touch and he winced. His fingers came away slimed with crimson and gray matter.

  That couldn’t be good.

  Stones rained around him, and he choked on the acrid stink of demon- realm winds. Dimly, he remembered. He’d been trapped there, his soul bound into the Veil by that bitch talya and her lover.

  But here he was, back in the human realm. His pores beaded with sulfur as his demon ascended, struggling to protect his all-too-human flesh from the stoning.

  It coiled through him, the demon, and tightened its grasp.

  He’d fleetingly—so fleetingly—hoped to be freed from it after all the long centuries of slavery. Now a slave again.

  He tried to weep, but the acid sting of birnenston tears only burned furrows in his cheeks.

  He wanted to succumb to the pounding stones, be buried forever. But the demon yanked him upright, shedding dust and ice and blood like some terrible birth cowl. He clenched his teeth, resisting the demon’s intangible grip, but his head ached all the worse and he could summon neither wit nor will. The demon awkwardly coordinated his limbs into a shambling gait.

  Worse than a slave.

  As the demon rode him like a dumb animal away from the collapsing building—the site of his desperate bid to free the world from the chains of helpless good and hopeless evil that bound it—Corvus Valerius could not decide whom he hated more: the malevolent djinni that had brought him back from the dead, or the bastard league of the teshuva who’d had the chance to kill him once and for all and had failed.

  CHAPTER 1

  Four months later

  What would Jackie Chan do?

  Not for the first time, Jilly Chan wished she’d been born with the ass- kicking aptitude of her Hong Kong movie-hero namesake. Lau-lau always said denying her heritage would get her in trouble. She just hadn’t realized trouble meant dead. Duh. How many times did the universe need to hit her in the head with a brick before she learned to duck as quickly as Jackie Chan?

  “Dee, Iz, don’t move.” She edged in front of the two kids. As if her five-two self could hide them. Maybe the darkness of the Chicago alley at night would work in their favor.

  “What is that?” Iz’s teen voice cracked, which lately made him swear. But he obviously realized they had bigger problems than his impending manhood. Such as their aforementioned impending deaths.

  “Did it escape from the zoo?” Dee clutched Jilly’s shoulder.

  Jilly elbowed them both backward. She hated retreating, but the thing at the mouth of the alley had them blocked. “I don’t know what it is. But it isn’t friendly.”

  “You can tell by the way it drools,” Dee agreed. “Eesh. Is it burning holes in the pavement?”

  “Nothing that big has mandibles,” Iz squeaked, stuck on panicked puberty. “Only insects have mandibles like that.”

  “Tell that to Supersize- Me Drool Boy over there,” Dee said. “I bet it eats know- it-all nerds for its midnight snack. Which would be, oh, right about now.”

  “Fly vomit could, in sufficient volume, theoretically dissolve concrete.”

  “Oh, gross, Iz-kid.”

  “Quiet.” Jilly took another step back, shooing the kids along behind her.

  The creature didn’t move, but a flash of orange eyeshine gave her the sinking feeling it could see in the dark. And it was looking right at her.

  A chill that had nothing to do with the rude March wind traced her spine and wrapped around her chest. “Dee,” she said softly, “my cell is in my right pocket.”

  With her gaze locked on the thing, she never felt the teen’s nimble fingers in the puffy material of her coat. Hmm. She’d better have another talk with the girl, make sure she wasn’t keeping up her old skills. Assuming a not-worst-case-scenario outcome to tonight’s adventure, of course.

  “No sudden moves. No loud noises,” Jilly said. “It doesn’t seem ready to attack.”

  “Yet.” Iz’s voice dropped an octave.

  Behind her, Dee muttered, “Hello? Why won’t this thing—Help? Jilly, I think the battery—”

  A hideous screech blared through the alley, and they all flinched. But it was only the cell phone, feeding back. The signal spit and gibbered, far too loud for the tiny speaker.

  The thing in their path took a shambling step forward. It paused in the narrow cone of light cast by the neon sign on the corner of the building.

  “Turn the phone off,” Jilly and Iz hissed in unison.

  Jilly claimed no particular knowledge of entomology. She knew two kinds of city bugs: the fast ones and the ones she scraped off the bottom of her Wescos. But Iz was right. The thing coming toward them had the basic look of something caught between her treads.

  “I bet this is what got Andre.” Iz’s voice broke off. “Now do you believe me something weird’s been going on? Now you see why we had to come out here?”

  “Iz-kid, I’m seeing it, and I still don’t believe it.” Jilly stretched her arms. At least she could make herself wider, if not taller. “I want you two to make a run for it the second I yell ‘go,’ okay?”

  “Run for it?” Dee asked. “You’re kidding me.”

  It wasn’t interested in the kids, Jilly told herself. It had never once looked away from her. How flattering. “I’ll scare it. You guys get clear of the interference and call 911.”

  “Scare it?” Iz sounded even more do
ubtful than Dee. “How?”

  Dee squeezed Jilly’s arm. “Just say ‘go.’ ”

  For once, Jilly was grateful for the years on the street that had sharpened the teen’s self- preservation instincts. “Dee,” she warned, “take Iz too.”

  “As long as he’s fast.”

  “Andre could outrun any cop in the precinct,” Iz said gloomily. “Bet it didn’t help him none.”

  “Ready?” Jilly stiffened, preparing to . . . She hadn’t quite worked out that part yet, but it had something to do with kung fu. Or maybe tai chi. Whichever. “One. Two . . .”

  And before she could say “three—go,” two more of the humanoid insect things loped into the mouth of the alley.

  “Uh, Jilly?” Iz tugged her sleeve. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to scare them now.”

  She could distract one with the half-assed assault she had in mind. Three, no way. “Change of plan. Head to the back of the alley, to the fire escape. There’ll be an access door on the roof that leads into the building.”

  “It’ll be locked,” Dee said. “We’ll be stuck on the roof.”

  “Iz has his picks. Don’t you, Iz-kid?”

  “What? And violate my parole?”

  “We’ll discuss your punishment later.” And there would be a later. “Keep trying the cell.”

  “We’re going,” Dee said over Iz’s plaintive, “But what about you, Jilly? You can’t run.”

  True. She knew better than to stress her lung. Good thing she preferred to stand her ground.

  She kept her ear cocked to the scuffle of the teens’ retreating footsteps. At the mouth of the alley, the hungry eyeshine of the monstrosities never flickered.

  Monstrosities? She meant monsters. Unease roughened her breath to sandstone in her throat.

  She winced at the rumble of a Dumpster across the concrete behind her. Apparently the kids hadn’t been able to reach the fire escape without a makeshift ladder. Despite the commotion, the trio ahead of her didn’t twitch.

  Okay, a plan. She couldn’t ward them off forever with her don’t-fuck-with-me stare. Jackie Chan routinely took on dozens of opponents. Of course, he had a more optimistic sound track than the “Ride of Valkyries” doom tune that was now going through her head.

  She cut a quick glance right and left. Damn, where was a ditched murder weapon when she needed one? There wasn’t even a loose bag of trash—just a pile of recyclables. Could she guilt them to death with packing peanuts?

  Behind her, the rattle of the kids on the fire escape grew fainter. They must be near the top, out of the fray.

  In her calmest, pre-saloon-brawl voice, she said, “I don’t want any trouble.”

  Didn’t want, yet always seemed to find. The three monsters took a step in unison toward her.

  Yeah, that line never worked in the movies either.

  She should have been terrified, considering what had happened the last time she faced a monster like these. Well, not quite like these. Rico had been a plain old human monster with one gold tooth, not mandibles. Somehow, these actually seemed less scary. Her heartbeat ramped up, not with fear—or not only with fear—but with a savage glee so that the catch in her compromised breathing sounded as if it were eagerness. How sick was that?

  She couldn’t hear the kids at all now. She was alone. Her pulse went semiautomatic fire in her ears, and her muscles burned as if a dozen police flares had been struck in her joints.

  “Okay, then. Red rover, red rover, let Jilly come over.” She took three steps forward. Her bootheels rang hard on the pavement.

  Then a fourth figure appeared, not so hulkingly broad as the first three, but every bit as tall.

  The newcomer’s wings flared low—no, not wings; a duster. The monster Jilly’s eyes had conjured became just a man.

  He paused there, bareheaded against the gusting wind that ran eager fingers through his shoulder-length dark hair. Some glint of neon caught in his eye, flaring violet as he turned toward them.

  The newcomer twitched open his duster and withdrew a . . . a what-the-hell hammer. The haft extended almost too long to be hidden under his coat, even as tall as he was. The blunt business end was as big as her head.

  “Now, that’s the murder weapon I was looking for,” she muttered. Too bad it was going to be used to murder her.

  The man whirled the hammer in a broad arc. Above the hollow whistle, he shouted, “Jilly, get out of here.”

  As the monster trio whirled to face him, he lowered his head and charged.

  For a heartbeat, she froze. How had he known her name? Did she know him? She almost recognized the feral grace of him, as if the old comic books she’d once devoured had come to life. Thanks to the crappy alley light, he was cast in black and white and shades of gray—but he was every bit as strong and fearless and take-charge as the heroes of her fantasies.

  Right, as if she were going to rely on anyone else to fight her battles ever again.

  She dodged to one side of the alley. She’d seen a glint beside the neatly stacked boxes—right there. Yes! Someone had forgotten a box cutter.

  She scrabbled at the cardboard, fingers closing around the narrow metal, sliding the tiny razor tooth out in the same motion. She spun back to the fight.

  Despite her speedy weapon procurement, Thor already stood, legs braced, over one carcass. With another swing of his hammer he dispatched the second creature. He knocked its mandibled head right off its shoulders as if it were a meaty croquet ball. Jilly’s stomach heaved at the wet thud of the head thwacking into the brick wall.

  The last monster—obviously smarter than Jilly herself—ran.

  The man whirled, every line of his body poised to pursue. Jilly’s breath caught hard, this time in pure pleasure at the taut, precise flow of his moves. He seemed so familiar, like something she’d dreamed. Maybe as she’d fallen asleep in the middle of one of those gawd-awful CGIed action movies.

  The monster-head stump oozed black scum, and she swallowed hard at the blunt reminder; this hammer-wielding superhero was no faker.

  Since when had she forgotten she wasn’t impressed by superheroes anymore? They were all fakers, by their nature. She scoffed to herself. As if he’d heard her, the man wheeled back around. The heavy oiled-canvas hem of the duster swirled above the pull straps of his boots. Her bravado withered at the stark expression that drew down the otherwise sensuous lines of his full mouth.

  “Just what the hell were you going to do with that little thing?”

  The lilt of his Irish accent captivated her for a moment, so she didn’t pay attention to the words. Then she was insulted. She wasn’t that short.

  Finally she noted his focus on the box cutter in her hand. “Defend your honor?”

  The grim set of his mouth softened, just barely. “Defend me?” He let the hammer swing down into a slow, mesmerizing ticktock. “Did I look like I needed defending?”

  The hint of amused arrogance in his voice made her lift her chin in defiance. “Maybe a little. It’s a very small knife anyway.” She clutched it tight as he strode toward her.

  Her gaze locked on the bold tattoo that rayed across his left temple to brush the corner of his blue eye. God, that must’ve hurt—needles nicking that rugged cheekbone for hours.

  She snapped upright. “Now I remember. You were at that homeless outreach we did in the park last weekend.” She stiffened even more as realization crept over her. “You know my name. You’ve been following me.”

  The final tock of the hammer pointed at the headless corpse. “Good thing, huh?”

  She didn’t want to think about it. “I have to make sure Iz and Dee are okay.”

  “They made it to the roof. I’ll have someone escort them down.”

  Jilly narrowed her eyes. “Someone, who?”

  “One of my people.”

  “Your people, who? Never mind. Dee was supposed to call 911.”

  “The call couldn’t get through the interference. That’s typical with these at
tacks lately. Besides, what are you going to tell the authorities?”

  Yeah, she knew how the authorities dealt with monstrosities, even the purely human kind. “I want to see the kids.”

  “My people will take them back to the halfway house. They’ll be fine without you.” His voice dropped, the brogue’s cadences waxing again. “They’ll have to be from now on.”

  Jilly gripped the box cutter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know, don’t you, that it’s too late?”

  “Too late for what?”

  “I didn’t understand the restlessness, or I didn’t want to listen. It’s too late to give you a chance.”

  Her voice rose with annoyance. And the first touch of unadulterated fear. “Too late for what?”

  “To say no to the demon.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Liam Niall had regrets. Many regrets. Any 180-year-old man could expect to fuck up now and then. An immortal man could expect to survive the fuckups with the burden of guilt weighing ever heavier.

  As the word “demon” reverberated between them, he contemplated the incredulous woman before him. His delay finding Jilly Chan, his failure to warn her that she’d been chosen by an unbound demon that would possess her soul and doom her to an eternity fighting the endless battle between good and evil . . . Yeah, this particular fuckup was going to haunt him for a very long time.

  But as the leader of the Chicago league of talyan—soul-damaged warriors possessed by repentant demons called teshuva seeking salvation—he’d long ago stopped listening to the little voice inside that warned of danger and destruction and doom. Damn it, he was possessed by a demon hell-bent on obliterating every lesser demonic emanation from the other-realm that had the bad luck to cross his path. The little voice inside him was always freaking out.

  And so he had squelched the restlessness that had kept him wandering the streets long after the rest of the league retreated for the day to sleep off their wounds. But as the nights passed, the little voice had gone from a whisper to a scream, until he was frantic with the need to silence it. Roaming the neighborhoods, he’d felt like he was missing something, and the sensation had been unnerving.