Annabella was shaking her head. “This is between the wolf and me. Has been from the beginning. I can do things with Shadow. Magic. I can make him hurt.”
But eventually he’ll overpower you, Custo added mentally to himself. Not good enough.
There was no way he could bear Annabella submitting on her own, alone. At the very least, he’d be by her side, even if it cost his embodied soul. It wasn’t worth much without her anyway. They’d fight, and they’d pay for their mistakes together, in blood and pain, which was nothing new for him.
But they couldn’t win.
Last time he died, he had nothing to lose but his regrets. This time…everything.
Someone had to win.
Adam had Talia and their babies. Custo couldn’t allow him to help, and in so doing invite more loss and misery into the world. Or Luca, whose end would be as final as Custo’s.
And Shadowman?
“I tricked you once,” Custo said, “and I am sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it right before…he comes?”
“I can’t exactly trade you to Hell now, can I?”
No. “Other than that.”
Shadowman’s eyes slanted to the ruin of the tower. To the arsenal now littering the white stones. The weapons would have to be carefully tucked away until The Order could rebuild.
“I need the hammer,” Shadowman said.
“Take it,” Custo said.
Death’s nostrils flared. “I would have already, if I could touch it. But I need an angel to hand it to me.”
Luca bumped Custo’s arm. “No. It’s forbidden. Don’t add this mistake to the others.”
“Who are you to talk?” If Luca had listened to Adam in the first place, the tower would still stand. If the hammer would bring Kathleen and Shadowman together, then so be it.
Custo climbed the steps of rubble and found the hammer in the dust, the same one he’d handled in the tower’s armory. The shaft was solid, a dark wood rubbed smooth by handling. One side was wide and blunt, the other a rounded knob. A blacksmith’s tool. Custo had no idea what Death would do with such a thing when there were some awesome blades littering the area, and he didn’t care.
When he turned back, his heart stopped.
The wolf was padding slowly across the street, his bunched shoulders rolling with the stealth of his advance. The wolf barked once, and Annabella fell to her knees.
“Hunter,” Death said, “there is no need for that. You’ve leashed her already.”
Custo leaped down from the white rubble as the wolf morphed into an almost-man, naked, hairy, potent, and vicious. His body was built for power, muscles thick and corded. His expression was feral, but had lost that rabid craze that had cost him the fight at Segue. He was back to cunning, to searching out and exploiting weakness.
He’d set traps, and one had sprung. He was here to collect his prey.
Custo helped Annabella to stand and, handing Shadowman the hammer, said, “I won’t let you have her.”
“You can’t stop me,” the wolf said. To Annabella, he barked, “Come.”
The blackness of her eyes seemed to throb, the thin lines on her skin growing thicker. Annabella swayed, but obstinate as ever, said, “No.”
“Come!”
Annabella blurred, the Shadow within her hazing toward the wolf in obedience, but the rest of her was rooted in the rubble. Custo put his arms around her waist. Her slim frame trembled, every trained muscle overriding the compulsion of Shadow.
How long could she keep it up?
An hour? A day? And yet, what else could she do but refuse and endure? She’d fight until her body broke. Annabella was made of willpower, had honed it, like her body, for most of her life. She was by nature a fighter.
“Come. Now,” the wolf growled across the war zone that was the street. His disgusting stuff was getting hard as if he anticipated dominating her.
Rage pounded in Custo’s head. He put Annabella behind him. That monster would not touch her while Custo was living.
Annabella reached around Custo’s body to flip the wolf the bird. God, Custo loved her.
Adam’s thoughts filtered through Custo’s worry. I’ve got six guns trained on him, waiting for your signal.
To fight the wolf with conventional weapons was to prolong the inevitable.
Luca added, I can think of three of The Order’s blades that would cut him out of the world.
That might take care of the wolf, but what about Annabella? The Shadow was making her ill. She’d have to return to the Otherworld eventually to survive, and the wolf would be waiting for her.
No. Shadowman had stated the only possible way: the wolf had to willingly release her. But what circumstances would compel the beast to do such a thing when Annabella’s power was almost in his grasp?
The wolf needed a better offer.
Custo slanted his gaze toward Luca. “You said my presence on Earth, my body, was a choice?”
“No.” Luca shook his head. So he’d thought it, too. You have no right to offer your body, your great soul, to a dark fae. Annabella would give him free access to Earth, but with you he could breach Heaven.