Free Shadow Borne by Angie West Page A

opaque
creature before me with a sense of foreboding. This was so not
good.
    "We never used to talk." The thing wheezed.
"And now we do." he ended on an eerie chuckle that made ice trail
down my spine. I fought the sudden urge to spin around; there
wasn't anyone behind me, it was only nerves that had me so keyed
up.
    "Why did you come here?" I forced the words
past a throat that felt too tight, too hot, but I really did need
to question the thing. So I shored my defenses and tried to look
intimidating enough to make him answer my questions.
    One hand went to the knife at my thigh,
briefly fingering the handle, but as it turned out, the Coatyl
needed no encouragement. He gulped mouthfuls of air and seemed to
steady himself before saying. "I have a message for you."
    I raised one eyebrow. "I'm listening. What's
your message."
    "Not...mine. I'm the messenger. So are you.
Messengers. You're all going to die."
    I suppressed a shudder and glared at him
instead. "If I'm the messenger, then who's the message for?"
    He glared back, black eyes bulging and
burning bright in his white face. For a minute I thought he wasn't
going to say anything more but then he bared his fang-like teeth
and grinned.
    "He's coming for her. Tell her...she's
next."
    "Who?" I practically shouted when he fell
into another brooding silence.
    His eyes snapped back to mine. "Claire
Roberts."
    I recoiled from both the rage in his tone
and the shock of hearing Claire's name spill from his mouth. "Who
sent you?" I demanded. "Was it Kahn? Talk." I commanded
breathlessly.
    "Maybe I shouldn't tell you." His eyes bore
into mine, full of hate and helpless rage. He truly was helpless,
of course, even if his demonic countenance was almost enough to
make me forget that fact. His voice had become thin and reedy in
the last couple of minutes. He was dying, and so was my chance of
getting any useful information. His breathing became labored and at
the tail end of each rapid, weak puff, the telltale death rattle
could be heard. I had to do something to keep him talking, and I
had to act quickly.
    I whipped the knife from its holder and held
it under his chin, pressing upward with just enough force to pierce
the thick skin there.
    His eyes bugged for a moment before he
laughed. "I'm dying anyway." he mockingly pointed out.
    "True." I shrugged. "But I can make it very,
very painful."
    "They were right about you, the
others...you're not easy to kill."
    “ If you had planned on
killing me tonight," I asked slowly, confused now, "how did you
expect me to pass the message along to Claire?"
    "Written on the wall." the Coatyl whispered
with a cold smile. "In your blood."
    Nice. Well, I'd asked. "Who sent you?" This
time I used the blade to punctuate my words.
    Why he answered, I really couldn't say,
because in the next second his eyes closed and he was gone. Maybe
he figured there was nothing left to lose or maybe he wanted to
spite me. For whatever reason, though, on his last breath flickered
a single name.
    "Lahuel."
    If ice had trickled down my spine a few
minutes before, the mention of the Lahuel was enough to create a
virtual avalanche. So the shadow man was looking for Claire. And
apparently me. It shouldn't have been a particularly surprising
development. After the raid we had led on Kahn's army, and the
Lahuel served Kahn, after all, we had been expecting some sort of
retaliation.
    The fighting was far from over and we all
knew that. I just hadn't quite been expecting...this. The Lahuel
was rarely seen and I couldn't recall anyone ever having received a
"message" from him–it–and I was one hundred percent certain that if
by some slim chance someone had ever been on the receiving end of a
message from the Lahuel, it damn sure hadn't been delivered by a
Coatyl.
    I hung my head for a moment, fighting my way
back from the edge of hysteria. Oh sweet mother, the Coatyl could
talk and think and probably strategize, too, if the rest of the
damn things were as shrewdly intelligent