Shadowfever
Page 45

I was dazed by Darrocs abrupt murder and my shock over KVruck being the Book. If Id been thinking clearly, Id have known from the first that I was much too high from the ground for it to have been Dani. Several feet too high.
The shoulder I was over was massive, as was the rest of it, but it was too dark to see clearly. Rooftop spotlights no longer illuminated the exterior of the bookstore, nor did the customary amber glow bathe the interior. There was only the light of a three-quarter moon, spilling in through tall windows.
What had me? An Unseelie? Why had it brought me here? I never wanted to see this place again! I hated BB&B. It was dark and empty and ghosts were everywhere. They perched with sad eyes on my cash register, drooped along my book aisles, and draped, paper-thin and defeated, on my sofas, shivering before fireplaces that would never be lit again.
I wasnt prepared to be flung from its shoulder. I went flying backward through the air, slammed into the chesterfield in the rear seating cozy, bounced off it, crashed into a chair, got tangled in one of Barrons expensive rugs, and skidded across the polished floor. My head smacked into the enameled fireplace.
For a moment, all I could do was lie there. Every bone in my body was bruised. Blood was crusted on my face and in the corners of my eyes.
With a moan of pain, I rolled over and propped myself up on an elbow to assess the damage. At least my arm wasnt broken, as Id thought it was.
I pushed my hair from my face.
And froze. Standing in the dim light of the bookstore was a shape that was devastatingly familiar. Come out of the shadows, I said.
A low growl was the only reply.
Please, can you understand me? Come out.
It hulked near a bookcase, panting. It was enormous, at least nine feet tall. Silhouetted against the moonlight filtering through a window behind it, it had three sets of sharp, curved horns spaced at even intervals along two bony ridges that spanned the sides of its head.
Id seen horns like that before. My pouch of stones had been tied to similar ones. Horns Id watched melt away when the beast wearing them resumed its human form.
In the Silvers, Barrons had been slate gray with yellow eyes during the day and black-skinned with crimson eyes at night. This one was in full night mode, velvety black in the darkness but for the glint of feral eyes. Id heard more of these beasts back in the street, before this one had carried me off. Where had they come from?
My hands began to tremble. I pushed gingerly into a sitting position, acutely aware of every stretched tendon and strained muscle. I leaned back against the fireplace, drew my knees up and hugged them. I didnt trust myself to stand. This creature was the same kind of beast Barrons had been and was a connection to the man Id lost.
What was it doing here? Was he still somehow protecting me, even in death? Had heassigned others of his kind to guard me if the worst happened and he was killed?
The thing in the shadows suddenly turned and smashed a taloned fist into the bookcase. Tall shelves rocked on floor bolts. With a metallic screeeech, the ornate case ripped from the floor and began to fall. It crashed into the one next to it, and the one next to that, taking them down like dominoes, making a complete wreck of my bookstore.
Stop it! I cried.
But if it could understand, or even hear me over the noise, it didnt care. It turned on the magazine rack and shattered it next. Dailies and monthlies flew in a storm of pages and splinters of shelving. Chairs slammed into the walls. My TV was stomped. My fridge crushed. My cash register exploded in a tinkle of bells.
It raged through the store, trashing the entire first floor, decimating everything I loved, reducing my cherished sanctuary to ruins.
All I could do was huddle and stare.
When there was nothing left to smash or break, it whirled on me.
Moonlight silvered its ebony skin and glinted off crimson eyes. Veins and tendons stood out on its arms and neck, and its chest pumped like a bellows. Bits of debris were stuck to its horns. It shook its head violently, and bits of plaster and wood sprayed the air.
It stared at me from a prehistoric face, through long hanks of matted black hair, with hate-filled eyes.
I stared back, afraid to breathe. Had it saved me to kill me? It was no more than I deserved, really.
It was a walking reminder of what Id hadand lost. What Id never seen clearlyand killed. It was so much like my creature in the Silvers, yet so different. Barrons had been uncontrollably homicidal, unableor unwillingto prevent himself from slaughtering everything in sight, no matter how small or helpless. Back on that cliffs edge, in Barrons eyes, Id glimpsed madness.
This beast was a killing machine, too, but not a mindless one. There was no insanity in its eyes, only fury and bloodlust.
It was Barrons but it wasnt.
I closed my eyes. Looking at it hurt my soul.
It growled deep in its chest, much closer than it had been a moment ago.
My eyes snapped open.
It stood a half dozen feet away, towering over me, brimming with unspent rage. Feral eyes were fixed on my neck, taloned hands opened and closed as if it wanted nothing more than to wrap them around it and squeeze.
I rubbed the base of my skull, grateful for Barrons mark. Apparently it was still protecting me, because the creature hadnt harmed me, although it wanted to. I wondered if his mark protected me from the entire pack of Barrons-like creatures. Hed said hed never let me die. It seemed hed taken measures to continue his protection if something happened to him. Like Ryodan and me and a spear.