Indigo(66)

She had to at least start this on her own.

Indigo found the head start down beside the steps leading to the apartment block’s front door. She leaped for the shadow and fell away, and as she shifted into the shadow realms, the last thing she heard was Selene’s voice calling after her.

“Damastes will—”

Nothing more.

*

Indigo steered through the shadowpaths to where she needed to go. She felt strong and confident, and as she emerged into the third-floor apartment, she wondered what Selene had been trying to say.

Damastes will …

“Damastes will shut the fuck up,” Indigo muttered as she twisted herself out of the shadows, and she felt the murder god recoil from the strength in her words. Selene had promised to show her how to block Damastes from her thoughts and keep him low, but right now she was doing fine herself.

The apartment stank. She noticed that first. Then, she sensed the fear that permeated the rank atmosphere. It was a ringing tension, like coiled springs waiting to whip undone. It was a stink on the air, death and piss and gone-off food. It was the fast, light breathing she could hear, coming from just out of sight in the living room. Doing her best not to wallow in the fear and make some of it her own, Indigo flowed into the living room and crouched in shadows in the corner.

Curtains were drawn across the windows, even though it was bright daylight outside. Plates and cups were piled on a small table in front of the sofa, and the TV muttered inanities with no one there to watch.

Turned away from the TV to face the door out into the hallway, a heavy leather chair was now the focus of the room. A man was seated in it. He held a pump-action shotgun across his legs. His eyes grew wide when Indigo arrived, and although he could not see her—not yet—he could certainly sense that something had changed.

Indigo knew him. The shock made her waver, almost step from shadows into view, and if she’d done that, perhaps the man who had professed to be her uncle would have blasted her to death. He’d called himself Uncle Theo, but he was no such thing. The care he’d appeared to show her after her parents’ funeral must have been something else—a way to keep track of her, perhaps, or an attempt to get close and assess how damaged she was.

Now he was close to madness. He sat in his own waste, its stink rising around him and seeping through the chair. Empty booze bottles were splayed around his feet, some smashed, some still half-full as if he’d forgotten to finish drinking. He shivered in the apartment’s rancid heat. The shotgun shook in his hands.

Matt O’Hagan was waiting for death to arrive.

“I’m here,” Indigo said, emerging from the shadows, swinging a shadow club at O’Hagan’s arms as she approached the chair from one side, knocking the shotgun from his grasp. It clattered against the wall and slipped down behind the sofa.

Matt O’Hagan turned to stare at her, then he opened his mouth to scream.

Indigo thrust a gag of shadows down his throat and pinned his head back against the armchair. She pressed a finger against her lips.

“Scream and I’ll rip out your tongue.” Slowly she withdrew the shadow gag.

“Are you her?” He was staring at her.

The front door smashed open, out of sight around the corner and along the hallway. Indigo held her breath.

“Are you her?” O’Hagan asked again, louder, and she could see that he was no longer afraid of anything beyond this room. Everything that scared him was inside.

“You remember me.” Anger made her voice deep. She felt Damastes squirming inside her at the promise of violence to come.

“We didn’t finish.” He was staring into her eyes, leaning forward, looking deep as if to see something more.

“How do I get him out of me?”

“Out? You can’t. And he can’t get out. Not on his own. If he could have, he already would have. And he’d have torn you apart.”

Selene appeared in the doorway. She quickly took in the scene, then entered the room, ready to intercede.

“He had a shotgun,” Indigo said. “He’d have blown us in half.”

Selene ignored her, all her focus on the man.

“Is he … does he see me?” O’Hagan asked, still staring into Indigo’s eyes.

Kill him, Damastes said, and Indigo started moving toward Matt O’Hagan. In truth he was nearly dead already.

“Build a wall,” Selene said. “Indigo. Build a wall.”

Indigo paused, surprised at what she’d said and how much sense it made.

Step forward and kill him, Damastes insisted, his dark self swollen with desire and eagerness for the kill. He glowed within Indigo, red and hungry.

“A wall made of shadow,” Selene said. She was staring at Indigo now, the man between them almost forgotten. Selene could see what was happening. “Draw it around you, inside you, and make it thick and strong. He’s a thing of shadow himself, and you’re using some of his power. It’s made you.”

“It’s not mine to use,” Indigo said. Damastes was guiding her hands now, controlling her body and urging her to form two shadow swords, their edges so sharp because they were made of nothing. They would slice through O’Hagan’s throat with hardly any effort from her. Damastes was making his move.

And then her, the murder god said, and Indigo caught Selene’s eye.