Shadowglass

Slimy awareness slicked my senses like river water, and I fought to wake.

My head hurt, like I’d dragged my brain through broken glass. My wing joints ached. Thunder rumbled, distant but threatening, and on some unseen metal roof, raindrops pattered like insect feet. I inhaled, the dusty stink of an airless space baked in the sun. Rusty light pierced my crunched lids. I opened, and my eyeballs gritted like sandpaper.

A lightbulb, gently swinging left to right, shedding that sphere of reddish light. Beyond it, darkness and dust and the smell of rain. A smooth surface soothed my shoulders, my wings, my backside. I wriggled, and the smoothness didn’t move with me. I lifted my hand to feel my face, and it wouldn’t come. I tried my other hand. It wouldn’t come either. Furious, I kicked, and my ankles hit something rough and tight that slammed them back down.

Reason filtered through woolly haze: Lightbulb is up. I’m on my back. Correction—tied on my back. I can’t move my arms. I can’t move my legs. I’m helpless.

Panic scrabbled through my body, shredding my nerves to useless flesh. My pulse yabbered stupidly at me to flee, and I fought jerking limbs. I sucked in a breath and looked down—at least I could still move my head—and trepidation chewed at my nerves like a hyena with a bone.

Rope around my ankles, rope around my wrists. A white surface like a tabletop. Christ, I hate being tied up. But all my bits are still there. I’m still dressed. Don’t see any blood.

Rustle.

My skin broke out in a cold wash. My head whipped around, my cheek slapping into the table.

Stalkerboy smiled, unnerving. He sat a few feet away on a tall stool, pretty dark hair tumbling damp around his shoulders. Watching me. Waiting for me to wake up.

Presumably so I wouldn’t miss whatever was about to happen to me.

He glided over to me, his balance uncanny and beautiful for a muscled-up biker hooligan. I couldn’t see a weapon. I couldn’t see the mirror. Maybe he just wanted to hurt me. Panic bubbled in my blood, but instead of lying here gibbering, that old spicy attitude came lurching out. “What’s going on, Stalkerboy? Where am I? Why am I tied up? What are you—?”

He lighted a warm finger on my lips, shushing me, and something weird rippled beneath my skin at his touch. I moved my lips, resisting the urge to spit. His finger tasted of daisies. He smiled again, and took his finger away. “Not Stalkerboy. Jake, from the sky. Jinxx is my enemy.”

The names sounded glassy and alien in his mouth, and harmonics pealed in his voice, beautiful and unnerving like a charmed-up banshee. I remembered his hateful scream at Andy’s with a shudder. He’s just a human kid. How did he do that? And if that freaky white-toothed smile was meant to calm me, he was kidding himself. Those sky-blue eyes shone with rampant hunger.

He looked like he wanted to eat me whole. I shivered. Weird didn’t begin to describe this.

Fear slid hot needles into my blood, and I raged against it, my heart aflame with disgust. Yeah, I was afraid. But damned if I was helpless. Screw that.

Surreptitiously I squirmed, testing the knots. “Good for you, Jake from the sky. You gonna let me go, or do I hafta kick your ass?”

He bent closer and sniffed my cheek. I tried not to look away, not to show him my fear. Sweat gleamed on his dark-stubbled jaw, beaded on his studded brow, twinkled on the tiny ruby ring in his nose. Long tilted cheekbones, straight nose, supple lips, velvety lashes. I’d even say good-looking, if he didn’t have me tied me to a table. Prick.

He leant on his elbows next to my head, his flowery smell unpleasantly close. “No kicking. No going. Tell me about Jinxx.”

I shifted some more, trying to work my ankles loose. “Who? Don’t know who you’re on about.”

Scarlet flame rippled over his knuckles, wispy like a fairy’s, and he leaned closer, impatient. His hip pressed into the table’s edge, and something hard and metallic clunked against the plastic.

Distant giggles whispered in my head. I risked a glance downward. A taut round shape swelled in his jeans pocket.

The mirror.

He clicked his tongue, impatient. “You lie. You know Jinxx. You kissed Jinxx. He gave you Pleasure. Tell me how it felt.”

My stomach wobbled, the scent of flowers cloying. Christ. He’d watched us? And what was with that flame thing? Humans couldn’t do that. “Look, you’ve got the wrong girl.”

“No. Apples. Yellow. Honey eyes. Berries. You are the one. Tell me how it felt.” He sniffed me again, his mouth alarmingly close to mine, and I wriggled, anticipating a forced kiss.

He just stared, sky-blue, two inches away.

I fought not to blink or recoil. His intensity made me squirm, like he could see right inside my head. I wouldn’t get anywhere by lying to this fruitcake. Better to let him think he was getting what he wanted, and work on getting the hell out of here. “Okay, okay. You got me. Tell you how what felt?”

“He gave you pleasure.” Jake’s gaze slid down to my mouth, and back up to my eyes. Shiver.
I laughed, forced. “Hey, that’s kind of a personal qu—”

“You touched him. He did not fight. How is this?”

Confusion tumbled in my head, and I kicked my feet harder. The damn rope wouldn’t loosen. “What? You’re not making sense.”

He frowned and sniffed my hair. His own dark locks trailed over my cheek, soft, damp, smelling of rain. His throat looked smooth and tanned, and I saw deep clawmarks, partially healed to scar tissue. I licked my lips. He smelled kind of nice, a faint twang of flowery blood tingling my nose.

I swallowed, recklessness rippling my nerves. No, I didn’t just wonder what he’d taste like. This guy was a freak, and I’d had my share of freakadelics today. Get a grip.

He straightened, a frown still denting his brow. “You defied him, and he did not punish you. How is this?”

The twinge of mirror-rich desire that awakened in my body only made me angry. I jerked against my ropes, cutting my skin. “Enough with the stupid questions, okay? Something’s wrong with you, you know that?”

“Yes!” Excitement flushed his cheeks, and he knelt beside me and rested his chin eagerly on the table’s edge. “I knew you’d understand. Explain this . . . thing wrong with me. I must know!”

“Look, I’ve got no clue what you’re on about, but if you want me to say anything that doesn’t begin with fuck and end in off, you’d better untie me right now.”

“I cannot. You will try to escape. The others did.”

Dread spiked my joints, spoiling my snarky façade. “What others?”

“The others. They were useless to me.” He waved his silver-ringed hand at the darkness. His fingernails were spotless and white, and that incongruous fairy flame flickered again between his knuckles.

I lifted my head and strained to see. Vague outlines of boxes, wooden from the nailheads glinting in the ever-swinging light. Splintered edges, broken or torn in half. For the first time, I noticed the groans, the wails, the scratching. And on the ground, a dark shape, muddled like a heap of cloth, something silvery gleaming. . . .

I gulped. Wings. A body. Holy shit.

“I asked the fairy. He told me this.” Fire licked lovingly around Jake’s forearm, and nothing burned. He smiled, shattering and cruel. “Now I’m asking you.”

Icy chill seeped from my pores. He’d stolen it all. Sucked up their power like a leech. The banshee’s voice. The fairy’s flame. Who knew what else? And what did he want from me? I couldn’t sing a lover or spark a fire or do anything particularly cool. I just leaked. He couldn’t want that. Could he?

I squirmed. My ropes weren’t loosening, not with him watching. Time to play nice, “No need for unpleasantness. Just tell me what you want and I’ll play nice and we can all go home.”

“You have power over Jinxx, my enemy. I must learn that. Show me.”

Understanding glittered, and helpless laughter bounced from my lips. “You so have the wrong end of the cactus, loverboy. I don’t have power over Jinxx. He had a hard-on for his ex-girlfriend. I helped him out. That’s it.”

“Girlfriend.” Jake’s eyes blazed whiter, and savage compulsion spelled my heart like a poisoned thorn.

My vision bubbled, and fear scraped in my teeth. Discomfort thickened my tongue with the urge to speak, and my words slurred in a rush. “Yeah. Y’know. Lover. Chicky. Arm candy. She dumped him. Look, why am I even telling you this—?”

“Jinxx has a lover?”

“Sure. I mean, I don’t know him very well. But he’s just like an ordinary g—Hyypf!”

Jake grabbed my throat, nails slashing. My tongue crushed, strangling my words and my breath, and black flecks dizzied my vision. My lungs jerked instinctively, longing for air. He thrust his face within an inch of mine, and his breath left a warm damp spot on my lips. “I am Jake from the sky. Jinxx is my enemy. You will tell me everything, or I will drink it from you as I did the others. Do you understand, yellow girl?”

My bones shuddered in trepidation and rage. I’d kill the bastard for this. But drinking didn’t sound good. The others certainly hadn’t fared well out of it. Compulsively I swallowed, bile scorching my membranes. I forced a nod, as much as I could manage in his grip.

He loosened just a little, and I dragged in delicious flower-tainted air. Relief cooled my skin. I gulped, and swallowed, and gulped again, my composure ripped ragged. “You’re an asshole, Jake from the sky. Beating up on fairies for fun. Hope you’re proud of yourself.”

He ignored me. “Tell me how you seduced Jinxx.”

“Oh, so now with the personal questions, you fucking fr—”

“Tell or drink, Appolonnia.” He licked his lips, a hungry gleam in his eye, and caressed my throat, warm fingers running lovingly over my collarbone.

I shivered. “I didn’t, okay? He seduced me.”

“Why?” He slid his hand to my chest, fingering my skin.

“Hell, I don’t know. Because he thought I was easy. Can you please not do that?”

“No. What power of yours did he wish for?” He peered closer, lifting my cotton top’s neckline to examine me.

My nipples jerked tight under his scrutiny, and ire tangled with my frustration like sprung wire ripping at my nerves. I banged my fists against the table, maddened. “None! I told you! I don’t have powers. I’m just a stupid little fairy girl.”

He sniffed my breast, curious, and followed a scent trail down to my exposed belly. His breath tickled me, warm and peculiar. “You’re a very pretty fairy girl.”

My stomach roiled. “Oh, please. I mean, I’m flattered, but can you not—?”

“If you have no power, then why did Jinxx pleasure you? In return for what?”

“Jesus. You really are from the sky if you’re asking me that.”

“Yes.” He flicked me his cosmos-blue gaze. So clear, so empty of pain or experience or life.

Like he’d seen nothing, felt nothing. Never loved or hated or hurt. He just hungered. For knowledge, sensation, emotion, anything he could get.

Curiosity gnawed at my bones, and I wriggled and kicked, but it wouldn’t let go. Danger clanged in my head, warning me, but I itched and I yearned and I couldn’t help it. I strained my twitching nose forward and inhaled.

His flowery scent slammed into my sinuses like hot water, drowning me. My vision flickered, and images whirled and tumbled like a sandstorm.

The sun, dazzling in empty blue sky, the blinding white sweep of feathered wings. Disembodied whispers a bright comfort in his head. A cool white hand slides in his, soothing. Endless hours of reading, thinking, brooding in silence, a long sunlit room full of identical blond others dressed in white. He can draw beautifully, flowers and birds and waterfalls and dragonflies and the sun, always the sun. Now he sketches himself, the strangest thing, standing in a dark starlit garden alone. And then a cell, cool white walls only a few feet wide, a door that won’t open no matter how abjectly he begs, the oppressive weight of silence like poison in his ears. Tears, cold on his cheeks and painful in his throat. He knows what it’s like to cry. The cold blue eyes of his master, burning with rage beneath feathery white wings like an angel’s. Jagged lightning flashes, blinding. Screaming in free fall, wind scorching his face. And then he’s on his knees in black city dust, where a new hellcrimson sun burns his skin and the air stinks of shit and blood. He can’t fly anymore, and he stares shell-shocked at the silent sky and doesn’t know what to do.

The pictures shattered and swept away. I choked. Holy shit. Jake-from-the-sky was an angel? Did that mean heaven existed after all? What was it like? Were there fairies there, or was it just for humans, like everything else?

Thirst for answers parched my heart, before another, nastier thought struck me. Maybe heaven existed, and They didn’t like us very much, having all that fun and selling our souls to demons and all. Maybe the folks upstairs really had come for Jinxx.

And They’d sent Jake, who for all his strength and wiles and pretty inked muscles didn’t even understand why people slept with strangers sometimes.

They were so screwed.

Notes

Sooo done with this migraine....hope i didn't fuck this one up too bad
- grimm



and yess....i did give jake piercings....