Shadow Bound Page 0,81
Zoe pulled aside.
In a rocking chair sat a dried-up old crone of a woman in a tentlike, flowery housedress, presumably Abigail, though far too old to be Zoe’s sister. Her eyeballs were covered with a dark, brackish film that did not clear when she blinked. Her hair was stringy gray. The room smelled sharp and stale, like illness.
Adam glanced around. Sickbed, sink, stacks of books—lusty romance novels from the look of their covers—and on the bed, an open package of store-bought chocolate chip cookies, which made his stomach rumble. But there were no surveillance systems in this room; the tech center had to be somewhere else in the building.
“You’re cuter than I thought.” Abigail’s voice was clear, young, even, at odds with her appearance.
Which made Adam look a little closer. “Who are you? How did you know where to find us?”
“I’m Abigail. And I knew where to find you because I saw you there.”
Now Adam could see the family resemblance; she spoke in cryptic taunts like her “sister.” He had no patience for this. He needed to collect Talia and get to safety.
“Oh, take a cookie and sit down. You’re safe enough here.”
Adam hesitated, then perched on the corner of the foot of the bed. He forced his voice to controlled courtesy. “Thank you for your help and for the medical assistance you’re providing my—” What was Talia to him anyway? Employee? Lover? “—friend. If you knew where to find me, you may have some idea of the circumstances that brought us there. So I would very much appreciate it if you or your sister would be more forthcoming with answers.”
Abigail pressed her lips together in a grimace of disapproval. “Life’s short; you should try and have a little more fun.”
Adam chuckled with bitter irony. “Not possible at the moment.”
“Then quit being so dense. I could see you in the tunnel because I have the Sight. My Eye has been drawn to you for a while now—” Her mouth quirked up to one side. “By the way, that was some very nice work earlier. Up against the window like that. Very nice.” She fanned herself with her hand.
Adam frowned, his mood black, but she continued, “Don’t begrudge me a little vicarious pleasure—I’m thirty-three years old, and what my Eye has shown me has turned me into an old woman.”
Adam swallowed thickly. “Can you see the future?”
“I see many futures.”
“Many?”
“As many futures as there are choices.”
“Do I defeat the Death Collector in any of them?”
“No.”
A wave of helplessness rolled over him. So all this was pointless. The Collective was going to win after all. He couldn’t breathe. He braced his hands on his knees as a devastating roar filled his head.
Abigail clucked with her tongue. “Look at you. So arrogant. So self-important. You’ve gone and cast yourself as the hero. Do you really think this war is about you?”
Adam’s head snapped up.
“Now I’ve finally got your attention. The demon does not die at your hands. I see only one ending for you, the same ending everyone in this world must face.”
Death. The knowledge took a painful, disappointed moment for him to process, but deep down he’d always known that he would not survive this war. He thought of Talia, Death’s daughter, and the pain mellowed. If she were anything like Death, the end of his life couldn’t be all that bad. He warmed slightly inside at the memory of her soft darkness sweeping over him. Not that bad at all.
But what about the rest of the world? The wraith war? “Does anyone else defeat the demon?”
“Perhaps.”
“Who?” But he already knew the answer.
Abigail’s eyes wrinkled with her smile. “Clap if you believe in faeries.”
Shadowman. “Then Talia’s voice must heal so that she can call Death.”
“Let me be clear,” Abigail said. “My Sight does not permit me to see the fae. Not the one you call Shadowman—”
Adam’s breath caught at the depth of Abigail’s knowledge. Someone had had the answers to his riddles all along.
“—nor the woman downstairs. The lives of the fae are not their own, their destinies are bound, existence predetermined by the function they were born to fulfill, and so I cannot see the paths before them. My Sight can only see those of the mortal world. You and me and Zoe and the poor man whose body hosts the demon. I cannot see the demon himself.”
Adam’s heart stalled. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What do you mean ‘the poor man whose body hosts the demon’?”
“A demon has