Page 33 of Crow’s Shadow

“I know. Move.”

A last man steps from a doorway, a pistol half-raised. Grim drops him without a word.

“End of the hall,” I say. “Chain and a bolt on the outside. Cover me.”

“On you.”

I shoot the lock off. Rip the chain free. My boot hits the door and it caves inward off one hinge.

And there she is. On her knees on a filthy mattress, a chain from her ankle to a ring in the floor, her hand pressed flat over her own heart.

“Shadow.”

Her head lifts. Her eyes come across the black room and find mine and lock, and for the first time in twenty years I do not look away.

“You came.” Her voice is wrecked and low and something locked behind my ribs gives. “I told myself you would. Then I told myself I was a fool for it.”

“You’re not a fool.”

“Crow.” Her breath catches. And the wire between us does not tighten. It shuts.

Nothing soft in it. A fucking detonation. It hits dead center in me and tears through every nerve I own.

“Crow.” She is up as far as the chain allows, reaching. “Crow, what’s happening to you?”

“I don’t know.” The dead lamps overhead flare once and burst. Glass comes down in a bright hard curtain. “Get down. Cover your head.”

“I’m fine. The glass went around us. It went around us. Did you see it go around us.”

“The voices.” My own voice comes out doubled, wrecked. “You hear them?”

“Hear what? There’s nothing here.” She stops. “No. Your face. What do you hear.”

“The dead. Everyone who ever died in here. Everyone we dropped coming in. They’re all talking, all at once. Colt’s in here, Shadow. The kid. He’s talking to me.”

“Look at me.” Her hand closes over my jaw. Second time in her life she has touched my face. The dead go quiet. Not gone, just pushed down beneath her voice. “Not them. Me. Only me. You hear my voice?”

“Yeah.”

“Then hold onto it. Come on. Come back.”

I look at her. I stay. And then I flicker.

“Crow.” Grim, from the doorway, and his voice has gone somewhere I have never heard it. “Crow, where did you go? He was right there. Shadow, he was right there. Where did he go?”

“He’s here.” Her grip bites down and hauls me back into my skin. “He’s right here. Stay in your body, Crow. Whatever you’re doing, stop doing it and stay.”

I am solid again. Grim’s stares at me, all the color gone from his face.

“What in God’s name. What did I see.”

“Later,” I tell him. “Not now.”

“Crow. You were gone. My eyes went right through you.”

“I said later, Grim.”

“Fine.” He does not push it, because he is Grim, and he saves the hard questions for a room with a door. “Whatever it was, use it or bury it. We’re not clear yet.”