King of Shadows Read online

  “Fine,” he says, his tone generous. “We’ll head in that direction.”

  I close my eyes and let the words spin a rose-tinted movie of our new life. One where we’ll be able to go to the check out books, an endless amount of books. Oh, god, I know it’s going to be hard, leaving everything behind. It’s not like my mother has ever let me squirrel money away into a savings account, but I’ve got a few dollars that Decker’s slipped me here and there. And the beginning—well, the beginning of all this does make my stomach clench. But I don’t need to focus on the fake ID we’ll need to buy if we want to get anywhere without my mother knowing, or the fact that I don’t have a credit card. The other girls at school—they all had credit cards. Wasn’t much to spend money on while we were on school grounds, but that didn’t stop them from buying things. It looked so easy—type in a few numbers, press a button, reinvent yourself. Let people see you.

  I never did. She’d find out, somehow, the way she found out when we snuck off to have our tarot cards read. The hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. My mother won’t be at the little house Decker and I will set up for ourselves, wherever it is we land. She won’t be watching. But he will.

  “You can go to work wherever you want, with a face like yours you’re bound to get hired. You can wait tables or answer phones.” He gives a small laugh. “Maybe even work for a florist.”

  The snort that escapes me is part excitement and part irritation. Decker has said this a thousand times if he’s said it once, and I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about. “No one’s going to hire me for my face.” Worry knits my brows. “Will I get hired without references?”

  “Of course they will.” His fingers curve down over the fence, eyes warm. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. You’re worth a million bucks.”

  I can’t stand it anymore and turn my head, craning my neck to look in every direction. Nothing is out of place at the forest’s edge. Sunlight pushes through the leaves like new buds and falls like strings of pearls to the ground below. Bright flowers bow their heads to the wind in a lazy dance. All the growing things fill the air with a green, fresh scent, spring tipping over into summer. Summers will never be the same after this, and I have to admit that part of me aches for these summers already. There is one advantage to having a mother like mine, and it’s that she sees the value in lying out in an open field and letting the light soak into your skin. She makes certain allowances, in the summer—like letting me spend an hour alone at the brook on the opposite side of the field, far from the train tracks. In the summer, she likes to pretend that the train and the tracks that jut out of the earth don’t exist.

  “Did you hear something?” A note of anxiety in Decker’s voice.

  “Nothing.” I take a deep breath and let it out slow. “I should get back, though. She might decide to check on me. If I’m not there, she’ll—”

  Decker releases me but lets his fingertips hang on the fence for a few heartbeats longer. “You know what time, right? It’s important.”

  This is a risk for both of us. If he gets caught out—with me—he’ll never work for my mother again. Knowing her, he might not work anywhere again. I don’t want to think about what will happen to me. The doors in our house are made from heavy, solid wood. I’d be no match for a good lock on one of those. But—no need to think of that, because it won’t happen. By the time the train comes, she’ll be sleeping. She won’t know we’re gone until it’s too late. “I know when the train comes, Deck. I’ll be there.”

  He brings his fingertips to his lips and blows me a kiss. Something flickers across his face. Maybe it’s only a shadow from the dappled light. Decker licks his lips and grins at me again. “You’re going to feel so good with me, baby. I promise you that.”

  I let myself believe him, let myself lean hard into what it will be like to belong to him. To belong to anyone, other than my mother. Once we’re together, I won’t have to be so afraid. I’ll love every moment with him. I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself into the future, when he can pull me close and keep me steady while we go out into the world. I’m going to feel so good.

  From far off in the distance, somewhere on the other side of the fence, a whistle sounds. That’s his cue to go. He looks like he wants to say more, but he only jogs off into the trees, following the tracks.

  Tonight.

  3

  Persephone

  The fields never seem larger than in the pitch-black of night. This is only the second time I’ve gone out like this. The first was years ago, back when I’d discovered a slim volume of a ghost story that happened in the New York Public Library. Scary? Creepy, more like. Reading it was like having chill waves of dread lap up against my toes and then my shins and then knees, until it submerged every inch of me. It was about a woman trapped in the library forever--a booklover’s dream, maybe. Except there was no light. No electricity. No fire.

  No way to read the books.

  That might have made me frightened of going to the library, but it only strengthened my determination to leave. At least she had been places before she got trapped. At least she’d read more than a few stolen books. By the time I was done reading it, I had to do something with my pounding heart and the certainty of doom, so I risked it all and went out into the night.

  There was nothing in the field, of course. There never is. It’s surrounded by high fences, every inch. The house was different then, too. Going out wasn’t such a finality.

  Still, I walk faster now—as fast as I dare, weaving between the flowers whenever possible. I reach up and touch the flowers still twined into my hair from earlier in the day. It’s kind of sweet, to wake up with petals on my pillow, and my mother would have known something was off if I spent a lot of time brushing them away. She’ll be apoplectic if I crush the blooms beneath my shoes. There’s probably nothing out here now, under the bright swell of the moon, other than stark shadows. Tree branches scrape black against the sky. I’ll admit it—I don’t want to get too close. Wind rushes by my ears, carrying the creaking of the green-heavy branches. Cicadas sing, jumping out of the way as I go. I’m disturbing them. I’m disturbing myself, but it’s the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done.

  After I read that story the New York Public Library became the symbol of freedom. A lighthouse for me to swim toward when I’m feeling mired in endless flowers. Maybe it won’t be impressive at all, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not about the building. It’s not even about the millions of books inside. It’s about being the master of my own fate, deciding where I go.

  Eventually I have no choice but to head for the forest. The slim line of trees is what separates me from the train, and the train will whisk me away to my new life. I suck in a breath. The air gets more humid by the day. Tomorrow’s dewdrops are still hovering in midair. For a moment I see myself the way another person would, with my white dress skimming the grass. I’m a ghost, as insubstantial as a ghost. Any moment now my feet could leave the ground and I could fly off into the sky, dissolving into midnight blue. I wish I had something to carry, other than a small beaded purse, but packing would have given me away. Decker says we can buy everything we need in the city. I was wrong before. I’m not ambivalent about him. I was only afraid, and that’s not the same thing.

  At the tree line I stop one final time. Once I get on the train, there’s no going back. A wild instinct bursts out of the cage of my chest—run, run, go home, go back inside, pound on the door, beg her to let me in—but no. I am not a little girl anymore, my mother is not my keeper, and I’m leaving.

  I need this.

  I fold the purse into the palm of my hand and step into the murky darkness beneath the trees. For the first several paces everything is shadowed, moonlight cutting through the branches and splashing onto the dirt. The shadow changes character as I go, lightening until the soft glow of the streetlamp burns into the night. It’s old, the plastic casing around the lightbulb cloudy, but even that much light tells me
what I need to know: the fence is open.

  The fence is open.

  I jump into the air—I can’t help it—and come down soft, heat rushing to my cheeks. God, let Decker not have seen me jumping for joy. I don’t know who he convinced to give him the key and in this moment I don’t care. It’s going to be an irrelevant detail in the space of an hour or two. My pulse is a hummingbird, fast and light and giddy. Walk slowly, normally.

  The train waits on the tracks.

  From my brief stint at boarding school I know what a real train platform is like—I rode this same train into the city, and it let me off at the main station, where a bodyguard my mother hired took me straight to the school’s front door. He did more than that, actually. He took me to the door of my bedroom. That man slept in an apartment across the street from the building for three years, watching. My jaw tightens at the memory. I’m just one person. There was never a reason to keep me under lock and key. Nothing ever happened.

  Whatever. All of that is in the past. The past, the past, a long time ago. Soon the past will be behind the train, and we’ll leave the train behind, and all of this will become like a dream.

  The car lined up at the platform has a door flung open wide. From here, it seems like a pitch-dark maw. The gentle rumble of the engine hums underneath the breeze. It’s waiting. It’s waiting for me.

  But where is Decker?

  I scan the length of the train, as far as I can see. In the distance another faint light glows, shadows flashing in front of it—they’re loading the flowers. Nervousness wraps its hands around my neck. Where is he? We were supposed to meet here.

  Maybe he meant on the train, not at the train. A flush of heat spills down my back. He could be waiting inside for me, hidden from the other men who work on the deliveries, hidden from everyone. For the first time in my life, I don’t mind the thought. There won’t be any fence inside the train car—just me and Decker, if everything goes according to plan. It’s two hours into the city. We could do a lot in two hours.

  Don’t rush, don’t rush. Every instinct says to keep my eyes open, to look around, but I need to listen. I let them flutter closed. Leaves rustle in the wind. Far away, an owl cries. No footsteps, no gasp from my mother—what are you doing here? Of course not. She’s sleeping, her breathing even and peaceful. Unless she can sense what I’m doing. But that’s a ridiculous thought. My mother’s not omnipotent. She’s just a woman.

  Even the dirt beneath my feet has a strange, otherworldly quality. It’s been years since I crossed this stretch of ground. I’m going to need new shoes in the city, I know that already—the soft canvas ones won’t last long on paved roads.

  Why doesn’t he come out and lean against the door, that familiar grin on his face?

  Maybe he’s preparing a surprise.

  I can’t stop my own grin from taking over. Surprises—I love surprises. At least, I think I do, in theory. I’ve read about them in books. A crowd of people behind a door ready to shout happy birthday. A gift presented with a shy flourish. My god, he is. Decker is exactly the kind of person who will know how important this is, and I bet he’s going to give me my first real surprise. I’m sure he’s that kind of person. He’s never seemed to be anything else, and we’ve talked every day for months.

  There’s still no sign of him as I take the last few steps to the train car. A set of steps leads into the inside. The handle is cold under my palm. I heave myself up, ready to pass out from the anticipation. It might not be so bad to tumble into Decker’s arms and wake up in a new life.

  But the train car is dark.

  Of course it’s dark—I would have seen light coming from the inside, obviously. Obviously. But it’s completely dark, not a single running light on. My eyes adjust bit by bit.

  It’s not a special train car.

  I shake off the disappointment like an errant fall of raindrops. I don’t know why I expected it to be a special car. This isn’t a first-class trip to the city, it’s a midnight escape. Still, this is... it’s nothing. It’s clean, yes. Enough light comes in through a narrow window at the very front of the car to see a pair of seats, more of a bench, against the back wall. The rest is empty space. This is a storage car, not one of the passenger cars.

  I swallow hard, shame pummeling my disappointment. I didn’t come here for luxury, I came here to get out. And this is going to be our life. Decker can’t afford a fancy house, but at least he can accept it graciously. He’s not worried about paying for everything—about starting our new life with the little we’ve managed to scrape up without attracting attention. He’s not longing for piles of money or an extravagant lifestyle. Neither am I.

  One last scan of the car. Where is he? Goosebumps crawl up the flesh of my arms and down my spine.

  “Decker?” It takes everything in me to get the word out, and it’s barely above a whisper. I clear my throat and try again. “Deck, are you here?”

  If I’m too loud, somebody else running beside the train for the night shift could hear me. I’d never forgive myself if I got all this way only to screw it up by shouting for Decker. I just want to know he’s here. More than I want the train to finally pull away. More than I want to leave it behind in the city. My skin heats with wanting. Where is he, where is he?

  A sound like someone being sick wriggles into the train car.

  It’s so soft that I dismiss it as noise from the forest. There are a hundred things moving and living out there. Any one of them could have made a strange noise.

  It happens again.

  The other door out of this train car is up in the front, by the narrow window. Clouded glass keeps me from seeing out, even with my face pressed against the surface. I try the handle. The door opens without a sound.

  One step out onto the connector, and I wish I’d never come.

  The air is a knife against my skin, sharp and cold. My stomach twists. Shock bores in behind my eyes and squeezes, viselike and terrible, so strong I have to clutch the handle on the side of the train to stay upright.

  I’ve found Decker.

  Now the sound makes sense. It wedges itself into my understanding.

  Decker’s feet are feet six inches off the ground in the center of the clearing, kicking uselessly into the open air. It should be impossible. He’s too tall to have his feet so far off the ground. He’s too tall, but the man holding him there is taller. Bigger. And infinitely stronger.

  I’ve never seen Luther Hades. But I don’t need a photo ID to know it’s him.

  Only Luther Hades could suck all the light from around him, turning moonlight into dark. Only Luther Hades could look that huge, or that lethal. Only he could make Decker, who reminds me of a tall tree, look small.

  The biggest dog I’ve ever seen sits at Hades’ feet, fur darker than the night around them, growling at Decker but staying still. For now. We’re surrounded by death, aren’t we? My mother never mentioned anything about a dog, but there it is, tensed, waiting. Not tied to anything. It could do anything. It’s as dangerous as he is. As deadly. They’re a matched set, taking up all the space in the world.

  A memory screeches across the back of my brain—a photograph, shoved into my face, my mother saying if you see a man who looks like this, you run, you run as fast as you can. You scream. I see him now, feet planted in the earth. I’d know his face anywhere. I was born to know his face, to run from it. But I can’t run now. I can’t move. Where did she get that picture? It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. All those things might as well be buried underground.

  Because it’s really him, it’s really the man who wants to kill me—the moonlight shows me a sharp silhouette of his face, and I can’t look away.

  He’s got his hands around Decker’s throat.

  He’s choking him to death.

  4

  Hades

  My first impression of her, out of the corner of my eye and bleached by moonlight, is that Demeter has been hiding an angel. Not just a daughter, but a creature of sky and air. No
one appears out of darkness so brightly, like a light source is beneath her skin and woven in with the fabric of her dress. The breeze picks up the hem and plays with it. The motion hooks me in the center of my chest. One glance, and the man wriggling beneath my hands is nothing to me. He’s always been nothing, from the moment he walked up to the door of my train car and stepped in like he owned it.

  Mistake.

  I relished his expression—shock, turning to horror while my dog Conor put his body between us with a vicious growl, showing off for me—for a full five heartbeats before I dragged him back outside, Conor following at my feet, wary and watching. Nothing interested me less than his sputtered excuses about meeting someone else and I didn’t expect and please, I’ll just and so on. I got tired of it soon enough. Anyone unintelligent enough to climb onto random train cars with the swagger of my older brother runs the risk of paying the price, and tonight the price is that I’m slowly cutting off his air supply. The man is weak. For all his fieldwork muscles, he’s absolutely incapable of doing anything. His hands scrabbles weakly at my wrists. He is nothing.

  And now he’s less than nothing, because I can’t look away from the woman standing on the connector between two train cars, her hands to her mouth, eyes wide and horrified. The dress—it reminds me of Demeter in the way it performs simplicity. That woman is anything but simple. This woman, I can tell, is the third rail. In the moonlight I see every detail and envy tears through me.

  I’m jealous of the moonlight touching her skin.

  I’m only touching this wriggling fish of a man.

  A siren sounds in the back of my mind, struggling to override the powerful urge to snap his neck and get my hands on her as quickly as possible. There will be consequences, the voice of reason howls. Look at her, look at her—