The Order of Shadows

by Tess Adair

  She still wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to riding, but it felt a tiny bit less intimidating this time around. They exited the garage onto a steeply sloping one-way street, lined with cafes and restaurants. Logan turned into the traffic and followed it down the hill a few blocks, then turned north onto a flatter throughway.

  Jude kept her eyes open as they rode; this was the first time she’d ever been to this city. For that matter, she’d barely ever been to a city, period. She wished the helmet would allow her to crane her neck a bit more: she wanted to take in every building that reached more than two or three stories up.

  Unfortunately for Jude’s curiosity, the ride to the ferry only took a few minutes. They rode into a parking lot already filled with lines of cars, directed this way and that by men in yellow vests. Jude tried to look behind them at the city, but she couldn’t see much beyond the freeway overpass behind them. So instead she turned her attention toward the water—or what she could see of it beyond the chain link fence and the docs.

  Eventually the parked cars came back to life and began filing into the bottom of the ferry. Logan and Jude were among the last to be let on, and the yellow vests ushered them into a marginal corner to the right.

  Logan led the way through a labyrinth of waiting cars into the throng of people pushing up the metal staircase to the viewing platform above.

  “Might be cold,” said Logan as they approached the door, “but you probably want to go out onto the deck.”

  When Jude followed Logan out of the upper doors, she understood immediately what she’d meant: she was going to get her view of the city, right there on the ferry.

  She pushed through the double outer doors, bracing as a cold wind greeted her. She kept walking until she reached the back of the boat—the part with the most unobstructed view.

  The city stretched north and south as far as the eye could see. In the gathering dark, it was captivating, thousands of tiny lights blinking happily at her. For the duration of the 30-minute journey, Jude remained outside, gaping in amazement as Seattle slowly slipped by them, and then finally began to recede into the distance. Logan stood quietly beside her, gazing in the same direction. For the rest of the ride, neither of them said a word.

  Once the ferry docked again, they rode off onto Bainbridge Island. Logan steered them away from the small town near the port, and toward a two-lane highway heading west. Eventually she turned north onto a road that looked like it hadn’t been paved in years. What little light the close of day supplied them was reduced by half as the trees stretched their branches, above and across, forming a tunnel over their heads.

  Jude wasn’t sure how long they’d been riding when Logan finally turned off onto a long drive marked by a “Private Property” sign. The drive twisted in every direction, as if it had been designed to repel visitors through sheer difficulty. Even so, Logan made every turn.

  They turned one last corner and found themselves face-to-face with a house. It looked like the extravagant experiment of a bored architect. Even from the outside, the house appeared just as labyrinthine as the drive leading up to it: it curved in unexpected places, and it appeared to have two separate, disconnected sections making up the second floor—or was it the third? As Jude looked, she realized that a long spiraling staircase led up to the front door, which was far enough from the ground that it may indeed have constituted the real second floor.

  Once they were both safely off the bike, Logan hung their helmets off the hook on the back before flipping up the seat to reveal a hidden storage compartment. From there, she pulled out an axe that she strapped to her back. Next, she pulled out a long blade dagger, secure in a holster, which she handed to Jude.

  “Clip the belt around your waist,” she said. “Probably won’t need it, but just in case. You can use it to cast, or you can just throw it at anything that comes your way.”

  Jude nodded dumbly and did as she was told. A curious combination of excitement and terror began to wind its way through her abdomen.

  By the time she was done securing the holster, Logan was already halfway up the steps. Jude hurried after her, taking care she didn’t slip on the steep, slick wood.

  A pair of glass doors, decorated in engraved filigree, greeted them at the top, and Jude could see a second set of wood doors just beyond that. Logan rang the doorbell, and Jude fidgeted with the flap on the holster while they waited.

  “Why, if it isn’t the charming Miss Logan!”

  The second set of doors had opened wide, and now a small, white-haired man stood just behind the glass. He had to be at least a head shorter than Jude, though his frizzy hair made up some of the difference. He gazed at them both with a wide smile, pure delight dancing in his eyes.

  “Hi, Martin. Been getting into trouble again?” said Logan congenially.

  “Always, my lovely,” he answered proudly, reaching out to unlatch the glass doors. With some effort, he pulled one open. “Can’t seem to help myself, you see. And who have you brought with you?”

  “Ah, this is Jude Li. She’s Knatt’s new apprentice, and I offered to bring her along today so she could get some experience in the field. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course not!” If anything, the little man’s smile grew even wider. “The more, the merrier! Come in, now, come in. Do try to stamp some of the mud off your boots first, if you please.”

  They stepped in through the double doors, and he closed and latched them once more. Logan wiped her feet vigorously on the placemat just inside, before leading the way through the next two doors, and Jude followed her example. Martin came after them, and when he shut that door, he threw no less than three locks shut on it.

  What does he think he’s keeping out, way out here? Jude was mystified, but she forgot all about it as soon as she turned to look at the interior of the house.

  Little Martin’s living room was high-ceilinged and oblong, with rounded corners. The room was dominated by a gigantic fireplace right in the center, and his primary mode of decorating appeared to be to hang mounted animal heads on the walls.

  “So what are we dealing with today, Martin?” asked Logan.

  “Ah, yes.” Martin tapped his fingers together, looking slightly shame-faced. “It’s—ah—it was the same one I did last time. I thought—I thought perhaps I might try it again, now that my newest Sumerian totem arrived, you see.”

  “You’ve been internet shopping again?” Logan’s right eyebrow arched.

  “You know me too well, Miss Logan,” said Martin, shaking his head ruefully.

  “Not at all, Martin,” answered Logan, smiling broadly in return. “You’re a complete mystery, I promise.”

  “Flatterer.”

  With a wink, he turned on his heel and guided them to a door on the far end of the room, which opened into a staircase leading down to the lower level. As they descended, the temperature seemed to drop about ten degrees. The lower level loomed darkly before them.

  Martin took the lead down a narrow hallway that ended in another heavy door with a thick, bolting lock on the outside. He paused to give Logan a questioning look.

  “Do you require any equipment, or—?”

  “We’ve got everything we need.”

  “Alrighty then! I’ll be going back upstairs. Perhaps if you’ve got time when you’re finished, I could fix you both a drink.”

  “Sounds lovely, Martin. We should be done within the hour, unless something goes terribly wrong. See you on the other side.”

  Martin inclined his head in a brief bow, then hurried back down the passageway again. Logan watched him disappear into the darkness before she turned toward the heavy door and threw open the bolt, pulling it wide.

  Jude and Logan stepped forward, into the chamber. Only a small circle of light came in from the hallway, but no sooner had they stepped inside than Logan pulled out a lighter and lit it. She grabbed something off the nearby wall and brought it over to the flame, and within moments, she was holding a lit torch, blazing ligh
t into the room. Jude watched Logan walk around to every corner of the room, lighting the other torches in their sconces.

  As she went, Jude could make out more and more of the chamber before them. The walls and floor appeared to be made out of stone, and though Jude was relatively sure they were still above ground, there were no windows to let in natural light. As cold as the rest of the first floor had been, this room was even colder.

  In the very center of the room stood a large stone slab, coming up to about waist height. An altar. Its surface was covered in painted runes and partially melted candles, and what looked like a drying pool of blood.

  “This is creepy,” said Jude.

  Logan walked back to the sconce by the door and replaced the torch, then turned to Jude.

  “I’m going to lock us in,” she said decisively. “Are you okay with that?”

  Jude nodded and cleared her throat.

  “Yep, I’m good. I’m ready.”

  Logan grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it firmly shut.

  “Martin installed this room for the express purpose of summoning demons,” said Logan as she walked over to the giant stone slab. “The room is designed for casting and containment. Martin is absolutely convinced that he can find a way to summon demons safely, and he believes that if he ever succeeds, he’ll find a way to use them for good. Fortunately for the rest of the world, he’s not yet succeeded in summoning a demon at all.”

  Jude followed Logan over to the slab but remained just a few steps farther away from it. “You think he’s wrong? You don’t think he’ll ever summon a demon safely?”

  “There’s no such thing as a safe demon,” Logan shrugged. “Even if he summons it safely, it will only remain safe as long as he has control over it, or as long as it doesn’t leave this room. Even then, it won’t be safe for him.” She picked up a carved wooden statue from the altar and held it up to examine it. “I hope he never succeeds. If he ever does, he’ll get himself killed.”

  A small wave of shock ran through her. “Why don’t you try to make him stop, then?”

  “I have,” said Logan. “He’s stubborn. The first time I came out here, I spent a day just getting him to agree that he couldn’t be in the room when I completed his summon. After that, I still had to convince him that the best course of action was to kill it, instead of trying to tame it.”

  “He wanted to tame the demon?”

  “Like I said. Stubborn.”

  Suddenly Jude heard a noise from the corner of the room. As she turned, the torch in the corner popped out of its sconce and dropped to the floor, its flame extinguished before it hit the ground.

  “Oh, good,” said Logan with a grim look. “Looks like it knows we’re here.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone to check the screen. “Sun should be setting soon. I’ll give it a few minutes.”

  Jude cocked her head in confusion. “Why wait?”

  For a moment, Logan was quiet as she tucked her phone away and turned her attention back to the statue, still in her other hand.

  “Right now, the demon is trapped just beyond the veil. It’s been pulled partway into our world, but not far enough for it to fully materialize. What I’m going to do is pull it through the rest of the way.” She placed the statue back down on the stone. “The veil will be at its thinnest once the sun sets, which makes completing the summon a bit easier. That’s why we wait.”

  Jude nodded as if she understood. Why should the position of the sun have anything to do with magic? Maybe if you knew the answer to that, you’d be better at casting by now, she thought.

  Almost like she could read her thoughts, Logan turned back to Jude and fixed her with a calculating stare.

  “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  “Yeah, I’m good!” Jude pushed more enthusiasm into her voice than she rightly felt; she didn’t want Logan to sense how anxious she was and decide she wasn’t ready for something like this.

  “Might want to unsheathe that dagger then.”

  Jude could have slapped herself. “Oh, right. Good idea.” She unclipped the top of the holster and slowly extracted the blade, trying hard to keep her hand from shaking.

  Logan gave her an approving nod. “Good. And it should be time. Step back a few feet. I’m starting now.”

  Jude did as she was told, stepping back from the table before squaring her stance, holding her dagger in a defensive position. As her heart raced, she tried to remember everything Knatt had told her about when to advance and when to retreat, and the proper form for a parry. And what had Adele said about her stance yesterday?

  Logan pulled out her lighter again and lit the candles that had welded themselves to the surface of the stone. With the wood totem right before her, she slipped out her own pocket knife and held her right forearm just above the statue. In one slick movement, she sliced into the skin above her ulna and sprayed a fine mist of blood onto both stone and wood.

  “Invoco pecum!”

  As Jude watched, the tiny droplets of blood seemed to glow, and a bright light flashed through the room. Logan took a step back, drawing her axe with one hand and holding it high in preparation. With a loud cracking sound, the totem on the altar split in two, and for a brief moment, it left in its wake a gaping black hole in the center of the stone. Then some spiky dark thing crawled out on twenty legs, and the hole disappeared as quickly as it had come.

  The creature was three feet long and faceless, a blank gray expanse where its features should have been. It had the body of a stubby centipede, and it emitted some kind of clicking sound, though Jude couldn’t see where the sound came from.

  At first, it seemed confused, running this way and that across the surface of the altar—but then it seemed to sense their presence, and it made a flying leap—landing right on Logan’s face.

  Or, at least, it would have, if Logan’s reflexes weren’t lightning fast. Instead, it landed on the arm she threw up to shield herself, and with a hearty shake, she tossed it down to the ground. She pulled her axe up and made to slam it down into the monster, but it was already scurrying in a new direction: right at Jude.

  All memory of her training disappeared in an instant. Instead of standing to fight it, or even making an attempt at casting, she screeched and ran backward, waving her dagger ineffectively in front of her face.

  It didn’t matter much anyway. Logan was undeterred by the monster’s speed and threw her axe forward with perfect precision. It caught the demon right in the back of its spine—or what Jude assumed was its spine, anyway. In fact, it slid straight through the center of the monster and lodged in the floor, pinning its squirming body like an insect inside a collector’s case.

  “Toss me the dagger,” Logan instructed. Jude complied without thought, or any attempt to aim, but Logan caught it easily.

  As Jude watched in horror, Logan knelt down next to the still-struggling beast and painstakingly cut into its flesh until she had completely removed its head from the rest of its body. Once the removal was complete, the pathetic thing finally stilled. Logan let out a heavy sigh.

  “Not too bad for a day’s work.” She glanced up at Jude and grinned. “You did good, kid.”

  Jude was aghast. By now, she had backed up against the far wall, her heart going a million miles a minute. She took a few deep breaths and slowly peeled herself away from the cold stone. As she reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, her hand was visibly shaking.

  “D—did I? Feels like I didn’t do much of anything.” Her voice shook as much as her hand.

  “You’re alive, aren’t you?” said Logan bluntly. She hopped up to her feet and held the dagger up to inspect it. It glistened with viscous, dark blue fluid—the monster’s blood. “Let’s see if Martin’s got a towel, shall we?”

  With that, she crossed the room, unbolted the door, and shoved it open. When Jude didn’t immediately follow, Logan paused, gazing back at her with concern.

  “Everything okay? If you need a minut
e, you can—”

  “No, no,” said Jude, shaking her head. Her gaze had fallen on the unmoving beast, and now it seemed almost stuck there. With effort, she forced her head to turn and her feet to move. “I’m good. I’m fine.”

  Logan held the door open, letting Jude exit first before pulling it securely shut behind them both. This time, she bolted the outer lock.

  “Sounds to me like maybe you need a drink,” she said.

  Jude nodded numbly, though she honestly had no idea if a drink would help or hurt.

  “I know a place,” said Logan. “And we’ve got hours yet before the last ferry. Come on, we’ll go tell Martin we’ve left him a mess, and then we’ll head out.”

  Jude nodded again, finding herself still incapable of forming a real response. All she could think about was that strange centipede-like creature as it rushed toward her. The monster had come, and she had stood frozen. In the face of danger, she shut down.

  So far, she had proven completely incompetent at this whole magic superhero thing. Whatever hopes she’d had when she’d first left with Logan were now fading fast into oblivion.

  And if she wasn’t any good at this, then what good was she at all?

  Chapter Four

  Legacy

  The place Logan knew turned out to be a bar overlooking the water, a few minutes’ drive from the ferry. They didn’t card on entry, and Jude made a beeline for the darkest corner table while Logan ordered. A few minutes later, Logan materialized before her, handing her a tall glass of clear, carbonated liquid with little leaves of mint floating between the ice cubes.

  “It’s a mojito,” she said, climbing into the chair opposite Jude.

  “I, uh, I don’t know if I like alcohol that much.”

  “You don’t have to drink it. It’s just there if you want it.” Logan’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “That wasn’t your way of telling me you’re an alcoholic, right?”

  “No,” said Jude, managing a small laugh. “I mean, I’m only eighteen.”

  Logan shrugged.