I wait for a few moments, thinking about the shadows, fading, disappearing, and eventually how ridiculous I must look standing there not vanishing.
“This isn't working,” I say, exasperated.
“Just give it—” she starts to say and then a smile breaks out on her face.
I look down at my hands as they seem to melt away, blending slowly into the shadows around me. Cautiously, I extended my arm until the tips of my fingers catch the light and they gradually materialize again, although the rest of my hand is still invisible.
“Wow,” Kateri says, smiling at me. “Never seen that before.”
I smile at her, my heart racing.
“Yeah, but I still have no idea how I did it.”
“I think that's exactly how you did it, by not trying too hard or thinking about it so much.”
I step out of the shadow, and as the light hits me, I reappear.
“Awesome, try it again, but this time, don't fade,” Kateri says.
There's a huge part of me that wants to impress her. It thrills me to the core when she smiles at me, and when I can see the pride on her face, it sends an electric shock through my entire body. I step back into the shadow and without thinking about it, I remain corporeal and then with the tiniest thought, I vanish again.
Kateri starts laughing and pulls me into a hug without any warning. I inhale her scent, concentrating on the way she feels as she presses herself against me, and I know that at this moment, I'm happier than I've ever been, and there's so much more to my feelings than I thought.
“I'm so proud of you,” she says, smiling, her eyes sparkling with a rainbow of colors.
“Thanks, I couldn't have done it without you.”
She smiles again, and I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. I've never been so bold in my life, and it feels ... incredible.
Chapter Eleven
For a few seconds, neither of us says anything, and I start to feel like I misread everything about her, or maybe it's too soon. It's only been like three days since she first appeared in my room.
“What was that about?” she finally asks, breaking the awkward silence.
“I don't know. I was just excited, I guess. Sorry,” I say, finding it difficult to keep eye contact with her.
She looks at me, and then reaches out and takes my hand, holding my fingers gently in hers.
“Don't say sorry, Eve. I guess I was surprised, that's all.”
Once again, silence fills the space between us.
“So, what's next? I want to learn how to stream,” I say, feeling emboldened.
“Okay, let's see what you can do. Command: configuration three.”
The room changes again. The column we were using for fading, descends back into the floor, while a dozen shorter ones emerge in a long line as far as I can see. More lights emerge from the walls, creating a series of interconnected shadows about half the length of the room. She turns and looks at me.
“You wanna stream? Let's go,” she says as she grabs my hand, and we're off.
It's not as frightening as our first few trips, partially because we're not jumping from rooftop to rooftop, but mostly I trust her more now. We flash from point to point until we reach the last column, and she stops us.
“There we are.” She releases my hand before turning and streaming back to the other end of the hall. “Now, come back to me,” she yells.
“What? How?”
“Step into the shadow and look where you want to go and then make yourself do it.”
“Make myself do it? How does that even make sense?” I ask, raising my hands in frustration.
“Just try it!”
“Fine,” I yell back, a little annoyed.
Stepping into the shadow, I immediately start to fade and then I look down the row of columns to where Kateri is standing. I focus on a spot about halfway down the hall, but nothing happens. I raise my hands and shake my head.
“See, I told you,” I yell down to her.
“Take a step,” she says. “It's not a transporter, dork.”
I shake my head again, focus on the spot, and take a small step forward and—
WHOOSH!
One second later, I'm standing maybe twenty yards from where I was a moment before. It feels like it takes my stomach another couple of seconds to catch up to the rest of me. It's not nausea, or anything like that, more like the feeling you get in your gut when you're in a car and it goes over a dip in the road and you feel weightless for a split second.
“Holy shit!” I scream.
“I knew you could do it!” she yells, a huge smile on her face. “You're a natural. Now, bring it home.”
I focus on a spot a few feet from where she's standing. Stepping forward, I start moving through the shadows, keeping my eyes on the target, but then I look up at Kateri and everything goes wrong. I can tell, that the minute I take my eyes off my stopping location, I'm out of control. I pass by my target and the next thing I know, I reach the end of the shadows and I reappear, heading directly for Kateri, stumbling and flailing my arms as I try to stay upright, but it's a lost cause. The impact isn't too hard, but as I slam into her, we crash to the floor, a tangled mass of arms and legs. I end up on the top, with Kateri lying underneath me.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I swallow hard, but my throat feels dry as a bone. I know I should say something, but I have no idea what that should be, so instead I roll myself off her and onto my back.
“Yeah…I’m okay,” I finally reply.
We lie there, side-by-side staring up at the ceiling when I feel her hand touch mine and immediately I intertwine my fingers with hers.
“We should probably practice some more,” she says.
“Yeah, my start is good, my stopping needs work.” I turn my head and smile at her.
She nods and grins at me.
“Come on, we've got a lot more work to do.”
I get to my feet and we walk back over to where the shadows begin.
“Okay, let's try this again. Stream back down to the end.”
I nod and step into the shadows and a second later, I'm at the other end.
“Nice!” she yells down to me. “Now come back to me.”
“You better get out of the way,” I say, laughing.
“It's cool, I trust you.”
“I'm not sure I do,” I say quietly to myself.
And then I feel a tickle in the back of my mind and a few words begin to form out of the haze, and I know it's Kateri.
Don't worry, I'll catch you if you fall ...
You should be careful what you wish for I think, wondering if she'll pick up my thought.
I am ...
I laugh out loud and then look down toward her, picking my landing zone about a foot in front of her. One step, and ...
I stop exactly where I planned, face to face with her. Her smile sets my heart racing again, and when she reaches out and takes my hand, it's everything I can do not to jump for joy.
“I told you, you could do it,” she says, grinning.
“You're a good teacher.”
She shakes her head. “It's more than that, Eve. There are Shayds who've been here for decades who can't stream as well as you. You're a natural.”
“Maybe.” I look down at my feet, somewhat embarrassed.
“What about something a little harder?” Kateri asks, a sly smile on her face.
“Definitely.”
“Command: Configuration four.”
The room transforms again, as some columns rise, and others descend and the lighting changes. When everything is set, a much larger column is situated directly in front of us with about a dozen steps leading upward. We climb it together, side-by-side, and when we reach the top I can see there are three other similar columns spaced unevenly around the room. Each one is about five feet high, and about six-foot square. The new lighting has thrown shadows across each one, all of them connected. There's about twenty to twenty-five feet bet
ween each column. Kateri looks at me and smiles, her eyes sparkling.
“Okay, this one's a little trickier. I'm sure you remember how we first streamed here.”
“Yeah, from rooftop to rooftop and you nearly killed me,” I say, chuckling.
“It wasn't me. I saved your ass.”
“Uh huh. Anyway, you were saying.”
“I was saying that this one's a little trickier. To stream across a span like this up in the air requires real concentration not to miss your mark. That's another reason that it's dangerous to stream when demons are around. Distractions can mean the difference between life and death.”
I nod, not as confident as I was a moment ago.
“You sure I can do this?”
Kateri nods, smiling at me.
“I know you can,” she says before she steps into the shadows and is gone, reappearing a split second later on the nearest column. “Come on, follow me.”
“How do I get across here?”
“The same way as before, choose your target and step in. Remember, keep your eye on the ball.”
I look across the gap to the platform, pick my spot, take a deep breath, and step into the shadows. The strangest thing about streaming is that you can't really see yourself doing it, if you know what I mean. It's not like zip-lining from one point to another where you can look down and see the world passing beneath your feet. Streaming happens too fast, you can only see your starting point and end point clearly, everything else is a blur. It's almost as if you can see where you're headed, but not where you've been. One second later, I stumble onto the platform, grabbing for Kateri's arm. She snags my hand and stops me from falling.
“Told you I'd keep you from falling,” she says, a lovely smile on her face.
“You did. Thanks.”
“Okay, now I want you to stream over to those last two columns,” she says, pointing to the remaining platforms.
I nod and look at her. “Be right back.” I step into the shadows and reappear on the first column. I pause for a second before streaming to the last landing.
“Awesome,” she says, smiling at me from her position. A second later she steps out of the shadows next to me.
“Now for something even trickier. I want you to go back to the first column.”
I look down the length of the entire room, barely able to see the top of the platform in the distance.
“That's pretty far, but it doesn't seem too hard.”
“Well, here's the thing, I want you to stream it without stopping.”
“What?” I ask, looking at the distant column as my stomach flip-flops.
“Yeah, it's called skipping or linking. Instead of streaming to a spot, stopping and then starting again, you just keep moving, kinda like when we first streamed together.”
“I don't know about this.” I hear more than a little nervousness in my voice.
“Listen,” Kateri says taking my arms and turning me to face her. “I know you can do this, the same way I knew you could do all the rest of it.”
I take a deep breath and nod. “Okay, so how do I do this again?”
“It's like before, the only difference is you're not going to stop until you're at the last column. Focus on your target on the first column, and then just before you reach it, pick your target on the second one, and so on till you make it to the end. It takes a little more concentration, but it's faster than stopping every time and recalculating.”
I nod again. It sounds like it makes sense, but I'm not sure how much that really helps.
“Here I go,” I say, looking at her for a second. She smiles at me, and that gives me the courage I need to get this done.
Stepping into the shadows, I feel myself barely touch down on the second column and I immediately focus on the next landing spot. A split second later, I'm on the third platform, but I move too quickly this time and don't pick my final landing point before starting off. I know this is going to end badly, and I try to readjust my focus on a new target, but it's too late. I crash hard into the column at about waist height. I scramble for a handhold, but it's a fruitless effort and I fall to the floor onto my back. Thank God, the whole room is padded. Less than a second later, Kateri is leaning down over me, a worried look on her face. I start to get up, but she pushes me down gently.
“Wait, don't move yet, just in case.”
She starts moving her hands up and down my arms, and I lie still, concentrating on the feeling as goose-bumps trail along behind her fingers.
“Are you okay, anything broken?” she asks as her hands move down my side, and then over my jeans.
“I'm good. Just got the wind knocked out me.”
To be honest, I'm enjoying the sensation of her hands travelling across my body. As she finishes checking my legs, there's a fire burning deep down inside me. I mean, the place is all padded for a reason, so something tells me that she really didn't need to check me for injuries, but who am I to argue?
“You sure you're okay?”
I nod as I push myself up into a sitting position. “I'm all right.” I take her hand and squeeze it gently.
She smiles as she pulls me to my feet.
“See. I told you this one's a lot trickier.”
“That's an understatement. I almost had it.”
She nods and looks at me, the colors in her eyes swirling. I feel like I want to kiss her again, even if it is just on the cheek, but I’m scared out of my mind. The first one was an automatic reaction in the moment, any others will be intentional.
“I’m sorry about kissing you before.”
“It’s fine,” she says. “I didn’t mind it.”
“Oh … um,” I stumble for the right words, even though I'm not completely sure what they are.
She looks at me, her eyes shining.
“I know. We only just met, and it seems fast, right?”
“Right! Doesn't it?”
“Maybe a little, I guess. I've never had a girlfriend, so I don't really know how to gauge any of this,” Kateri says, as she takes my hand and holds it softly, rubbing her thumb across the tops of my fingers.
“Yeah, me neither. Maybe we should slow down a little, you know.”
“Hand holding?”
“For sure.”
“Not so serious, right?”
“Yeah,” I say before suddenly adding, “at least for now.”
“Yeah, for now.”
She smiles at me again, and my heart skips a beat. I know it's crazy but there are feelings started to build within me for this strange, beautiful, mesmerizing woman. I guess it's like they say ... the heart wants what it wants.
Chapter Twelve
We work on streaming for the next two hours, until I'm fairly comfortable with the basics. I may be able to do it in here, in a controlled, distraction free, and safely cushioned environment, but doing it out in the real world may be a different story, but at least now I know how to do it, and I can practice on my own at home.
I look over at Kateri as she walks over to me, her hips swaying seductively, the expression on her face conveying strength, power, sensuality, but most importantly, control. As a smile builds on my face, she responds in kind.
“Okay, you still up for some more?” she asks, stepping up close to me, her eyes sparkling as the colors within swirl around.
I inhale that lovely scent of lilies and sunshine that seems to follow her everywhere.
“Stop doing that,” she says, grinning at me.
“Stop doing what?”
“You’re thinking about kissing me again.”
“Sorry,” I reply as a blush flows across my face.
She laughs, reaches out and takes my hand.
“It’s cool. Come on, if you've got some energy left.”
“I do. Where are we going?”
“Down one more floor, to the combat training facility,” she says, leading me by the hand over to the elevator.
It takes less than a minute before the doors open to reveal anothe
r massive underground room, this one though is full of activity. As soon as we step out of the elevator, Kateri releases my hand. Normally, I might take that as a sign of rejection, but in this case, I think it's more out of respect. I can tell she has a reputation to maintain with these people, and I have one I need to build, so seeming so intimate with each other is probably not such a good idea.
There are dozens of other people here, most engaged in some sort of hand-to-hand melee training. The room is divided into hundreds of small cordoned off squares, much like boxing rings where the occupants are practicing against either human opponents or on target dummies.
“Damn, it's busy here,” I say.
“It normally is. We always have new recruits, and training is essential.”
It seems sad to think about the fact that they always have new recruits; more of the forgotten.
We walk down a wide central aisle between the fighting rings toward an empty one far down on the right. I notice Kateri nods a greeting to several people, and they stare at me. For a moment, my head starts to fill with their thoughts, but I close my eyes momentarily and follow Father's advice; allowing them to flow around me instead of crashing into me likes waves at the beach. After only a few seconds I filter out a couple of thoughts from the chaos.
I wonder if that's her ...
She doesn't seem like all that ...
That's our best hope ... pffft ...
Kateri turns and looks at me, and then winks.
They have no idea what they're talking about ...
I smile, and wink back at her.
Thanks, K ...
“Okay, here we are,” she says as she lifts the ropes on one of the rings.
I climb underneath the lines and wait for her to join me.
“I really don't know how to fight.” I’m much more nervous about this than I was about streaming.
She nods. “That's what a lot of people say when they first start training, but a lot of fighting is simple instinct,” she says before suddenly throwing a punch directly at my face.
All Things in the Shadows Page 10
