Shadow of a Doubt

by Hunter Blain

  Doc Jim pressed some more buttons on another pad and the cell door slid open. I tossed Dawson in, who landed surprisingly gracefully on his hands before he turned and lunged at the closing door.

  “Turn up the lights,” I instructed Doc Jim. Still at the panel, he made some quick movements and the lights increased not only in the cell, but the hallway as well. “I’m willing to bet they can’t find—um…it when it’s exposed to this much light. No shadows at all,” I said as I looked around, verifying what I had just said. “Also means it can’t escape.”

  I leaned close to the industrial-grade plastic that was several inches thick, rapped on it with a knuckle, smiled, and said to the shadow vessel, “You still with us, Lolth? That OR is pretty bright, and so is the lobby. Don’t you fucking love LEDs?” I goaded.

  Lolth glared at me with a ferocity that would wilt flowers.

  “Yeah, you’re still in there. At least part of you is, and that part is going to die tomorrow. But don’t worry,” I said as I turned to make my way up the stairs, “I’ll make sure the rest of you is dead before I come back.”

  Lolth began to shriek using Dawson’s decimated face, and it reminded me of a velociraptor from the Jurassic Park movies.

  “Pfft, some goddess you are. Hope you enjoy your stay! Make sure to rate us five stars on Yelp!”

  Doc Jim closed the door behind us and it locked with a pressurized hiss.

  “Is Yelp still a thing?” I asked him.

  “I’m afraid it is,” Doc said as he formed an L with his left thumb and index finger, bringing up a screen. He typed into the air and brought up the Yelp app within seconds. I watched as he typed in “vet” in a five-mile radius and hit search. The first page of results were all labeled with “ad” on them and did not reflect the intended query. There, on page two, was Doc Jim’s listing: Super Vet Clinic.

  “Clever. I’ve never really paid attention; do most businesses that have ‘super’ in them tailor toward supes?” I asked with air quotes on super.

  “Probably about eighty percent,” Doc Jim answered as he put his phone away by letting his fingers relax.

  “Oh shit, I feel bad for the other twenty!” I spit out through a hearty chuckle.

  Doc stretched his lips in an awkward smile while his eyes remained heavy, unsure of what to say.

  “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” I asked quietly.

  “For some, humor is a completely normal reaction to stress, John,” Doc Jim responded.

  “I must be one stressed out mofo, then.”

  Everyone looked around, waiting for someone to take the lead. I could safely guess that, in my absence, Depweg had become the leader; but I was back now, creating a peculiar predicament of power placement. Shit, I was doing it again, wasn’t I?

  I glanced at my were friend, who seemed to be gazing at a far wall as if it were playing a captivating movie. His face twitched periodically as he stared.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I asked, breaking the tense silence.

  “Well, I’m going to study the, uh, creature downstairs, and see if I can come up with something helpful,” Doc Jim explained, careful about his chosen label for the puppet that had once been Dawson.

  “Excellent,” I said, clapping my hands once. Turning to Depweg, I asked, “Well, Deppyweg?”

  Shifting his stare from the wall, he glared at me with red-rimmed eyes that had a tinge of yellow to them.

  I froze, knowing I had done something wrong and afraid to make things worse. Locke grabbed my arm and escorted me to where Doc had a small room with an attached bathroom in the back.

  Once Locke had shut the door behind him, he turned to me and said, “John, he lost a damn packmate and then found out his other one has been taken. Cool it with the jokes.”

  My head hung low in grief for my friend.

  “I’m honestly surprised he isn’t exploding in rage. I feel like that’s what I would do,” I admitted.

  “That is what you would do; but Jonathan isn’t like that. He’s…” Locke trailed off, searching for the best word.

  “Stronger than that,” I finished for him.

  “Yes,” Locke said slowly. He had meant to use that word but had had enough political sense to not boast Depweg up by putting me down.

  “What can we do for him?” I asked, lifting my head to look at Locke.

  “Be there for him. Realize what he’s going through and how hard it must be,” Locke suggested in a sincere way that—for some reason—pissed me off. Depweg was my bromego.

  “We have less than twenty-four hours until the world is swallowed by a Lilith-damned black hole. Should I ask him about his feelings? Hmm? Or can we have a little chitchat about saving the fucking world.” My words came from a place of senseless pride, and I was immediately ashamed.

  “One is not exclusive of the other, John. Come up with a plan to save the world while still being considerate of Jonathan’s fragile state of mind.” My verbal barrage hadn’t fazed Locke, and that made me even more angry. However, the little bastard was right. I needed to squish the monster that was pride and realize it only wanted to destroy under the guise of self-preservation. Proud people bred sorrow unto themselves.

  I decided to pick my random assortment of emotions off the ground and take control. Though it was hard, I accentuated my placation with my usual one-size-fits-all tool: levity.

  “Ha! You said plan.” He shoots; he scores.

  Locke’s face scrunched in brief confusion before realization set in and his features went lax again. I’d give it to the lil’ guy; he was able to read a room pretty well and grasp subtle nuances.

  “John,” Locke started with a soft, conversational voice that threw me off. “I’m not trying to steal your friend from you; it is important that you know that. You’ve been gone for a long time, and Jonathan and I have been working together. Same with the twins, okay? That’s why I get where he is coming from, because they were my friends too. We’ve had time to build a friendship because Jonathan forgave me. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to make it up to him.” He placed his hand on my forearm, drawing a cocked eyebrow from me. “He needs you right now, John. You can save the world and your friend.”

  The emotions I clutched onto toppled to the ground, leaving only anger prevailing in my arms as he spoke to me like a child about my best friend of almost a century. I slowly pulled my arm away while staring him in the eyes. “I would die for my brother out there, so don’t fucking question what I would be willing to do for him,” I said in a low, stern tone that dared defiance. “But know this, Godwin: I haven’t had the same time to forgive you fully for what you fucking did, unlike the golden-hearted man standing on the other side of that door. There’s still a fire that burns in my chest and hungers for your blood.” Without telling my feet to do so, they began taking slow, deliberate steps toward the small man while my shoulders squared up. “Did you know, warlock, that a vampire’s memory doesn’t fade with time? That I can perfectly recall any moment in my existence with complete clarity, as if reliving it all over again? I still see my dead parents when I close my fucking eyes, you little shit. I buried them, in an unmarked grave, with my bare hands.” I could feel my eyes beginning to shift and glow red while my fangs elongated from bared teeth. My chest began heaving with massive breaths as I lost the battle for control and my anger grew into hatred. “I’m trying, real hard, to do the right thing. Don’t. Make it. Hard. For me.” My words were venom that had been lit on fire and electrified.

  Locke lifted his hands, palms out, as he matched each of my steps in reverse. His back had become flat against the wall by the time I was done lambasting him…for caring about Depweg. There was fear in his eyes, and I immediately felt like a monster for bullying an ally against Lucifer and the apocalypse. I was aware of a light pressure that rested on my shoulder that was almost imperceptible.

  “What’s going on?” Depweg’s authoritative voice came from behind. I felt like a kid whose hand had been caught in the coo
kie jar. My eyes bulged as my fangs retracted and pupils faded back to purple.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I said to Locke.

  “What the hell are you doing, John?” Depweg demanded as I turned to face him. He wasn’t in arm’s reach of where I stood. The feeling on my shoulder had vanished as quickly as it had arrived, leaving me perplexed.

  “It’s okay, Jonathan,” Locke said, holding a hand up to Depweg. “I think John and I just had some much-needed closure.”

  “Yeah…I, ah…guess so,” I said, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. I wanted to look inward to see if Baleius had grabbed the wheel when I wasn’t paying attention, but I knew what I would find. My demons were my own.

  “Well, if you two are done pussyfooting around, I’d like to discuss how we are getting Joey back from those Shadow fucks,” Depweg asserted with a tone that wasn’t quite yelling but sure as shit wasn’t pleasant either.

  Locke and I shot glances at one another before settling back on our friend, who was blinded by grief. His eyes still pulsated with a yellow tinge as if he were losing the battle for control.

  “Hey, man,” I started, approaching my werewolf best friend to place a hand on his boulder of a shoulder. He appeared much more imposing than normal. “We are going to get Joey back, I promise. But first, we need to stop that black hole.” As I finished, he poignantly shrugged back, forcing my hand off of him. A part of my mind pointed out the irony of Depweg doing to me what I had just done to Locke, and I knew I deserved it.

  “How the hell do you expect to stop a Goddamned black hole, John? Are you going to ask it nicely to not swallow the Earth? Hmm? Gonna reach up into the fucking sky and squish it between thumb and forefinger? Are you? Tell me—I’m all ears, man—how are you going to stop it?” Depweg snarled. He was shaking as his rage escaped through rupturing fault lines in his usually stoic demeanor.

  My head rocked back in surprise, as if his words were a blast of skin-melting steam.

  “Jonathan!” Locke cried out in my defense. “I understand your frustrations—”

  “Do you? Do you understand what it’s like to see a dead packmate being used as a puppet? Do you get it, boys? Do you also get having the puppet master use my packmate’s mouth to tell me his brother has been taken? My whole pack—and I couldn’t save either one of them,” he trailed off, fighting back sobs that had begun shocking his body like a cattle prod.

  Locke stood frozen, unsure of what to say.

  I stepped up to bat and did for Depweg what he had done for me in the past; I told him the truth while withstanding his verbal barrage.

  “This time tomorrow, he’ll be dead. But so will you, me, this short little fuck right here—oh, and every mortal on this rock. All seven billion of them,” I scolded.

  “Eight and a half,” Locke corrected.

  “Right,” I acknowledged with a quick nod, appreciating the support right now. Turning back to face the distraught werewolf on the verge of snapping, I continued, “Here’s what we are going to do, fellas: First, Doc in there is going to study the thing downstairs that is not Dawson. Maybe he can provide some insight on how to stop the darkness, or even reverse it. Second, we are going to save the Lilith-damned universe, because let’s not forget, if I die, the freaking gates of Hell will open and the final battle will take place. So it’s not just eight and a half billion lives, gentlemen. I gently remind you that it is every soul that has ever existed since the beginning of time.”

  Depweg’s red and yellow eyes stared into my soul. “If the world is destroyed, there will be no Earth left for the last vampire to walk. No apocalypse,” Depweg said coldly. It worried me how far down the rabbit hole my friend was falling.

  “Get control of yourself now, marine,” I demanded loudly as I moved to stand almost nose to nose with the unflinching man. “That isn’t a risk I am willing to take. Do you understand?” My finger aggressively pointed at his face while my head slightly bobbed in all directions. I was uncomfortable with having our roles reversed, and let my anger be the controlling emotion to combat my building anxiety. I knew I had to win this battle of wills.

  Depweg—my best friend and nonblood brother—flashed fully yellow eyes at me as a cavernous growl built in his thick chest.

  “Don’t,” I warned in a low whisper as I tilted my chin closer to my chest in a defensive stance to protect my exposed neck. My eyes never left his as my face shifted to the ground to the point where I was almost staring through my own eyebrows at the yellow orbs of a pissed off werewolf. I fought with everything I had to not summon my gladius. My pride had returned and was siphoning energy from the discord flowing around the room like a maelstrom, growing stronger. I knew that pulling my weapon out against Depweg would create a permanent rift in the foundation of our trust. My hand twitched and tingled while at the precipice of willing the angelic weapon to life. I repeated what I had said in a softer tone, but this time to me as well as him, “Don’t…please…”

  Depweg blinked twice while his face scrunched when I said please, his eyes returning to somewhere between were-yellow and Depweg-brown. He grunted in frustration and turned to storm out of the room, leaving me and Locke in stunned silence. We looked at each other before Locke spoke up.

  “I’ve never seen him like this.”

  “Me neither. At least, not this bad. But I know he just needs some time to cool off,” I said as I removed my gray beanie and ran a hand through my hair while letting out a gust of air. I noticed my fingers tingled slightly in my right hand.

  “That is the one thing we don’t have,” Locke reminded me as he stared past me and to the door Depweg had burst through as he left.

  “What are we going to do, man?” I asked, regarding the beanie still in my hand. Da had made it for me in 1990, and next to my WWII trench coat, was my favorite article of clothing. I didn’t think I’d ever admitted to Da how much it had meant to me and how I valued the gray cloth. That sent a pang of regret through my heart.

  I replaced the beanie and flexed my fist open and closed, trying to diminish the feeling of almost summoning my gladius. My mind dripped with soul-wrenching sadness at the thought of Da, Dawson, and Joey being taken from me…from us.

  Luckily, Locke interrupted my self-pity by saying, “I think I have an idea.”

  “Good, ’cause my mind is a freaking stadium with every seat filled with different aggressive emotions all fighting to be heard.”

  “Okay…come again?”

  “Lilith help me,” I said while rubbing my eyes, “I mean I’m having trouble maintaining my emotional equilibrium. I don’t know if you noticed or not. It’s like a roller coaster inside my mind, and I can’t get off.”

  “Hadn’t noticed,” Locke said sarcastically. “But that honestly isn’t important right now.”

  A muffled howl interrupted our conversation, prompting Locke and I to freeze, look at each other, and then storm into the OR where a frazzled Doc Jim stood by the back door. There was a trail of clothes that had been ripped off and discarded as Depweg had transformed into his were form.

  I rushed to the back door, which had four deep gashes in the metal, and looked out to see a bulky blur disappearing behind some warehouses in the distance.

  “Shit!” I called out as I prepared to sprint after him.

  Locke grabbed my arm and shouted, “John! We don’t have time for this!”

  My head shifted between Locke and where Depweg had just been, and I felt an overwhelming sense that I was watching my brother run to his death. My brain screamed that if I didn’t catch him now, I would never see him again, and it would be all my fault. Bugs of anxiety shuffled under my skin, and I began to hyperventilate.

  “John, he needs time. I also have a feeling he wouldn’t be as helpful as usual for coming up with a plan right now.”

  “But-but what if they get him, like Joey?” I blurted out near panic. “I can’t lose him, man.”

  “Neither can I, but we don’t have much of a choice right now.
Come inside. I have something to run by you.”

  I looked one last time at where Depweg had been and let loose a yell of electrified frustration into the eternal night. Once it was out of my system, I turned and dragged my feet back into the OR to hear what Locke had to say.

  19

  “I know a woman—a seer—who we can visit to attempt to gain insight from,” Locke started to explain.

  “What kind of seer?” I interjected.

  “She has the ability to see things that we would never be able to, and might be able to point us in the right direction.”

  “Why have I never heard of her? What’s her name?”

  “No offense, but you’ve existed inside your own bubble for most of your unlife, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Fair enough,” I admitted.

  “Know this: Lachesis requires a payment,” Locke warned.

  “And how much does she charge?”

  “It’s different for everyone. It might be a pound of flesh or a penny from your pocket. You don’t know until you are there.”

  Without direct command from my brain, my hand began patting my pockets, searching for change that I didn’t have.

  “How did you meet her? Is there, like, a Tinder for magic users or something?”

  “She would say I know her because I must know her,” Locke said with admiration.

  “Well, alrighty then. No time to waste. Can’t wait!” I facetiously commented as we started making our way to the lobby.

  “Where are you two going?” Ludvig asked, struggling to sit up on the table he was resting on.

  “We need to do this alone,” Locke said, holding a hand up to Ludvig.

  “Why’s that?” I asked, stopping at the OR doors.

  “It will tangle the skein if too many threads are pulled at once.” I eyed him dubiously. “Just-just trust me on this one, alright? You’ll see when we get there.”

  “You still need to rest,” Doc Jim said as he laid a hand on Ludvig’s shoulder. “I could also use some help studying the specimen below.”