The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  Nadia held my hand and plodded along in silence. You’d have thought she was on a date with the man of her dreams, the way she cuddled up on my arm. The creature was doing her best to be the sweet little thing that had charmed her way into my heart. I couldn’t be sure if it was an act or if she really was this girl wrapped around my arm like I was the last human being on the planet. Maybe she had a dual personality, her issues were definitely much more complicated than I first imagined.

  “You know why they call this Neppel Landing?”

  She shook her head.

  “Back in the early 1900’s this place was called Neppel by early settlers. They later called it Moses Lake after Chief Moses, leader of the Sinkiuse tribe.

  This was their land, and we ran ‘em out, hunted them, pushed them off onto reservations. We took over the Northwest, and made it our own. There were no great epic battles, no big uprisings like the Cheyenne and Apaches of the Wild West. These people just went away. And now it’s all ours. They have a casino on a reservation up north at Grand Coulee Dam, that’s about it.”

  She held my hand looking at me. I could see her curiosity, wondering where the hell I was going with my history lesson.

  “We name our high schools and streets and football teams after them, but America is ours. Using their names is like adding injury to insult. The word Neppel still lives on right here in this little lakefront gazebo.” I directed her to sit down at the concrete bench under the gazebo.

  “But this is not the Wild West from back when you and Mikhail planned your escape. You don’t just kill people to get rid of your problems.” She held my eyes, perhaps waiting for my judgment?

  “What am I gonna do with you, Natasha?” What the hell was I supposed to do with a murderous vampire who loves me enough to kill for me?

  “What did you have in mind?” She tried to play her cutesy game, a sly grin and a wicked twinkle in her cat-like hazel eyes.

  Game time was over. “I don’t think my mother intended things to be like this when she sent you to help me. I don’t think she ever wanted you to kill people for me. Do you think that’s what she wanted?”

  “You know what she said to me? ‘Promise you’ll be there when Michael needs you most. Promise you’ll lookout for my son. I can’t be there for him, but you can.’ And I made that promise. I was there the night you were born, and I made an oath to your mother on her deathbed. But that was before I realized who you were, Misha. I never imagined I’d have a second chance like this. It’s a dream come true, like winning the lottery. I can do it right this time, I know I can.”

  “So there’s no getting rid of you?”

  “You don’t want me?” She looked like she was about to cry.

  “I’m not cool with murder. I’m not cool with you attacking people with acid or whatever nasty retaliation you dream up in that sick little mind. It’s not okay to hurt people, definitely not if you’re doing it for me.”

  “You’ll never be rid of me! Get that idea out of your head right now!” She was spitting angry, with a pronounced hiss. She actually had some fang showing. The little girl façade had started to slip. She growled, “First by vow to your mother, and then by virtue of who you are, Mikhail Ivelitsch, we are joined by fate and necessity. The sooner you accept that the better off we will both be!”

  I sensed the caged aggression lurking under the surface. She was in control, but I knew well what she was capable of. Not wise to push my luck.

  “So I’m supposed to sit back and watch you hurt everyone around me? What about Taylor? What did you do to him?”

  “I didn’t hurt him! If you were paying attention when you interrupted me so rudely, I was having a little sip. Taylor loved it, I guarantee you he enjoyed every second of it. They all do. I only need a few ounces, and I can skip feeding for two nights at a time. Taylor is perfectly fine. He doesn’t even remember what happened, and he wasn’t the least bit hurt.”

  “Is that what you’ve been doing to me every night?”

  “NO! I told you, I have never bitten you! Besides, it doesn’t work that way. I can’t bite people over and over. It’s messy, complicated. I never bit your mother either, so don’t even go there!”

  I kept the pressure on, walking the line between winning an argument and imminent violence. “And what of Anita? Am I supposed to let you hurt her or anyone else you think is a problem?”

  Nadia looked slightly embarrassed, like she had done something she shouldn’t have. “I may have been a little worked up when I mentioned Anita the other night. I like her, honestly. Anita loves you, I know that now. She’s nothing like Rachelle. Anita can be trusted with your heart. She is worthy of your affections. I won’t touch her. I promise.” I recalled how Nadia had caught an eyeful of me and Anita together. And she was always paying for me to take Anita out.

  Maybe this could work.

  “And Justin? Or anyone else who argues with me or takes a swing at me? Are you gonna kill everyone who looks at me funny?”

  “I’m sworn to protect you. I won’t stand for anyone threatening you! Justin has become a serious problem. He knows too much – your fault, not mine. Now I have to clean up the mess.” She was dead serious, and Justin was in for a very rude awakening, if he survived the confrontation.

  “No, I can’t accept that. I won’t have you in my life if you insist on killing and hurting people. I am drawing the line here.” I jerked my arm out of her grasp and stood up to face her. “There must be another way to deal with Justin. You don’t have to hurt him.”

  “Don’t play with me Mikhail Ivelitsch!”

  “I’m telling you, if you hurt Justin, it’s off. Whatever this is between us, it will be over.”

  “Fine! I won’t hurt him! Are you happy now?”

  “Or anyone else?” I pressed her harder than ever before.

  “No! I won’t hurt anyone else unless you tell me to or they threaten your life! How’s that? Can your pristine conscience live with that?” That did it. She was crying. Tears of blood streaked down her face. Either she was a grade ‘A’ stage actor, or she was truly upset by the idea of losing me.

  I couldn’t sit there and watch her cry. She had already dug her place deep in my heart, in my bed all night long, under my skin. She was a part of me. I don’t know if I could ever send her away, it would be like trying to cut off my own arm. But my mother was right, Nadia was vulnerable. She needed me, too.

  Feeling like I had no real choice, I hugged her close. “I’m not trying to get rid of you, but we need to come to an understanding. We’ve got to rein in your homicidal tendencies a little bit, okay?”

  She nodded yes with her face buried in my chest, her hands creeping up under my shirt for what she craved most, skin-on-skin contact. I rested my chin atop her head. “So, what are you planning to do with Justin?”

  Nadia mumbled into my chest, “I’m gonna have a talk with him.”

  “I tried that, he’s not listening. He’s too stupid and he’s convinced he’s got it all figured out. How are you gonna make him listen?”

  She looked up, still holding me tightly, her hands splayed across my back underneath my shirt. I wiped the blood from her cheeks. Just too creepy and unnerving to watch her bleed from her eyes.

  She gave me a wry little half smile. “No offense, but my skills of persuasion are a little better than yours.”

  “You’re gonna hypnotize him?”

  “No, but I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

  “I am worried. I need to know you’re not gonna hurt him.”

  “I promised I wouldn’t hurt him. My promise isn’t good enough? You don’t trust me?”

  “Okay, relax. I trust you, but you gotta admit this protect Mike obsession got way out of control. You killed someone, and that is not okay, never will be okay. I am trying to make sure we have a clear understanding.”

  She nodded her head and calmed down a bit, her hands exploring all over my backside. It was a rare occasion that she could be so intimat
e outside my bedroom, and she took full advantage of it.

  “So, have you really been stalking me all my life? Since I was born?”

  “Yeah, more or less. I didn’t hang around when you were an infant. I couldn’t really do much for you, and I’m no good with babies.” She paused considering something.

  “No more secrets, out with it.”

  She sighed in resignation.

  “I didn’t want your mother to have the baby, you. I tried to talk her out of it. I even tried my Jedi mind tricks on her, but she was too emotionally attached to you, the hypnosis couldn’t break her resolve to have the baby. She tricked us both you know, me and Richard. She didn’t tell us about her vision of her death in childbirth until she was nine months pregnant. Far too late to have an abortion. No doctor in his right mind would abort a nine month old fetus. I tried to talk her into having a C-section, to do something different to change the outcome. She said that it was fate and she wasn’t willing to do anything that might jeopardize your life. She never gave us a chance to stop her. She had it all planned out.

  So, after you were born I was really depressed. I’d lost my best friend and I was going through some kinda withdrawals. I was used to being around your mom regularly, basking in her aura. I didn’t come back to check on you for five years. I found you running around happy and healthy, not a care in the world. Everything was fine. You were still too young for me to be of any real help, so I took off again. I came back five years later, when you were ten. Everything looked great, Richard was a little bit distant, a cold bastard, but you had friends. Nobody was picking on you in school. You were fine.”

  “You actually watched me at school? How did you do that?”

  “Well, I wasn’t there in the daylight, but I was around to see how your parent-teacher conferences went, and everything seemed okay.”

  “Stalker.” I accused her affectionately as I hugged her tight.

  “Have I ever said any different? I admit it.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “I came back again four years later, that’s when I first noticed, when you were fourteen.”

  “Noticed what?”

  “The amazing resemblance. I first met Mikhail back in St. Petersburg when he was thirteen. I was only ten years old then, but he was so handsome, and I was infatuated with him from that day on. And you look exactly like him. It was like going back in time. I can still remember seeing him out in the stables, before we came to New York he was training to manage the horses. They put us to work at a young age in those days. The world was a very different place back then.” She had a faraway dreamy look, reliving some century old memory of Mikhail. After a moment of spaced out staring, she looked away and continued telling her tale.

  “You looked so much like him in every way, I could hardly believe it. And your aura was starting to show. It wasn’t as pronounced as it is now, but I could see it there, the same thing your mother had. I guess I was in shock over seeing you. I kinda freaked out. I took off to Nepal, and then to India. I studied all the legends, books, and myths I could find about reincarnation. I was trying to find an explanation for your return. I was pretty absorbed there for a while, time got away from me. Before I knew it, I’d been gone two years.”

  I nodded. “Yep, two years ago was when it all fell apart. Must’ve been right around the time you saw me that my Dad was going through the foreclosure on the house. You just missed when we moved into that shithole trailer on Stratford.”

  “I’m so sorry, if I’d have been paying attention I would have seen what was happening. If I would have stayed around for a few more days I might have been able to help you fight off the foreclosure. I would have done something.” She had that dangerous, I’m-gonna-put-acid-in-your-lotion-bottle look in her eyes. I imagined her walking into the bank and doing horribly unspeakable things to the foreclosure department staff members. Sure, she could have done something about it, but would I have wanted to see that outcome? Perhaps it was better that she was gone.

  I shook off my morbid imaginings. “Well, that’s all old news now. I’m not interested in the woulda-coulda-shouldas. You’re here now, and you promise to behave like a good little monster.”

  “Again, I’m sorry. It was such a surprise when I came back from India. Everything was wrong! And you were so much like Mikhail, exactly as he looked when he died. All I could think of was that I had to protect you. I couldn’t imagine losing you again. It was a little overwhelming. And your aura is in full bloom now. I overreacted. I’m just so attached to you, and when that asshole used Rachelle to set you up for his little gang bang, I just went off. I was so furious I wanted to go straight to their homes and tear them all to shreds for what they’d done! Luckily I calmed down a little and handled things more intelligently. There’s no evidence for police to find. No way they can prosecute anyone. And no one knows that I was in the sand dunes with Tommy. No one but you.”

  I frowned, I didn’t care for the direction the conversation had taken. Nadia immediately went into apology mode, “I’m not usually that violent you know.” I frowned again at the obvious lie. “Okay, sometimes I am, but you really gotta piss me off to get me there. They pushed all the wrong buttons at the wrong time. I’m here to stay anyways, and we’re gonna solve these problems of yours.”

  I started to remind her of her promise, but she interrupted me, “I know! Without hurting anyone! I got it already!”

  Probably as good as it gets, so I let it be. “Come on, let’s go, I’m starving.” We walked away together, content in our new understanding.

  “You can trust me Misha, I love you.”

  “I know, I know.” Though I wouldn’t admit it aloud, I loved her too, and that was the kicker. I could look past all that she had done and might yet do because I loved this little monster.

  * * * *

  Later in the evening, lounging in my bedroom with Nadia on my lap, I received a call on my cell phone from the most unlikely person, Rachelle Werner. I debated taking her call. This could be an attempt to entrap me into a confession, she might record the conversation. And what could she possibly say that I wanted to hear?

  Nadia decided the issue. “Tell her to go to hell!” She hit the connect button and pushed the phone in my face.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, it’s me, Rachelle. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay, and you? I heard you went to the hospital.” All I could think about was avoid saying anything that could be used in court.

  “I’m at the Harborview Burn Center at the University of Washington, Seattle. I guess I’ll be here for a couple more weeks. I got burned pretty bad, but they have some killer pain meds. I’m totally faded right now, feelin’ no pain.” She giggled in a way that Rachelle rarely ever giggled. High on chemically-induced happiness.

  “Oh … uh … so you’re okay then?”

  “Yeah …” Her words trailed off, then she came back suddenly, “Have you talked to Justin? I talked to Justin. He keeps calling me. I think he’s messed up about Tommy. I was too, a little, but I wanted to tell you something. I broke up with Tommy the night he died. I was so tired of his shit. But I really miss him. I mean, I feel bad but, he was such an asshole!” She seemed to vacillate back and forth, changing topics and viewpoints instantly. Definitely high on something.

  I went with the K.I.S.S. philosophy, Keep It Simple Stupid. “Oh, I understand.”

  “I’m sure you do.” She paused in awkward silence then started up again, “Did … did he hurt you bad?”

  “No, I’m fine, a couple bruises, no big deal.” I didn’t have a mark on me to show for it.

  “That’s funny, you messed him up big time! He was fucked up. But I think he needed a good ass kickin’. It was about time.”

  “Yeah.”

  I kept on letting her flow. She was weird, flipping between remorse and an eerie cheerleaderish glee.

  “I want you to know I don’t believe a word Justin said about you. I know you would never do anyt
hing like that, would you?” There it was: the issue, and the moment of entrapment.

  Admit nothing, deny everything.

  “Of course not! Don’t even think it! Justin’s been acting weird ever since Tommy died. I think he’s losing it. He even tried to go to the police with his lies about me. They know he’s full of shit. I think he needs counseling.”

  “I know, that’s what I told him, to get some counseling. They got two psychiatrists here at the University that specialize in dealing with us toasties. That’s what I call the burn victims, toasties, isn’t that hilarious?”

  She giggled shrilly adding a few notches to the creep factor. Then she switched gears again, suddenly becoming serious.

  “I understand now what you were trying to tell me that day at the skatepark.” Her voice broke, she started to cry. “I let him go. I broke up with Tommy and I never said a word about your warning. The stupid bastard went out to the sand dunes, got drunk, and broke his neck on that damn dirt bike. Stupid fucker killed himself and I let him do it. I didn’t listen to you! It’s all my fault!”

  Rachelle hit a new low on the emotional roller coaster as she bawled her heart out over the telephone in great sobs and gasps.

  I tried to console her. “There probably wasn’t anything you could do to stop it from happening.” Though I gave it my best, I couldn’t put much sincerity behind it. Rachelle could have made a difference. She could have made Tommy listen, stopped him from going out the sand dunes for at least a couple weeks. That might have changed things.

  Then I realized it wouldn’t have made any difference. When Nadia made up her mind about Tommy, it was over. Only a matter of time.

  “It was his time to go, Rachelle. You couldn’t do anything to change that.” She blew her nose loudly.

  “Do you really think so?” She sounded like a whiny, needy child.

  “Definitely. It was fate, unavoidable.” My mother had it right. These things were meant to be, and there was very little I could do to change the outcome of my visions.