The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “What are you doing here?” Wisdom had always been sensitive to the vibrations of time. He could instinctively sense important fluctuations in history – times when something significant and rare was about to happen. It had helped him stay alive and remain a person of power for thousands of years. He sensed it now, in a moment experience had taught him should be completely free of importance.

  “We have a security issue.” Garnet turned back to shut the door. Shirley tried to walk in with a tray filled with Turtles and chocolate oranges. Garnet took the tray and shooed her away. She handed the tray to Josh, then closed and locked the door. “Josh has a story to tell you.”

  They sat around Wisdom’s desk while Josh told the story of the mysterious stranger with the gold ring and the trip to another world. In the course of the telling, Wisdom ate the majority of the Turtles with alarming speed. Only when Josh finished did Wisdom stop reaching for the treats.

  “Did you sense anyone in the building?”

  Wisdom focused on Garnet as he answered her question. “No. I didn’t. Up until right now, this moment, I believed I’d encountered just about everything you could experience on this world. Once again I have proof that I’ve just been stupid. I don’t know how, but something has changed. This was not supposed to happen. Garnet, I need you to contact the head of security and bring him here. I have some arrangements to make.”

  “So you believe me?” Josh reached for the tray of Turtles. Wisdom raised an eyebrow and Josh withdrew his hand.

  “Yes, I believe you. This flash of light you saw, the glow of the ring, I’ve seen it before. Not here, but in Niagara Falls. Long story and I have no intentions of telling it. But yes, I believe you... Now I just have to find out what it means.”

  ***

  There is an old saying that a wise man knows much but says little. So it took more than a little arrogance to portray oneself as the embodiment of Wisdom. It was not the name he’d been given at birth, but he had been known as Wyndam Wisdom for at least the last three thousand years.

  Of course, there is a second part to that old saying: a fool knows little but says much. Wisdom had to admit now how foolish he’d been. Since gaining his freedom he had been reckless and brash, conceited and short sighted. If he’d thought things through with the foresight his name implied, Echo would still be alive.

  Wait.

  “Echo still is alive.” Wisdom shook his head and opened his eyes. He’d fallen asleep on the leather sofa in his office, something he never did. It seemed like a very long time since he’d slept anywhere at all. “Still alive,” he repeated: a mantra. If he wanted her to stay that way he couldn’t afford to sleep. Maybe if he tracked down this off-worlder he could alter events enough to prevent the murder of the only woman he truly cared for.

  He spent the next hour and a half making phone calls and signing papers experience told him could not wait. He returned to his living quarters and changed into a well-cut Sean John suit in shades of crimson and scarlet. Then he called Elaine in Hong Kong and told her what he planned to do.

  “You know this is insane, right?” Her voice came in clearly over the speakerphone.

  “No more insane than time travel.” Wisdom smiled and ate a Turtle from a second tray of chocolates Shirley had just brought in.

  “But isn’t this different? When you traveled back in time, you knew what was going to happen. You knew all the players. Wisdom, you know nothing about this guy or the planet he comes from.”

  “That’s precisely why I’m going.”

  “What if he hurts you? Or kills you? What happens to Echo and us if you’re not here to stop Propates?”

  The smiled dropped from Wisdom’s face. “Trust me when I say this, Elaine. I’ve tried everything else. Everything. Obviously the Council of Peacocks has been working on levels I never even conceived of. Turns out I only thought I knew my enemy. I don’t even know what battle I’m in. How the hell can I win the war?”

  “You're not taking anyone with you, are you? Not even me?”

  Wisdom shook his head. “No. You’re going to be needed here. Echo will come for you soon. She won't want your help but she’ll need it. When you see them you'll know why. Just know I tried to save them. I made a choice. They lost.”

  “See whom, Wisdom?”

  With a sigh, Wisdom turned to the window. “Just know I’m sorry. If everything goes well, I should see you in a few days.”

  “And if things don’t go well?” Elaine did a masterful job of hiding the tremor in her voice, but Wisdom had known her too long to be fooled.

  “I can’t believe you need to ask,” he said. “You have seen me, haven’t you? Big man, big muscles, major voodoo? I can take care of myself. Just don’t sleep with him this time, okay?”

  The other side of the phone connection went silent for a moment. “Sleep with whom? Wisdom, I…”

  Wisdom cleared his throat. “Forget I mentioned it. Maybe it’ll be better if you do bed him, anyway.”

  Wisdom hung up the phone, stood and walked to the center of his living room. With a gliding wrist motion, he distorted space-time. A glowing oval of light appeared beside him and he stepped through the portal.

  ***

  He emerged in a vacant hotel room in Niagara Falls. It was the same one he had confronted Propates in, back in a future he hoped no longer existed. It seemed the only logical place for him to start his search for the off-worlder. At least here, he could catch the scent.

  After he left the hotel, it didn’t take him long to find the alley where he’d seen the glint of gold and the moving shadow. He stretched out his consciousness, seeing layer upon layer of reality with his mind. There was no physical trace of the off-worlder. Fortunately, being here was enough for Wisdom to reawaken the sensation of being watched. He held the sensation, and breathed in. He had the scent. Now all he had to do was follow it back to the source.

  Wisdom warped space-time again and stepped through a disc of light. He traveled from Niagara Falls to Ojibway Park in Windsor. It was late summer, the trees still at the height of strength and beauty. He breathed in the rich oxygen of the woods and tried to remember how long it had been since his last visit to a natural area. Unable to do so, he closed the teleportation field and stretched out his senses.

  “Where are you?” He spun in a slow circle trying to pinpoint where the scent of the outlander was strongest. Presumably, it had been many years since the stranger had made an appearance here. To Wisdom’s sense, time was only a thin barrier. Beneath the tranquility he originally felt, there was deep anger in the woods. He stopped spinning and unbuttoned his suit jacket. Something was very wrong with these woods. The trees screamed out with rage. The underbrush murmured secret plots to the ground. The air tasted of sulfur and burning coal.

  He cursed under his breath and withdrew his senses. He clenched his fists and slowly walked to a clearing 100 yards away. In the sunlight, it was difficult to see the figure at first. Thankfully, Wisdom knew how to see the invisible. Before him, standing fourteen feet tall, was a bipedal incarnation of fire. Thick legs like tree trunks and bulging muscular arms gave the figure an undeniable impression of menace. His flesh curled and flickered in slow flame, like superheated gases or the shimmering of an oasis in the distance. Despite being translucent, the figure implied solidness. His presence was over-towering, like a mountain. The look of pity on his face was enough to shake Wisdom's resolve.

  “What are you here for, father?”

  “Oh, it’s not what I want that matters.” His father spoke in a voice like static and the burning of tree sap. “You came here looking for something. What was it?”

  “Not you. Go back to your Hell. I’m more powerful than you remember, and I don’t have time for this.”

  The figure laughed lightly. “The way you’ve been jumping back and forth through time tells me you have all the time in the world. Tell me, do you honestly think you can change what has already been written? Creation is like a painting. If you try to e
rase what’s on the canvas, you improve nothing and ruin everything. Just let her die and be done with this nonsense.”

  What little resolve he’d mustered dissipated. Were any of his actions a secret? “If you know about the time traveling, you must also know I’ve killed you before. Just stay out of my way, you old bastard, and I won’t do it again.”

  The towering figure of smokeless fire took a step back and shook his head. “You killed me? Really. How interesting. Well, that would explain why the future is unclear to me. Partly. You should know, as a Djinn I don’t fear death. I exist outside of time as the humans see it. If you destroy this body, this incarnation, I simply return to the Mother Flame from which all our kind are made. If you had been born in Kaz you would understand that. But look at you. You’re useless and lazy. You were given amazing talents and what do you do with them? Petty intrigues and capitalism. You’ve always been a disappointment to me, Akushula.”

  “My name is Wisdom.” He clenched his fists and felt old angers stir up the fire in him. “You’re no one to talk about wasting gifts. Especially to me. I’ve made a difference with my life. Each day, because of me, people’s lives are better. Over a thousand people work for me directly. I teach the Anomalies to live with their demonic nature. If not for me, every one of them would have succumbed to their darkest nature by now. So, don’t you dare say I’m wasting my life!”

  “But you could have been so much more if…”

  “If what? If I’d been more like you? What do you do with your life? You watch. That’s it. You bathe yourself in the narcotics of voyeurism while I’m actually in the world making a difference. Just because you’ve wasted your life doesn’t mean I’m wasting mine.”

  The Djinn took a step forward, the heat of his body pushing Wisdom back. “If you had spent more time watching and less time doing, you would understand why I withdrew from the world. Something is coming, Wisdom. Something far beyond anything you can handle. The only reason I’m here is to take you back where you belong. For once, live up to the name you’ve chosen and come with me. You can’t be here when the end game starts.”

  “I am where I belong. And I’m not going anywhere. I remember what you did to my mother. You raped her. Tried to murder her.”

  The Djinn sighed. “I apologized for that. What more can I say?”

  “What more can you say? It’s not something you can apologize for! It pretty much puts you under the bad guy column for all time. Growing up, you beat me, treated me like a slave. So now you’re old and you want me to forgive all your sins? Well, sorry. I do not forgive!”

  For a moment, the clearing crackled with unseen energy, a tension on the verge of breaking. The Djinn shook his head and sighed again. “Fine. Have it your way. I’ve tried to be reasonable but you’re still weak, short-sighted. A complete waste of life. If you won’t come home willingly, I will beat you into submission.”

  Wisdom called forth the hellfire. “Old man, that’s not going to work anymore.”

  And the battle began.

  Chapter Sixteen

  August 6th

  “I won again,” Jared said.

  By 11:00 p.m., the common room in London was deserted. Most of the refugees from Toronto chose the isolation of their private quarters over the threat of conversation with others. Small talk inevitably led back to the attack, which made everyone uncomfortable.

  “Give her a break.” Josh took the controller from Garnet as Jared did his happy dance. For the third night in a row, the three of them had played Mortal Kombat after supper. “She’s getting better. At least this time she landed a punch.”

  “Bite me,” Garnet said as she ran her fingers through her hair. “Some of us haven’t wasted our lives mastering video games.”

  “Your loss,” Jared said. Then he put his controller down, no longer smiling. “Something’s very wrong, isn’t it?”

  “D’ya think?” Garnet rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. She looked several years older than she had when Josh had first met her. “Wisdom disappeared again and no one seems to know where the rest of the Anomalies are. I’m glad to see those psychic powers of yours aren’t going to waste, bud.”

  Jared rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. It’s worse than anyone is letting on. There’s way more security than normal. Since when does Wisdom need security, anyway?”

  Josh raised his hand. “If we’re taking votes I’m all in favor of enhanced security. Maybe Wisdom just realizes that, whatever he is, he’s not immortal.”

  “He’s close enough.” Garnet frowned and went to the window. Late at night, the city was lit with street lamps and illuminated rectangles from office buildings.

  “You can’t be serious,” Josh snorted.

  “Of course I’m serious. I’m telling you, I’ve seen the things he’s capable of. Unbelievable things. You’ve seen the way he travels. How is that even possible? The physics are mind-numbing. Nothing our scientists know about reality today can explain it, and I’ve done the research. Aside from that, do you have any idea old he is?”

  “No,” Jared said, returning to his game. “And neither do you.”

  “Well, not exactly. But I have a pretty good idea. I know for a fact he was alive during the Inquisition.”

  “Bull,” Josh said. He returned to the game but it was difficult to concentrate. Pressure kept building up at the base of his neck. His head started to spin.

  “Scout’s honor.” Garnet put her hand on the window. She squinted her eyes as if trying to focus on something down on the street. “In fact, I’d put money on him being over a thousand years old.”

  “You’re on drugs.” Josh threw the controller down on the couch and pressed the heels of his hands against his forehead. The pressure was unbearable.

  “Every chance I get, but that doesn’t change the facts.” Garnet leaned back. “He’s definitely not human.”

  “So, if he’s not human, what is he, then?”

  Jared slowly lowered his controller and turned toward the window.

  “A demon.”

  “What?” Josh almost choked on his own tongue.

  Jared stood and shook his head. “Not Wisdom. Out there. I can feel it. A demon is heading up the street. I think it’s coming here.”

  Garnet backed away from the window. She walked over to the phone and dialed an extension.

  “We have incoming,” she said into the receiver. “I don’t know how many. Just get the entire staff on alert. Have someone check with Hong Kong, too. I need to know if this is a coordinated attack.”

  She hung up the phone and turned to face Josh.

  “I hope the reports on you are correct, Wonder Boy, because this could get really interesting.”

  ***

  Garnet looked down her nose at the building’s chief security officer. He was a white-haired old Irishman with a bulbous nose on a bulbous face. He was currently tracing out escape routes on a blueprint of the building. Garnet had already explained, at length, that she knew the layout of the building better than he did. He didn’t seem to hear her. In fact, all he seemed to notice was the curve of her cleavage.

  “Enough,” she said, biting the word. “Just go watch a door or something.” She waved him away and turned her back on him. The old man grumbled something and walked briskly away. This left the security room deserted, except for the three Anomalies. A bank of video monitors showed several sections of the building, the visitor’s parking area, and all entrances. There were even cameras in the surrounding sewer system. The security room was overtly luminous and spartan in its décor. Being here helped Garnet feel safe. No matter which direction the demon took to get here, they would see it coming.

  Jared sat nearby in a wooden chair that faced north. He did not turn around at the sound of Garnet’s heels against the tiled floor as she approached. She placed her hands on the back of the chair and lowered her lips to his ears.

  “Anything?”

  Jared shook his head and kept staring forward.
r />   “Does he know you’ve spotted him, Jared?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Is it an Edimmu?”

  “Don’t think so. He’s powerful, though. Worse than them, I think.” Jared looked up. His lower lip trembled slightly. He opened his mouth, on the verge of saying something else. Garnet, sensing what it was, bent down even further and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

  “Don’t worry, little man,” she said. “We’re not exactly powerless ourselves.”

  “How do you know it’s a demon?” Josh paced back and forth in front of the wall of monitors. He had an open bottle of water in his hands. He had been holding it for some time and had not yet taken a drink.

  Garnet straightened and turned to him. “What’s your deal, anyway?”

  Josh stopped pacing. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what do you do?” She crossed her arms and shrugged.

  “How the hell should I know? I haven’t been to X-men school like you guys.” Looking at the drink in his hand, Josh moved it to his mouth. Then, letting out a sigh, he placed it back on the bar. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just lucky. Things just happen around me. Things that shouldn’t happen.”

  “Well, that sounds particularly useless.” Garnet rested her hands on her waist as she scanned the monitors. “Jared, how much longer before…?”

  The lights went out.

  Josh stood frozen. He listened to his heartbeat until his eyes adjusted. With a clunk, the air conditioning stopped. The absence of background noise was almost as unnerving as the power failure.

  “He’s in the building.”

  The voice was Jared’s. Josh squinted his eyes until he could distinguish which shadow was the boy’s. In the dark, he seemed very far away.

  “Shouldn’t a building like this have a backup generator?”