The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “No.”

  David jumped at the sound of Elaine’s voice.

  They all turned to look at her. She stood at the top of the stairway. The submachine gun was no longer strapped across her front.

  “Elaine…” Garnet started to stand.

  “Sit down, Garnet,” she said. “I’ll tell them. There are things even you don’t know, so you might get it wrong. I’ll tell you the truth. Wisdom might skin me alive if – no, when – he gets up, but I think you’re right. We can’t afford to play by the same rules anymore. David, your parents didn’t do anything to you, not in the way you are thinking. The truth is the people you call your parents aren’t really your true parents at all.”

  “What?” David felt something wash through his body. It was hard to breathe, but he could not pinpoint the emotion. “Of course they are. I…”

  “If you want the truth, shut up and listen! Your mother did give birth to you, physically, but you weren’t conceived like a normal child. Like a human child. Oh, I know that look. You’re wondering how they could have kept something like that from you. The reason they kept it from you is because they have no idea. They have no clue that you are anything other than their child.

  “This part Garnet knows already. There are forces in this world some would call demons. For all I know, that’s exactly what they are. Some call them Nephilim, but it's doubtful they are the creatures from myth. Today, they’re normally called Orpheans. How they got that name is a story for another day. They live in a dark twisted place called the Black Sea and they do not want to stay there. Their only pleasure in life is to screw with people’s heads. Make them do bad things. But they like to do it in sneaky ways. See, if it’s obvious that an external force created all the havoc on earth, people would rally together and fight them. Like they did in the Middle Ages. So they only appear for certain people. Usually, weak people. Crazy people. Sometimes they just drive them nuts, make them see and hear things that just drive them over the edge. And sometimes, thankfully not all that often, they step into the world and do secret things themselves.

  “If each of you asked your parents, they would all have this one story in common. They would all remember a very vivid dream where they changed into monsters and had really incredible sex. If you don’t believe me, ask them. Although, being all parent-like, they might not want to discuss their sexual fantasies with you. What these demon-things do, the Orpheans, is kind of take possession of the human body and…”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “No David, I’m not kidding. And don’t interrupt me again. They slip into human bodies and take over. They do weird, violent, fetish-type stuff that is meant to be anything but pleasurable. It usually leaves the victims so physically messed up they can’t have sex for months. Naturally, this type of sex with all the blood and decadence doesn’t normally result in pregnancy. Every once in a while, though, accidents happen and – voila! We have an Anomaly.”

  “But,” Jessica chewed the fingernail on her thumb, her eyes focused on something no one else could see. “But don’t these things know they created children? And, if they did, wouldn’t they keep in contact or something? Try to, I don’t know, use them or take custody or something.”

  Elaine shook her head. “They can’t exactly take custody. They’re in a different dimension, remember? They’re not really physical in the same way we are. And they can’t take you back to where they come from for the same reason. As far as I understand it, they know what they’ve done and that’s good enough for them. They’ve put a bit more chaos into the world. They probably figure having a bunch of kids running around that can kill at will and blow things up with their mind is about as evil as you can get. Truth to tell, God only knows what you guys would become if Wisdom just let you wander around on your own.”

  David laughed, his body shaking as he held his head. “This is too much. I mean, demons? There is no way that’s the reason. I mean, there has to be another explanation. There just has to be. There’s no such thing as demons anyway, so…”

  “Listen up, pretty boy,” Elaine said. “I don’t really give a hoot if you believe me or not. What I’ve told you is the truth. You’re all hybrids: part-demon, part-human. That’s how you can do the things you can do. The reason you exist is to do evil things. That’s the truth. Now you can choose to accept it or you can make up some other story that will help you sleep at night. It won’t change a goddamn thing. Each one of you was born a monster, made for one thing and one thing only. Wisdom wants to help you, for reasons I cannot even begin to understand. If you let him, he’ll show you a different way.”

  “What about me?” Everyone turned, surprised to hear Josh’s voice. He sat up on the couch holding a hand to his head. His eyes were unfocused but looked in the direction of Elaine. “What about my father? My human father. Does he know what I am?”

  Elaine shrugged. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t see how he could, but working for Candleworks, maybe he figured it out.”

  Jessica walked back to the couch. “Josh, your father must have known something, right? Those Edimmu seemed to know him and all, but…Oh. Wait.”

  Jessica’s face went lax and pale. She stared at Josh, her left eye twitching.

  Josh stared at Jessica. The two held their stare for some time, as if they were holding their own silent conversation. It was Josh who finally spoke.

  “Maybe the Edimmu were talking about my other father.”

  Jessica nodded. “The one who wasn’t human.”

  “So these demons are in cahoots with the Edimmu?” Todd asked. “I thought you said they were two separate things.”

  “They are,” Elaine said. “As far as I know, they have nothing to do with each other. The Edimmu are just sort of hired muscle the Council of Peacocks uses to do their dirty work.”

  Josh rubbed his head. “Maybe this Council of Peacocks is aligned with these demons in some way. And if you don’t know what the connection is, either Wisdom didn’t tell you or he has not figured it out yet.”

  Garnet walked over to Elaine. “Which is it? Is Wisdom keeping something this big from us?”

  “Why don’t you just ask me?”

  Wisdom walked down the stairs. He wore a white sheet draped around his body in a quasi-toga. It left several of his bruises and cuts across his body very visible. Perhaps it was the hunched-over weary way in which he was standing, but he looked the very image of a gladiator.

  “Wisdom!” Elaine rushed over to him, arms outstretched in an offer of support. Wisdom shook his head and waved her away.

  “It’s okay, Elaine. I’m fine. Believe it or not, I’ve been worse than this. Things are progressing faster than expected. I need to get you up to speed quickly. So ask me whatever you want. I’ll tell you whatever you need to know. But as soon as that sun comes up, we’re heading to Greece.”

  “Greece?” Elaine said the word as if it had never crossed her lips before.

  “Yes, Greece. It’s a country. In the Mediterranean. Maybe you’ve heard of it. And no, I don’t know of any connection between the Council and the demons. I didn’t think anybody on the planet knew about the Orpheans except Candleworks and the few I’ve told. If they are working together, something very bad must be in the works. Garnet, why don’t you make us some coffee? Elaine, can you see if there are any decent clothes here I can put on? I’m far from modest, but parts of me are showing that seem to be making Jessica sick to her stomach.”

  Before either Elaine or Garnet could move, a circle of light appeared by the windows, bringing everyone to a standstill. When Echo stepped out of the circle, the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. There was a wild look in her eyes.

  “Wisdom, we have to move,” she said. “Your father is coming.”

  ***

  “When did I get that?” Josh couldn’t stop staring at his hands. There was a small cylindrical bulge on his palm, like a piece of skin that had been pinched together and had not
fallen back into place yet. He rubbed it, but it did not move. Was it a sign? Did the others have similar marks? He forced his head up to look at the others in the room. They all looked so normal. He couldn’t pick out anything about them that screamed ‘monster’. But they were demonspawn, things created for the sole purpose of increasing evil in the world.

  He thought back to the creature who had come to him back in London: the one in the maggot suit. Was that thing an Orphean? If so, was that his father?

  “Get what?”

  Josh looked up and found Wisdom staring at him.

  “It’s probably nothing,” he said. “Just this thing on my hand.”

  Wisdom glanced at Elaine. “Damn it. You said he’d been checked.”

  Elaine ran to Josh, grabbed his hand, and held it up to her face. “How the hell did we miss this? I swear I’ve never seen this before.”

  “It’s probably been there since he was taken,” Wisdom said. “We don’t have time to deal with it now. Echo, close that portal already. You need to open another one. I’m still not strong enough.”

  “Where?” Echo took a few steps and then flipped her wrist. The portal flashed away, leaving only an afterimage on Josh’s eye. “Where are we going?”

  “Greece?” Elaine handed a towel to Echo.

  “No,” Wisdom said. “We can’t risk it if Josh has a tracking device in him. We’ll go to my offices in Hong Kong. I have certain devices set into the building there that will hide us from my father for a time. They should also block Josh’s tracker until we can have it removed. I’m not ready for another round with him just yet, and I think one way or another our next meeting will be our last.”

  Echo straightened her blouse, smoothing out the wrinkles. “I’m not exactly thrilled by this turn of events, Wisdom. You owe me a gazillion favors.”

  Wisdom laughed a strange strangled sound that was closer to a sob than a sound of amusement. “I’m just glad you’re…It’s good you’re still alive. We can talk about repayment later.”

  “You think there will be a later?” Echo flipped her wrist again and a second circle of light splashed into the air with a hissing sound.

  For just a moment, Wisdom faltered. An expression crossed his face; it was just a glimmer of fear and then it was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When they arrived in Hong Kong, it was already late afternoon. Echo’s portal opened in a deserted boardroom filled with cold neon light and mahogany furniture. Wisdom walked straight to a phone on a nearby desk and made arrangements, while the Anomalies filed out of the portal. Moments later, he faded away in a flurry of security guards and a swirl of men and women in dark suits. Elaine and Echo went with him, leaving Garnet in charge of the rest. She slipped back into the role of authority quickly, telling everyone how to get to their rooms.

  On his way to the quarters he’d been assigned, David kept his head down. He felt dirty surrounded by so many impeccably dressed people and the clean business sterility of the building. Although he was hesitant to be alone, as soon as the door clicked closed behind him he peeled off his bloodied and sweat-soiled clothes. He dropped the clothes in the wastebasket in the bathroom. Naked, he felt more civilized than he had in days. He walked over to the window and looked out over the city.

  It reminded him of the movie Blade Runner. Everywhere he looked there was steel and glass and neon signs. Large billboards with television-like screens flashed pictures of smiling Chinese women and pop cans. People and cars filled the streets below like schools of fish swimming in different directions through narrow streams. He was not completely convinced that the little oval of light had not brought them forward in time. He half expected to see air ships moving between the impossibly-high skyscrapers. Toronto was a large city but, compared to this, it seemed intimate and backwater.

  He walked to the edge of the bed and sat down. Alone. The silence was oppressive. Thoughts of demons and shadows bubbled over in his mind. Pushing those thoughts aside, he took a long hot shower. As the hot water pounded on him, he thought of the television show Survivor. He remembered watching a group of women relish a simple shower. At the time, it had seemed like a silly reward. Now he understood. There was something extremely civilized about taking a shower. The soft spicy scent of the soap and shampoo erased the dirt and the wildness of the past few days.

  He dried himself off as he walked over to the closet. It was filled with designer clothes and tailored suits, names like Hugo Boss and Versace attached like cattle brands marking wealth. Normally he spurned designer clothes; they were pretentious wastes of money worn by silly people with no respect for their own wealth. Growing up, his family had never had extra money lying around to buy things like this. He opened the top drawer of a nearby dresser and removed a pair of underwear. As he slid them on, he had to admit they were more comfortable than the ones he got at Wal-Mart. Even the socks seemed different when he stepped into them. When he walked around the room, his feet felt cushioned as if he was not really touching the ground. He slid a pair of pants off a hanger and put on a grey high-necked sweater. Both were his size, which, while unnerving, was not completely unexpected.

  As he finished dressing, he shook his head at the amount of money it must have taken to stock this room. He was sure his mother could have fed them for half a year on what it took to buy a few of the suits.

  “Admit it,” he said as he walked over to one of the full-length mirrors that hung on either side of the door leading to the bathroom. “You’re eager to dress up like someone else.” He wore black silk pants, the pleats hanging like something out of a catalogue, and a bulky loose-knit grey wool sweater that rose up his neck and gathered around his face, framing it. It was a very maritime sweater, reminding him of cold nights damp with the wind off the ocean and drinking pints of Moosehead in pubs. His skin was still pale, his hair was as red as ever, but he barely recognized himself. He felt like a movie star. “So that’s it, eh? That’s why people shell out all that money for these clothes. I guess I get it now.”

  Satisfied he was unrecognizable, he moved to the window and looked out into the city from the future. Thirty minutes or so later, there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in.”

  Jessica walked into the room, her eyes focused loosely on the ground. She was dressed in a pair of blue jean overalls and a white t-shirt. Maybe it was just the way she moved, but David felt her change in clothing made her a different person, too. There was no sign of the smart-mouthed girl who believed it was natural for her to be the one in charge during a crisis. The way her cotton shirt hung against her chest that had not yet grown breasts, the way her ponytail bounced as she moved, she looked like a young Jody Foster.

  “The last time I was in Hong Kong, Amy and I went for Dim Sum at this really cool restaurant.” She leaned against the wall just to the left of the mirror and kept her eyes on the ground. “Mr. Wisdom took us there. He said it was a special treat for all the progress we had made in class. It seemed like the most important thing in the world back then, doing well in class. Now I just want to run home to my mother. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”

  “Jessica, pathetic is the last word I think of when I look at you. I am way more pathetic than you are. Look how you handled yourself against the Edimmu. You were like Ripley and Sarah Connor all wrapped into one little package. Meanwhile, I was the one crying like a loser. Terrified. You feel that way because you’re human. And I mean that. Human. No matter what Elaine or Wisdom says, we’re not monsters. Not if we don’t let ourselves be.”

  Jessica nodded and looked out the window. “It might be easier, you know, if we let ourselves become monsters. I think that’s why Ms. Ryerson tried to convince us we were. I am not psychic – not in the precognitive way, anyway. I don’t really know what’s going to happen to us in the next couple of days, but I think it’s going to be pretty bad. Wisdom is freaked. I can feel it in the way he moves. After he passes through a spot, the air radiates spots of black, like it’s filled wi
th anger and fear. If we were monsters, maybe it would be easier for us to, I don’t know, get through it and all.”

  “But at what cost, eh?” David walked over to where she was standing and got down on his knees, forcing her to look into his eyes. “No matter how hard it gets, we can’t let ourselves become something dark and scary. Listen, maybe our parents were demons and maybe we have a little monster inside of us. I don’t know if I believe that, but let’s just say it’s true. I saw what you were like with Amy. There was nothing monstrous about that. You were a little girl. You still are a little girl. And if you feel like running away from all this crap, that’s good. That’s what a logical, sane person would do.”

  Jessica raised her head. “I think that was actually inspirational, Mr. Ross. You know, Amy liked you. I used to think you were a doorknob. Now I’m thinking she was right.”

  “Well …”

  David stopped as Jessica leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Jessica walked out of the room and David smiled, feeling good about himself for the first time in months.

  ***

  Josh had been in his room for only a few minutes when Garnet was at his door with a stack of manila folders. She handed them to him, then bit her lip and looked over her shoulder. The look in her eyes made it clear she did not feel comfortable around him. She did not step into the room. Josh realized she wasn’t alone. Two armed men in dark suits stood to either side of her.

  “I can’t see how they’re going to do you any good, Josh,” she said. “We don’t even really know what your EFHBs are. Makes it kind of difficult to develop them.”

  “All the same,” he said, trying to be as charming as possible. “Thanks again.”