The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

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The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 112

by Travis Luedke


  “Yeah, not so tough at all,” he said. Jared looked over to the shower and the taps spun alive. Hot water spurted from the nozzle, filling the air with steam. Jared looked over to the sink and spun the hot water tap so hard it flew forward and struck the side of the shower.

  “What are you doing?” Josh tried to back up but there was nowhere else to run.

  “Calling them. Don’t worry. You’ll be home soon.”

  Josh found it hard to see now. The bathroom filled with steam impossibly fast. Jared was a blur of shadow that seemed miles away. A sound like the rapping of a lead pipe against ceramic tiles built from a distant echo to a loud ringing. Josh looked around for the source of the sound and noticed the mirrors. They were completely covered with mist except for a small vaguely circular patch that was dark, like a skylight looking up at a starless sky.

  “You’re calling the Edimmu?” Josh realized how naked and powerless he was and wondered if they would still look at him with love now that he had killed their kind.

  “No,” Jared answered, his voice faint, like a whisper from a dream. “Not them. I’m calling the others. Like I said, you’re heading home. Back to your father, Ehpslab.”

  Josh looked at the circle of darkness. Strength drained from every inch of his body. He saw now what was making the circle. A hand, covered in red blisters and pussing sores was wiping the mist away from the other side of the mirror.

  “No!” Josh jumped up. He suddenly knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he could not allow the creature on the other side of the mirror to make that circle any larger. If it was big enough, something would come through into this world, something he knew he would not be strong enough to fight. He focused on the mirror and channeled his fear. With a sharp deafening crack the mirror shattered into hundreds of pieces. He could feel the glass wanting to shoot out in all directions, to fill the room with shrapnel, but he kept it in place. The glass settled gently around the base of the floor.

  Josh clenched his fists and turned to the doorway. The mist had dissipated. He saw Jared clearly now, saw the expression of shock and fear dawning on the young boy’s face. Then Josh pushed with the force of his will and Jared flew back twenty feet and hit the wall in the bedroom. Pictures fell to the carpeted floor, glass shattering. Jared slid down the wall, shook his head and then jumped quickly to his feet.

  “I am so going to kill you,” Jared said.

  Before Josh could react, Jared stopped and slowly turned to look at something to his right. Someone was in the door to his quarters. He could feel them. Could feel her.

  “Jessica,” Josh said and ran out of the bathroom. He was just in time to see Jessica jump into the air. The air around her turn to puddles and eddies of darkness and quasi-solid shapes. Then the darkness shot out from her and hit Jared square in the chest. It twisted around his body like pythons, squeezing and crushing his body. Then, with a final sick wet crunch, Jared’s body bent backwards at a ninety-degree angle, breaking his back. A second later the legs bent sideways at the knee. Two more wet crunching sounds. For a moment, Jared’s body hung suspended in the air. Then it collapsed and was still. A thin stream of blood trickled out of his left eye.

  “Oh my God,” Josh fell to his knees. He could not take his eyes of the dead body. ‘He was just a kid,’ he thought. Then he looked over at Jessica. She stood in the doorway with Todd and David. No one seemed to notice that Josh was naked. They were all looking at Jared’s corpse.

  “Humph,” Jessica said. “Never liked him that much, anyway.”

  ***

  Wisdom arrived several long minutes later. No one had called him. He had just felt the use of power and the coming of death. Wisdom spoke briefly with Garnet who had arrived alongside him, making arrangements for the removal of the body. Josh dressed in the bathroom but did not trust himself to speak yet. When he came out, Elaine was there questioning the other Anomalies. Everyone fell silent as they became aware of him. Josh stared at the spot where Jared had hit the wall, where Josh had thrown him with a power he did not understand. Then he sat in a chair and told everyone what had happened.

  In the end, Wisdom shook his head and turned to Elaine. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You understand what I’m saying, Elaine?”

  Just for a moment, Elaine’s eyes went wide. Then she nodded. “Perhaps we should talk.”

  Wisdom nodded and left the room without another word. Elaine followed.

  Jessica snuck to the door, looked up and down the hallway, then stepped back inside and closed the door.

  “Okay they’re gone,” she said. “We can get back to business.”

  David blanched. “Jesus, Jessica. Can’t you give us a few minutes?”

  “No, I can’t. We’ve already wasted enough time, thanks to Jared.”

  “What the hell did you do to him, Jessica? How is that even possible?”

  Jessica punched David in the arm. “Here we go again. Just deal. He’s dead. Get over it.”

  David swung his hand toward Jessica, obviously trying to smack the back of her head. Jessica saw the movement and ducked out of the way.

  “You know child abuse is against the law.” Jessica put her hands on her hips. She could not have looked more like a child if she'd been trying.

  “Not in this country. Now be civil.”

  Jessica cocked her head to one side. “You’re lying. Child abuse is, like, illegal everywhere. Isn’t it? He is lying, right, Todd?”

  Todd exchanged a look with Josh that nearly sent him laughing out loud. He covered his mouth with his right hand, realizing any sign of amusement on his face would just send Jessica over the edge.

  “Let’s not find out.” Todd said tactfully, stepping between the two of them. “Jessica does have a point, though. We did come here to tell you something, Josh. And I’m sure this thing with Jared just made everything that much worse. Wisdom is on the verge of a meltdown.”

  “I told you he thought Wisdom was crazy.” Jessica stuck her tongue out at David.

  “I did not say Wisdom was crazy. He’s just not overly sane right now. He plans on attacking the Council of Peacocks and he’s going to use us as weapons.”

  Josh put a hand on the dresser drawer for support and took a deep breath. “I was afraid of that.”

  For a moment, no one said anything. Jessica glared at him while David and Todd exchanged a long silent look.

  Finally, Jessica spoke. “What do you mean, you were afraid of that? You knew this was going to happen? How could you?”

  Josh rubbed his hands over his face. He looked over at his bed and realized he had been very right about this day. He should have stayed under the covers. “Have a seat and I’ll tell you. Wisdom came to me last night. Well, he came to my dream. Anyway, this is what happened.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  By the time Josh finished telling the story of what had happened last night, everyone in the room was wide-eyed and speechless. David chewed on his nails, slowly shaking his head, while Todd just stared off into a corner. Jessica did her best to pretend his story didn’t faze her. She nodded and rested the index and middle fingers of her right hand on her chin in a fairly good imitation of Katie Couric interviewing a celebrity. However, she cleared her throat far too often and kept tapping her left foot on the carpeted floor. She was nervous. Josh did not have to be psychic to see that.

  “I had no idea Wisdom could do something like that.” Todd rubbed his palms against his pants, his eyes still focused off in the distance.

  “Let’s be honest, Todd,” Jessica said, clearing her throat again. “We don’t really know what Wisdom is capable of. We’ve never known, not really.”

  “True. I mean, I knew he was powerful but to enter someone else’s dream like that, make Josh see the things he saw?”

  “It’s like he’s Freddy Krueger or something. Spooky.” David spoke through his fingers, not bothering to take a break from his nail biting. “Here we are, all signed up to do whatever he wants us to, and we know nothing
about him.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Jessica flung her hand away from her chin, a smug expression forming over her face. She turned away from Josh and focused on David, the act setting her ponytail flopping behind her head. “We know lots about Wisdom.”

  “Like what?” David started pacing now, still chewing away. “He’s a man with lots of secrets and a whole bunch of money and some sort of mysterious power that lets him do things no one should be able to do? Hell, that describes Donald Trump. What I mean is we don’t know what he is. He could be the devil himself for all we know. Who’s to say we’re not on the wrong side? Maybe the Council of Peacocks are the good guys in this.”

  Josh leaned back on the bed and cupped his hands behind his head. “Don’t think so. There is the whole making deals with bloodsucking reptilians and pussing demons. Not to mention how they keep trying to kill us.”

  “Maybe they should!” David let his hands drop away from his mouth and stood there, stiff, each breath he took heavy and pointed.

  “Maybe they should kill us?” Todd turned away from the corner. Josh could not read the expression on Todd’s face. There were bags under the heavy-set man’s eyes Josh had not noticed before. Todd’s eyes moved rapidly in the sockets, as if trying to take in every part of David all at once. “You think because we’re part demon, maybe we deserve to be, what, exterminated? Like vermin or something? Is that what you’re saying, David? Christ!”

  “Why don’t you just go back to your room?” Jessica said. “For that matter, why don’t you just go back home?”

  David made a sound that was part laugh, part cry. “That’s just it. I can’t go home. Wisdom knows that. See, I’m sort of wanted on murder charges. Kind of takes away some of my options. I’ve spent that last couple of days – hell, the last couple of months – trying to convince myself that I wasn’t some sort of monster. Thing is, I really am a monster. Maybe it is because I have this demon blood inside me, or maybe it’s just because I was born wrong somehow. I’ve done bad things. Hurt people.”

  “And your answer to guilt is a death-wish?” Todd’s lips raised in a sneer. “Bathroom’s over there. Take one of the mirror shards to your wrist and get happy. Suicide is stupid. Period. Way I see it, maybe I am quote-unquote evil. Maybe I am damned to hell just because of how I was born. But I think the way you live says a lot more about you than the way you were born. So you’re wanted on murder charges and you feel guilty about it. Boo-hoo. Turn yourself in if you feel so bad about it. Do your time in jail, pay your debt to society and all that cliché crap. Killing yourself or letting someone else kill you is not going to bring anybody back to life, and it certainly won’t make you feel any less guilty. You want to be a martyr, go ahead. Be my guest. But I don’t think you can be a demon and a martyr at the same time.”

  Jessica cut in. “I think what he’s trying to say is quit your whining, you big baby, and focus on the trouble you’re in now.”

  “Actually,” Todd’s face went lax, “that’s not quite what I was aiming for.”

  “Whatever. I’m starting to think that being an adult just means you use more words than you need and pretend you’re thinking something other than what you are. We all know he’s wussing out. What he really needs is a slap across his self-pitying face, not a tough-love pep talk. Let’s forget he’s here, okay? Let him sit in the corner and get all weepy-faced about how he’s a bad man and all. We need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “About what?” Josh sat up again and let his hands fall to his side.

  “Hello?” Jessica slapped the bed with both hands. “You were listening, weren’t you? Wisdom is going to take us into a battle with the Council. Does any of this ring a bell?”

  Josh smiled. “Gee, Jessica. You sure are cute when you’re not, you know, killing things.”

  Jessica bit her lip. Blood raced to her face. She looked like Elmer Fudd in a Bugs Bunny cartoon about to blow his top.

  “Look, you guys do what you want. I have to go with Wisdom.”

  Todd lowered his head as if the weight of Josh’s words had pushed down on him. “Say what? You’re going with Wisdom into Hell. Josh, of any of us here, with the obvious exception of Mr. David gloomy-pants, you’re the least capable of surviving something like this. You have no idea what your EFHBs are, let alone how to use them. The Council has Edimmu, not to mention enough mojo power to make Wisdom think twice about taking them on. And so what? You think ‘Oh I know karate so I can take on this secret society’?’”

  Josh chuckled, a genuine smile on his face. “I don’t know karate. I know how to take care of myself, that’s all. And I did use my whatever-you-call-it to throw Jared across the room. I think I’m getting a handle on the power, but that is beside the point. This is about family, Todd. My father. He’s mixed up in something – got me mixed up in something – and I need to know what it is. No matter what anyone says, whatever the circumstances of how I was conceived, my father is not a demon. My father works for a branch of the CSIS, but it also looks like he works for the Council of Peacocks. My real father is very human – a human mixed up in some very weird stuff, to be sure – and I need to find out what he is keeping secret from me. And just so we’re clear here, I may not be able to read minds or levitate books but I can take out a couple of guys with guns before they fire a shot. And let’s not forget that I’m the only one here who has killed an Edimmu before. Until a few minutes ago, I thought I was the only one capable of killing a human being.”

  Josh stopped.

  Jessica and Todd stared at each other, their faces overly relaxed as if their muscles were dead. Jessica's eyes twitched ever so slightly as if she was actually trying to see through Todd’s eyes into his brain. Todd’s eyes glistened as if they were covered in a layer of tears.

  “What?” Josh went stiff. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Jessica nodded and looked at the ground.

  Todd took a breath and let it out slowly between pursed lips. He licked his lips before starting to speak. “That wasn’t the first time Jessica killed someone, Josh. It’s part of the training we get from Ms. Ryerson.”

  “She trains you to kill people?”

  David stopped pacing.

  Jessica nodded.

  Todd went back to looking off into a corner.

  “Great. The fun just keeps on coming.” Josh covered his mouth with his right hand and leaned forward, thinking.

  For several minutes the only sound in the room was that of people breathing. Finally, Jessica cleared her throat and spoke. “Maybe we shouldn’t have said anything about it. It’s … well, I can’t say it’s not a big deal, because that’s kind of….”

  “Monstrous?” David started chewing on his fingernails again. “Is that the word you were looking for?”

  Jessica shrugged. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know. It was necessary, at least the way I see it. If we don’t know how to kill with our powers we wouldn’t really know how not to kill. It makes sense if you think about it. It’s like, well, the only way you can really know how strong you are is to push yourself to your limits. It was hard for me.” The way Jessica hung her head made it obvious she disliked saying anything was hard for her. “But I got through it. Which is more than I can say for Jared.”

  Josh shivered. “Didn’t look to me like he had a hard time with the idea of killing.”

  “Really?” Jessica said. “Well, maybe you’re not looking at it the right way. He could have snapped your spinal column when you were in the shower or caused a brain hemorrhage. Instead, he had to call someone else to do the dirty work. It’s true what I said. I never really liked him. I think it was those beady black eyes of his. He looked like a seagull with sandy-brown hair. Anyway, he had a few tests and he just wasn’t able to go through with it. He left them wounded, but he could never finish them off. He wanted so bad to get to the next level in class, to catch up with Amy and me, but Ms. Ryerson told him he would have to keep taking that test and pass it bef
ore he could go on.”

  Josh fixated on the image of Jared sneaking into the bathroom while he showered and snapping his neck using the power of his mind. He shivered again.

  “Count me in as extremely grateful he wasn’t as good a student as you.”

  Jessica smiled with pride, and Josh felt even colder than before. He went to the closet, took out a sweater and hoped that would help.

  “Okay, you guys do what you want,” he said. “I’m off to see Wisdom.”

  “What?” Todd raced over and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Stop and think, man. He wants to send us off into some sort of war and here you are skipping off to the head of the line?”

  “I think I answered that already. There’s no sense hiding from what you can’t escape.” Josh walked toward the door, stopped and turned back to face them. “David, why don’t you come with me?”

  “Huh?” David went slightly pale, which made his freckles all the more apparent. “Why me?”

  “Because you need it most of all.”

  “Need what?”

  “To confront the beast inside.”

  ***

  “Maybe it won’t be enough.”

  When he first travelled back through time, a calm sort of arrogance filled him. He knew what was going to happen, so he knew how to prevent it. He knew when the Edimmu would attack Toronto, knew they would slaughter or kidnap most of the Anomalies; but all of that was unimportant. All that mattered was keeping Echo alive. That and making sure Propates did not get to remake the world in his image. So Wisdom found Josh: a new Anomaly who could perhaps lead to a different string of events.

  Unfortunately, not all of the new string was to his liking. Jared’s betrayal had caught him completely off guard. Maybe it was pride that had blinded him to that threat the first time or maybe, just maybe....

  “The threat wasn’t there the first time.”

  Perhaps he had not given enough thought to just how much influence this visitor from another world was having on the course of events. Ever since he felt the surge of power preceding Jared’s death, Wisdom had been filled with a subtle and recurring emotion. Fear. If Wisdom wasn’t the only one traveling through time, maybe all of his carefully calculated plans were worthless.

 

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