Stalked by Shadows

by Lissa Kasey

  There was a lot of shouting and bright lights directed on us so intensely I couldn’t see beyond Micah’s face. His hands cupped my cheeks, and he rested his forehead against mine.

  “Alex? Look at me okay? Focus on me.”

  “Yeah,” I said, throat hurting like I’d been screaming. I studied his face, the pale eyes and tiny freckles almost lost in the illuminating washout of color around us.

  “You back with me?”

  Had I gone somewhere? I thought of the memory. Maybe not a memory, but a full flashback. “Fuck.”

  “He’s back,” Lukas’ voice shouted from somewhere beyond the lights.

  “I’m sorry,” I said immediately to Micah. I looked down at us. Was the blood his? Had I hurt him?

  “I’m not moving until they lower their weapons,” Micah shouted back. “Fucking police.”

  “Did I hurt you?” I hoped I hadn’t hurt him, but we were coated in blood. My jeans and the back of Micah’s shirt seemed to be coated. I also felt the heat of something running down my cheek. Micah held on tight enough that I couldn’t really move. At least I could breathe again. “What did I do?”

  “Nothing. You fell and hit your head.”

  “I’m bleeding?” Was that why my left brow throbbed?

  “Yes, but it’s not bad. Probably won’t even need stitches, just bleeding a lot.”

  “Head wounds always bleed like you’re dying.” It didn’t explain all the blood we were covered in. “Are you okay?” I tried to turn my gaze from him to see beyond, but his hands tightened on my face.

  “Look at me, okay?”

  I blinked at him, my heart doing a little lurch. “Did I hurt someone else?”

  “You didn’t do anything. But you also don’t need that memory. So focus on me, okay? Your brother is coming. He’ll sort this out.”

  I focused on Micah’s face, a tremor of panic starting in my hips, a subtle shaking, and beginning to spread outward. It was a familiar reverberation of my spine that often spread into a full-on panic attack which would leave me gasping for breath and reality all at once. I had to fight to stay still when the urge to run filled my gut. The feeling of kneeling in congealing blood made my gorge rise and with it the morbid fascination of my brain to explain why, to see…

  “You said I’m beautiful, right?” Micah said as my eyes strayed from his.

  “Yes,” I agreed, attention snapping back to him. I could almost see his freckles in the dark.

  “Then keep your eyes on me. Wait for Lukas with me.”

  “Okay.” I thought for a moment about the few seconds before the flashback had taken hold of me. Something had been there. Something, not someone. “Something was there,” I whispered almost inaudibly. “A shadow…” With no face.

  “Shh,” Micah hushed me, still holding me tight. “Five things, right? You feel me wrapped around you? You see me? Hear me?” He pressed his lips to mine again for a few seconds. “Taste me? Smell me?”

  “Yes,” I breathed, focusing on him. I heard arguing, the lights shifted a little and then Lukas squatted beside us.

  Micah made me turn my head to look at him. “See, here’s Lukas.”

  “Hey, little brother,” Lukas said looking relaxed and normal. “I need you and Micah to step out for a few minutes. Okay?”

  I tried to look back again, but Micah held my face in a grip that belied his small size. “You don’t need this memory,” Micah said.

  I blinked at him, brain starting to come back online. Someone was dead nearby, and it wasn’t pretty. I could tell that much from the blood and smell of open bowels. “Did I do…?”

  “No,” Lukas said firmly. “But we need you two out. I’ll have someone drive you to the station. They’ll collect your clothes and your statements.” He glared out into the darkness, raising his voice, “No one is shooting anyone here tonight.”

  Shooting? Was that why Micah was wrapped so tightly around me? Were they threatening to shoot me? Unarmed, injured, and confused? On my knees, bleeding, and they were threatening to shoot me?

  “Slowly put your hands behind your head,” Lukas instructed.

  It took effort to release my grip on Micah, almost physically hurt to let him go. I did as Lukas said, moving very slowly and putting my hands up. Several cops leapt in and ripped Micah away from me, forcing me to the ground and cuffing me. What the fuck?

  They hauled me up and dragged me out, a wall of blue standing between me, Micah, and whomever had died. The lights thankfully washed out all the dark shadows as they led me through the maze of tombs and out of the cemetery, to shove me in the back of a squad car. Micah was led to another. There was a sizable crowd lounging around, kept back by yellow tape and a few police officers. Lukas appeared beside my door and tapped on the window.

  “Cooperate,” he told me through the glass. “I’ll be there soon.”

  I felt sick. How could I cooperate if I didn’t even know what happened? This was exactly why they’d wanted me locked in a psych ward forever. I was crazy. I could hurt people. But Micah said I hadn’t. He’d used himself as a shield. Did he understand how insane that was? He could have been killed. Did he have any idea how many people were killed a year by police simply because they had some sort of mental issue that the cops weren’t trained to manage? My therapist had given me stats and guidelines on how to react around police if I could possibly help it. She’d also discussed the issue at length with Lukas, who promised to bring it up within the department.

  I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The only thing that had stood between me and accidental death by cop was Micah.

  Micah. I sighed. Only a few hours after meeting him and I’d really fucked up. Probably lost the job. If he was smart, he’d avoid me like the plague from this day forward.

  A pair of cops got in the front of the car and they steered the car toward the police station. I wondered if I was under arrest, but realized I hadn’t been read my rights, and Lukas would have been all over that. Though the cuffs still bit into my wrists. I prayed the entire way that I wouldn’t end up back in some psych ward, loaded up with drugs that made me sick, while they tried to erase who I was.

  Chapter 7

  The police station went by in a blur. They led me into a room, uncuffed me, took swabs from my hands and gave me scrubs to change into, demanding I give them my clothes, even my shoes and underwear. Without the clothes I still felt filthy, the stench of copper strong in my nose. Tendrils of my hair having escaped my bun were laced with drying blood. My forehead throbbed but didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.

  I was freezing since the replacement clothes they gave me did nothing to ward off the chill of the evening’s events. The cop that came in to talk to me asked only a handful of questions. He made it clear I was not under arrest, and they only wanted my take on things. Apparently we’d been recorded on the street level cameras entering the cemetery after Jared had called for us. They had our movements all the way up to entering the cemetery.

  It didn’t, however, sound all that good for Jared, as the detective was making it sound like the man was under suspicion for doing something to his girlfriend. Had that been her body in the cemetery? Was I covered in her blood?

  “So you met Jared and Sarah at the shop earlier today?” The detective asked.

  “Yes, they bought some stuff and signed up for the Saturday tour.”

  “How did they seem to you?”

  “Seem?”

  “Happy? Did they argue? Did they say anything about going out for a tour after they left the shop?”

  “No,” I said. “They seemed happy. They were going to get beignets. I didn’t ask about the rest of their schedule. Did something happen to Sarah?”

  “We’re trying to find that out,” was all the detective gave me.

  “But there was a body?”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “Dead animals. Micah said it looked like a summoning ceremony.”

  “Do you practice the occult
, Mr. Caine?”

  It was odd to be called Mr. Caine. It made me think of my dad, or even Lukas. “No. I just started working at the shop, helping with retail work, and the walking tours.”

  “Is Mr. Richards a practicing member of the occult?”

  “You’d have to ask him. I don’t know him well enough to have that information.”

  “Did Jared and Sarah seem to be into the occult?”

  “They were excited about the ghost tour stuff, but I think that’s normal for tourists in New Orleans. The cab driver even talked about how big of a commercial industry it is for the city. Hotels use the idea of ghosts to lure in tourists, and it brings in a ton of revenue. I didn’t get any other vibe off the couple other than that they were tourists.”

  “Did you see the tour guide Mark Gioness with them?”

  “No, he’d left before they arrived,” I answered. “I got the impression he wasn’t supposed to be in the cemetery as Thursday nights were Micah’s. He had come into the store to argue with Skylar about switching days.”

  “How did he seem to you?”

  “Um, I dunno. He and the two women he was with were mean to Skylar until I stepped in.”

  “Mean how?”

  “Using the wrong pronoun. Trying to bully her into changing Micah’s schedule even though she didn’t have the power to do that.”

  “Who were the two women with Mr. Gioness?”

  “I don’t know. As I said, I started the job today. You’d have to ask Micah. It sounds like they are all tour guides.” I did the best I could to answer everything. But when I got to the flashback it was all a blank.

  “You don’t remember falling?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “But you saw the remains of some sort of ritual.”

  “If that’s what you want to call dead animals,” I said. “Who does that?” And people called me crazy. “Is Micah okay? Christ… What’s wrong with people? Did you find Sarah? She seemed like a nice girl.”

  He didn’t answer any of my questions. He asked only a handful more before I was escorted in the little paper slippers to the main area of the station. Sky was there holding a bag of something and talking to a police officer. She saw me and rushed over, throwing her arms around me in a hug that surprised me. Didn’t she know I was nuts? Standing in the police station, in nothing but thin scrubs, and someone else’s blood, I never felt more broken, vulnerable, and lost, even after my many psych ward visits.

  Her hug was grounding. Real, though I didn’t think I deserved it. But I was afraid to touch her back and get her dirty, both with the blood on my hands and the memories of my messed-up life. She seemed like a good kid. I was thinking that about a lot of people lately.

  “Why hasn’t anyone treated his head?” She gave the cops around us a scathing look. “Does anyone at least have a first aid kit?”

  The cop she’d been talking too, took one out from under a desk and handed it to her like she was some sort of seven-foot soldier instead of a five-foot nothing princess. She took it, balancing it on top of the bag she was carrying. “I have clothes for you. Lukas asked me to grab them. Said they’d be taking your stuff since it was covered in evidence or something.” She glanced back at the group. “Bathroom?”

  They pointed off in one direction. Sky grabbed my hand and dragged me in that direction. I pulled her to a halt when she tried to drag me into the women’s bathroom. She paused, stuck her head inside, then shoved open the door. It was one giant stall instead of multiples. “In,” she said with that no-nonsense tone.

  I followed her in and watched her lock the door.

  “The ladies room is always cleaner in places like this,” Sky told me as she set down the bag and began digging things out. “You’ll have to kneel for me so I can clean that wound.”

  I stared at her for a minute but finally dropped to my knees and sat back on my feet, closing my eyes. I could have fallen asleep right there. The adrenaline vanished, exhausting me instantly. Sky began scrubbing my face. I smelled the tang and felt the burn of alcohol, heard water running, felt paper towels run over my skin. There was a knock on the door which startled me out of a bit of meditation.

  “Who is it?” Sky demanded. I looked up to find her standing over me, looking fierce, ready to defend me. She reminded me of one of those little dogs who thought they were a big dog.

  “Micah,” Micah’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Lukas says you have clothes for me.”

  Sky left my side to open the door and let Micah in. He was dressed much the same as I was in paper-thin scrubs that made us both look like we were going to jail today. Sky wrung her hands. “He’s really quiet. Should he be this quiet? I need to find Lukas.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Micah assured her.

  “I tried to clean the wound but it keeps bleeding. Should we bring him to the hospital?”

  “No,” I said firmly, fears of never being released again filling my head. “No hospital. I’m not crazy,” no matter how much everyone else told me I was.

  “No one thinks you are, sweetie,” Sky said.

  Micah closed and locked the door. “Are you nauseous or light headed?” he asked me.

  “No. Just tired.”

  “Probably not a concussion then.” He held his hand up in front of my face and moved his fingers around. I followed them lazily with my gaze. He nodded like I’d confirmed something for him, then picked up the first aid kit, finding a few things and making his way to me, kneeling beside me. “I’m going to clean it again and glue it shut,” Micah said. “It might scar.”

  “I don’t care.” Scars didn’t bother me. The idea of being locked in a psych ward again did.

  “Clothes for both of you are in the bag,” Sky said. “I’m going to find Lukas.”

  “He was talking to the sergeant,” Micah said while he dabbed at my wound. “I hope giving them an earful about aiming weapons at an unarmed, injured man.” He dried my head and probed at the wound a little. It ached, but more like a bruise than anything else. “This will hurt a bit as I have to press it closed and add the glue.”

  “Okay,” I allowed, waiting for the pressure.

  Sky left the bathroom, and I closed my eyes when the wound began to sting.

  “It’s a good thing you’re not black,” Micah said quietly.

  “I am though,” I told him. “Mom’s as blonde as can be, dad’s full African American. They are one of those ultimate poster-ready interracial couples. Two ends of the spectrum. Luke and I got frizzy hair and dark eyes out of it. We didn’t have it as bad as some of the kids who did have dark skin, but no one really let us forget that our dad is black. Lukas’s old police department knew and treated him like crap.”

  “Lucky,” Micah said. “This city is full of racism and hate. Sad for a town that is such a melting pot of cultures.”

  “What about you?” I asked. I would rather focus on him than the pain and the disquiet still rattling around my gut.

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re obviously Japanese, but I’ve never seen a blue-eyed Japanese person. At least not with real blue eyes. Contacts sure…” I was one of the few people I knew, who wasn’t Asian, who could actually distinguish the different types of Asian faces; Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian. It wasn’t the skin tone as that could vary from city to city. It was the shape of the face, eyes, and cheek bones. Mix them up and it really became hard to determine, but I was pretty sure Micah’s features were very Japanese. “What’s your back story? What sort of mix stirred up a beautiful man like you?”

  “Oh. Thank you. Mom is Irish. Red hair, blue eyes, and all. She taught English in Japan. That’s how she met my dad. I have two aunts and an uncle on my mom’s side who immigrated to America and grew up spending a lot of time here. Spent my life visiting places all over the world. Lived and studied in Tokyo, traveled to Ireland, and America, even spent a few years with my parents while they taught in China. It wasn’t until I met Timothy online that I moved to A
merica. Sounds like you’ve traveled a lot too.”

  “Only while I served. Spent half a year in Japan on my first tour. My Japanese isn’t that fluent though. It’s better than my Chinese, but not by much. I pick up languages pretty fast, but it still takes immersion for me, at least a couple of weeks. My first tour was a lot of training and very little time off base. Second tour we did France. I’m fluent in French and Italian now. Third tour was all the Middle East. Thought I’d maybe get to go back to Japan someday, or even China, which is why I tried to learn Chinese. But stuff sort of happened…”

  Micah blew on the wound. I could feel his warm breath on my forehead and knew he was drying the glue but it comforted me that he was close. “Life does that. Changes our direction sometimes.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said.

  “For what?” He began putting away pieces of the first aid kit.

  “This whole mess. I’ll understand if you fire me. Disaster seems to follow me.”

  “You are not to blame for this evening, Alex.”

  “I flipped out.”

  “You had a flashback. I knew it could happen. Lukas had warned me. I’ve seen videos of people having full on flashbacks where they attack everyone who approaches them. Yours wasn’t even a bad one. You pretty much dropped to the ground and held on to me. It wouldn’t have happened if the circumstances had been normal. I do tours all the time and have never found a summoning circle or a body on any of them. St. Louis Number One is one of the best protected areas of the city. It shouldn’t have happened. Had I even thought there was a possibility neither of us would have entered the cemetery.” Micah shook his head, then he dug through the bag, sorting out what looked like clothing.

  “Is Sarah dead?”

  “I honestly don’t know. They won’t tell me anything.”

  “But you saw…” Or was the body too messed up to make out anything? My stomach churned at the idea.