Shadows of Ourselves (The Charmers Series Book 1)

by Apollo Blake

  “So. So, so, so,” Jackson said, ignoring bodybuilder boy. “I have a problem, Sky.”

  “And you think I can fix it.”

  He smirked and shook his head. “You can’t fix a person. But you can expose them. One of my employees is stealing from me, and I want you to tell me who it is. Penn says you’re a liesmith. I’ve seen your sign down near the cruise ship terminal before. I really hope you’re not a phony.”

  Liesmith. There was that word, again. I’d never heard it before tonight, but it clicked. I might just steal it.

  And, oh, the sign. It was a gaudy purple thing with white and gold lettering. I’d painted it five times before it was tacky enough for Mom’s approval, and we (meaning I) set it up down near the terminal on summer mornings, when the ship passengers flooded the uptown area like ants swarming. During the summer, they were my best customers. I usually hated them. I usually hated everybody.

  “For lack of a better phrase, yes. And the only phony in this room is the tacky inauthentic Noh mask on your shelf, there. Just for the record.”

  He laughed and poured himself a glass of whiskey and tilted the bottle in my direction in offering. I shook my head. I didn’t know what had brought on the sudden clarity in the hall, but I wanted to keep my wits about me—another sign tonight wasn’t unfolding like normal.

  I could feel Penn and the other boys’ eyes on me (was he a fellow employee? Someone for me to test?) and I wanted to bolt out of my chair and go splash some water on my face.

  The fact that Riley was here made me feel a bit more at ease, but just a bit.

  Breathe, idiot. Something about Jackson felt off, like rotted floorboards creaking underfoot or the bright, beautiful colours of a flower poisonous to the touch. Danger, buried beneath a deceptively innocent or beautiful surface. He felt dangerous. Not the party boy I’d expected. Something about the slant of his features, the twist of his grin, told me was nothing to play with. I couldn’t tell what it was about him that was off, but there was something there, just beneath the surface.

  And I was too broke not to entertain him. I felt vulnerable, like I was a mouse sitting out in the open space of a meadow, waiting for a hawk to swoop down on me.

  More than that, it felt like something was wrong with me.

  Not physical sickness—but a minute to sit alone and clear my mind, make my head stop shaking, would have been more than welcome.

  Jackson met my eyes. “I’m eighteen years old.”

  “No, you’re not.” Easy.

  I felt the familiar pain dance across my forehead and vanish almost instantly. The recognition became more painful the longer it was in left unacknowledged. The minute I exposed a lie, the urgent pain evaporated like smoke.

  “No, I’m twenty.”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay.” Jackson said. “I’m twenty-two.”

  I felt the pain ease. “Yes.”

  “I’m thinking of the colour orange.”

  I blinked. “Nope.”

  “Green.”

  That’s it,” I said. “Now are we done with the speed round yet, or have I not proved myself? Lies hurt, you know.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re the real thing, aren’t you?”

  I said nothing as Jackson leaned back in his chair, observing me in a new light. I resisted (barely) the urge to kick it out from under him.

  I’d honestly rather be at Jetstreams right now—or just go home and lock myself in my bedroom with the electric kettle, the coffee grounds, and a blank canvas. Fate had other ideas. So did Jackson.

  “Want a Starburst?” he asked suddenly.

  “I. . .what?” I watched as the club owner reached into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out a pack of brightly packaged candies. He unwrapped one, slowly, and popped it in his mouth.

  “Want one?” he repeated, still chewing.

  “No. Could w—”

  “For God’s sake.” The buff guy who’d followed Jackson into the room was staring at him, eyes like black holes. “Stop stuffing your face and—”

  Jackson held up a single finger, silencing him. He swallowed the lump of candy in his mouth, took a swig of alcohol, and smiled at us.

  “You’re decent, too. More than decent. I haven’t met a truly capable liesmith in nearly th—”

  “Can we move this along? He’s proved his powers, now hire him and kick him out. I still need an answer.”

  Irritation stirred, but I said nothing. If this guy stared at me like that, I would be running in the opposite direction. Well, that, or stripping off my clothes like there was no tomorrow. Jackson was still smiling carelessly, like it was all a big joke.

  Tension spiked through the room, and I glanced at Penn questioningly. Was her boss about to get into a fistfight in front of us?

  Finally, Jackson spoke. “I can’t help you, Hunter. To be honest with you it sounds like a suicide mission.” He sneered. “Best of luck, though. Hope you don’t die and all that. Oh, and give my love to granny dearest.”

  The guy—Hunter—balled his fists, and for a minute I thought he really was about to punch Jackson, but Penn spoke up from behind me, drawing their attention.

  “Jackson?”

  I turned in my seat to face her. Penn was was staring down at her phone with a stricken expression. She stood with her legs apart, back perfectly straight. You could see the power in her body from hours spent perfecting her sport. All lithe muscles and barely contained power, that was Penn.

  “What?”

  “A group of Crayton’s men are upstairs.”

  Jackson’s chair hit the floor. Riley’s eyes widened where she sat on the couch behind Penn, and I whipped around. The young club owner was standing, inches from Hunter, and despite the fact that the boy was twice his size, he looked like he was fully ready (and capable of) putting him on the ground.

  He spoke through clenched teeth. “You led them here.”

  “I didn’t know I was being followed,” Hunter shot back. His eyes were full of frantic energy. “If I did they wouldn’t be breathing right now—let alone breaking down your front door.”

  What? I wanted to ask Penn what she’d dragged us into, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the confrontation. No lie had registered. Whoever was following him, this boy would have been willing to kill them.

  This was not fantastic.

  A shiver passed through me.

  Jackson looked like he was about to unleash a torrent of curses on Hunter, but Penn cut in. “We need to get up there. Now. It’s bad. The place is emptying up.”

  “Right, of course it is. Nobody wants to draw Crayton’s attention. And I suppose they’re taking their mortals with them.” Jackson walked from the room without another word.

  mortals. As if he wasn’t one.

  What. The. Hell?

  I jumped up from my chair as Hunter took off after Jackson and Penn. Riley was on her feet too, shoving her phone back into her pocket. She looked over at me as Hunter ducked out the door.

  “What the—”

  “No idea,” I said, watching Hunter’s retreating figure. “But it doesn’t seem good. Or safe.”

  “Definitely not safe.”

  We spoke at the same time. “We should follow them.”

  Out in the hallway we rushed up the stairs, chasing their commotion, and I started to feel the clarity that had come over me as we descended earlier slip away. It wasn’t fresh like when I’d first started drinking, but it was like I was falling back into the earliest stages of intoxication, like the leftover taste of my drink turned stronger on my tongue and my vision went slightly hazy. I glanced at Riley and found her eyelids dragging. So, I wasn’t the only one who felt it.

  We rushed along the upstairs hallway and grabbed the door just before it fell shut after Hunter. I squeezed out from behind him where he’d come to a stop, and froze in my tracks.

  The neon club lights had been switched off, and in their place was a flat, washed-out white light glaring down from overhead. T
he music had been shut down, and in the silence that remained Temptation seemed like a tomb. A group of people stood in the center of the club, four or five men and a woman, all of them in nondescript black clothing—and behind them the last few clubbers were slipping out the heavy steel door back into the night.

  The woman, I recognized—she was the Korean girl I’d seen earlier as we came in. With the lights on I could see that she was younger than she’d appeared in the dark, maybe around Jackson and Penn’s age.

  Oh god. Was this some sort of gang shit?

  Jackson strode forward and faced down the group of them, Penn at his side. If she was frightened she hid it well. Hunter glanced over and his eyes met mine for a second before shifting back to the action.

  One of the men stepped forward to meet Jackson—the leader of the group? He was tall and even bigger than Hunter, his spiky, bleached blond hair cropped close to his skull. His eyes moved past Jackson to settle on the boy beside me.

  “See you collected some of Crayton’s trash,” he said, chuckling. “You can consider us the garbage men, ‘cause we’re here to take him off your hands.”

  Jackson glanced back to where we stood, and his eyes narrowed. He looked as if he were debating something for a second. His lips moved with a silent curse, then he rolled his eyes and faced forward again. “Hunter is a guest in my club,” he said. “Which means he’s under my protection, just as everyone else who walks through those doors.”

  The guy’s head snapped up, and he looked like he wanted to bite Jackson’s face off. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?” he spat.

  Jackson hummed thoughtfully. “A bunch of trespassers? Crayton’s trained dogs?” He shrugged. “It’s hard to tell when you all dress like boy band backup dancers.”

  The guy shook his head. “Fine. Let’s do this the ugly way. But just remember you started it when my hounds mess up your face.”

  “Oh fuck.” Hunter mumbled beside me.

  The brutish blond took a step forward, closer to Jackson.

  He held out his massive arm, muscles bulging, and opened his palm towards the ground.

  Something started to spill from his open hand, like dark blood dripping from a wound. Except it wasn’t liquid; more like smoke. But it wasn’t evaporating—the edges of its form licked the air like tongues of black flame. It multiplied, began to grow. The darkness twisted and writhed in the air like a living thing, and pooling on the ground between the blond and Jackson. The club owner eased back as the pool of shadow began to take form.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  I stared at the thing forming between the two men, sure that at any second I was about to snap upright in bed, out of the nightmare I was in.

  Except this wasn’t a dream. I wasn’t waking up.

  “Jackson? What’s our game plan?” Penn was backing away steadily.

  Jackson didn’t even look in her direction when he said, “You get your cousin out, we can deal with this.”

  “Thank you,” she breathed.

  Jackson nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  Something shifted in the corner of my eye. The club employees who remained—the one bartender from earlier, and a few others in matching white and black uniforms, were easing forward. Across the room the ripped bouncer stepped back through the door, and this time his tattoos were definitely glowing. The light was almost blinding. Jackson’s backup moved toward the mass of sinuously moving darkness that was still spreading.

  Penn turned and rushed at us, and at the same time, the thing that the blond guy had unleashed twisted violently, and started to take shape.

  I watched as its head poked forward—the gaping maw of a wolf. Thin legs followed as the beast dragged itself from the pool of shadow, trailing wisps of darkness behind it. The creature seemed shaky around the edges, like it might fall back apart at any second. Its golden eyes glowed.

  As Penn reached us, the monster lunged at Jackson. My breath caught in my throat as it flew at him with bared teeth—and Jackson raised a single hand and swiped it so hard it shot back at the men like a cannonball.

  I was frozen. Penn nudged past me to take Riley by the arms. She shoved her back through the doorway. “We’ve gotta get out of here!”

  I watched as Jackson and his employees converged on the men, and a fight erupted. More of the wolfish creatures had spawned, and now a pack of three stalked around the edges of the fight, snapping and snarling, dripping darkness. This is not real. This is not happening. Except, oh, oh fuck, it really is.

  Energy surged in the air, hot enough to burn me. And then Hunter was grabbing my arm from the side so tightly I cried out.

  “She’s right, we need to go. Come on.” The stranger dragged me through the door. I yanked my arm free and kicked it shut behind us as one of the monsters lunged in our direction.

  It hit the other side of the door with a crashing thud. I leapt back, slamming into Hunter.

  “Watch it.”

  I brushed past him, no time to waste. “Watch yourself.”

  We bolted down the hallway after Penn and Riley, who were just blurs of black and purple up the corridor. Penn turned into a door painted bright orange. Seconds later we careened around the corner after her, and suddenly we were in a stuffy, narrow corridor that led to an emergency exit.

  Yes!

  The glowing red exit sign that buzzed steadily above the door looked like a miracle to me, a mirage on the desert horizon.

  There was a crashing noise behind us as we pressed out into the cool November night. Looking over my shoulder, I saw one of the monsters barrelling after us down the hallway. Hunter pulled me to the side as the beast burst out into the alley and slammed into the wall on the other side. The stones cracked under its weight with a sound like an engine backfiring, and it let out a snarl that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It didn’t run so much as it jumped and glided. The creature was between us and the girls, but they could easily get out into the street on their side.

  I caught a glimpse of Riley’s violet hair over its head for a second before Hunter shoved me behind him. He stepped toward the growling beast, raised his hand—

  And shot a ball of fire at it out of his bare hand.

  Out of the palm of his hand. Fuck, fuck, fuck, and oh, fuck.

  The sound the monster made when the ball of flames hit it was like nothing I’d ever heard before—like grief and retching and evil come to life.

  It burst into an inferno, sparks leaping into the darkness around us. I could barely feel anything, but Hunter grabbed me up again and shoved me forward, away from the middle of the alley and Riley. Deeper into the shadows.

  “Come on,” he said. “There’s another way out down there. There’ll be more on our heels. You have to move if you want to live! Come on!”

  Come with me if you want to live? Seriously?

  I caught sight of Riley flying around the corner onto the street at the opposite end of the alley, running after her cousin, and snapped out of it. Penn would keep her safe. I had to worry about myself right now. Choices don’t make themselves, and choices that go unmade get you killed.

  “Okay,” I said. I forced myself to breathe. “Let’s move.”

  He turned to go, and I cast one look back to the burning monster before following him into the darkness.

  TWO

  LIESMITH

  We ran from the alley in a blur of lights and noise, panic catching in my throat as I heard what sounded like growling behind us. Hunter was faster than I was, and he pulled me along behind him so quickly my vision blurred. We bolted up the hill, through the park—the world was nothing but a riot of colour and motion around me.

  Sheer panic propelled me forward, and you can bet your ass I didn’t risk a look back. Whatever those things were, I wasn’t trying to get another fucking look at them—especially not as they chased me through the city.

  The boy at my side kept grabbing me and pulling me along whenever I couldn’t match his pace, a
nd every time, the idea that I was too slow to escape what was behind us made me lunge forward with renewed energy even as my lungs threatened to give out.