The Shadow Fabric

by Mark Cassell

  Seeing her like this, I knew she deserved to stand proud. She had, as she’d admitted, been the gateway to allow the Entity into this world. And she had succeeded. There it was—The Entity—riding the Fabric with nothing to stop it. She had accomplished it and I admired her. I wanted to be down there with her. I wanted to stand by her side and laugh at the world…I wanted…

  “No!” I threw my head back. It smacked the ceiling and the shock cleared the mind-fuzz. I strained at the shadows, breathing in short bursts.

  Polly laughed.

  “I can hear it talking to you, Leo,” she said.

  “No,” I said again.

  With shadows snaking each footfall, Polly moved from the ruined wall and came to stand beside Victor. A collection of shadows formed around his legs.

  “You can’t blame me for everything, Cubs.” Without taking her eyes from him, she pointed at Isidore. “She helped me.”

  “Montelius…” Victor whispered, shaking his head.

  “I had no idea.” Isidore squirmed beneath the shadows. “I didn’t—”

  “Yes you did.” Polly’s dark eyes shot up. “She did, Cubs. She found the whereabouts of the four keepers of the Fabric. Those remaining folds left over from a burning London. And in doing so, she even found the Shadman who simply handed the Witchblade over to you.”

  As though accepting his fate, Victor allowed the shadows to embrace him. Perhaps, if he still had the Witchblade, he would’ve lashed out at them. With his eyes downcast and the way he shook his head, I doubted even that.

  “Victor!” I shouted. “Don’t give up, man.”

  Polly walked around him and headed for the Witchblade where the shadows kept away. She picked it up by the sharp end.

  “Over the past three hundred and fifty years, the four pieces of lifeless Fabric were handed down from generation to generation. The protectors were sworn to keep each piece far from the others.” She smacked the Witchblade’s hilt against Victor’s chest. “Bet you didn’t know that.”

  The shadows now squeezed him, and for the first time, he reacted. It was a lame attempt. “You don’t have to do this, Polly.”

  “With Isidore’s excellent skills, she found the four men, and when I got them in the same room…” She slapped the Witchblade in her palm. “I simply allowed the pieces to stitch themselves together again. The life force of those men was enough to set it all into motion.”

  Victor’s eyebrows pinched together, and he shifted against his restraints. Isidore and I continued to heave against our shadows.

  “I want the darkness back.” Polly dragged her little finger along the blade. Blood hit the floor and a passing shadow balled into a frenzy and licked it up. “I want the Entity to regain control.”

  “Polly,” Victor said, “if the darkness returns, even you won’t be here. There will be nothing.”

  “I’ve been in the dark long enough, Cubs. Now it’s time for me to embrace it.”

  “You’re mad,” I shouted at her.

  “Perhaps I went mad the moment I went blind.”

  Since devouring Neil, the Shadow Fabric hadn’t moved. It clogged the view through the ruined wall. Maybe it waited for something.

  Polly strolled towards Goodwin, again slapping the hilt of the Witchblade in her palm. She leered as he made to move, but the combination of his weakened condition and the binding shadows allowed little manoeuvrability. Several limbs of darkness coiled around his arms and legs.

  “Stay there,” Polly said. Sparks crackled around the Witchblade’s hilt as it smacked her hand. Being so close to them, the shadows recoiled from the knife’s presence.

  The Fabric hovered closer to the studio, bubbling against the wreckage of joists and brick. Definitely waiting.

  Goodwin looked at me, and then at Victor, and through bloody lips said, “I am so sorry.”

  With one final smack of the hilt, Polly gripped the Witchblade and brandished it high. Tiny fires sparked from the blade, tumbling over her head and shoulders.

  In one motion, she rushed forward and slammed the blade into Goodwin’s chest.

  CHAPTER 41

  I shouted Goodwin’s name. I couldn’t stand this. Everyone was dying around me. Now Goodwin, for all the hate I had for him, he didn’t deserve this.

  The Shadow Fabric gushed back into the studio. Masonry crashed behind it. In a whirlwind filling half the room, it hovered above Goodwin’s body. And swallowed it.

  Polly stepped back. Her arm hung by her side, the Witchblade dripping blood. Victor screamed something as he struggled against the sleeve of shadows. He remained upright as darkness spiralled around him. Finally, he was fighting. My frustrations again threw me into a frenzy and I thrashed against the shadows. Useless. As always.

  Inside the Fabric, as its glimmering surface flattened, the bulge of Goodwin’s body started to shrink. It seemed to collapse in on itself as the Fabric consumed him. Then Goodwin’s withered remains oozed out and I wanted to spew. Partially clothed, the husk crumpled. Goodwin’s body was a shrunken heap of wrinkled skin, a fraction of the man’s actual size.

  Isidore and I raged against the shadows still pinning us to the ceiling. My eyes wanted to pop from my face, Goodwin’s name on my lips. For all the man’s faults and deceit, he’d been no less to me than a father to a son. To watch him die this way…so swift, so final…

  I had so many questions for him.

  Polly stood a respectful distance from the Fabric, her face now relaxed. Her black eyes sparkled.

  The Fabric slid away from the hollow shell of Goodwin’s body. Now drained of life force, there was little holding it together, and the skull—with its curls of sparse hair—rolled away. The jaw dislodged and several teeth broke loose.

  The flat area of Fabric bulged, its surface gleaming. No longer an impenetrable darkness, it glimmered like a pool of diesel, rainbow colours swirling.

  Polly smirked, her chin jutting forward.

  The rising bulb of Shadow Fabric lightened, becoming grey. Tiny lumps appeared down its flank, one either side of the rising column of…flesh. It looked like flesh. Grey, and lightening still. It softened to white, and then it showed soft hues of pink. Human skin.

  Two nubs protruded and stretched downwards to become spindly arms. The trunk thickened and became a torso, upon which the lump of a head grew. The form expanded, rising as if from the murky depths of a swamp.

  The rest of the Shadow Fabric pooled around its legs.

  It had taken the form of a fully clothed man. And as I recognised the short, round frame, a set of human features wrapped around the face of the thing, a fresh-faced and smiling Goodwin.

  He blinked and scanned the studio. It was the most incredible—if horrific—thing I’d ever witnessed. The Entity had become Goodwin, as it had with Stanley.

  “Now,” Isidore said through tight lips, “you’re telling me your mate Goodwin there is the Entity?”

  I nodded, my mouth dry. The shadows pulled tighter across my chest as if daring me to struggle.

  Victor’s eyes were bursting from his face. The shadows rushed tighter over his body. They held him, allowing his head only the smallest of movements.

  “Yes,” he said, “the Fabric still isn’t large enough. The Entity still needs a life force to ride. Its haunt is not quite complete.”

  Finally my tongue came away from the roof of my mouth, yet I couldn’t dislodge my tumbling thoughts.

  Goodwin grinned at Polly.

  Out in the grounds of Periwick House, music started to play.

  CHAPTER 42

  The event organiser, Jocelyn, had done a fantastic job. She had proven she could indeed pull it off. Even if there was a hurricane, she had said. With music floating on the evening air, a vortex of shadow heaved behind the new Goodwin. The way the darkness swirled as a backdrop to the Entity’s present form, Jocelyn hadn’t been far wrong, even in a hurricane of shadows.

  Victor looked as helpless as I felt, and Isidore’s frustrations were equally
as evident; all of us wrapped in shadows.

  “Polly,” Goodwin said. The man was immaculate. He walked across the layer of Fabric. It bowed under his weight, and he came to stand beside a pair of shrivelled corpses. “You have served your purpose. I release you now.”

  “What?” Polly had been swinging the Witchblade like an absentminded child. Now she stopped.

  Between them, the overturned box sat atop a pile of shadowleaves. Some of the ordinary shadows toyed with its edges. Shadowplay. From outside in the marquee, wind instruments and violins rose up in beautiful oblivion.

  “Drop the knife,” Goodwin said.

  Polly did as she was told, her black eyes questioning. The blade thumped in a spray of blood. Fleeing shadows disappeared under the dumbbell rack.

  Goodwin crouched and grabbed a handful of shadowleaves. Bunched in his fist, the black squares poked through his fingers. He straightened up and stepped towards Polly.

  The shadows weaved around his legs and the husks of stitchers, and more curled around Victor.

  Goodwin and Polly faced one another. He smiled while her frown deepened. Her black eyes greyed and lightened further, becoming white. She blinked, shoulders rounded and her blind gaze darted about the room. Her hands shot up and slapped at her face. She clawed at her eyes.

  “Why?” she demanded, her chin quivering. “Why have you done this?”

  The shadows at her feet made way as she stomped on uncertain legs. Goodwin had his arm out towards her, with shadowleaves clutched tightly. As Polly reached him, he pressed them into her hands. She stopped short of bumping into him and immediately clamped her fingers around the leaves. A few fluttered to the floor.

  She dropped to her knees and the stitching took her.

  As if composed for that moment, the orchestra played a magnificent crescendo. The music filled the room as much as the evening air, and the Fabric ruffled behind Goodwin. It embraced him. Its edges caressed his shoulders, his arms, his legs.

  “Plenty more potential stitchers out there,” he said as darkness folded around him.

  He and the Shadow Fabric vanished.

  * * *

  My muscles ached. I couldn’t have been pinned to the studio ceiling for long. Five, maybe ten minutes. I wasn’t certain. I had to get out. And why had we been spared? Why hadn’t we been made to stitch? Or, even simpler, why hadn’t we been killed? I didn’t understand, and Isidore’s face suggested her confusion mirrored my own.

  Goodwin’s potential stitchers numbered around a thousand, and would no doubt provide enough life force to energise the Fabric, allowing the Entity passage into our world. No longer would there be a need for it to ride the energies of a human, its haunt would be complete. I had to do something.

  Trapped as the three of us were, we shared the knowledge that Goodwin, as the Entity, had plans for the occupants of the marquee. I forced away thoughts that led to Goodwin’s death. More pressing matters at hand: the shadows. I had to get free.

  The music fell into a gentle rhythm of woodwinds, and now that the Fabric had left us, the studio was much lighter. And my head was clearer. But the lesser shadows still held me.

  Below me, almost directly, Polly sat crossed-legged. A pool of shadows churned around her as her body swayed. She had already crumpled, her flesh greying beyond her years.

  Another heave against the constricting shadows and I grunted through clamped teeth. I knew it was useless.

  Isidore was equally desperate. Hair hung over her face, jaw clenched, and she wriggled under her restraints. Victor lay on the floor, his face obscured by the teasing shadows. It was difficult even to recognise a man crouched inside the trunk of darkness.

  Several lesser shadows were playing. Each one snaked around the dumbbell rack and toyed with the wilted remains of stitchers. In places, bodies huddled in twos and threes—wherever they’d stitched, they had fallen. The box of scattered shadowleaves seemed to be the main area of attention for shadowplay, where occasionally a leaf caught in a whirlwind of shadowy wisps, only to flutter to rest once more.

  A fair distance away was the weapon which could save us, the Witchblade. Absurdly, I willed it to leap into the air, to cut away the shadows around me. To help us with its magic, but its powers weren’t linked through telekinesis. The shadows continued avoiding any contact with the athame. They had, however, licked up the flecks of blood which spotted the floor; life force, no matter how small, wasn’t to be wasted.

  As the Witchblade was a source to avoid, so was my white shadowleaf. Each slithering phantom was clearly repelled by its presence. What significance did its purity suggest? All too much, that’s what it amounted to. I couldn’t grasp everything.

  The music still played, and I guessed Goodwin—the Entity—hadn’t gotten to the marquee yet. If he intended to get the entire audience stitching, then he would need to collect plenty of shadowleaves first. And there was only one place he could get them from: the box room beneath the House. We failed to burn the boxes, and now the Entity had a battery of ammunition and potential stitchers numbering a thousand or so. All enjoying the chamber music, oblivious to what was coming.

  At any moment, I expected the music to stop as the stitching took hold.

  Surely there was still time to use fire, and if so, how? There was the athame, too far away. Goodwin’s lighter? Where had I put it? I rewound to the last time I had it: helping Goodwin as the poor guy stumbled from under the House to here, I’d put the lighter away. It was in my pocket—one of many pockets in my combats. If only I could move against the pressure of shadows. No longer struggling against them, they had slackened slightly, allowing me marginal arm movement. Combats, always handy. The pockets were large and baggy, easily accessible. I hoped.

  Victor nodded, perhaps knowing my intentions.

  I twisted awkwardly, pain lancing my shoulder as my joints strained. Using both hands, my fingers prodded and probed—I couldn’t remember where I’d put the damn thing. The downside of combats is that any pocket could contain what we’re searching for, and so accelerates frustration in an already panicked situation. And if someone—something—had pulled thoughts from my mind, then of course, I was less likely to know which pocket the thing was in.

  On top of that, with the distant music and knowing that at any moment the mass-stitching would begin, I heard time race by with the sound of stringed instruments.

  Coins…keys…a packet of mints…wallet…more coins…

  I found the lighter. My hand closed around it.

  Isidore frowned. She knew I was up to something.

  Pulling my arm back, I held that magnificent Zippo lighter—the one I bought in Hong Kong for Goodwin as a small thank you gift. The thought of dropping it terrified me, watching it clatter to the floor, hope lost as the shadows looked up and laughed at my despair. I held my arm away, flicking the Zippo open and straightening my elbow. I didn’t want to set fire to my clothes.

  I thumbed the wheel.

  Fire shot up my fingers, across my knuckles, and over the back of my hand. I screamed, and at the same moment the shadows relaxed—perhaps I even heard them scream as they scurried off. The pain was intense, but I now had full movement. Shadows clung to the rest of my body, but they squirmed, still pinning me to the ceiling. I pushed the flame towards them. My hand wasn’t on fire, although it felt like it was. I swore I heard their screams, like they projected their agony directly at me.

  The shadows released me and gravity grabbed me. I slammed to the floor. My bad knee struck first, taking my body weight. Pain, a brief moment of disorientation, and I was on my feet, favouring one leg. I picked up the Witchblade.

  I sensed rather than heard the athame speaking to me.

  Holding it felt wrong. I knew it wasn’t my time. Maybe it was the voices probing my mind. Not yet, they said. It was as if the blade granted me use for no longer than a minute. It allowed me to brandish it—just for now—to cut away the shadows which held Victor. Each wispy phantom shied away from the glowing
edge as it sliced them, freeing him. Every lesser shadow darted into the corners of the studio.

  Victor emerged out of the darkness and I handed him the athame.

  “Nicely done,” he said, and peered up at Isidore.

  “Come on!” she yelled. “Get me down.”

  I rubbed my hand, desperately wanting to run the damn thing under cold water. My flesh was red. My knee screamed at me to sit and do nothing. Regardless, I was thankful I no longer held the Witchblade. I shivered.

  At arm’s length, Victor held the blade towards Isidore and a trail of flame shot up and tore away the shadows. She dropped into my arms. In another place, at another time, I would have enjoyed the moment, but my aching limbs protested and I steadied her to her feet. I tried not to grimace and didn’t mean to ignore her as she began to say something. I saw my white shadowleaf and bent to pick it up. The thing intrigued me.

  “You may want to keep hold of that,” Victor said.

  Isidore eyed the white leaf.

  I ignored the lingering pain of my burnt hand and cupped the shadowleaf in my palm. I stuffed it into a pocket. I kept hold of Goodwin’s Zippo, the engraving reminded me of its brief owner. Godwin. A Good Friend. I chewed my lip as Victor handed me my gloves. I poked the lighter into the pocket and pulled them on. I felt safer, marginally.

  Around us the lesser shadows retreated into corners. Some vanished entirely as the tracers of Witchblade fire chased after them. We stood together, composing ourselves, while the streamers fizzled out.

  On a chill breeze the chamber orchestra’s music floated through the shattered wall.

  I faced Victor. “We must stop Goodwin.”

  “It’s not Goodwin.” Dried blood coated his forehead and caked his eyebrows.

  “It’s a monster,” Isidore said and she tightened her rucksack straps. Her gun waved around and I squirmed when the barrel pointed at me for a second.

  “The Entity,” Victor corrected. “It has to be stopped.”

  My head throbbed and my shoulder screamed when I moved my arm. “Why have we been spared?”