Born of Shadows- Complete Series

by J. R. Erickson

  * * * *

  Several minutes passed, and Abby relaxed against a white birch, feeling the frayed bark tickling her scalp. Across the street, the woods were dense, their boughs colliding in the strangled space. She let her eyes dip and soar along the tree trunks, not really looking for anything more than a fixation. As her gaze trailed left, she caught movement among the branches, nothing drastic, just a shift in shadows. She moved onto her knees and then stood, squinting into the forest.

  Sebastian fidgeted next to her.

  "What is it?" he asked, standing.

  "I don't know, nothing maybe."

  "Where?"

  She pointed a finger, trembling - she saw, but did not feel confident that she pointed at anything more than a crow nesting in the leaves. Still, something prickled along her skin, and the fine hairs of her neck stood erect. If a crow peered out from those trees, he must have been staring at her very intently because she could feel eyes like fingers dancing over her.

  Sebastian's face pinched as he stared, his blue eyes narrowed and then his head jerked with movement that she, too, saw. A dark shape had disembarked from the trees. Abby saw a flash of black hood and then nothing.

  Chapter 4

  She started to say, "The police will be here soon." But Sebastian was gone, sprinting across the street, a billow of dust alighting on the roadside around him. He disappeared into the brush, his body crashing through branches and his arms up to shield his face.

  "What just happened?" Abby asked aloud to no one. Had Sebastian really just run into the woods? Most likely scaring the daylights out of some wayward hiker who'd simply wandered off the beaten path. She could hear the muffled sounds of snapping twigs and mashing weeds and wondered if maybe he had found someone back there.

  A police cruiser, lights flashing, pulled off the road in front of her. Abby ran over, ready to send him into the woods to save Sebastian.

  A stocky officer heaved himself from the car, his navy blue uniform taut against his thick belly.

  "I'm Officer Gray." He thrust a meaty hand towards her.

  "We don't have time for that," she spat, ignoring his hand. "My friend..." She turned, pointing to the woods, but Sebastian was there. He exited the trees and jogged over, leaves burrowed in his curls. His eyes looked wild, and he gave Abby a long, significant stare before turning to the officer.

  "What were you saying, Miss?" Officer Gray asked, hiking his pants up unsuccessfully. They continued to sag below his belly.

  Abby swallowed and shook her head slowly. "Ummm, just that, she's there in the woods behind us."

  He looked at her for a moment and then nodded abruptly. Apparently he assumed all witnesses to dead bodies acted irrationally.

  "What's goin' on with your hand there?" he asked.

  "Oh." She held it up as if she too had forgotten the blood smeared on her hand.

  "It's from the woods. I touched something, a piece of cloth..." She trailed off.

  He stared at it a moment longer and then nodded slowly.

  "And which of you called in the report?" His watery eyes moved toward the line of trees.

  "I did." Abby said, ignoring Sebastian's gaze.

  "I'll need you to go ahead and show me the way."

  He pulled a radio off his belt, calling for an ambulance and backup.

  Abby turned but shot a furtive glance at Sebastian. He nodded that she should go ahead.

  She followed the familiar path and stopped short, this time pointing toward the body, but preferring not to look again. The officer moved in, holding his breath in nervous anticipation. He moaned, a little painfully, and pulled his radio back out as the body came into view. Abby listened as he radioed a description. She turned nervously and scanned the woods around her. Had Sebastian seen someone?

  Not sure whether to stay or walk back to the road, she sat down on a decaying log that crumbled slightly, revealing layers of bark turned ashy. The trees hovered, their green leaves lush and thick with life. A red squirrel fled across the branches, leaping great stretches and clutching flimsy perches with his tiny feet.

  She closed her eyes and imagined how he felt, envisioned her own body sailing effortlessly through the trees.

  The officer hooked his radio back on his hip and turned to face her.

  "Just head on back out to the road there and wait. I'll have somebody along to talk to ya pretty soon."

  Dismissed, Abby made her way out of the forest. Sebastian sat on the ground. A small group of onlookers had gathered. One or two cars were pulled off the road, and an older woman asked Sebastian questions through her car window.

  "I really don't know anything, ma'am, I'm just waiting for my friend," he lied to her, relief flushing his face as Abby walked out.

  "What's goin' on in there, Missy?" The nosy woman directed the question at Abby, her eyes narrowing.

  "I can't really say..." Abby told her, watching uncomfortably as more cars slowed behind the woman.

  "What happened?" Abby whispered, settling onto a patch of grass to Sebastian's left.

  He rubbed his jaw and stared at the spot in the forest where he had run in.

  "He was in there," he whispered.

  Abby looked at him, confused.

  "Who? The killer?"

  "Yes," Sebastian insisted. "Yes, the killer."

  Abby wanted to ask more, but two more police cruisers pulled up, parking behind the first. An ambulance quickly followed.

  Soon the area crawled with cops and onlookers, and Abby lost her chance to question Sebastian. The cops strung yellow tape around the forest perimeter, and a younger female officer dodged questions as she forced people back towards the road. Abby felt tired, but was told to stay put, so she and Sebastian watched the scene unfold.

  "Pretty crazy," he sighed, nodding at a family of five walking past and peering into the woods.

  "Yeah." She rubbed her temples where a throbbing ache had begun.

  The female officer broke from the chaos and jogged over to Abby and Sebastian.

  "Hi," she told them, her face flushed beneath her halo of golden hair. Her eyes were giant blue saucers, and she was petite, as short as Abby. "I'm Officer Tina Hamilton."

  "Abby," Abby told her politely, thrusting a trembling hand forward. "And this is Sebastian."

  "Hi," he said curtly, scanning the woods behind her. "Listen, is anyone planning on searching those woods?" He pointed to the woods that he had earlier vanished into.

  "Should they?"

  "Well, yeah. I'm pretty sure there was someone in there."

  Tina glanced toward the woods.

  "Sure, we'll have someone look into it," she said dismissively.

  Sebastian looked like he wanted to say more, but Tina had walked away, shooing two cyclists back toward the road.

  "Cops are the worst," Sebastian muttered.

  "Well, maybe it wasn't anything," Abby offered, preferring nothing to a killer watching them from the leafy cover.

  "Yeah, but maybe it was..."

  Tina returned, looking distracted and anxious.

  "I'm going to need to take the two of you to the station. The Chief will have some questions."

  * * * *

  Chief Caplan scratched his chin, razor-burned and red, and stared in horror at the report before him. Less than four months to retirement and a damned murder in his town, a murder! In his thirty-four years on the force, fifteen in Trager City, he'd only worked two murders, and both were domestic disputes with a clear killer, the husband. This, this catastrophe, had "cold case" written all over it. How could he end his career with an unsolved murder?

  He stood and paced to the pane of glass that looked into the precinct. Every desk was occupied, and police and secretaries stood in huddled groups talking heatedly. They all wanted details, but no one knew what to do with them. Soon they would turn to him for answers and what could he give them, but the same blank look that had been plastered on his face since the call came in?

  The outer door swung in,
and he watched Tina hustle in two kids, no more than twenty-five. The girl looked scared and shocked, the one that found the body, apparently. The other looked like a hippy with long, black, curly hair and a clear disdain for authority etched into the set of his jaw. Caplan did not want to talk to them. He wanted to assign the task to some young officer hoping to climb the ranks. He would consider Tina, but she had such a chip on her shoulder, she might smack the hippy and end up getting Trager's police department sued. He scanned the other faces, looking for a suitable option, but knew he could not give it away. What would his superiors say? Especially if they couldn't find the perp?

  He lifted his coffee mug, a gift from his wife that said, "If you think I'm neurotic, look at my dog" in green block letters, and drained the last of his sooty coffee. It didn't matter if he got the first cup of the pot, he still ended up with a trail of grounds that he choked down with disgust. He set it back on his desk, and the light on his phone beeped mechanically. He picked it up, happy for another distraction.

  * * * *

  After an older man, wearing a white lab coat, carefully swabbed her hand and took the baggie away for evidence, Abby sat in a stiff plastic chair. Her hands were shoved between her knees, which shook violently when not clamped tightly together. The station stank of sweat and coffee and something sugary like yeast. Men and women, mostly men, shuffled about the room, their faces pressed in worry.

  Murder did not happen in Trager City. Abby could see the disintegration of that belief in their worried faces, their stressed scowls. They were responsible, accountable, and they didn't have a clue what to do about it.

  Sebastian paced back and forth in front of her chair, his expression a changing mask of anxiety, fury and indifference. She wanted to talk to him, to pat the chair next to her, to apologize for getting him involved, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her lips were like a sealed envelope.

  Given time to think, Abby had grown increasingly scared and upset. The image of the dead body kept popping into her mind like a terrible dream that she couldn't shake.

  How quickly a living body could be stolen of its self, turned from living flesh into a flaccid shell. Abby had never been particularly interested in death. She had not obsessed over it as some people did, locking themselves away to create some false sense of security. Though she was also not overly adventurous and rarely sought out the adrenaline rush that so many young people coveted - no skydiving on her calendar of achievements. However, she suddenly wished for those thrills, for a long, rolling list of daring expeditions. Why had she not lived more, lived every second of every day?

  "Chief Caplan, please. I just called."

  The voice, magnetic, startled Abby, and she looked up, eyes connecting with a rail-thin man in an expensive silver suit. He was tall and reminded her of a praying mantis, with arms too short for his body. His handsome face scanned the room, deep-set brown eyes underneath pencil thin black eyebrows. His bald head shone with a recent shave.

  He crossed the precinct in five steps, his legs like stilts, his suit barely shifting with his swagger. The office din died with his arrival, and several heads turned to watch as he strode through the room.

  Sebastian's eyes locked on the man and did not leave him.

  Abby shifted in her seat, clearing her throat to get Sebastian's attention, but he only ignored her, continuing to stare at the well-dressed stranger as he disappeared into a large, rectangular office.

  It was the Police Chief's office. Abby knew by the small, faux gold doorplate, scuff marks visible under the hot lights. Navy blue blinds dropped over the single window in the office, and Abby could see no more.

  For several long minutes, they waited. A heavy secretary with a frizzy red perm brought them each a tar-like cup of coffee in small Styrofoam cups. Abby drank hers greedily, parched and thankful for any liquid to coat her sticky gums. Sebastian barely noticed his, pausing for several minutes with the cup partially raised to his lips. Abby watched him, the firm set of his jaw and a nervous habit of licking his lips. They looked red, and Abby absently started to search for her chapstick, realizing that she was wearing Sydney's jacket, not her own.

  All thoughts of her life at home had diminished beneath the weight of the day's events. Death trumped all. Only Sebastian still commanded a shard of her attention because his nervous energy banged off of her like a ping-pong ball ricocheting around the room.

  The Police Chief's door squeaked open, and the Chief stepped out. He looked tired, the lines of his face especially stark against what looked like a recent sunburn. His silvery hair was cropped close to his head, and his uniform fit loosely on his sagging shoulders and tightly around his waist, where his belly protruded. He seemed disoriented, and Abby thought of the burden of the dead girl. To Abby, the Chief looked like somebody's grandfather, a man who wore knitted sweaters and putted in his living room. She felt bad for him.

  He walked to Abby and Sebastian, waving Abby back down when she started to stand.

  "No need, dear," he told her with forced calm. "The two of you are free to go."

  "You don't have any questions?" Sebastian asked, dumbfounded. He had seemed irritated at the idea of being questioned, but now appeared equally irritated that no questioning would occur.

  "No, young man, though I greatly appreciate your cooperation. Now, just head on home, and if we need to follow up, we'll be in contact with you."

  "Wait." Sebastian put a hand on the Chief's arm, but he barely noticed it.

  "Hmmm...yes?" he asked, his eyes vacantly scanning the room.

  "Who is the guy in your office?"

  The Chief returned his gaze to Sebastian, frowning slightly.

  "He's a detective. He'll be working the case and may need to call you kids, but..."

  "But, what?" Abby shrilled, unnerved by the Chief's flaky behavior.

  "Oh, but nothing. Sorry about your luck, Miss. We'll be in touch."

  Sebastian started to say more, but already the Chief had turned and hurried back to his office, closing the door firmly behind him.

  * * * *

  Tina dropped them off at Sydney's mailbox. They walked up the long driveway, their feet crunching on gravel.

  "What are you thinking?" Abby asked Sebastian, who looked jived up. He kept bobbing his head to his thoughts.

  "Destiny, I'm thinking destiny."

  "I'm sorry, what does that mean, Aristotle?" she asked.

  "Do you believe in fate, Abby? In things aligning themselves to guide you?"

  Hmmm, did she? No, not really. She believed in choices and action and socialized expectations that sometimes seemed like destiny, but actually felt like doom.

  "Not especially," she said, matting her brown hair back into her ponytail holder.

  "I see," he said dismissively.

  "That's it? I see?"

  He stopped walking and faced her.

  "How can I speak to you in a language that you don't understand?"

  "Fine, never mind," she quipped, too tired to decipher his code. She hurried ahead of him to the house, not bothering to hang her coat or remove her shoes. She went straight to Sydney's bedroom, sliding her clothes off once she was beneath the covers. She feared that her disturbed mind, full to capacity, would prevent sleep, but she quickly slipped out of her living nightmare and into the safety of her dreams.

  * * * *

  Sebastian pushed into the guest bedroom and closed and locked the door behind him. Half a dozen boxes lined the wall next to the bed. Boxes filled with photos, journals, books and so many scraps of paper that Sebastian had stopped looking in them several months earlier.

  Had he given up? No, not exactly, but he had begun to doubt himself, to doubt the man that he hunted, even to doubt his sister and her abilities.

  When he had stood at the airport in Panama, finally ready to give up his crusade, dealing with the reality of a million dead leads, Sydney's house had popped into his mind like a beacon in the fog. Had he known then where it would lead
him? No, no, his intuition always felt a little bit like guessing. But he had come, and now there was a dead body, a dead girl in the woods. A dead girl that did not look like Claire, but felt like her.

  When Abby had led him to the body, he was not expecting the jolt of familiarity that assailed him. The position of her body, the energy that lingered in the space where she lay. Claire's death had rushed back with such force that he lost his place for a moment and stood suspended in space and time. He stood looking down at Claire's body, at her long, black hair caught in the weeds. In death, Claire was the fragile sister of his childhood. She was no longer the powerful witch of her transformation. She was merely a body, an empty space where flesh and blood could no longer live.

  Still, he could not be sure that his feelings were more than his mind's invention. Sebastian pictured again the detective with the weirdly short arms. Something about him seemed all too familiar.

  Sebastian dug through three boxes before he found the photo. In the image, he saw the woods where Claire's body was discovered, the same weedy trail that led into the nature preserve that no one ever used. The nature preserve where they had taken Claire and murdered her. A dozen people stood in the photo; law enforcement, a few spectators and one man near the back. A man with a stick figure's body, a ball cap pulled over his head, partially obscuring his eyes. The man was looking toward the woods, a half smile on his face, his arms hanging at his sides. They barely reached his waist; they were strange enough that Sebastian had noticed them years ago when he first developed the photos. Peculiar enough that he remembered them today when the man strode into the Trager City precinct and poured whatever poison into the Chief's ear that stopped him questioning Abby.

  Vepars, they were called, the witch killers who took Claire. They had taken another, and the man, the detective, was involved. Sebastian did not know how, but he would find out. Finally, the chapters of this saga, this obsession, were filing into place.

  He shoved the photo into his pocket and glanced at the door. Abby slept a single wall away, and he considered. He should not drag her into his mess, but he felt drawn to Sydney's house and Abby, for whatever reason, had discovered the body. She played a part, somehow. He had learned to read the signs, to take nothing for granted and so he must keep her close, he must ensure that she continued to provide him with answers even if she had not yet found them herself.