Born of Shadows- Complete Series

by J. R. Erickson

  Again, he'd told her nothing, but the jolt of electricity that shot through her hand at his touch washed some of the frustration away. She felt so thankful to be with him, to not be alone and to be alive. What had happened in the woods felt unreal, like a dream.

  "Okay," she nodded. "I will trust you and I will let this unfold, so long as you promise that we're not going to run into those guys again."

  He laughed and blew a puff of air over his lips.

  "Absolutely fucking crazy."

  "Yeah," she said, remembering, and then trying to forget.

  "We're not going to run into them. I think I can guarantee you that. So long as this works anyway."

  "What?"

  "This." He spread his hands toward the lake and she squinted through the darkness. Was he kidding?

  "I'm sorry, I don't see anything." She stared across the water. In her past life, the water at night had always seemed enchanting, like a treasure box at her disposal. But tonight it looked sinister, deep and black, with the moon's bright light as its facade.

  "There's a place in this lake that is hidden." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Only certain people can find it, and I think that you may be one of them. Actually, I'm sure that you are, and if we go there, we will find help."

  "What if you're wrong? What if I'm not one of the people that can find it?" His hesitation frightened her. "Then what, Sebastian?"

  She felt foolish for even asking. Why should she be able to find something that he couldn't?

  He threw his hands in the air and shook his head. "I don't know. I would love to tell you that I have some brilliant plan, but I don't. I sort of expected to be dead right now."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Abby." He turned in his seat. "I have been trying to kill that thing for two years. I had planned to finish him last night and..."

  He pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling of the car angrily.

  "And he got away again. It's like I'm chasing a phantom, like I'm insane."

  "Yes, but he's not a phantom, Sebastian. I can attest to that."

  Sebastian nodded, but said nothing.

  Again, a trace of homesickness afflicted her. Never in her life had she felt so confused, petrified, and yet strangely exhilarated. Old Abby bellowed, "Run, get home to mom and dad and Nick. Get therapy, take up pottery, anything to squash these dangerous desires." But old Abby was calling from a far off place and her voice grew softer the longer that she watched Sebastian. He was her connection to something greater, something that she was part of, whether she wanted to be or not.

  "What do we do now?" She clapped her hands, startling them both into nervous laughter.

  "We row." He stepped out of the car and walked to the edge of the water, disappearing into a cluster of bushes. Appearing a moment later, he dragged a small rowboat, the oars sticking like swords into the night air.

  She stepped from the car, welcoming the smooth breeze that poured off the water. Sebastian bent over the boat and flicked away cobwebs. He returned to the car and pulled out a small duffel bag and two towels that he spread over the boat's seats. He loaded the cardboard boxes from Sydney's house beneath the benches and then faced the lake for several long minutes. She noticed, for the first time, that he was dressed entirely in black, as if he'd known that he would be on the run that evening. She glanced down at her own torn tank and dirt speckled pants. A clump of burs stuck angrily in her shoelaces.

  "Oh, I forgot." Sebastian smiled, turning to his bag. "I have clothes for you." He returned to the trunk and pulled out a paper grocery bag with black shorts, a black tank top and charcoal slip-ons.

  She held them up to the light, but did not recognize them from Sydney's closet.

  "I bought them today."

  "Why?"

  "I saw Tobias and thought...well, not this, but something."

  "You saw him where?"

  "In the woods with Alva."

  Surprised, she looked at him sharply, but did not confess to seeing them also.

  She slipped behind the car and pulled them on, discarding her old clothes in the woods. He followed her in and picked them up, swiftly digging a small hole in the dirt and burying them.

  "Worried about bears?" she joked, watching his serious features soften slightly.

  "Bears would be a treat," he mumbled, returning to the boat and sliding it over a bed of algae-covered rocks. "Here, get in now so your feet don't get wet."

  She climbed into the boat, lowering herself in the middle as it wobbled. She stifled a nervous giggle and clutched the sides when it attempted to rock her out. He pushed it further and then jumped into the back, forcing her to the front bench. They were still too shallow to do any decent rowing so he skimmed the oars over the surface and they glided deeper into the lake.

  "So, where are we anyway?" she asked, dipping her fingers into the frigid water.

  "Lake Superior. Pretty amazing, isn't it?"

  It was. In the moonlight, Abby could see the lake bed. She watched the plot of rocks give way to long ridges of sand. She felt sure that her water dream had taken place right here, in Lake Superior.

  She turned in her seat to watch Sebastian from the corner of her eye. His muscular arms flexed as he pulled the oars toward his body, bending forward and then rocking back with each stroke. He was quiet.

  He steered them into the lake and then followed the shoreline. They moved around a point of thick maple and ash trees, their plump leaves like thousands of tiny hands. As she watched, a jutting ridge of sandstone cliffs slid into view, their eroding layers threatening to crumble into the water below. At the top of the mass, a wide rock, shaped strangely like a prickly heart, rested on the cliff face.

  "That is incredible," she whispered, sliding forward on her bench for a closer look. The moon painted the jutting edges in white marble, and shadows dug deep into the cliff frame like miniature caves. "Is that where we're going?"

  She wondered if the caves from her dreams lay in those cliffs.

  "No, but I wanted you to see it," he told her as they drifted. "I came here once and found those cliffs. They were like nothing I had ever seen and I had this huge desire to share it with someone, to turn in the boat and say, "Wow, look at those." But I was alone and now you're here with me, so..."

  "Thank you." She rotated in her seat, her feet brushing his, their knees nearly touching.

  She could almost imagine that the previous few days were merely a bad dream. She was just a girl rowing across a moonlit lake with a guy. But then they weren't young lovers on a rowboat ride. They were barely more than strangers, bonded by near death, and trapped in the same web of reality.

  "What are you thinking?" he asked her, his face searching.

  "I'm thinking that this is like a dream." She beckoned to the surrounding night.

  He nodded, but his features turned grave as he watched the dark woods fringing the beach. He lifted the oars back up and pointed the bow towards the center of the lake, his breath slow and steady, as he found his rhythm.

  If Abby had not napped in the car, she knew that the placid rocking would have lulled her to sleep. Behind them, the dramatic cliffs shrunk in size until they were barely a white speck in the distance. When the shoreline disappeared completely, Abby finally felt safe.

  The water was cold, numbing her fingers as she dragged them over the boat's edge. Despite the arctic chill, she longed to jump in, a bit of cold-water therapy for her bruised and beaten body. Running through woods, tangling and disentangling from multiple bushes, being suffocated, burned, choked and tethered did not exactly do a body good. She reached down and stroked her ankle that should have been swollen, but wasn't; in fact, it didn't hurt at all. She was tempted to tell Sebastian. He knew things that she did not and appeared to be taking them in his stride.

  The boat slowed, the bottom scraping on shallow sand and rock, despite their location deep in the lake.

  "What's happening?" she asked, spinning around and searching the dark sky.
/>   "Sunken island, no worries," he told her, shoving the oar into the sand to prove that they were on solid ground, not stranded on the back of a giant sea monster.

  "I'm going to walk us across, I need to stretch my legs." He hopped from the boat, holding it steady so she didn't pitch over the edge. He released a puff of pained air as he moved forward, the water passing to his waist and spreading out in ripples.

  He looked surprised when she leapt into the cold water, fully submerging before bursting back to the surface. She came up heaving, the water like melted snow.

  He laughed and dipped beneath the surface, shaking his black curls at her. They stood, their shirts a cold second skin, while the moon cast an opal of light upon them.

  "Hurts so good." He leaned back in the water, paddling lightly and facing the sky.

  She sank down and gasped when the cold water reached her neck. It was worth the sparkling view overhead. She moved her arms in giant circles beneath the water, slowly adjusting to the temperature. Their fingers grazed, and he reached, clasping her hand for a moment before letting go. She allowed the wave of tremors to pass through her, but stayed riveted to the sky, for a moment becoming a creature of the night.

  Sebastian planted his feet beneath him and grabbed the boat by the bow, not wanting to risk it drifting away. They walked it across the sunken island until the lake bed began to recede beneath them.

  He dipped below the water a final time and then stood slowly, water dripping down his face and pooling on his shoulders. She knew that he was waiting for her, allowing a few more precious moments to pass before they continued their journey. She stood, grasping her short hair and wringing it into the lake as she waded back to him.

  "Quite a cut," he joked. "You might have waited for me and a mirror."

  She splashed him.

  "I wanted to save ten bucks and cut it myself."

  "Yes, well, you succeeded."

  She grinned, and when he kissed her, it took her by surprise. His lips were cold, like pockets of ice. She wrapped her arms around his neck, the kiss passing from her mouth to every living cell in her body, like poison, or a remedy, or both.

  When he pulled away, she felt the heat sucked out and staggered back before he grasped her arms firmly and steadied her. He lifted her into the boat easily, his hands beneath her armpits and she slid back onto the seat, shivering despite the warmth of the night. He climbed in behind her and searched through his bag, hauling out a baggie of trail mix and a bottle of sparkling water.

  "Not exactly a gourmet picnic." He held them up.

  She smiled back at him, feeling shy. Had they really just kissed?

  He handed her the water, and she took a long drink, welcoming the slow carbonated burn.

  "So," he started, leaning towards her, his expression grim. "First, thank you for joining me on this," he rolled his eyes, "satanic adventure. But we can't just stare longingly into each other's eyes all night."

  She smiled. They could, but they'd most likely end up dead as a result.

  "We have to do something, and it's going to be confusing, and it might be pretty terrifying."

  He spoke slowly as if she might get spooked at any moment and make a run for it. Apparently he'd forgotten that they were in the center of a lake.

  "I have directions, sort of." He pulled a tattered journal from his bag.

  "Directions?" She watched him flip to a page covered in tiny cursive writing.

  "Yes, from Claire, my sister"

  "Tobias killed her?"

  "Yes," he said quickly and continued. "They're directions to a secret island, but it takes a special person to use them. That's you."

  She nodded, beginning to believe him.

  He turned another page and passed the journal to her. A large, hand-drawn lake covered both sides with several landmarks scribbled along the edges. A gray area marked the sunken island that they were on.

  "You have to use a pendulum," he told her, pulling a small, round crystal suspended from a silver chain from the bag.

  She clasped the crystal in her palm, moonlight glittering on its surface.

  "Do you understand how they work?" he asked her.

  "Not exactly. I've heard of them, but I've never used one."

  "Yeah, me neither." He leaned forward and flipped the journal to the previous page. "There's an explanation here." He pointed to a block of writing and Abby read it carefully. It seemed pretty simple. Just hold the pendulum over the map in different areas. If it moved in a circle - they'd found their desired location, if it moved in a straight line – they were at the wrong place.

  "What's the island, Sebastian? The lost city of Atlantis?"

  "It's meant to be obscure, in case someone finds it, but I know what you mean. It's pretty bizarre."

  She sighed in exasperation and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

  "You believe in all this, then? Really?"

  "Are you serious?" he asked. "Abby, you were there tonight, right? Those things, the inhuman things, were not a figment of your imagination."

  Yeah, she knew that, but still, was nothing simple left in the world? Would every day be a series of discoveries that completely obliterated everything that she thought she knew?

  "Listen, what you're feeling right now, I've been there, kind of anyway, and honestly, it gets easier. I mean, it gets harder first, but then it gets easier."

  "Wow, thanks," she sighed, re-reading the scratchy writing. She started to feel overwhelmed and tears boiled at the back of her eyes.

  He moved close and hugged her, wrapping his arms around her back and squeezing. She allowed herself to feel him with no guilt, no fear. She could hear the rapid thud of his heart through his t-shirt, the intoxicating warmth of his closeness. His lips stayed near her ear, but he did not kiss her, only rested his head against hers and breathed.

  She had once read that smell was a direct extension of the brain. Sebastian exuded an enthralling mixture of grass and sweat and, more recently, lake water. Unable to tell whether it was her brain or her heart snuggling deeper into that smell, she inhaled a few more deep breaths, hoping to forever ensnare his scent in the capsule of her mind.

  Having Sebastian made it easier to believe in the fantastic. She was not alone with her delusions.

  She shivered as the wind picked up around them. The boat swayed, gently and then faster, the water lapping at the sides. Sebastian pulled away, his eyes narrowing into the empty night. The fear, only moments ago abated, settled over Abby as Sebastian returned to his bench. The calm water, moved by the wind, started to form small white caps, then larger ones. They still drifted over the sunken island, but the waves were turning violent and thrusting them towards deep water. Abby peered over the side as the sandy bottom sloped downward and then disappeared.

  Chapter 16

  Abby fell forward, tossed by a wave, and the crystal dropped from her hand and slipped beneath Sebastian's bench. He gripped the boat-edge and reached beneath him, but a shadow of clouds slipped over the moon, and they were cast into darkness. Abby could not see Sebastian, only hear him, as he fumbled along the floor. She wanted to help, but each movement was met by another angry swell that nearly threw her overboard.

  "Stay on the floor," Sebastian yelled, his voice nearly drowned in the wind.

  They both could swim, but the combination of icy waters and a raging storm left even expert swimmers in danger. They had no life jackets, and not a soul, outside the two, knew of their current location.

  An instant of guilt surged over Abby at the thought of her parents. She felt the tears bubbling up, advancing on the thread of bravery that she so desperately needed.

  "Here." Sebastian thrust the crystal and journal into her hands. A sliver of moonlight seeped through the clouds, illuminating their boat and, worse, the stormy waters.

  She shook her head but clung to both frantically as another whitecap smashed against the boat. There was no point trying to use the pendulum, they were in a storm; they cou
ldn't possibly row their way out of it.

  "Yes," Sebastian cried, nodding his head and pointing at the journal. "You have to!"

  Her hands shook as she flipped the page, pressing the journal flat against the bench as the wind tried to rip it away. She braced her forearm over the center of the book, gripping the crystal chain in her left hand and dangling it over the map. At first it swung wildly and she feared that it would rip from the delicate silver chain.

  It didn't, and she watched in wonder as a strange calm settled over the air just above the journal. The tempest continued to thrash around them, but the crystal slowed and then stopped. Gradually, as if with great effort, the crystal began to swing in a straight line. She looked at Sebastian, who nodded vigorously, but continued to clutch the boat as it lurched from side to side. She moved the crystal to another area of the map, but again it swung in a straight line. Three more times she shifted the crystal, three more straight lines. In the distance, a flare of white lightning illuminated the sky, followed by a deafening clap of thunder. Abby jerked in fear, ripping her hand away from the journal, but Sebastian lunged forward and pushed it back.

  "Don't stop!" She barely heard him.

  She held the crystal behind the sunken island, expecting another straight line. It swung back and then, rather than falling forward, it arched to the right and completed a circle and then another. They stared as it revolved again and again, faster, as if gaining in urgency with each rotation.

  Sebastian did not wait, he gripped the oars furiously, turning the boat towards a phantom destination that neither he nor Abby could see. The waves fought them like a battalion of molten soldiers, dissolving and rebuilding with infinite life. The water splashed into the boat; Abby thrust the crystal and journal back into the bag, a flimsy protection from the flooding waves. Behind them, lightning and thunder continued its savage descent onto the lake, but Abby faced forward, preferring the wet spray to the terrifying flashes. Sebastian shifted between grunts and what sounded like prayers as he drove the oars down. As they rowed, the storm transformed into a deafening roar at their backs, and, with a final thrust, they slid from the turbulence into a mass of fog. As quickly as the storm had come, it dissipated. The fog fell upon them in thick folds that strangled the last of the moonlight and swallowed the squall like a black hole. Sebastian stopped rowing as the boat glided into the eerily calm waters.