Shadow Borne

by Angie West

  The clouds finally lifted. The stripes of light had stopped dancing across the edge of my sheets and my muscles relaxed another delicious degree. Sleep was near and oh how I welcomed the peace. The week had been a long and tedious one, par for the course whenever a new rescue mission was getting underway, but right now I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and drift into a peaceful slumber.

  And really I couldn't think of a single reason why that shouldn't happen, why I shouldn't take a page from Claire's handbook and let my guard down, truly enjoy falling asleep instead of forcing myself to do it just because it was necessary.

  My eyes drifted lazily over the soft silvery glow of moonlight that spilled onto the sheet next to my head. I yawned, blinking when my eyes began to water. And then the light flickered, shifted, and was gone. Wide-eyed, I snapped to attention, instantly alert even though I hadn't yet moved a muscle. Moving only my eyes, I slowly, carefully forced them to go half-mast and peeked through my lashes at the window over the head of the bed. The dark shape was still there. Tall enough and close enough to fill the space outside the window and blot out the light. There was someone out there and he was looking in at me right now. It was hard but I forced myself to remain silent and still, not to move even the slightest little bit because at such close range, the man would surely notice any movement.

  My heart was doing a two-step and for a quick, irrational moment I worried the bastard pervert outside would hear, would somehow know I was lying here in the dark, scared stiff. But of course that was ridiculous, it was fear talking. There was no way the window peeper would know a damn thing unless I gave away my own hand and moved. The key to any situation was to immediately stack the deck in your favor by keeping a cool head and a clinical outlook. Strategy. Planning. Action.

  He wouldn't bother with the smaller window on the opposite wall; it didn't have a good enough view of the bed, really would only show him the door and part of the dresser and besides, the wide wooden slat blinds were closed. That meant the only way for him to keep tabs on me was through the window he was at right now.

  The obvious downside being it was so close to the bed that, had the window been open, he would have practically been breathing down my neck. Which was so not a comforting thought. I grimaced and for the first time in my life felt immensely grateful that I was too paranoid to sleep with the windows open. Someone like Juliette would have been toast right now.

  Knowing what I had to do and actually putting the plans to the deed were two totally different things and not as easy as it sounded. Despite having spent the last eighteen months being conditioned to fight, and even though nymphs were a little more coordinated then regular people, a little faster, sharper...the familiar flash of hot then cold washed over me in a dizzying wave. It was the logical, completely physical part of my body acknowledging that death could literally be right around the corner. Normal people just didn't live their lives worrying about such things, I lamented, schooling quivering muscles to hold it, hold it, just another moment longer.

  Why did it seem like every time I began to let down my guard, someone tried to kidnap me or kill me? Soon, soon, the words whispered like a mantra through my mind, soothing and bolstering all at once. Breath. In-out. In-out, nice and slow, nice and steady. Soon he would make his move; the gauntlet would be thrown and then I would make mine. There. Every sense focused into high alert when the shadow lifted and the moonlight was once more splashed across the bed.

  It didn't feel silvery and pretty anymore; it was too bright and I was raw and naked, exposed in its glare. Naked. One corner of my mouth twisted at the thought. That certainly would have made this night worse, if I'd had to waste time getting dressed on top of the precious seconds retrieving my weapon and lacing my boots would eat.

  I didn't jump out of bed and leap across the room; stringent training had made it so that sort of instinctual, natural behavior didn't even tempt me anymore. In the long run, shit like that wasn't faster because too often it gave you away. Death probably would have claimed me before my boots were laced if I'd made all kinds of noise crashing through the house. Plus, whomever was out there could always double back and peer into the window. It was entirely possible he was backing off to try and trick me into showing my hand first, if he wanted to make sure I was really asleep.

  So, after doing a silent countdown from twenty, I rolled swiftly off the bed, bracing myself with my forearms to muffle the slight sound. He wasn't at the window. Yet.

  Truthfully, I didn't expect him to come back to my bedroom window; it would have been terrible strategy. There was no way to get through it without waking me, had I been asleep, anyway.

  No, he was probably halfway around the house by now. My midnight peeper would come in quietly through the back door, or the kitchen window, maybe. Just in case, though, I took a few seconds to shape the comforter into a lump that vaguely resembled a person. It wouldn't stand up to close inspection, but if he didn't study it too thoroughly...it was better than nothing, anyway, I shrugged and turned my attention back to slipping from the room in a low crawl. Once I cleared the door, I moved into a crouch and inched up the wall next to the open bathroom door.

  There wasn't a window in that room so I stood there with my back to the darkened room, listening. No sound whispered through the small house, not even a telltale rustle of clothing. He hadn't come in yet, then. I bent at the waist and moved silently but swiftly through the cabin. Where in the hell had I left my boots?

  I inhaled sharply, drew a blank, and bit back one of Claire's more colorful curses, until I spotted them lying haphazardly underneath the table. It took only half a minute or so of tugging and twisting to get them on and laced, another few seconds to strap on my dagger.

  The man still hadn't tried to come in and I was beginning to wonder if maybe he'd gone when the shadows gathered at the kitchen window, creating an unnatural blackness that seemed to fill the space. This was it, then.

  A thin, high pitched but barely audible screeching noise filled the silence of the kitchen. It was coming from the window. What the hell? Curious now, I slunk to the other side of the room and grabbed my bow and the quiver of arrows which lay half on its side next to the sad looking coat rack that I couldn't remember ever having used.

  The nails on a chalkboard sound intensified until I winced, and then a large circle of glass slipped free of the window and fell with a soft thud to the carpeted kitchen floor.

  I watched a thin, pasty white arm hook through the window where the glass had been, groping along the frame until it reached the latch at the top. I stood there in the middle of the room, staring in a kind of sick, fascinated horror as that sinister chalk white arm flipped the latch in one fluid motion, withdrew, and began to soundlessly raise the window. Coatyl.

  A million thoughts screamed through my brain just then, but only one mattered–what now? The answer was obvious enough. Slipping a lethal, sharp tipped arrow onto the bow, I gripped the end and the thick, pliable string between my fingers and slid the fingers of my other hand up to rest just beneath the arrow shaft near the tip. A few nimble steps to the side and I'd danced into the shadows between the table and the front door.

  I kept my gaze pinned to the window and waited. The damn thing was coming in. I took a deep breath and slowly counted back from ten; the Coatyl navigated the open window with a graceful speed that was at direct odds with its butt ugly appearance. Nine, eight, seven, six.

  No, I frowned, bow cocked and ready as the creature straightened and raised itself to its full height, the Coatyl went way beyond butt ugly. I occupied the darkest part of the room, not moving, hardly breathing. Five, four. Move away from the window. Three, two. It moved. The arrow sliced across the room; its aim was true.

  The deadly animal was pinned by the arrow that protruded from its chest and secured it to the wall beside the kitchen window. The Coatyl looked similar enough in form to a person, but the fact that they walked upright on two legs, were in possession of two arms, a head, an
d a torso was where the similarity ended.

  The torso I'd pierced was thin, bony and elongated. These animals were designed for speed not brawn; they were pretty much helpless against any sort of weapon that could pierce the skin. Despite this well known fact, the Coatyl were one of the most feared creatures in Terlain; adults spoke of them in hushed tones and children hid safe and warm beneath their blankets and whispered spooky tales to one another of the fanged, pale beasts that hunted human blood.

  Hell, I snorted as I watched the five-inch razor sharp nails, claws really, twitch and writhe and scratch deep grooves into my kitchen wall. Thin rivulets of liquid dripped down the faded wallpaper; Too close. I realized abruptly and backed up a step. The liquid that dripped from it's talon-like fingernails was a neuro-toxin that would at the very least make me sick and at worst, lay me out flat if I got close enough for the thing to scratch me.

  The creature was naked, although it had no discernible 'private' parts. It was so pale it almost seemed to generate its own light, hanging there as it was. Above the creature's harsh breathing and the pounding of my own heart, I suddenly heard a plop, plop, plop sound from the window next to where I stood with the Coatyl. Shit. It was raining.

  Well, why not, I glowered. "Because I was just saying to myself, 'you know what would make this night complete? A storm'." I muttered in disgust an instant before I had a terrible thought that had nothing to do with rain showers.

  The Coatyl were pack hunters. "Did you bring friends?" I murmured, more to myself than the Coatyl. He couldn't understand me and anyway they weren't capable of speech. Damn. My eyes cut to the open window. Were there more of them out there?

  "Wouldn't you like to know?"

  I gasped at the dark, gritty whisper that came at me, sinister and ugly in the small kitchen. I almost spun around to face the unseen assailant who had somehow managed to get the drop on me, before reality kicked in and it hit me that the Coatyl had raised its pale head. Deep set eyes were glaring malevolently at me from a bloodless, sunken face. Long strings of hair framed a narrow, bony face and those teeth...don't show fear.

  But, oh how difficult that was–the Coatyl had just spoken to me. It wasn't possible.

  "What did you say?" I demanded in a harsh whisper.

  "I said maybe I'm," the thing coughed, "alone. And maybe I'm not."

  It smiled at me then, smug even though he was pinned to a wall and at death's door. Why wasn't he dead yet? I wondered idly. He–the thing sounded like a 'he' anyway, was talking; my numb senses processed the implausibility of that with grim finality. He was talking. Part of me wanted to recoil from the intensity of the Coatyl's death stare and say no way because it wasn't possible. The Coatyl did not talk. They were mindless, violent animals that hunted in packs. They were not intelligent. But...

  Acceptance crashed over me in a sickening torrent, this one was. I could see the awareness flickering in his eyes, just beyond the malice that plainly said the thing would rip me in two if he weren't stuck to my kitchen wall. Yes, he was very conscious of what was going on.

  "Why?" I breathed, "How? How are you talking? Coatyl don't talk. They–you've never talked." I was babbling but there didn't seem to be any help for it. What had I stumbled upon this night? Rather, what had stumbled upon me?

  I eyed the disgusting, slightly opaque creature before me with a sense of foreboding. This was so not good.

  "We never used to talk." The thing wheezed. "And now we do." he ended on an eerie chuckle that made ice trail down my spine. I fought the sudden urge to spin around; there wasn't anyone behind me, it was only nerves that had me so keyed up.

  "Why did you come here?" I forced the words past a throat that felt too tight, too hot, but I really did need to question the thing. So I shored my defenses and tried to look intimidating enough to make him answer my questions.

  One hand went to the knife at my thigh, briefly fingering the handle, but as it turned out, the Coatyl needed no encouragement. He gulped mouthfuls of air and seemed to steady himself before saying. "I have a message for you."

  I raised one eyebrow. "I'm listening. What's your message."

  "Not...mine. I'm the messenger. So are you. Messengers. You're all going to die."

  I suppressed a shudder and glared at him instead. "If I'm the messenger, then who's the message for?"

  He glared back, black eyes bulging and burning bright in his white face. For a minute I thought he wasn't going to say anything more but then he bared his fang-like teeth and grinned.

  "He's coming for her. Tell her...she's next."

  "Who?" I practically shouted when he fell into another brooding silence.

  His eyes snapped back to mine. "Claire Roberts."

  I recoiled from both the rage in his tone and the shock of hearing Claire's name spill from his mouth. "Who sent you?" I demanded. "Was it Kahn? Talk." I commanded breathlessly.

  "Maybe I shouldn't tell you." His eyes bore into mine, full of hate and helpless rage. He truly was helpless, of course, even if his demonic countenance was almost enough to make me forget that fact. His voice had become thin and reedy in the last couple of minutes. He was dying, and so was my chance of getting any useful information. His breathing became labored and at the tail end of each rapid, weak puff, the telltale death rattle could be heard. I had to do something to keep him talking, and I had to act quickly.

  I whipped the knife from its holder and held it under his chin, pressing upward with just enough force to pierce the thick skin there.

  His eyes bugged for a moment before he laughed. "I'm dying anyway." he mockingly pointed out.

  "True." I shrugged. "But I can make it very, very painful."

  "They were right about you, the others...you're not easy to kill."

  “If you had planned on killing me tonight," I asked slowly, confused now, "how did you expect me to pass the message along to Claire?"

  "Written on the wall." the Coatyl whispered with a cold smile. "In your blood."

  Nice. Well, I'd asked. "Who sent you?" This time I used the blade to punctuate my words.

  Why he answered, I really couldn't say, because in the next second his eyes closed and he was gone. Maybe he figured there was nothing left to lose or maybe he wanted to spite me. For whatever reason, though, on his last breath flickered a single name.

  "Lahuel."

  If ice had trickled down my spine a few minutes before, the mention of the Lahuel was enough to create a virtual avalanche. So the shadow man was looking for Claire. And apparently me. It shouldn't have been a particularly surprising development. After the raid we had led on Kahn's army, and the Lahuel served Kahn, after all, we had been expecting some sort of retaliation.

  The fighting was far from over and we all knew that. I just hadn't quite been expecting...this. The Lahuel was rarely seen and I couldn't recall anyone ever having received a "message" from him–it–and I was one hundred percent certain that if by some slim chance someone had ever been on the receiving end of a message from the Lahuel, it damn sure hadn't been delivered by a Coatyl.

  I hung my head for a moment, fighting my way back from the edge of hysteria. Oh sweet mother, the Coatyl could talk and think and probably strategize, too, if the rest of the damn things were as shrewdly intelligent as this one had been. My blood ran cold; if that was truly the case, then we were all screwed.

  I wiped the droplets of blood across my pants before I realized what I was doing and grimaced at the dark black smear the Coatyl blood left on the fabric. I sheathed the knife and made a mental note to grab another pair of pants before I left. Because no way in hell was I sleeping in the cabin tonight. I exhaled and, hands on my hips, regarded the dead Coatyl now hanging from the wall like a bleached, limp rag.

  I reached forward and grasped the shaft of the arrow with both hands, braced one foot on the wall next to the creature, twisted a little this way and that to create some give, and applied steady backward pressure until I'd pulled enough to free the arrow from his body. It was coat
ed in the same black sludge that dripped all over the carpet, that smeared across my pants.

  I wiped the arrow clean with an oilcloth from the kitchen and returned it to its rightful place in the quiver before turning my attention to the body on the floor below the window. Leaving him here wasn't an option. I was beginning to make rapid mental connections now. Mark and the others would want to study the thing, especially the head and brain, I realized, my stomach clenching, because things didn't just change like that.

  Even small changes to a species took hundreds of years to become really noticeable. Something like–I glanced down at the lifeless Coatyl–this, was not possible on its own, let alone in a matter of, what, three months?

  No, the Coatyl had been altered somehow. I took a deep breath and marched across the kitchen to grab a trash bag and a thick burlap sack from my small pantry. I could only hope this was the only one that had been messed with. It was a cold and fleeting comfort. If this one had been changed, altered somehow, then it stood to reason others would follow.

  The Coatyl wasn't heavy but it was awkward and sticky and I kept half expecting it to rise from the dead or something, for its eyes to pop open and zero in on me. It didn't, although after everything that had transpired this evening, I seriously doubted it would surprise me if the thing magically woke up and danced a jig in the middle of the living room.

  So even though I felt a little silly for doing it, I darted back into the small utility pantry off the tiny kitchen and grabbed a hard coil of twine and a pair of wire cutters, knelt beside the Coatyl and secured both his arms and legs before placing him into the bag. It took quite a bit of maneuvering and by the time I'd tied the string on the burlap I was grateful I'd skipped dinner that evening.

  If there had been anything in my stomach, I just might have lost it all over the kitchen floor. I was a mess; the entire front of my clothes was black and goopy and worse, my clothing was thin so it was also sticking to my skin.