Shade City

by Domino Finn

  "You can control it now," she said. "The focus."

  I noticed the sharp red and black stripes of her dress, the white skull patch etched on her chest, the little buckles on her black combat boots. I had seen them before, even clearly, but that had been Violet's doing. She had pulled me in. This time it was me.

  "I've had practice."

  "A good teacher, you mean." She raised her head and brushed the purple-white hair from her face. The same color was in her eyes, eyebrows, lipstick, and even accented by her pitch black eyeliner. "I've been trying to help you," she said with quivering pupils. "To help people."

  I smiled at the girl and nodded. I didn't know where I would be without her. Violet was conflicted and I didn't fully understand why, but I wanted to help.

  "Like lonely streets," I said, "they're better walked with two."

  The twelve-year-old girl turned away momentarily, overcome with emotion.

  I waited patiently for her to say something. I had trouble myself, to be honest. I'd never known Violet to be someone that needed affection and approval. For too long I'd talked to the voice in the pocket watch without understanding the child behind it. I was twenty-four years old and a bachelor—what did I know of support?

  "Whatever it is, Violet, it's okay."

  I thought she wanted to tell me something. I examined the high walls of the lobby to give her time. Large, marble slabs encased us. A mirror with an intricate frame hung behind the reception desk. Its reflection of the room wiggled slightly. Just a minor shake, a reaction to an invisible tremor, then nothing.

  Violet was still looking away, her attention on her past. But I was in the moment. Something was not right.

  The floor trembled. Not visibly, but I felt it in my feet. The front door chattered on its hinges. And then the whole building started shaking.

  I turned to the door. "Not again." It was Nero, no doubt. That fiend would not rest until it had dealt with me. I clenched my fist and waited. "Get out of here, Violet."

  There was a faint feeling of air bristling against my face, as though the pressure outside was creeping in. Then, as before, the door flung open. The skeletal shade had returned.

  "Death comes to all life," he hissed through black teeth, and entered.

  Nero's haggard body looked more decrepit than the passage of a few days allowed. His orange hair had almost all fallen out, and one of his eyes had glazed over. His movement was more erratic and his legs and arms more emaciated. He was weakening, no doubt, but his ghostly power was still frightening.

  I stood my ground to allow Violet's escape. I had controlled the world this time. Focused it to fit my needs. Maybe I could prevent Nero from suffocating me in his muddy grasp. As he approached, I summoned my courage, ready to meet his might.

  "This needs to stop, Nero."

  "Neros," he whispered in a raspy voice. "My name is Neros. And there is only one end to this."

  I paused at his correction. Had he changed his name or had he always called himself Neros?

  Before I mounted an offense, Violet charged out in front of me. I clutched at air as I tried to stop her. Too late. The shade that was Soren raised his cadaverous arms as the girl approached.

  No. I wouldn't let her sacrifice herself.

  Neros lunged, but the girl grabbed his chest and stopped him in his path. It was as if he jumped into a pane of glass. He wiggled, unable to move further. Enraged, he placed his clawed fingers around her neck.

  "No!" I yelled, leaping forward. But Neros jerked as if he had touched a power line. He released his feeble grip and shook violently in the little girl's arms.

  I stopped as I saw a warm glow overwhelm the fiend. His body became soft, his expression distant, his jaw lax. I watched in awe as the light became blinding and illuminated the room.

  "Give me life," he stubbornly said.

  And then I realized that this dilapidated shade wasn't a man anymore. Not physically, of course, but not in spirit either. It clung to life because it was the only thing that gave the fiend sensation. Even its name, Neros, was not a name at all. It was Soren spelled backwards. A sad imitation of something it desperately wanted to be.

  "I..." said Neros, locked in radiance, "I'm scared..."

  "You're free," said Violet, then the light was no more.

  A peace overtook me, stunning my senses by depriving me of sight and sound. Then, slowly, the world faded in. The room was quiet again. Still. Violet and I were standing close to each other, same as before. Where Neros was, only a faint glow remained. An aura.

  The warm luminescence pulsed in intensity and began to move. It floated by me like a jellyfish riding a smooth current. Eventually, it faded out completely.

  "What did you do?" I asked Violet with reverence.

  "Nothing you wouldn't have."

  I didn't know what to say.

  "Bravo, my dear," came a familiar voice from the open door.

  Violet, one moment triumphant, suddenly turned around and looked panicked. "Father!"

  I looked at the stoic figure on the threshold. It was a man in a fine suit with a black mustache and wavy black hair. In his left hand, held over his shoulder, was a walking stick with an alabaster rose.

  "Son of a bitch."

  "My proper name, Mr. Butcher, is Alexander Ambrose."

  * * *

  The well-dressed man glanced around and cleared his throat. "May I?" he asked, motioning himself inside. He made a show of cordially removing his top hat. When no one answered, he let himself in anyway, and the door fell closed behind him. Then his hat resumed its place on his head.

  "Who are you?" I demanded.

  A smirk crossed the man's face. "I have just told you, sir." He pushed past his daughter carelessly and approached me. Violet averted her gaze, trying not to call attention to herself.

  "I mean, why are you here? What do you plan to do?"

  "To lay my cards on the table," he answered. He lowered his wooden stick to the floor and the metal tip clicked on the tile. "Let's face it. You were on the verge of discovering me anyway."

  "Livia recognized you," I said, narrowing my eyelids. "She attacked Alexander McAllister to defeat Alexander Ambrose."

  "Ah," he said, frowning, "I see that you already have found me out." He clicked his tongue several times, as one might do to a child. "One step ahead of me."

  "Tell me then," I said. "What do you want from me?"

  "I've told you that shades can find those that poke into their affairs."

  "But why did you save me from that fiend last time?"

  "Bah," he said dismissively, "I doubt that I prevented any grievous damage. The fool was weak, as even my daughter has proved."

  "Leave Violet out of this," I warned.

  "Is that what she is calling herself these days?" The man turned his head partly to face the girl but she looked away. He chuckled. "Things in this world are not often what they seem."

  I studied the calmly composed gentleman. He was the sort of person who exuded power so much that he didn't need to prove he had it. It was in the way he spoke, the way he dressed, and it was apparent in the casual attention he gave everything.

  He locked eyes with me but spoke to Violet.

  "Why are you helping this man, dear?"

  The young girl fidgeted and crossed her arms over her chest.

  "Oh come now," he demanded. "It has been six years since we've had the pleasure of speaking, and now you are mute?" The man turned to face her. "Why are you helping this man?"

  "Because he's good," she answered indignantly. "Because I can."

  The man laughed softly. "I notice you didn't affirm that you were good." The man was amused with himself.

  "I'm better than you," muttered Violet.

  I had never seen Alexander Ambrose get upset before. In the little time I'd known him, it was apparent it didn't happen often. But now, his cheeks flushed with anger and he set his jaw.

  "How dare you!" he boomed. His voice carried a mystical reverberation t
hat echoed off the high walls. Violet cringed at the sound. "You will not speak to your father that way."

  "Hey!" I yelled, rapidly losing patience with the man for his cryptic arrival. "Leave her alone. She's just a little girl. Just another tragic victim of your careless meddling, like Sal and Livia." The man turned to me and I drew my face close to his. "She's not even your daughter, you twisted fuck. Aster was Alexander McAllister's daughter. She was killed because of you. And now a broken man woke up from a coma and found himself all alone."

  Alexander Ambrose took a measured breath and regained his cool. The heat left his face and gave way to a faint smile. That smirk, that crooked smirk, widened—then broke out into a walloping laugh.

  "Ha, ha, Mr. Butcher! So you are one step behind, after all."

  I shot a puzzled look at the man and backed off. I didn't try to hide my confusion. I didn't try to play cool. I just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

  "What are you talking about?"

  The man beamed, amused by the proceedings. By my consternation. After a moment, he broke his silence. "What did I tell you about trusting shades?"

  "What is he talking about, Violet?" I asked.

  The girl lifted her head and tears were in her eyes. Lines of black eyeliner ran down her puffy cheeks.

  "For starters," said Alexander, finally showing mercy, "her name is Viola Ambrose, and she was born in 1902."

  I swallowed something wrong. I choked. It became difficult to breathe. But I could see in the girl's eyes that the man wasn't lying.

  "You're not twelve," I said to her, each word a dagger. "You're a hundred and twelve."

  * * *

  Viola Ambrose was born just after the start of the new century. It was a time to shake off old attitudes. The Victorian mindset that had consumed England was dying a slow death and the industriousness of a new America was coming to a head.

  Alexander Ambrose was a railroad man. Having devoted twenty years of his life to the Southern Pacific, he was well regarded and well-off. His young wife had taken ill and died, but Alexander dutifully raised Viola as a single father. Her hair was still black then. The two were close, and he never remarried, at least not in this life.

  Alexander Ambrose was a man of moderate success, pulled up in class by his hard work and relentless drive. Even though he was of poor beginnings, he put on a show of nobility. He always dressed and spoke the part. More importantly, he was a man who could be trusted to his word. His reliability earned him promotions and a promising career.

  His prized possession was his custom made Hamilton Watch Company 940, given to him by respected associates at the railroad. By all accounts, Alexander and Viola Ambrose had their futures well assured. Their success was self-made. So it would be with their undoing.

  One early fall morning in the year 1914, Alexander sealed his modest house, turned the gas on, and reclined on his sofa. Viola, sitting beside him, clutched her father's pocket watch, as she often did. The girl was only twelve at the time and she trusted her father implicitly. Alexander spoke of the future. They held each other. As she nodded off, he recited a comforting rhyme.

  "The path is rough, and simple feet step better with a shoe.

  One's not enough; like lonely streets, they're better walked with two."

  Viola succumbed first. Alexander, holding the lifeless form of the only person in the world he still loved, waited in peace.

  The bodies were dressed and presented at a respectable, if small, funeral. The Hamilton 940 was hung from Alexander's jacket and the girl had a purple flower placed in her hands. When the time came to put them in the ground, the greedy mortician, a man by the name of Fingal McAllister, spirited the pocket watch into his possession before he let the ground take them.

  The Dead Side was not an easy place. Father and daughter wandered it together, fighting to keep their wits about them. Viola was scared but she had her father to protect her. He seemed to know what to do; she had to believe there was a reason for it. And there was, as Alexander proved to have connections in the beyond.

  Strange meetings occurred. Their new partners did not take kindly to Viola's appearance. She was not, it turned out, in their designs, but Alexander stubbornly refused to accept any outcome that abandoned his daughter and impressed his fellow shades with his conviction. In the end, they begrudged him the vice, and the father, for his part, kept Viola away from their proceedings.

  All did not go well. Some on the Dead Side were disappointed in Ambrose. He was unpracticed and unable to cling to the world of the living. Desperate for success, he redoubled his efforts.

  As Alexander attended to business, Viola dreamed of her old world and soon found that she could inhabit the familiar workings of her father's timepiece. Originally a secret, the revelation of this news had excited her father and his cohorts. As Viola watched the world of the living through Fingal's watch, her father was given a unique conduit between both worlds.

  So it was that, after more than a decade on the Dead Side, Alexander Ambrose overcame the obstacles needed to possess Fingal McAllister, an overworked family man with a wife, a little girl named Catriona, and a newborn son, Finlay.

  Alexander, now in possession of a new life, began instructing his daughter to inhabit Catriona. These attempts met with initial success, but Viola, not gifted with the growing talents of her father, always struggled to hold herself inside her host. Catriona was strong-willed and a pure soul and fought for her independence. Worse yet, the agitation caused to the family by these events shone a light on the suspicious circumstances, and the mortician's wife became dangerously interested. Alexander Ambrose, unknown to his innocent daughter, staged her death to appear like an accident.

  Alexander's new life did not go as he had hoped. In return for his reincarnation, he owed a great portion of his wealth to his benefactors, his associates from the Royal Ruby Millinery. Those in positions of power dubbed themselves the Royals, a select few with monstrous abilities but subtle designs. Fingal's business proved useful for promoting their illicit empire. Bodies could be hidden. Grieving families could be assessed. Alexander's work was immensely needed. His company expanded, but he found that ever more of his time and his efforts went to the cause and very little benefitted him. His work garnered little respect. His ascendancy to the Royals never happened. Alexander discovered that, in freeing himself from the shackles of his previous life, he had only entered the service of another.

  Leading to more distress was his inability to cater to Viola's needs. He pushed her to join him amongst the living but had only succeeded in driving Catriona mad. He had little time for his real daughter, much less Fingal and Catriona. After twenty years of hardship, something needed to change.

  Alexander Ambrose knew he had indebted one lifetime to Royal Ruby. Perhaps it had been nigh time to see that contract completed. He gave his pocket watch to his son, a new man, and after some grooming and preparation, Alexander Ambrose found he could do the impossible: he bound himself to another living person.

  Powerful shades had jumped bodies before. At least, in a more opportunistic fashion. But Ambrose used the same trick that had brought him to the living in the first place. Viola's trick. The pocket watch once again served him and strengthened his grip on the living. Finlay was Alexander's new host. The old Fingal, devoid of any will left within, quickly lost himself and passed away soon after.

  The Royals had created a new flagship company, Blush Bonnet Clothiers. As his final act of duty and per the terms set, the totality of Fingal McAllister's empire went to the new venture. Alexander Ambrose was left behind by the Royals. Seen as weak. As an outsider. But at long last, he was free.

  Unbeknownst to Blush Bonnet, Alexander had continued on in the world of the living. Binding to hosts is extremely difficult and often happenstance. The ability to bind to others, well, that is nearly unheard of. Alexander was never meant to have brought Viola into the fray and her peculiar bond with the physical pocket watch had allowed her father to learn
more about possession than most men. So Alexander lived a secret life, but a free one, as Finlay. The line continued. And the Royals had no cause for suspicion.

  The new life was rife with challenges. Catriona was a handful and was eventually committed to an institution. Financial wealth proved more difficult than Alexander had supposed. To make ends meet, he was forced into a life of crime. Viola Ambrose contented herself with remaining on the Dead Side and only communicated with her father through the pocket watch. It was an empty life for both of them. And then Finlay went to prison.

  Not wanting to be subjected to the rigors of confinement, Alexander Ambrose abandoned his host to the fate he had dealt him. Again amongst the dead, he reconnected with his ill-tempered daughter, but the bleak world crushed his soul. He had ambitions to once again leave that place but his conduit, Viola's pocket watch, was locked with the prisoner's possessions and isolated. Without it, his foothold was missing. So Alexander Ambrose, never content to allow his fate to be dictated to him, practiced his talents.

  Shades don't operate on tangible quantities. The machinations of the world are ill-defined. To skirt the impossible, one needs only the ambition of man. And Alexander Ambrose was nothing if not ambitious. After years of study, he discovered he could possess bodies other than the one he was bound to. It was erratic. Only sustainable for short periods of time. But it allowed him to practice his craft in secret. Slowly, the man once thought incompetent outgrew his reputation.

  So it was that there were two parts of the same man: Finlay McAllister, serving an interminable sentence but living his own life again, acting to better himself and working towards rehabilitation, and Alexander Ambrose, jumping into the bodies of his gangster acquaintances and setting up his fortune.

  Viola, at a time when she had the opportunity to be closest to her father, found herself ever the afterthought.

  Finlay McAllister, having been a fine example of a prisoner and serving fifteen years, had his sentence commuted and was released. He recovered his pocket watch, the gift from his father, and exited the institution. He was prepared for a new life. He never realized how truly his wish would be granted.