Shadowshaper

by Daniel José Older

  “No. You destroyed the body. His spirit’s long gone. You know that. Come on, Juan.” She put her arm around his shoulders. “We gotta keep moving.”

  Juan nodded and allowed Sierra to usher him back toward the others.

  “Everyone pretty much alright?” Nydia asked when Sierra and Juan rejoined the group.

  “Cuts and bruises,” Tee said. “Nothing broken.”

  Bennie nodded. “Same.” But her eyes were wide and watery.

  “It’s not too late to turn back,” Nydia said. “It’s not gonna get any easier, I suspect.”

  Bennie shook her head. “No turning back. You okay, Sierra?”

  “Sore as hell, but yeah.”

  “I’m fine,” Juan put in before anyone could ask him.

  “Think there’s more of ’em?” Bennie asked.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Nydia said.

  But it wasn’t the corpuscules Sierra was worried about.

  They made their way upward in silence. Once Juan stopped them, sent an uneasy glare across the empty floor, and then grudgingly motioned to keep moving. Sierra felt like her heart had snuck up to her brain so it could blast that pounding pulse directly into her eardrums. Every sliding shadow, each creak and crack, sent her mind spinning off into a thousand horrible visions. She struggled to stay focused and push forward, but the culminating weight of everything that had happened that week wouldn’t leave her alone.

  Sierra felt a distant flurry of motion erupt somewhere nearby. The air suddenly felt thick around her. It was a gathering: the ferocious swell of a wave before it breaks.

  “There’s something …” she said as they crept up the stairs. “… Something … happening.” Everyone froze. “I don’t know … what.” Her face was scrunched in concentration. She turned her head slowly from side to side, her eyes closed. “You feel it, guys?”

  Juan nodded. “I can’t describe it, though. Like nothing I’ve ever sensed before.”

  “Something coming?” Bennie asked.

  “Yes. But … not for us,” Sierra said. “Just coming. Many, many things.”

  “Hundreds,” Juan added. “Thousands, maybe.”

  “Is whatever’s coming dusty and white?” Tee said from the top of the stairs. “Cuz something just moved up here, and that’s all I could make out.”

  Sierra rushed up the rest of the steps and peered out onto the third floor. “Where?”

  “It slid down that wall,” Tee said, nodding to the far end of the room.

  The construction had come a little further along on this floor; half-finished plaster dividers rose up between the metal beams, and electrical wiring snaked alongside the ceiling pipes. But nothing, as far as Sierra could see, was moving. “You sure?”

  Bennie was beside them now, squinting into the dimness. “I don’t see nothing.”

  “I’m telling you guys,” Tee said. “It was about the size of a person. It slid down the far wall and was gone. A dusty cloud of white.”

  Chalk. Could it be that Robbie had escaped somehow and sent a spirit to help them? The thought gave Sierra a little surge of hope, and she stepped out onto the floor.

  Bennie reached for her. “Sierra …”

  Whatever she was going to say, the words stopped short in her mouth. A white dusty figure slithered across the floor toward them. It was blurry — the chalk was heavier in some parts and almost nonexistent in others — but Sierra thought she could make out a human form to it.

  Just before it reached them, the shape vanished completely. And then all Sierra saw was dull whiteness — a billowing cloud that resolved into a screaming face. Robbie’s screaming face. His mouth opened wide; his eyes were two empty sockets, surrounded by swirling chalk. For a terrible moment, the phantom hung in the air, a reverse shadow, long, dusty fingers reaching out toward Sierra.

  And then it pounced.

  Sierra stumbled backward, swatting blindly at the air. She felt like someone had splashed boiling water across her face, like a thousand tiny knives were stabbing into her body. People around her yelled. Then hands were on her, all over her; she prayed they were friendly hands because she still couldn’t open her eyes or even think straight through the pain. Someone swatted at her, then more people. They brushed frantically at her face, her clothes. She felt them lower her to the ground, and she realized she was screaming. She was screaming as hard as she could.

  The hands kept brushing against her body, and gradually the vicious stabbing feeling gave way to a harsh, full-body sting. Well, it wasn’t getting worse, anyway, and that was something. She squinted her eyes open. Tee, Nydia, Bennie, and Juan were staring down at her with their faces creased with terror.

  “What … happened?” Her face throbbed like she’d just gotten the worst sunburn of her life.

  “That thing …” Bennie said, glancing around nervously.

  “It was Robbie …” Sierra gasped, the horrible memory of his ghostly face jumping back at her. “It was … ugh.”

  “What do you mean?” Nydia said. She reached down and helped Sierra stand.

  “I mean the chalk phantom … It … It had Robbie’s face. He was … It was screaming. Where’d it go?”

  “We brushed the chalk dust off you, and it just dispersed into the air,” Juan said. “You okay?”

  Sierra scowled. “Kinda.” She looked at Juan. “Does that mean … he’s …?”

  He shook his head. “Not necessarily. But it’s not good.”

  “Guys,” Tee said. “There’s more coming.”

  Everyone spun around. Four — no, five chalk-dust phantoms slid down the far wall and onto the floor. They all looked just like the first one: Robbie’s face stretched into that silent scream.

  Nydia turned toward the stairwell. “Run!”

  Sierra threw her back against a wooden crate and slid to the ground. She’d made it to the fourth floor, the chalk-dust phantoms close on her trail. She didn’t know if it was from fear or exhaustion, but she could barely breathe. Something metallic clinked a few feet to her left, and she jumped.

  A minute of silence passed, during which Sierra struggled to slow her breathing, ease her heaving chest. Suddenly, she heard a desperate scramble of feet; someone screamed — was it Bennie? Tee? And then nothing. Her breath came heavy again, like invisible hands were squeezing her lungs closed from the inside. Calm yourself, damn it! She closed her eyes, saw only flickering chalk-dust phantoms, and opened them again. You’re useless when you’re frantic.

  If only she could catch her breath for a second and concentrate on her shadowshaper magic. It was there somewhere, churning inside her, a weapon she didn’t even fully understand. Sierra shuddered. Anyway, she hadn’t seen a single shadow spirit since they’d entered the Tower, and what good were her ’shaping skills with nothing to ’shape? She hated that everyone had been separated. That for all she knew, her friends were already dead, or worse. That it was all her fault. She didn’t have the metal bat anymore, and even if she did, what good would it do against a floating pile of dust?

  Something clattered to the ground on the other side of the room. If she yelled out, those ghouls would know exactly where she was. If she stayed still, they’d find her anyway. And surely they were coming.

  Ever so carefully, Sierra wrapped her fingers around a tarp that was slung over the crate beside her and pulled it to herself. She would run. There was no other choice. Make for the next floor up and hide again. Keep going till she found Robbie or …

  She would count down to zero and then go. The thick tarp wasn’t much, but at least it would give her something to block the chalk-dust phantoms with if they caught her.

  Four. She would beeline for the stairwell.

  Three. She was a good runner. She could make it.

  Two. She wanted her breath to slow down, but it only got faster and faster.

  One …

  She put one hand on the ground, clutched the tarp against her chest, and shot sprinter-style across the floor. She didn’t have to t
urn around to know the phantoms were there; a sudden flurry of movement erupted in the room all around her.

  “Sierra, go! They’re coming!” It was Bennie. Sierra almost burst into tears knowing that her best friend was still alive. Of course, her shout meant that Bennie had given up her hiding place to distract the phantoms. Sierra strengthened her resolve, willed her legs to stop feeling so gooey, and rushed toward the stairs.

  Then something — a sixth sense? the shadowshaper magic kicking in? — something told her to turn around. A chalk-dust phantom was almost on her, its long dusty arms out. Sierra swung the tarp at it as hard as she could just as the thing dove at her. The tarp slowed as if it was wrapping around some vague shape for just a moment, and then it pushed through, scattering the dust into oblivion.

  Sierra stood in total disbelief. Was it that simple? “Bennie!” she yelled, snapping back into emergency mode. “Use a tarp! Anything that’ll scatter the particles!” She gazed out into the dim room, hoping to catch sight of her friend, but nothing moved. Had the phantoms gotten her?

  Chalk-dust phantoms flitted along the floor toward her. Four … five … six of them. She wound the tarp behind her head, trying to calculate how many she could take out with one swipe. Her legs had stopped trembling. She had, at least, figured out some way to fight them. And fight she would.

  “Sierra, go find Robbie!” Juan shouted from somewhere across the room. Two of the phantoms spun off toward his voice. “We’ll get these chalk bastards!”

  “Hey!” Bennie yelled at the phantoms, stepping out into the center of the room with a plastic sheet wound up like a whip. “Come on, suckas; I’m right here!” Two more phantoms reversed course to take her challenge.

  Sierra was speechless for a second, then the two remaining phantoms sprung up toward her. She swung, scattering one of them into nothingness and clipping the other.

  Bennie swung at her pair, disintegrating both with one slash. “Sierra, go!” she yelled.

  The damaged chalk phantom had collapsed to the ground in a muddled heap and was crawling forward like an injured dog. Sierra stepped backward toward the stairwell. Three more phantoms slid down the walls and onto the floor. She had to trust that Juan and Bennie could handle them. She turned and sprinted up the steps.

  It was there, waiting for her. She felt it as soon as she stepped onto the fifth floor, and the suddenness of it almost knocked her over. The throng haint’s foulness seeped into her mouth like the aftertaste of sour milk.

  No. Sierra shook her head, steadied her knees. She wouldn’t be overwhelmed by fear alone. Not by that acrid taste, not by the dread of facing the thing that had pursued her through Flatbush and down the shore at Coney Island. She would not succumb. She took a few wobbly steps forward, then firmed up her stride.

  On the far wall of the fifth floor, a metal staircase led up to the roof. The place was empty except for some crates tucked in the corners and a floor-to-ceiling section of wall stretching ten feet along the center of the room. She heard a faint shuffling noise and some scratches. Something was on the other side of that wall.

  Could be anything, she thought as she crept toward it. Could be Robbie. Could be the throng haint. Or more of the chalk phantoms. Or something worse — whatever tidal wave of spirits she’d felt coming. Sierra was too exhausted and emotional to bother with all the terrible possibilities. She reached the wall and peered around to the other side of it.

  Robbie stood there, a paintbrush in his trembling hand, his eyes open wide. Then they got wider. “Sierra?”

  The paintbrush fell to the floor. He crossed the room with a long stride and wrapped around her, hugged her tighter than she’d ever been hugged. Sierra tried to catch her breath. “Robbie,” she said. She held him at arm’s length and inspected his face. His nose was broken. Dried blood had caked around one nostril and a fine layer of white chalk covered his face and clothes. He looked exhausted and terrified but otherwise okay.

  She pulled him to her, found his lips, and devoured them — a messy kiss, tasting of chalk, but it felt so good! He was alive! She kissed him over and over, realized there were tears coming down her face and wiped them away, kissed him again.

  “You’re not dead,” she whispered.

  He shook his head.

  “And you saved my life. Juan’s life, back on the boardwalk.”

  A noncommittal shrug.

  “Your tats, Robbie.” She lifted his arm and saw only faded ghosts of the glorious art that had once been there. “No!”

  “It’s okay.” He smiled weakly. “They’ll come back. Just not yet.”

  “What happened to you?”

  He shook again. “I can’t … It’s horrible, Sierra. You gotta get outta here before Wick comes back.”

  “I’m taking you with me.”

  “No!”

  “Whatdyou mean …?”

  “If I’m gone, Sierra, he’ll kill all of us. He’ll kill you for sure. He’s been talking about it all night. Believe me! He’s the one that made me do all of this.” Robbie gestured to the walls.

  Sierra’s mouth fell open. She hadn’t even noticed the wall in her excitement at finding Robbie. Tall, hideous creatures lurked in the still-wet paint behind him. Each painted demon had gangly arms with razor-sharp nails drooping down from hunched shoulders. Their faces were frozen into malicious grins and screams.

  Sierra felt a chill just looking at them. “He wanted new vessels for the throng haints because the human corpses are decaying.”

  Robbie nodded.

  “What happened, man?”

  “I woke up covered head to toe in chalk.” He paused, gulped back a sob. “Wick was standing in that corner, talking to himself. ‘It’s not enough,’ he kept saying. ‘It’s just not enough.’ I would’ve fought him, but I wanted to get a sense of what was going on before I tried to get away. When he noticed I was awake, he lifted me up and threw me into the wall. He did it to make a print of my chalk-covered face — something he could ’shape a spirit into and send against you. I blacked out after the third or fourth time he threw me. Woke up with the worst headache ever, bleeding, and he was still there, muttering to himself.”

  “Oh, Robbie …” Sierra reached out to him, but he stepped back.

  “No, let me just … explain. He brought me these paints and told me what to make. Said he’d kill you and me and both our families if I didn’t do what he said. And I knew he knew how to get at you. He knew your name, your address, everything. Sierra, he knows everything!” Robbie had worked himself up into a frenzy, pacing back and forth beneath his angry demon paintings. “I was gonna try to ’shape a spirit into one of these but there were none around.”

  Sierra tried to steady her voice. “Robbie, he’s going to kill us all anyway. Don’t you see? We’re in his way. First, he just wanted to fill the gap Lucera left behind, but now he’s going after shadowshapers. All of us. Soon as he gets what he wants out of you, he’ll kill you too.”

  “Sierra, we can’t …”

  Sierra’s voice went cold. “Where is he?”

  “He went to the roof,” Robbie said. “He said he’s … ugh … he’s building the throng haints.”

  “Come on.” They walked to the stairwell in the corner of the room and crept up it. The door at the top was ajar, a sliver of night sky visible on the other side. Sierra peeked through.

  Wick stood at the far end of the roof, his arms raised toward the sky. He was in a T-shirt and jeans, like any random dude. Behind him, Manny’s poor gray body stood, the throng haint within it heaving ragged breaths that burned through Sierra’s mind.

  “It’s time,” Wick called out. “Come to me, spirits! Tonight we save the shadowshapers and begin anew.”

  The air thickened, like they were in a big crowd. “You feel it?” Sierra whispered.

  Robbie nodded. “It’s been coming and going all night. I’d feel it, then it’d be gone. Now it’s back, but even louder than ever. If you can call it loud.”

  The feeli
ng seemed to be gathering toward a climax of some kind, a rush of movement around them so fierce it was almost deafening.

  “What is it?”

  “Spirits,” Robbie said. “Lots of them.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t …”

  “They’re here.” Sierra gazed at the night sky above the Tower.

  Hundreds and hundreds of souls filled the air. They stormed across the rooftop in long, shadowy strides, slender arms dangling at their sides. Some glided up through the floor, puffy dark clouds churning with faces and stories from their lives. Others flitted across the sky like autumn leaves.

  “I’ve never …” Sierra started.

  Robbie shook his head.

  “So many!”

  He nodded.

  “… Beautiful! …”

  Another nod.

  Wick was spinning in a slow circle, arms outstretched. “This is more than I requested,” he said. “I see some of you have come to bear witness. Very well.” Shadows were accumulating on his arms as he spun. They reached out desperately, trying to wrench themselves away from him, but it was no use.

  Binding magic, Sierra thought. The power the Sorrows had given Wick allowed him to hold spirits even against their will.

  Soon two hulking masses of spirit stood on either side of Wick. The anthropologist closed his eyes, muttering under his breath. He clenched his fists as the spirit masses congealed and then took shape. The newly formed throng haints stretched long, spiny arms to either side and roared. Sierra watched in horror as mouths opened along their shadowy flesh, gnashing and churning in silent protest of their sudden enslavement.

  Wick spun again, more shadows gathering along his arms. Around them, the air grew thicker with the billowing outrage of the spirits. It felt like a thunderstorm about to break. “Come, my children,” Wick said when two more throng haints stood heaving beside him. “Let us place you in your brand-new vessels.”

  They turned toward the door, Wick, Manny, and the four still-shadowy throng haints. Sierra and Robbie crept back downstairs and dashed to hide behind the crates at the far edge of the room.