Falls the Shadow (Sparrow Falls Book 2)

by Justine Sebastian

  “No doubt,” Tobias said as she turned at the caution light to take them into Sparrow Falls. Tobias really had disappeared quite a long way from home. Though now he recognized the route. It was the same way he had gone the night he gave Mooncricket a ride home; that started to register the moment they crossed the Jess Dickenson Bridge. Mooncricket lived out at Stony Point though and Tobias had come out near Hackley. “How far away is Stony Point from where I ended up?”

  “Um… lemme think,” Dawn Marie said. After a minute, she said, “It’s about six or so miles to the… I want to say north or northwest of Hackley. There’s not a lot of room between there and where you ended up.”

  “I see,” Tobias said.

  “What are we going to do about this shit?” Dawn Marie asked.

  “We are going to do nothing,” Tobias said. “I’ll handle it.”

  “Uh, how about no?” Dawn Marie said. “I’m not letting you deal with weird interdimensional fuckery or whatever the hell this stuff is on your own. What kind of friend would that make me?”

  “A smart one,” Tobias said.

  “Dude, no,” Dawn Marie said. “If you haven’t noticed, I am not smart.”

  “You’re very smart,” Tobias said.

  “Yeah, but I have a long history of doing stupid shit,” Dawn Marie said. “Let me help you.”

  “Very well,” Tobias said. He pointed off to the left. “You can start by stopping at Bateman’s so I can get more ice cream.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Dawn Marie said, but she flipped on her blinker and turned into the Bateman’s parking lot.

  Dawn Marie offered to go in and buy the ice cream that go ‘round and Tobias was fine with that. It gave him time to think and lessened the risk of him disturbing Casey-the-Cashier again. What he needed was a solid idea of where to start and that was proving to be problematic.

  Tobias rubbed his eyes; they burned and ached with a faint throb like he was getting a case of eye strain. His back twinged once like an afterthought and he sighed, tapping his fingers on his knee. Lenore pecked at his chest and he stopped what he was doing to stroke her back.

  “What am I going to do, Lenore?”

  She looked up at him with star-bright eyes, staring right into his own with an intelligence that was uncanny. But she said nothing and Tobias was left right where he had started: Nowhere.

  20

  The couple of weeks following Jeremy’s murder of the girl Stacey were agony for him. He stopped going to therapy, he ate very little and slept even less though he was doing more heroin than he had in all the years he’d been using. He spent most of his time out in the barn with Barghest and the shadow wraiths, leaving Mooncricket to his own devices, which meant who knew what. Jeremy didn’t care either.

  The night he killed Stacey had been another triumph that was still tempered by failure. He’d felt Thanatos though, knew that he had come closer to him than he had in a long time. He was right there just beyond Jeremy’s reach or vision, but he had heard the pop when he’d come through. Jeremy had pulled him from wherever it was he lay bedded down, alone and forgetful as he himself had been slowly forgotten. The mighty, vicious way Thanatos had lashed out the second time was astounding though. Jeremy’s left ear had bled for three days, the pain of it amazing, the ringing in it maddening. The bruises on his sternum were still dark even two weeks later and it hurt to draw breath. If his sternum hadn’t been fractured after the first time, it was now. Jeremy loved it as much as he hated it because closer was not good enough. It was not complete; he had to work harder, but he couldn’t.

  Killing Stacey so close to Medusa had been unwise. The wraiths protected him, but so did self-control. Spree killers were the ones who got caught; they either started out that way or they devolved into that, nothing more than slavering beasts where once they had been so eloquent in their execution. Jeremy did not want to walk among their ranks. He hadn’t done anything that stupid since the winter he killed two nearly back-to-back because—and he could admit it to himself now though he had been unable to then—he had been jealous of the newest murderer in Sparrow Falls. The guy had been brutal and sloppy, nothing artful about his methods and yet, he’d gotten entirely too much attention in Jeremy’s opinion. He had felt compelled to remind the residents of Sparrow Falls that he was still there and had not forgotten how to terrorize them.

  It was different this time, the urge to kill-kill-kill was not at all motivated by jealousy. It was driven by hunger and maybe a little greed, but mostly it was the same old recipe it had always been: grief and loneliness, anger at being so callously abandoned. The night Thanatos had almost arrived then shoved Jeremy away had left him collapsed in pain, nearly unconscious from it. He’d thought over and over in a sick-sad loop: How can you do this to me now?

  He only needed one, maybe two more attempts and Thanatos would come to him. He was refining the process every time, getting better at using the force of his voice to draw Thanatos’s attention. He had to hear Jeremy, that was what was important. Whether it was words that Thanatos heard or if it was only a feeling, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was strong enough.

  Jeremy knelt before the black granite altar and tunneled his fingers into the blood-enriched soil, washing his hands in the filth as the shadow wraiths hummed and hissed to comfort him. He was high again, a thin trail of dried blood like a broken exclamation point drawn down his inner arm. He just wanted to sleep, that was all, find peace and quiet in the arms of Thanatos again. Once, when he was Eusebius, he had slept cradled in those arms beside the Euphrates river. The soft sound of the lazy river flowing, the cool marble white skin against his back. The soft brush of black feathers when Thanatos wrapped his wings around him to keep away the night chill. Jeremy remembered and felt all of that and was not ashamed that he wept, torn wide open with the loss of it all again and again.

  Sometimes he thought maybe Thanatos didn’t love him at all. Maybe he had never loved him. He had neglected Jeremy in life after life until it was too late. In the lives he had shown up in, he had been apologetic though. Had explained time to Jeremy and how it didn’t mean the same to him, that it actually meant nothing to him. I show up when I am needed and that is all I can do.

  “I need you now,” Jeremy said. “Forever and always, I need you.”

  He put his face in his hands, washing it with filthy soil as well. It stank of iron and the tang of raw meat on the verge of going bad but never quite tipping over into rot. There was copper and salt. Then the soft, almost secretive smell of the dirt itself. He whispered soft words, quick, hissing syllables like a snake singing a hymn and when he was done, he gathered more dirt in his hands and ate it. What was left, he stroked down his torso, covering himself in it. Injured as he was, he would be useless to do what needed to be done. Without his full strength, his next encounter with Thanatos might get him what he wanted, but at a terrible price, the same one he had paid a thousand times: his death. The power—the life—he called upon in the soil and all the blood it had drank would heal him.

  The long grass rustled and sighed as Jeremy lay back to let it cover him. It folded over him, making a blanket, a cocoon out of its tough fibers. The wraiths came and sang into his blood crusted ear then licked it away before they slipped inside the aching canal and filled it with the sound of their song. Jeremy slept then as the wraiths did their work, eating away his pain, cleaning away his bruises, scrubbing out the fine fissures running along his sternum. They wiped the slate clean so that he might start again as the grass and all the life it had drank held him, fed them.

  Jeremy slept and he dreamed he watched the world burn, safe beneath the shadow of Thanatos’s wings.

  When he woke again it was to a sharp cry of his name. The dream was torn away from him in an instant as he snapped his eyes open to look up at Dr. Helen.

  Dr. Helen in a nice charcoal grey pantsuit.

  Dr. Helen with her hair up in a pretty braided twist.

  Dr. Helen w
ith her mouth open in shocked dismay.

  Dr. Helen with her little spectacles on, reflecting Jeremy back at himself, translucent and grimy.

  Dr. Helen in his barn.

  “You can’t be here,” Jeremy said as he rolled to his feet. There was still some soreness, but it was faint and if not for Dr. Helen waking him, it would have been completely healed by the next morning. He would try again later, but right now he needed to get her out of his barn.

  “I’m concerned, Jeremy,” she said holding her hands up in a placating gesture. She was not taken aback by his nudity; only a slight downward flick of her eyes to even suggest she noticed. Mentally ill people had a long and sordid history of stripping off their clothes then covering themselves in filth. It was probably not the first time she’d seen a crazy person in such a state.

  “I’m fine,” Jeremy said. “You need to leave now.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Dr. Helen said. She put her hands on her hips, a take charge stance, a power pose. “You’ve missed your appointment two weeks in a row, you haven’t called to cancel or reschedule. You’ve been very agitated lately and it’s worrisome.”

  “I don’t need therapy,” Jeremy said. He gestured toward the open doors of the barn even as he damned himself for not locking them. He’d been too high too often lately and he was making mistakes. The unlocked door was bad, but at least he hadn’t been making an offering when it happened. But it felt like a portent, a harbinger of serious mistakes to come if he did not slack off and sober the fuck up. “I’ve got this. Okay?”

  Dr. Helen’s sharp, intelligent gaze skimmed over him again, that time flicking from the crook of one elbow to the other before settling back on his face. Jeremy was ambidextrous and he liked variety.

  “Self-medicating will not cure you, Jeremy,” she said. There was no judgment, her voice was soft, concerned. Soothing. “Let me help you. If we work together you can get back on the right track and sort things out. Please, come with me.”

  “No,” Jeremy said. “I can’t go anywhere. I have work to do. You don’t understand. I have to be here.”

  “Is this about Thanatos?” Dr. Helen asked.

  “Everything is about Thanatos,” Jeremy said. “Without him there is nothing here for me. But he’s forgotten, you see? Maybe not everything, but enough. He’s faded, like he’s been in a coma.” Jeremy smiled then, triumphant and pleased. “But he’s waking up now. He will come for me.”

  “Thanatos is the god of death,” Dr. Helen said patiently. She frowned. “Are you having thoughts about hurting yourself, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  She looked down at the bruise that spread across his chest so far it nearly covered it. It had faded to sick yellowish green and watered down ink-blue instead of the nearly black with angry dark red edges it had been before. It was still a gruesome beast of a thing, the result of hard impact trauma and Jeremy saw what she was thinking before she said it:

  “Have you hurt yourself, Jeremy?”

  “No, no, no!” Jeremy fisted his hands in his hair. She was smart, so why wasn’t she getting it? “He’s been asleep for so long and now he’s waking up. It’s like disturbing a dreamer—you’re not supposed to do that. Except I have to. He has to wake up and remember.”

  “But if he’s Death then… how can he sleep? Death does not sleep,” Dr. Helen said. She was infuriatingly reasonable about it. “If Death laid down and took a nap, no one would die at all. Look around, Jeremy, people die all the time, more and more every day.”

  “They also breed like rats,” Jeremy spat. “It hardly counts. For every two thousand that die, four million take their place. Just because he’s asleep though doesn’t mean he can’t still act. Death does not stop, ever. You’re right about that. Even when he dreams, people fall.”

  She frowned at him, not following his logic and assuming he was crazy. It was true, too, Jeremy was crazy. He knew it; he just wasn’t crazy in the way Dr. Helen thought he was. He would never make her understand that though. He could never make anyone understand. He was the keeper of a secret so terrible that even when he told it, no one believed it.

  “Come with me, Jeremy,” she said. “We can take a drive to Mandeville and you can take a little rest, hmm? I’ll come see you every week, just like always, but if you’re somewhere safe they can keep an eye on you when I’m not there to do it. They can help you get things sorted out in your mind.”

  “You want to commit me.”

  Jeremy stared at her, mind racing a million miles a minute with the same response: No. Forever no because never again. He’d done his time in mental institutions when he was younger and had hated every millisecond he spent locked on a ward in his pajamas, listening to whiners whine and cry about their pissant little problems. The failed suicide cases and the safety pin scratchers who liked to call themselves cutters. The sad fat kids with Daddy issues, the anorexic kids with Mommy issues. Some people liked going to the hospital for a little visit, some even seemed to thrive on it and if they did get the help they needed (or thought they needed) then Jeremy was glad for them. Those places had suffocated him though, ripped him up and dulled him down.

  “I want to get you into a stable environment with people present around the clock who can help you when things get rough,” Dr. Helen said. “They can give you medication that will help you. You don’t need drugs, Jeremy, you need proper medication and therapy. Covering up your problems with… Is it right to assume you’re using heroin?” He nodded because Why the hell not? Dr. Helen nodded back then continued, “Heroin is only a Band-Aid you slap on your problems, but when the high fades, the problems are still there. A stay in the hospital can get you back on your proper meds and off the drugs.”

  “You need to leave,” Jeremy said. His head was starting to hurt. “You’re not supposed to be here. I’ve said that already. God. God. But it’s true. You have to get out right now. Right. NOW!”

  Dr. Helen took a halting step away from him then forced herself to stop. The woman was as fearless as she was compassionate and Jeremy liked her—loved her, in his own skewed and platonic way—but she was upsetting him very much.

  “What do you do in here?” she asked.

  Jeremy blinked, stunned by the shift in topic. He looked around the barn, seeing it as she likely did and noting how hard she was staring at the black granite altar. Even as he noticed, she walked toward it, head cocked to one side the slightest bit.

  “I… I make offerings,” he said.

  “To Thanatos?”

  “No, Eros,” Jeremy snapped. He raked his fingers through his hair again, dragging his nails painfully across his scalp and leaving stinging trails of warm pain in his wake. “Of course they’re to Thanatos.”

  “And what kind of offerings do you make to Thanatos?” Dr. Helen turned away from the altar to look right at Jeremy.

  In her eyes there were questions, but also a dark spark of understanding blooming like a bloodstain on silk. She might not have it all figured out yet, but she was getting there. Smart, smart, beautiful woman.

  “That’s not important,” Jeremy said.

  He closed some of the distance between them. He didn’t want to hurt Dr. Helen; he wanted to make her understand and it wasn’t working, which only frustrated him more. If he told her more—if he told her all of it—she’d believe the murder parts, no doubt. But she’d write him off as delusional and then call the cops. Doctor-patient confidentiality stopped the moment the doctor felt or found out the patient had committed a serious offense like murder. You couldn’t even talk to a priest about that stuff anymore. There was nowhere safe to turn unless it was your lawyer and well, they were untrustworthy by their very nature.

  Jeremy could see it unfolding in an ugly tableau in his mind when he thought about telling Dr. Helen the whole truth and nothing but. Oh, she’d probably speak at his trial and push for institutionalization instead of imprisonment. She’d really drive home the point that he was delusional to the point of creating el
aborate props (the altar, for example) to further solidify said delusion. She’d say he wasn’t in his right mind.

  “Jere—”

  “No,” Jeremy said with a quick shake of his head. “I told you to leave, so do it. Please, just go.”

  “What kinds of offerings do you make?” Dr. Helen asked. Her voice was soft, hollow; that dark spark of understanding igniting to full life in her brown eyes. It was turning to fear, it was controlled for now, but it was there and unmistakable. She crossed her arms over her middle and shifted her weight slightly. She was fearless—usually—but she wasn’t a moron who lacked a sense of self-preservation. Jeremy was agitated—dangerously so—and mentally unstable and Dr. Helen was in a dark barn with him. A barn where she had pretty much concluded he sacrificed animals or people to the god of death.

  “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  Jeremy lunged for her, meaning to bodily drag her from the barn if that’s what it took to keep the situation from following its logical course to the end. He didn’t want to hurt Dr. Helen; he liked her and she was, in a way, his friend. Hell, in many ways, she was his closest and only friend even if she saw it only as a professional relationship. She was the one person Jeremy could honestly talk to about most things.

  He grabbed her by her upper arms and when he did, she screamed once, short and loud. She jerked away from him and his fingers slipped on the smooth fabric, the expensive and well-fitted sleeves of her light blazer offering no real purchase for his grip. She stumbled backward and lost her balance as the force of her motion against Jeremy’s pulled them apart. He stumbled one way as she went the other.

  It was easy to see what was going to happen even as it unfolded and Jeremy reached for her again to try and stop it. He slipped in the grass and felt his knee twist painfully as it went out from under him. Jeremy went to the grass with a gasp of pain that was smothered by the crack of Dr. Helen’s skull against the edge of the altar. It sounded nothing like the oft-mentioned egg; it was too wet, too loud and too hard. It was ice shattering against stone, a tree limb exploding in the cold.