by Helena Shaw
“I completely understand,” Andras assured her. “I would never ask you to break that confidence.”
“Thanks,” she said as she tucked her hair behind her ear. “This is my place,” she told him as she stopped in front of the house she shared with Jane.
“Cadence,” Andras said as he held the umbrella above them both. “Has anyone ever told you how special you are?”
“Um,” she stuttered. Something about the way he asked the question made her uneasy. Maybe it was because of Draven asking her the same thing a week ago. Maybe it was the way he looked at her, but something inside her was warning her that Andras wasn’t all that he appeared to be.
“You are a lovely woman,” Andras said, but now his charm seemed false and Cadence couldn’t help but take a step back out of the safety of the umbrella and into the rain.
“I need to go,” she said as the rain soaked her. “Sorry.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Andras said as she turned. His voice was no longer light and flirty, but was suddenly a deep growl. “I can’t let such a delicious thing like you go, even if Crane claimed you first.”
“What?” Cadence stuttered as she turned, but the man standing at the edge of her driveway wasn’t the same, sexy blond who had been there a moment ago.
It was still Andras, but his golden blond hair had turned white and dry. His porcelain skin was hallow and pale while his beautiful pale green eyes had turned a bright red. It was as if one of the shadows she saw had somehow come to life in him and he moved faster than Cadence could ever imagine.
He was on her before she could even think about turning to run. His fingernails had grown into long claws and he dug them into her arms as he held her.
The rain poured over them both, but Cadence barely noticed she was wet. Her heart was beating hard in chest and she couldn’t breathe as Andras’s red eyes bore into her own.
“You are a rare treat,” he growled at her. “It’s rare to find a woman with such power, and when I devour you, that power will become mine.”
“Stop,” Cadence tried to scream. She tried to pull away, to run and hide, but Andras’s monstrous form dwarfed her own. His hands held her like a vice and easily lifted her off the ground as his jaw unhinged.
It’s almost like a snake, Cadence realized in a strange moment of clarity while the monster that Andras had become moved to swallow her whole. She could see right down into the inky darkness of his gullet and in a weird way, she seemed to resign herself to her fate, despite a voice inside her begging her to kick, to punch, to bite. Anything to get away.
His gargantuan mouth was lined with needle-like teeth and were only inches from her face. Cadence was so close to his gaping maw that she could smell the rotten, sulphurous stench of his breath and she squirmed in his arms as he lifted her into the air.
Just as she was certain that this nightmarish fantasy was about to come to a dark close, she suddenly found herself falling to the ground. She landed hard on the wet driveway and saw stars as her head smacked off the pavement. Everything spun and she opened her eyes just to see her savior throwing Andras to the grass while lightning flashed overhead.
On the lawn, not five feet from where she struggled to maintain consciousness, Andras wrestled with a figure cloaked all in black. Her head spun as she tried to watch, but every time she moved to sit up her stomach turned and she found herself falling back. She could barely keep her eyes open as she saw the too familiar dark figure as he slashed at Andras’s face and sent the demon running faster than humanly possible.
It was then that her savior turned to face her. Dressed all in black, with long, ebony hair, stood Draven Crane, his chest rising and falling heavily as he looked upon her.
Cadence tried to say something, anything at all, but she lost her fragile grip on her consciousness just as she noticed that Draven’s eyes were glowing a bright red.
Chapter Five
“You’re not going to work today,” Jane insisted, but Cadence didn’t need that much convincing.
“I just don’t want to get fired,” Cadence said as she rubbed the tender spot at the back of her head.
“You won’t,” Jane assured her. “And neither will I. I already called the bank and told them what happened. They’re cool with me taking the day to make sure you didn’t give yourself an embolism or something.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Cadence told her as she grabbed the rapidly melting ice pack off the coffee table and pressed it to her head. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Jane gaped at her. “Are you crazy? I found you passed out in the driveway, in the rain, bleeding from your head. It’s kind of a big deal!”
That much was true. Jane had pulled into the driveway to find Cadence flat on her back, soaked from the rain, and completely knocked out.
Somehow she was able to bring Cadence back to consciousness before she helped her into the house. She’d tried to convince Cadence that she should go to the hospital, but she insisted she was fine and that she’d only slipped and fell on the wet pavement.
She couldn’t tell her roommate the truth. She couldn’t even tell herself the truth. Her mind, even with the pounding headache, was working hard to convince herself that what had really happened was that Andras had walked her home, he’d left, and she’d fallen once she was alone. The rest of the stuff, where Andras was some sort of horrible demon and that Draven Crane had come to her rescue, that was all some weird dream that her mind had crafted while she was knocked out on the ground. It was the only way anything made sense.
“Okay, I won’t go in,” Cadence said, but she fretted having to talk to any of the secretaries more than she worried about getting in trouble for skipping out on work. There was no one she thought was safe to call besides Suzanne in HR and she forced herself to take a deep breath in before she began to dial on her old cellphone.
“Hello?” Suzanne’s familiar voice answered.
“Hi, Suzanne?” Cadence asked.
“Yes?” the human resources manager replied.
“It’s Cadence,” she said, forcing herself to finish her thought. “I’m really sorry, but I took a nasty fall in the rain last night and hit my head pretty good on the sidewalk. I really don’t think I can make it in.”
“That’s interesting,” Suzanne said. “Mr. Crane just notified me that he wasn’t going to be in today. I just assumed he would have let you know.”
“No, he hadn’t yet,” Cadence said, but she couldn’t hide the grimace on her face. A small sign that what she was convinced was a dream might just be real. “I’m sure he just assumed I’d find out when I got to work.”
“Well, you just rest up,” Suzanne told her. “We’ll hopefully see you both tomorrow.”
“Happy?” Cadence said to Jane once she hung up the phone.
“Very,” Jane nodded. “You need to rest.”
Resting was fine for a while, but the longer Cadence laid on the couch, daytime TV filling the room, the longer she had to think about what had really happened the night before. She didn’t want to think about it, she didn’t want to think about the possibility of Andras attacking her and she certainly didn’t want to think about the horrible visage he’d taken on.
It was when she remembered seeing Draven’s eyes burning furious red as he leered at her that she realized she couldn’t just spend the day on the couch. She couldn’t let herself think about her weird memories anymore. She needed a distraction and she needed it now.
“I’m feeling a lot better,” she said to Jane as her best friend watched The Price is Right.
“Good,” Jane said. “Want something to eat?”
“Actually,” Cadence said. “I’m bored out of my mind and want to go out.”
“Thank god,” Jane said. “I’m dying just sitting around. Want to go to those new outlets just outside of town?”
“I don’t have any money,” Cadence reminded her.
“So?” Jane said. “If you see something you
like, I’ll pay for it and you can pay me back when you get paid. Don’t worry about it. You’ve earned a bit of a treat.”
“I can’t,” Cadence tried to insist, but Jane wouldn’t hear anything of it.
“Go get dressed,” Jane instructed. “I’ve got about five minutes before I go crazy sitting around here anymore, so get moving.”
Though her head still hurt a bit, Cadence did as she was told and moved as quickly as she could up the stairs to her room. She was happy to not have to wear her standard black skirt and blazer and instead, she pulled on a pair of jeans and an oversized maroon sweater.
Once she’d run a comb through her chin length hair, she was ready to go and carefully walked back downstairs. She was still a little dizzy when she moved too quickly, but she wouldn’t tell Jane that. She had already made her worry enough.
“Thank god,” Jane said as she stepped out into the drizzly day. “I was going to smack my own head off the pavement if I had to sit around any longer.”
“Sorry,” Cadence said as she walked towards Jane’s old beater.
“Oh my god,” Jane shook her head. “It’s fine. I’m just glad we can go out and do something rather and sit around all day.”
The drive wasn’t far to the outlet center, but Cadence found herself praying that they would get there soon. She didn’t know if it was the weather or the knock on her head, but it almost felt like the shadows were getting closer and closer. Even as they drove, the shadows seemed to wash over the windshield with the rain and no matter how hard she rubbed her eyes, they wouldn’t go away.
“You okay?” Jane asked as she glanced over and saw Cadence furiously rubbing at her eyes.
“Yeah,” Cadence shrugged it off. “Just tired.”
“There’s a Starbucks over there,” Jane told her. “My treat.”
“You’re the best,” Cadence said as she forced herself to stop fighting with the shapes that wouldn’t go away. She had to try to just ignore them, nothing else was working.
The shopping center was deserted on the rainy Tuesday afternoon, but Cadence was glad of that. She was happy to be out of the house, but she didn’t want to deal with other people. Her head was still tender and her mind was too flustered to try to fight with other shoppers.
“Where to first?” Jane asked.
“Coffee,” Cadence said, cracking her first smile of the day. “Then wherever you want.”
The Starbucks was the only place with a line, but it moved quickly and no one even looked at the two young women as they waited in the queue. The rainy weather seemed to be taking a toll on everyone and there was little chatter from anyone save the baristas as they took everyone’s order.
“Just a black coffee,” Cadence told the woman behind the counter.
“And a grande extra whip mocha frappuccino,” Jane requested as she pulled out her wallet.
With caffeine in their veins, at least one of the pair was ready to shop. Jane dragged Cadence from store to store, ignoring the drizzle that continued to fall as they went.
Every shop was nearly empty and they had the full attention of every staff member, but Cadence was more overwhelmed than anything. She liked to browse on her own and even then, she’d never been much for shopping.
Jane, on the other hand, was in her element. She found pants, dresses, jackets, and more while salespeople showered her with attention and, of course, more things to buy. Cadence knew her best friend made okay money at the bank, but she had to wonder if Jane could really afford everything she was buying.
After the fourth store, Cadence needed a break. The caffeine had helped her head, but she still didn’t feel entirely awake yet and she excused herself for a second Starbucks run.
“Do you want anything?” she asked Jane before she left.
“No thanks,” Jane said as she stepped out of a changing room. She was trying on a red dress that showed off her ample curves and made her look like Joan from Mad Men. “You like?”
“I love it,” Cadence said, a pang of jealousy in her voice. “I’ll be right back.”
“You need some cash?” Jane asked as she admired her curvy figure in the mirror.
“I’ve got a few bucks,” Cadence said, though that was about it until payday finally came around. “I won’t be long.”
The Starbucks was only fifty feet away, but in the dreary cold, it felt like a marathon. Cadence held her hands over her eyes to help shield them from the lightly falling rain as she marched towards the coffee shop.
As she walked, Cadence started to notice the nearly empty parking lot. Only a few cars dotted the expansive lot and there was no one walking between the stores. She didn’t expect the place to be busy during the bleak weather, but she realized the place was more than slow. It was deserted. Deserted and eerily quiet.
She only saw one other person as she walked towards the coffee shop. Up ahead of her, under the slight awning of a fitness clothing store, stood a teen boy reading a comic book. He couldn’t have been any taller than Cadence herself and as she walked closer, she noticed the thick pair of glasses he was wearing.
He must be waiting for someone inside, Cadence thought as she got closer to him. Probably his mom or something.
As she passed by him, he glanced up from his book and for only a second, Cadence and the teen locked eyes. Something about him made her shudder, but she fought the worry from her mind. The bump on her head and her overactive imagination were making her jumpy. It was nothing more than that, or at least that was what she tried to convince herself of.
Even the Starbucks was empty as she stepped inside and the baristas that were running about earlier were now mostly leaning on counters and it took her clearing her throat for someone to come over and take her order.
“Sorry,” the young woman said. “I guess we didn’t see you there.”
“It’s fine,” Cadence told her. “Is it normally this dead?”
“Not really,” the woman said. “Actually, we’re usually slammed. I don’t know if it’s the weather or people saving up for Christmas season, but this is really weird.”
It wasn’t the answer Cadence was looking for. She was already on edge and didn’t like the idea of things being so out of the ordinary. It only made it harder to believe that she had only slipped and fallen the night before and suddenly she didn’t want to leave the safety of the coffee shop.
“So what can I get you?” the barista asked as Cadence nervously glanced over her shoulder.
“Just a black coffee,” she said.
She had her coffee in hand in seconds and suddenly she wished she’d ordered something more complicated. Not because she craved some sugary concoction, but because she was truly scared to leave. Shadows pressed themselves against the windows and thunder rolled somewhere in the distance.
“Can you believe this rain?” one of the baristas said to another as Cadence forced herself to move towards the door.
“It’s ridiculous,” she heard a man’s voice say. “It’s never been like this before.”
Cadence wanted to stay inside and listen to them, but when she looked outside, she found there was no one out there and she pushed her way out the door. At least she would be alone as she briskly walked back to the store where she’d left Jane to try on more clothes.
As the passed by the athletic store, she noticed the boy who was there earlier had gone and she really was the only person still outside. She wasn’t sure if she preferred it that way, and she couldn’t help but check over her shoulder as her feet picked up their pace.
She was only a few feet from the door to the shop where she’d left Jane, but a voice suddenly caught her attention.
“Excuse me?” a soft voice called to her. “Excuse me, miss?”
On instinct, Cadence turned to see who called to her. Even as her brain screamed at her to go inside the store where Jane was waiting, she turned and answered, “Yes?”
It was the teenager from earlier. His comic was nowhere to be seen and his glasses were cover
ed in rain spots.
“Did you see where my mom went?” he asked her as he ran his arm across his nose.
“Sorry,” Cadence said, a little relieved that it wasn’t Andras who had called to her. “I don’t think I’ve seen her. What does she look like?”
“I dunno,” the teen shrugged. He seemed even smaller as Cadence talked to him and she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the kid. She remembered the boys like him in high school; small, nerdy, and forever bullied. “She’s kind of short, has dark hair, I don’t know. I was reading my book and then when I looked up, she was gone.”
“Okay,” Cadence thought. “Do you want to use my phone?”
“Not really,” the kid said. “Can you just come with me and help me look for her? I’m sure she’s worried.”
In her head, a voice was screaming at her to say no. Intuition told her that something was wrong, that she needed to leave the teen on his own to find his mom. Sure, he was small for his age, but he could find his mother on his own. What kid didn’t have a phone anyway?
But there was something about the boy that made her want to help. He was every kid in school she always wanted to stand up for, but never had the confidence to do so. He looked lost and alone and another voice told her she was being paranoid and needed to grow up.
“Okay,” she nodded. “Where did you see her last?”
“This way,” he told her as he moved back towards Starbucks. “Oh,” he said as he stopped. “She parked in the back lot. Maybe she went back to the car to look for me.”
“Maybe,” Cadence nodded. “You good to go check on your own? My friend is waiting for me.”
“Please,” he pleaded. “What if she’d not there?”
“Fine,” Cadence relented. The poor kid was so small and alone. Leaving him would make her the kind of monster she hated. “After you.”
There was a small path that led between two shops towards the small back lot. This one had more cars than the main lot, but there was still no one else around.
“I think this is the employee lot,” Cadence said. “Are you sure your mom parked back here?”
