Burning in a Memory

by Constance Sharper

  “Did you hear anything from the others yet?” she asked. Adelaide never heard his phone buzz, but she suspected the others had to be in her neighborhood by now.

  Adam shook his head.

  “No. It’s probably going to be awhile and you should rest. Stay the night and I can take you back tomorrow,” he said. “You can have my room.”

  “If I’m in your room, where are you planning to sleep?” she asked matter-of-factly. Adam seemed overly interested in the floor lately.

  “I’ll be on the couch tonight. You’ll have my room to yourself,” he answered quietly.

  “Thank you. It’ll be nice to rest,” she said. He nodded and led her up the stairs, giving her the polite, guided tour. The bathroom up there connected to the next hall. The extra blankets sat in the nearby closet. His bedroom was the first on the right.

  When he opened the door to his bedroom she wasn’t sure what to expect. There was only one large bed in this room with dressers taking up the rest of the space. The room was at least ten degrees cooler than the rest of the house making the navy blue comforter inviting. She perched on the edge of the bed.

  “You’re not a big fan of decorating apparently,” she pointed out. This place screamed bachelor pad.

  “Well, it’s not technically my room. I’ve only been crashing here for two weeks or so. This is Tony and Priya’s house.”

  She perked up.

  “Why are you staying here then?”

  “It’s a temporary thing until we move to the new house. It’s also safer so long as Tony and I don’t tear into each other,” he explained.

  “At least he wasn’t that bad earlier.” Anything had to be better than the incident at the pizza parlor.

  “He was too distracted by the shade attack. I’m sure he’s going to give me shit for dropping you off and going alone. But don’t worry about him, he’s just a hot head,” Adam said.

  She laughed and smiled for effect. She didn’t care about Tony when Adam sat so close to her. Despite the brutal attack, the shades had bought her extra time with him and she was determined to use it.

  “It’s nice that you’re so close with your family though,” she said. “So Adam…”

  He suddenly spoke before she could finish.

  “Those monsters that attacked us were shades,” he said out of the blue. He took her off guard and she wanted him to explain.

  “They’re called shades. They are magical, like mages, but they are inherently different. Try to understand…” he prefaced in a near whisper.

  “Mages are just like humans. We are born, we have kids, and we continue our bloodline. Our bloodline just possesses the ability to do magic. But as far back as we have existed, so have shades. They’re something else entirely. They’re the closest thing to evil you may ever know.

  “They are like parasites, though. They don’t have their own corporal body so in order to survive they take over bodies of mages. The transformation is a permanent one. Once it’s done, they embody exactly what you saw outside your house. Follow so far?”

  She nodded only to show her attentiveness. She’d heard this story over a million times and yet it sounded different every time. And every time, just like this time, she felt cold and increasingly uncomfortable.

  “Shades range in strength just like mages do. It really depends on the shade and the mage it took over. The ones at your house were weak. They aren’t very threatening but they’re a bitch in large numbers. And they’ll attack mages for a number of reasons. Sometimes just to kill us before we can return the favor. Sometimes because they want to take our bodies.”

  Her mind escaped her now, and she imagined the whole thing too vividly. The shade she pictured, though, was always Mistel. She pictured the woman with her crackling pale skin and platinum blonde hair. Mistel may have not looked like that as a child, but Adelaide could never see her as anything but a shade now.

  She wrapped her arms around herself.

  “That’s crazy,” she said quietly, “and sad.”

  Adam tried to grin at her, but his dimples didn’t show.

  “Hey, it’s a good reminder why I shouldn’t feel too suffocated by my coven being too close. Covens are what protect mages. It’s damn hard for a shade to attack a bunch of us so they almost never bother.”

  “They sound important,” she said to the floor.

  “Yea, well let’s put it this way. I’ve never heard of a mage surviving without a coven—never, not once in my life. They’re easy targets, and they are always taken.”

  She hoped desperately that her face wasn’t as white as it felt, but Adam never commented on it either way. Adelaide then hurried to take control of the conversation and change the subject.

  “I’m sorry I was so upset at you for telling me that you were leaving. I understand more now,” she said.

  He smiled.

  “It’s all right.”

  “I was pissed that I met you and you were disappearing so quickly. How many times am I ever going to meet someone who will save my life twice now?” It might have been a shameless technique but it earned a blush from Adam.

  “I don’t think it counts as twice if I’m the cause of one of those times. Those shades weren’t waiting around for you,” he said.

  And just like that the mood of the entire room shifted on her again. She tried to catch his gaze but he seemed determined to stare at the door.

  “Is this going to turn into a whole ‘I can’t be around you without putting you in danger’ thing? Don’t let it turn into that. Talk about a romantic stereotype,” she chirped, but she knew at that moment it already had. She’d lost him again. Desperate, she reached out and touched his arm. The sudden skin-to-skin contact made him react quickly.

  “It’s not just you. I can only assume that my life isn’t going to change anytime soon, you know?” he said. He didn’t move far enough away to break the contact, but he did shift enough to stare at her. “Is someone going to notice you missing? Have you told your family you won’t be home?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth but a loud buzz interrupted her. It took her a second to recognize the familiar ringtone that followed it and then she madly dashed to silence her phone.

  “Did you use your magic to make that ring?” she said and tried to laugh. She smacked the end call button and stopped the buzz.

  “No, I’m just incredibly lucky,” he said. This time she laughed more genuinely, but the spell between them was broken. “I’ll let you get that call and catch up on some sleep. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

  She watched him leave reluctantly. When he was gone, she pulled out her phone. No one but her obnoxious redheaded neighbor would have noticed her missing. When she pulled up the number, it came up as unidentified.

  Adelaide dropped the phone back into the sheets and checked the hallway. The entire second floor was quiet and empty. She shut the door and returned to the bed. Right on time, the phone started to buzz again from the same number.

  She answered quickly.

  “Bad time,” she hissed into the receiver, hoping to end the conversation. The exterior walls to the house might have been made of brick, but the walls inside were made of something cheaper and likely not soundproof.

  “You asked me to look into things for you,” Bradley protested on the other line.

  She considered for a fleeting moment whether or not she should hang up. But Bradley sounded concerned and she had to hear out any time pressured information. She let out a grunt of defeat, but clarified. “Talk quickly, I’m very tired.”

  He understood the unspoken point immediately. He lowered his voice with the next sentence, and explained his call without questions.

  “I did more research into the mage. You have to get away from him. If you haven’t found him yet, stop looking. This guy is dangerous! I’ve never heard of anyone like it!”

  She hummed quietly. He wasn’t telling her anything that she didn’t already know.

  “Yes, of course, I�
��ll call you back some other time. I’m fine, I swear,” she said out loud.

  Bradley grumped.

  “I’m not kidding. Adelaide, this mage is notorious sixteen states over. And shades everywhere want him dead. You’re lucky you can’t talk, or you’d be filling me in on your dumb plan long enough for me to talk you out of it. Anyway, after looking him up, I found his location. But it wasn’t easy. He’s not exactly registered in a town, and I suspect that he hasn’t lived in a city in a few months. He’s in a hospital, outside of Denver, Colorado.”

  “What?” she blurted before she could stop herself. She double checked the Nokia’s volume and clicked it down to the lowest setting. The walls might have been thin, but mages didn’t have super hearing either. She just had to control her own speech pattern and reaction, and she knew that. She needed to know more now.

  “Yea, that’s the only thing I could find. And I don’t think he’s admitted there, just visiting on an outpatient basis. And I’m not sure what his diagnosis could be. It could be a cold, or something more serious. And then I found his coven. Adam Colton being part of it, and they are residing in Denver, Colorado. I’m sure they have contact, and I’m sure Leon won’t go far without them.”

  “I…okay…” Blood pounded too loudly in her ears to think of a better way to end it.

  “Please call me back when you can, Adelaide. I’m scared for you. And I’m really, really scared of what this Leon Colton can do.”

  “I’ll be okay. I love you, I’ll talk to you later,” she said and ended the call before he could say another word. She dropped the Nokia on the bed and leaned back onto the mattress with way too much to absorb.

  If Bradley was right and Leon was in a hospital, it could mean anything. It would explain his absence from the house, but it didn’t explain why Adam hardly mentioned him. Her mind whirled with possibilities for the rest of the night.

  Eight

  Adelaide awoke from her twilight sleep feeling painfully sore. She sat upright and blinked furiously to clear her vision. Through the shrouds of darkness in the room, she still could make out enough distinctive details to recognize the place and remember the night before. She wasn’t sure if it was overconfidence with her plan that allowed her to sleep or sheer exhaustion, but she felt awake and uncomfortable now.

  She pushed the tangled comforter off of her and onto the ground, shook off the last of the sleep, and tuned into the sounds of the house. She could hear faint footsteps and soft voices. The front door opened and shut a few times. Crawling from the bed, she snuck toward the window. The faint hint of orange sun mixed with the streetlights, but did little to illuminate the driveway. When she saw nothing, she turned instead to the dresser mirror.

  If it was already around dawn, it wouldn’t be long until Adam came to awaken her. Her wet curls had turned to wavy locks overnight and she brushed through them with her fingers. She smeared her foundation and cleaned up any running eyeliner. Lastly, she hurried to change back into her old clothes. The mud had set in but they had at least dried overnight. She tucked her necklace pendant beneath her top and stuffed the Nokia back into her pocket.

  The bedroom door slammed open. Everything on her mind suddenly forgotten, Adelaide spun to face the hall. Artificial light spilled inside and momentarily blinded her. Muscles painfully tight, she backed against the bed until she saw him. Tony stood in the doorway.

  “Hi, Adelaide,” he said.

  Her heart thundered as she sized him up. His shoulders seemed lax, body unwound, but a frown still marred his face.

  “Hi, Tony,” she answered.

  “I’m glad you’re awake. I wanted to talk to you.”

  She didn’t answer immediately but eyed the small confines of the room. As to appease her, he backed up enough to let her outside. Finding any option better than this option, she obediently walked into the hall with him and led the way down the stairs.

  “What’s up?” she asked him when she reached the bottom flight of stairs. Her new vantage point allowed her to scan the entire place, but found it empty and quiet.

  “No one else is here. Adam had to leave. I volunteered to give you a ride home,” he said. Fetching keys from his pocket, he jingled them in the air.

  “Adam left to go where?” she asked, but as she did, she noticed the living room. Stacked on top of each other waited multicolored luggage, packed to the brim and bulging from its sides. “You guys are moving already? He told me about it, but I didn’t think it’d be this soon…”

  At a loss for words to follow, she stopped talking. Tony made a gesture to the door, so she reluctantly obeyed. His Toyota waited. Once they were locked inside the car together, Tony must have thought it prudent to emphasize.

  “There’s no better weekend to leave than on a holiday weekend. People won’t even be curious as to why you’re packing up the cars—they’ll think it’s a nice little family road trip.”

  “It makes sense, I guess. I just thought Adam would tell me,” she said, voicing her ill feelings on the issue. “Why wouldn’t he drive me home? Or say goodbye?”

  Tony snorted.

  “You two hardly know each other. Despite Adam’s propensity to pick up strays and take them home, I’d like to remind both of you there is far too much of a gap of culture to work out. He is a mage and you are a human. You cannot be in his life.”

  She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He sounded just like his mother, Charlotte. Then Tony went on.

  “Besides, I don’t like you,” he said.

  She stiffened and made a point to look sideways at him. His attention stayed glued on the road as he accelerated onto the highway.

  “You don’t know me,” she said.

  “I don’t and that’s why. I don’t like people from the outside. I don’t like how you came into our lives. I don’t like the coincidences that brought you here, though for the life of me, I can’t find anything malicious behind them. I think you’ll find my feelings are not personal, but despite how Adam continues to forget this, I have a coven to protect. Go home, go live your human life, and forget about what you have learned here. You won’t see us again.”

  “I’m no danger to you,” she protested, “but if you won’t even get to know me, then you’ll never know that.”

  “Don’t push your luck. This is my call, and I’m going to see it through. You may not be my enemy, Adelaide, but I will have no problem treating you like one.”

  He pulled into her community the same moment he made the last vehement clarification. She shut her mouth reluctantly, and, despite racking her brain, found no way to budge him from his decision. He pulled into her driveway and threw the car in park.

  “If it makes you feel better, Adam agrees. Have a nice life.”

  The atmosphere in the cab turned sour quickly and left little room for questions. She found the handle on her own and stepped onto the road. Tony drove off before the Toyota’s door shut all the way. She stood immobilized for a few moments. Panic took a minute to work its way into her system and then she felt fear hit her like a brick wall. She wouldn’t find the Colton coven for a second time. She would never have the same opportunity again.

  Her hands shook and feet felt like lead. She struggled the short distance up her pathway and fought with the door’s lock. When she got inside the house, she smelled the faint smoke that lingered in the air. She managed to close the door before losing any of the composure she had left.

  Adelaide backed against the wall and slid down onto the cold tile. Feeling numb, she wasn’t sure how long she sat there. Her phone pressed against the side of her hip and she fingered it numbly. Bradley had said that Leon was in a hospital. Assuming she could force the details out of her brother, there was little reason to believe that Leon would still be there or that she could reach him. More than anything else, though, she knew that if she approached Leon Colton alone, he may kill her without a second thought.

  She dug her phone free and pulled up Google Chrome. Flights out of the country co
uldn’t cost that much. Maybe this whole thing was a sign for her to leave town and start over in Europe. The shades over there wouldn’t be able to figure her out, she thought. The Hawthorns wouldn’t waste the time or expense to come after her. But then she wasn’t sure how she expected to survive over there as a human. She didn’t even have a passport or much money to her name. She had to hope the Hawthorns didn’t have friends willing to follow her either.

  Who was she kidding, Adelaide asked herself. She needed a miracle. If she couldn’t find Leon, she had no other options and she would run for her life.

  The sound of a guttural engine snapped her from her search. Her phone fell to the ground when she stood. The engine died and a distinctive slam of a door sounded. She glanced out of the peephole and spotted a red Jeep. Her heart sprung to her throat and she threw the door open once she saw him. Adam jogged up her entranceway and slid to a stop before her.

  “Hi,” she said feeling stupid.

  He said nothing at first. Adelaide remembered how to step back and allow him room to walk inside. He did and shut the door behind him. They stood only feet apart in her living room now.

  “I’m glad I found you,” Adam finally blurted. “I didn’t know where Tony would have brought you except for here.”

  Her lips twitched and she acted on the spur of the moment. Closing the distance between them, she gave him a fleeting hug. He accepted it, drawing her only momentarily into his firm chest.

  “I thought it was insane that you wouldn’t say goodbye. But he said you wouldn’t want to.” She sounded too breathy. She dropped back a step and reoriented herself.

  Adam’s face hardened.

  “I don’t even want to start on my opinion of Tony,” he growled. “He has no right to speak for me. And he’s not in charge of the coven.”

  Adam whirled and paced the expanse of the living room.

  “You don’t understand the background, Adelaide. We’ve had a change in leadership but no one is clear on who is in charge. Tony is just pretending to be the leader and telling us what to do. I can tolerate half of it, but to take you away? Without my permission? How dare he?”