Shadowlark

by Meagan Spooner

  They were waiting. Waiting to see what we’d do, waiting for one of us to make even the tiniest movement.

  I stepped backward and hit wood. The door. I groped with my free hand for the handle, only to find rough wood, exposed nails.

  The barricades. We’d locked ourselves in with monsters.

  “Your arm,” I said in a low voice, trying to keep it from shaking. Trying my hardest to keep the creatures from sensing my terror and striking. “Can you help me move this?”

  Tansy shook her head, not taking her eyes off of the shadow people. “No,” she gasped. “And we’d never get them all moved in time—they’ll attack if we try.”

  My eyes went to the screens, and beyond them, the lobby that stretched back toward a wide staircase. Past that I could see only darkness, my night vision ruined by the fireplace in between.

  Tansy swallowed audibly. The sound prompted a gurgle of anticipation from Brandon, his grey face and white eyes sunken behind the black beard. “We’ll never get past them.”

  I knew she was right. Molly, the tiniest of them, had leaped on me before I’d even realized she meant to move. There was no way.

  A mad whine cut through the low growls and snapping jaws, and we looked in time to see a copper blur zip across the room, directly at Trina. She howled and reeled back, clawing at her face. The blur slowed enough for me to recognize Nix, shifted into a tiny ball of spikes, zipping from shadow to shadow and screaming all the while. They pawed and clawed at the air, but Nix was too fast for them.

  I was frozen, staring—but Tansy didn’t hesitate. She surged forward, dragging me with her by our joined hands, making for the back of the lobby. Once I was moving she let go of my hand, stretching her longer legs and putting on a burst of speed. She reached the doors at the back—a pair of them. She ran to one first, jerking at the handle, then skidded to the other. She pulled, pushed, clawed at the wood—but it didn’t budge.

  “No good!” she shouted. “The stairs!”

  I spun, my shoes squealing against the marble floor, and made for the broad stone staircase. I heard the boy give an outraged scream, and then the solid clink of metal striking stone.

  Nix. My heart seized, and I almost stopped.

  “Don’t let it be in vain,” gasped Tansy, surging past me for the stairs.

  I gasped for breath, the air sobbing in and out of me. Blood was seeping down my neck from my ear and into my shirt, sticky and wet. I fought another surge of dizziness and turned back for the main room. I couldn’t leave Nix now. But just then I heard the familiar whine of madly whirring wings and a voice that only became distinct as it went zipping past me in a flash of copper and sapphire: “Gogogogogogogogooo . . .”

  I saw a shadow, indistinct, clawing its way around one of the screens. I bolted up the two flights of stairs, my pack bouncing heavily against my spine.

  I found Tansy sprinting down a carpeted corridor on the third floor and I followed, gasping for air. There were doors on either side of the hallway, but though we tugged and pounded on each one, they were all sealed up tightly. The hallway ended in a broad window overlooking an alley below. Only part of the glass remained around the edges, jagged and splintered.

  Nix’s momentum carried it out the window several feet before it turned and zoomed back in, hovering, clockwork grinding and twitching as it tried to keep flying despite the damage it had taken. Tansy took only a moment to gasp for air and then spun around, ready to try the other direction—but the shadows were there, indistinct in the dark, coming faster and faster.

  I looked at Tansy, who looked back at me. Time stopped for a moment and we stood there, her one eye nearly swollen shut, the other wide with terror. She’d only ever fought the shadows at a distance. She’d never seen them up close, seen their white eyes, heard their unearthly screams. A small amount of light came in through the window, and I saw a droplet of sweat roll down her temple, silvery with moonlight.

  Sweat. Water.

  I yanked off my pack and used it to knock out the rest of the glass on the bottom of the window frame before slipping it back on. I grabbed at Tansy’s hand, jerking her toward the window. The alley, three floors down, looked a long way away.

  She resisted. “Are you insane?” Her voice shook. “We’ll break our legs. We’ll break our necks. I don’t—I don’t want to die that way—”

  “Do you want to die that way?” I gasped back, thrusting an arm out toward the oncoming shadow monsters. “Trust me.”

  “I can’t—” She twisted away from the window, pressing herself into the corner, eyes rolling toward the shadows as they raced toward us. Only a few seconds now before they reached us.

  “Tansy.” I jerked her arm, turning her toward me. “Trust me.”

  She stared at me, and then before my eyes the frightened girl turned back into the scout that had so awed me when we first met. She straightened and reached for my hand, her sweaty palm pressing against mine.

  We took a few steps and then leaped out into empty space.

  I glimpsed her for an instant, the silver moonlight and the golden energy of her power mingling in my vision. I closed my eyes, opening myself and letting the hunger wash over me, and did what I’d wanted to do from the first moment Tansy had caught up to me.

  As her power surged into me I turned my face towards the ground racing toward us. I wrenched at the spot inside me where the magic pooled, and with a blinding flash, the alley went white-gold.

  We struck something invisible and yielding and bounced off before landing on the cracked ground below—bruised, but whole.

  I lay dazed, my head spinning and vision sparking. The rush of warmth and life that enveloped me had wiped away the terror of the last few minutes. I’d saved myself this way once before, in my own city, but that was before I’d gained the second sight. I’d never seen what it looked like to do this magic before. I floated, light-headed and giddy, for what felt like hours, watching the sparks wheel and dance overhead.

  It wasn’t until Tansy moaned beside me that I came back to myself and realized only seconds had passed. My ear throbbed where the shadow girl had bit me, my neck sticky with blood. Though I could feel the remnants of Tansy’s magic still sparking inside me, I already wanted more. But she was starting to shake, and when I reached out to touch her shoulder she rolled away from me, curling up into a fetal position. She had nothing left to give me.

  I heard a wretched howl and looked up, the golden light vanishing instantly. One of the shadows—I couldn’t even tell which one—was climbing out the window. It came skittering down the wall, leading the way for the other three. Their fingers found purchase on the tiniest of cracks in the brickwork, sliding down the surface as if it weren’t a vertical wall.

  “Tansy! Come on, we’ve got to move.”

  I leaped to my feet, buoyed by my pilfered magic, and dragged her with me. She gave a confused cry, but after a few moments she got her feet working again and managed to stumble with me toward the mouth of the alley. We were both looking back over our shoulders at the shadows as they reached the ground when a guttural sound stopped us dead.

  A fifth shadow stood before us in the mouth of the alley, framed in the moonlight. I could only see its white eyes glittering, fixed on us, burning with hunger.

  Tansy and I lurched back and to the side until our backs hit the brick wall of the building. The fifth shadow advanced on us, its harsh breathing labored and thick with wanting.

  The shadow family caught up, the largest stepping up to corner us. Brandon, I tried to remind myself, my brain clinging desperately to the knowledge that just an hour ago these had been people, kind and decent, and oblivious to what they really were.

  The other three members of the family sent up a low, sighing wail, and I turned my face away, willing my stolen magic to change them back before one of them pounced on me or Tansy.

  The Brandon-shadow growled low, the sound building—I knew he was about to snarl and leap.

  When it came, I shoved
back against the wall, instinct trying to find a way to escape.

  But where I’d expected pain and blood and the crunch of my own bones, I heard only an answering snarl of rage.

  I opened my eyes. The Brandon-shadow had leaped not for me, but for the fifth shadow. They were no more than a tangle of teeth and muscle and sinew, feral screams. Blood splashed onto the pavement, inky-black in the moonlight. The Brandon-shadow broke away with a cry of pain.

  No longer silhouetted, the fifth shadow was easier to see.

  I stopped breathing. No. It can’t be him. My mind refused to believe what my eyes were telling me.

  The other shadows jumped on him, the children and mother together, and my eyes blurred with tears of shock and confusion and focus as I tried to concentrate. Tansy slumped to the ground, overwhelmed, still shaking violently from the aftereffects of being harvested.

  The knife was still in my hand. My fingers tightened around it, but the fight was moving so quickly I couldn’t track who was where, only that it was still going, that the fifth shadow was still fighting. One of the smaller shadows was flung free, stumbling against the opposite wall of the alley.

  The Brandon-shadow barked a short command, wordless and wild, and the remaining two shadows broke away and backed up, limping and snarling their rage. After a few more wails and whimpers, the family turned and loped away, vanishing down the other end of the alley.

  The fifth shadow turned toward us, its breathing harsh and irregular. I heard Tansy gasping for breath at my side, trying to rise despite the way her legs and arms shook. I put a hand on her shoulder, my own fingers trembling.

  Though she could not have understood, Tansy slumped back, too weary to try again.

  I summoned every ounce of courage and stepped forward. The shadow snarled a warning, half-fury, half-anticipation. The hunger in its voice was unmistakable.

  I swallowed, licked my lips.

  “Oren?”

  He didn’t react, his white eyes fixed on my face, his teeth bared and bloody from the wounds he’d inflicted and received. His hands clenched and unclenched, the muscles in his legs quivering as he stood there, struggling with himself. He twitched forward only to jerk back, the tendons standing out on his forearms, in his neck.

  I started to lift my hand and too late remembered that it was the one holding the knife.

  The shadow leaped forward, raging, grasping at my shirt and jerking me in close so that I felt the heat of his breath, smelled the grass and the wind and the metallic tang of blood. He growled a low, desperate, drawn-out sound.

  The growl turned to a gasping groan, the breath shuddering in and out of him. He stumbled forward, his body heavy against me. Suddenly the hand twisted in the fabric of my shirt wasn’t holding me close—it was holding him up, and my knees sagged with his weight.

  He coughed and reached out with his other hand for me, trying to keep himself from falling. He lifted his eyes, anguished—for the briefest instant I saw them flicker from white to palest blue.

  Then his grip failed and he dropped like a stone, unconscious before he hit the ground.

  CHAPTER 5

  He looked exactly as he had the day he left. I’d memorized every contour and feature of his face in that moment when he’d looked back over his shoulder at me. I traced them now, my fingertips shaking. His skin was clear again, all signs of the dark grey veins and semitranslucent flesh gone. Long, fair eyelashes, stubborn jaw, sandy hair that fell wildly over his forehead.

  Despite the evidence of my eyes five minutes ago, it was nearly impossible to believe he was a monster, looking at him now. I tried to remind myself that no matter how human he seemed when he was feeding off my magic, he was a shadow and always would be. The moment he left my side, he’d become mindless, dark, and hungry. The moment I ran out of magic to keep him human, I’d be dead.

  My mind was blank. I’d thought I would never see this boy again. Or, at the very least, if I did, he’d kill me before I had a chance to figure out what I thought of him.

  I’ll find you. His last words to me hung so vividly in the air that for a moment, I thought he’d woken up and spoken. Even in the dark, you shine.

  “My pack.” I jerked away from my inspection of Oren’s face and turned to see Tansy, half-propped awkwardly against the wall, one eye swollen shut and her arm still dangling uselessly at her side.

  “My pack,” she moaned again. “I need my pack. I need my pack.”

  I left Oren’s side and crouched, fumbling with the straps of my own pack in my haste to take it off. I knew what she needed. To regenerate magic required energy, and that required food.

  “Your pack’s in the house, Tansy. But I have food here. See, look—cheese. Take it.”

  But she shoved my hands away, trying to stand. “No—my pack. I need it.”

  “Tansy!” I hissed, trying not to shout and alert any other shadows who might be nearby. “We can’t go back. We have to leave it. Even if the shadows didn’t return there, we can’t get past those barricades and we can’t climb up to that window to get back inside.” I reached out and took her good shoulder, giving her a squeeze. “It’s gone. Accept that. We have to keep moving, we can’t stay here.”

  She’d started to shiver, and I realized I had too. Neither of us had had time to grab our jackets before fleeing the building. If we didn’t find shelter, and soon, then Tansy’s shock was going to be the least of our worries.

  I heard a familiar sound and straightened, letting Tansy slump back again. A weight lifted, letting me take my first full breath since the Molly-shadow had lunged for me. Nix came winging fitfully up the alley, the grind of its gears harsh and irregular. I moved toward it and held out my hands. It shifted midair, spiky form reverting to that of a bee, and dropped gratefully into my palms.

  “I followed them,” it said, voice unusually tinny. “They’re gone, they didn’t turn around to come back. That one scared them off.” Its blue eyes turned to the motionless form lying unconscious in the middle of the alley.

  “And you?” I whispered, lifting my hands so I could try and inspect the pixie in the meager moonlight. “Are you okay?”

  “I will require some time to repair myself, but I will soon be fully functional.” Already I saw it shifting, tiny needlelike arms emerging to begin bending damaged panels and pieces back into the correct shapes.

  “Thank you.” Carefully I transferred the little machine to my shoulder. “You saved us.”

  It clicked with irritation as it inspected my torn earlobe. “Keep Lark alive,” it said absently, dismissively, in its programmer’s voice. Kris’s voice. I tried to ignore the surge of hurt and confusion that sound brought and turned back for Tansy.

  “We can’t stay here, Tansy. Can you walk? Did you eat?”

  She took a bite of the cheese, uninterested but following orders. Only after she swallowed did a little spark return to her eyes as she discovered her appetite. She finished the rest ravenously and licked her fingertips.

  “Your arm?”

  “I think my shoulder’s dislocated,” Tansy said with a grimace, picking herself up with some difficulty, but managing to get to her feet on her own power. I was never so functional after my own experiences with having my power harvested from me.

  “What do we do?”

  “Pop it back in.” Though the grin she flashed at me was nearly feral with exhaustion and pain, it was still Tansy’s grin, and a second wave of relief washed over me. We could do this. Recover. Survive. Find a way out of this cursed city.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  By the time it was done, I was the one who had to stagger away and put my head between my knees, sweating and trying not to throw up. I could still feel the scrape and pop of bone under my hands radiating through me like the scratch of nails on a schoolroom chalkboard.

  When I felt more sure I wasn’t about to lose the dinner I’d eaten not two hours before, I helped Tansy make a sling for her arm. She’d regained a little color in her face,
but it was clear her arm wasn’t going to be useful for some time.

  “My bow is outside the house,” Tansy said, remembering. “Not inside. They made me leave it. We can go back for it.”

  “No. You can’t draw it like that,” I said, nodding at her arm. “It’d be useless.”

  “But—it’s my bow.” She was staring at me like I’d suggested she leave one of her legs behind.

  “I know. But Tansy—it’s just a thing. If we go back that way we risk the family finding us again. What if the entire city is full of people who turn into shadows at night? That whole street will be full of shadows trying to break through their own doors to get to us.”

  She shook her head, closing her eyes.

  “Your bow, your pack—they’re just things. You’re what’s important. You can make another bow, another pack. But there’s only one you, and I need you.”

  “Would you be saying that if it were your pack? If it was Oren’s knife, or your brother’s bird, back there?”

  I bit my lip, but nodded. “Yes. I would leave them behind.”

  Tansy swallowed, the fingers of her good hand twisted so tightly together that the knuckles gleamed white in the moonlight.

  “We need to move,” I whispered, taking that for agreement. “We have to wake Oren.”

  Tansy’s jaw tightened, and her eyes moved past me. I knew she was looking at Oren’s unconscious form in the middle of the alley.

  “Leave it,” she said, coldly. “It’s just a monster.”

  I fought the urge to clench my own jaw. “Tansy, you saw those people in there. They didn’t know. None of them know. Oren may be the first self-aware shadow ever, and only because I told him. When they’re human, they’re human. You sat at their hearth, ate their food, told them stories.”

  “And they betrayed us.” Tansy’s lips pressed together in pain and determination, confusion and fear.