by J. S. Morin
We got out of the car in unison. Judy shivered and hugged her arms close. I grabbed a scarf from the back seat of her car before I shut the driver’s door.
She accepted the scarf and quickly wound it around her neck. “Thanks. We have a problem, though.”
In the moonlight, we could see the lighthouse a short ways off. With a favorable wind, I could have hit it with a Frisbee. What I hadn’t noticed until we were standing at the edge of the parking lot, looking across, was the 50-foot swath of Atlantic Ocean between us and the tiny island upon which Nubble Light resided.
Judy turned and fixed me with a deadpan stare. “Got a boat?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
We sat in the Prius with the heat blasting. Judy had her laptop out, tapping the touch screen like she was an extra on Star Trek. She’d stop to type briefly, then resume poking the screen.
“Anything?” I asked, growing impatient.
She scratched her head. “No. It looks like they actually just use a boat. I mean, someone mows that lawn over there.”
“You’d think by now someone would have put in a pedestrian bridge at least,” I grumbled. “Isn’t there some shoe store owner or old widow who’d love to donate one just to have their name in everyone’s face for the next hundred years? You can’t walk ten steps in any park in New England without tripping over a loving tribute to so-and-so on some plaque on a bench or statue.”
Judy closed the laptop. “Wal-Mart has a two-person inflatable raft. We can pick one up in the morning, come back tomorrow night, and paddle across.”
I buried my face in my hand. What an idiot, not realizing that this wasn’t a walk-up tourist attraction like 99% of the damn state. They could have built a bridge across any time they wanted.
Instead, I faced the prospect that Wal-Mart was now a part of our save-the-world plan.
Reaching for the fob on Judy’s key ring, still dangling from the ignition, I popped the trunk.
“Where are you going?” Judy asked as I got out of the car.
“Nubble,” I replied before shutting the door.
Judy exited her side of the Prius as I was digging through the contents of her trunk. You couldn’t swing a dead meme on the Internet without hitting some “X Things You Can’t Live Without” list. Judy’s trunk embodied the “16 Things Everyone Should Keep in Their Car for Emergencies.”
I had never asked her about its contents, and this was my first time looking inside, but I just knew it would be chock full of essential supplies. Given that we shared a refrigerator, medicine cabinet, and the common closets in the apartment, there was no way her car was any less organized and prepared.
Judy watched over my shoulder for a moment. “We’re fine. We can get a hotel room so we don’t have to drive back to Boston tonight. I’m not sleeping in the car.”
Roadside flares, jumper cables, and kitty litter were no help in our current situation. But I found what I was looking for: a flashlight that looked like a prop from X-Files. “Sounds like a plan. But screw Wal-Mart. We’re going to finish this job tonight.”
“It’s freezing out. And that flashlight isn’t waterproof.” Judy frowned. “I should probably get a waterproof one, now that I think about it. But swimming across there is crazy. You’ll freeze.”
I checked to make sure Judy’s hands were clear, then slammed the trunk shut. I headed for the edge of the parking lot, toting the flashlight.
“Matt? Are you listening to me?”
I walked in front of the car. Standing in the beam of the headlights, I held out my hand to Judy. “Do you trust me?”
Judy walked over tentatively. “Probably shouldn’t. You’ve been acting so weird lately.”
She took my hand anyway. Hers was like ice.
I drew her close and wrapped my arms around her. “You see that blob of shadow on the island? That’s us.” She nodded. “Close your eyes.”
Judy looked me in the eye, headlight glare catching the side of her face. Taking a slow breath, she shut her eyes and angled her head. Her lips parted slightly.
For a moment, I hesitated. She expected me to kiss her. The back of the Prius was just roomy enough, and the inside of the car was warm. Nubble Light wasn’t going anywhere. My resolve wavered. Before I derailed the plan, I glanced away, focusing on the shadow that stretched across the water.
An instant later, Judy gasped. Her eyes shot open. “What was that?”
I pointed across to the Prius, on the far side of the water. “Look.”
She looked. I loosened my grasp so she could twist around and take in our surroundings. “How did you—? Oh my God, Matt. Did we just shadow-jump?”
“Pretty cool, huh?” I grinned.
Judy’s breath was coming fast. “Shadow-jump. Shadow-jump. Shadow-jump,” she muttered, stumbling away from me.
She collapsed to the grass, looking up at the night sky. “I was a shadow!”
The laugh she let loose was manic.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rushing to Judy’s side, I knelt in the grass. “Don’t go losing it on me. We’ve got a world to save, remember?”
Her shoulders shook. “Me? Matt, Matt, Matt… this is real. We’re not playing. You’re not a camera trick or a long dream that learned to kiss better. I was a shadow just now. This is starting to make sense. I died… maybe it was a car crash I don’t remember, or I had an aneurysm in my sleep. This is my afterlife. Shadowblood is real, and I get to experience it firsthand. Are… you dead too?”
She lay still and looked up at me. Her eyes were wet.
I hovered over her, both of us caught in the beam of the headlights. “You’re still trying to wake up. I thought you believed already. This is real life. I promise you. But I need you to pull it together for now. Later we can call Tim a lawyer, get you a cup of coffee and have them get your order wrong, and get dirty looks from a small-town motel clerk for renting a room in the middle of the night with no wedding rings. Should be enough to convince you this isn’t heaven.”
Judy giggled and shook her head. “Matt, how can you…? I don’t know if I can.”
I took her by the hands and helped Judy to her feet. “We need to search this lighthouse. It’s not rocket science, so we’ll be working outside your comfort zone. But I need your help.”
“I’m… I’m a criminal, Matt. I helped a break-in, and now we’re planning another. Don’t lighthouse keepers live in those things?”
“Wisdom is knowing when the rules don’t apply. You’re as wise as anyone I’ve ever met. You know we’re not here to take anything that wasn’t left for us, that we’re not going to hurt anyone, that we were sent on a crucial mission.”
“Right. Find message. Get coffee. Find a place to stay for the night and listen to the message. I can do this.”
Judy took a deep breath, then another.
I held her hand as we walked up to the lighthouse. On the spectrum of moonlit strolls, I’m not sure breaking and entering was a bonus or a penalty. The gently crashing waves certainly didn’t hurt the ambiance.
“You should have kissed her when you had the chance,” my shadow teased. “When she still thought she was dreaming.”
I shot a glare at where the voice had originated, even though I couldn’t see the incorporeal bastard.
“A love story is always more interesting. You know that. Keith Damon would have done it.”
That was because Keith Damon was an opportunist asshole—and fictional. Judy was real.
I ignored my shadow’s goading and hoped Judy was too frazzled to notice my distraction.
Attached to the lighthouse was a small home for the keeper and his family. All the lights were dark. In fact, aside from Judy’s headlights, we were down to moonlight and the sickly red beacon at the top of Nubble Light.
For all that, I felt exposed, spot-lit, like we were walking across a stage unable to see the audience.
We skirted the lighthouse keeper’s white picket fence on our way to the side door. It was exposed to direct moonli
ght, and I couldn’t help the feeling of being watched.
My shadow silently agreed.
When I hesitated, Judy reached out and turned the door handle. It swung open at her pull. “It’s a lighthouse. In Maine. On an island. You’ve been living in Boston too long.”
She had a point. It wasn’t exactly a pharmacy or a place with a cash register to rob.
“Come on. Let’s get this over with.” Judy hurried inside and was on the stairs before I crossed the threshold. The beam from the flashlight wobbled as she trained it up the stairwell.
Each step creaked wearily under her weight.
When I followed, I kept my steps light, putting my foot down on the shadows of the dimly lit stairwell rather than the stairs themselves. I didn’t make a sound.
“Matt, are you coming or—” She turned to scold me and found I was just below her in the stairwell. “Jesus!”
Silently, I held a finger to my lips and pointed up.
She nodded and resumed her climb. It wasn’t exactly a skyscraper. The whole lighthouse was maybe four or five stories tall. I paused just below the top as Judy reached the catwalk. The glare of the beacon stung my eyes without even looking straight at it.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I shielded my eyes with a forearm. “I’ll be fine. Let’s just find what we came for and get out of here.”
The lamp was red, alternating on and off every few seconds. It was the external embodiment of a throbbing headache.
“Any ideas where she might have hidden it?” Judy asked.
Sweat was building on my brow, and it wasn’t from heat. “Any way you can get close enough to check the lens? I’m… I’m getting the feeling that it’s a great way to keep shadowbloods away.”
“Ever touch a lit incandescent bulb? This thing might as well be a microwave oven.”
“It’s not a death ray,” I snapped. But I wasn’t going to put a hand on that lens either. “Hold on. This thing’s electric, right? Let’s find the off switch.”
“Someone’s going to notice that.”
“Probably one of the safeguards Martinez counted on. We know where we want to look. It’s either there or it’s not.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Either way we get the fuck out of here.”
A cursory search revealed an archaic electrical system. The electrical panel on the ground floor was painted shut.
Judy produced a multi-tool from her purse. “Mul-Ti-Tool,” she said with a smirk. Then she flipped out the knife blade to pop open the panel.
“You know anything about electrical wiring?” I asked.
Inside the panel, stiff-looking wires wrapped in cracked insulation wended their way from conduits to screw-down terminals. Stripped, bare copper at the end of each merged with the terminals via decades of oxidation. A bunch of things like spools were bolted in between the terminals.
Judy pointed to one of the spools. “Those are fuses.”
I turned my head to read the markings on the side. “Well, it says right on them. So, yeah. You see a shut-off anywhere, or do we need to get inside there with a screwdriver?”
The flashlight beam swept up to the top of the panel. I winced as the glare from the metal caught my eye. On the top of the box, there was a sheet metal lever. There was no label on it, but it wasn’t a tough guess that it was the switch to shut down the power. In fact, it was a sure bet, because that oh-so-convenient switch was held in position by a padlock.
I glanced at Judy’s multi-tool. “Got a pair of bolt cutters on that thing?”
“No,” she replied and tucked the flashlight under her arm. Working with both hands, she flipped blades and twisted the multi-tool. “But it’s got a flat-blade screwdriver.”
“That thing’s all metal. Not sure I want to be reaching in there with live wires. I’ve got a better idea.”
One flick of a shadow blade would make quick work of the wiring. I focused on hardening an edge of the shadows. The blade that coalesced felt like nothing in my hand; my grip was mere playacting.
When I sliced, the blade passed through the wires without resistance. My self-satisfied smirk faded in an instant when I realized that it wasn’t due to the blade being so unimaginably sharp—it had done nothing at all.
“I don’t think that worked,” Judy said dryly.
I cleared my throat and stood tall. “Hey, tall, dark and incorporeal. Make yourself useful and cut those wires.”
Judy took a step back as I bullied the empty night air.
“Do it yourself,” my shadow snapped. “I don’t like it here.”
“Blow me, you lazy sack of darkness. If you can’t help me, I’ll find myself a new shadow who will.”
My shadow just chuckled, then went silent.
“Screw this.” I took the multi-tool from Judy and flipped attachments this way and that until I found the knife blade again. “Head up top. Get ready to find Saliera’s bequest the instant this thing is off.”
She tried to hand me the flashlight. “You need this more than me.”
“Nah. Lately I see better with no light at all.”
For a split second, I saw concern furrow Judy’s brow. She knew the signs of giving in to the shadows as well as me. But what had she expected?
As soon as she was up the stairs, my shadow spoke up. “You’ll get yourself killed. Let me cut them for you.”
“You just said you wouldn’t, dickhead.”
“It takes both of us, and you aren’t up to it. Let me take control for a moment, and it’ll be simple. Plus, you’ll see how it’s done.”
Why did mine have to be such an annoying shadow? Muin never had this much trouble with his in either the show or the books.
“Oh, smooth. Nice try, but I’m not giving in and turning into a shadow thrall.” The footsteps on the stairs above stopped as Judy reached the top.
It was time to cut those wires.
My shadow coalesced between the electrical panel and me. “Don’t be a fool. You’d rather get electrocuted? You’ll have control back in mere seconds, and maybe next time you’ll be able to manage it yourself. You need guidance.”
Since my shadow had already made it clear that he needed my compliance to affect the physical world, I stepped right through him.
Hooking the blade around one of the wires at random, I leaned back and yanked.
Nothing.
There appeared to only be four circuits, so I carefully guided the dangling cut wire out of my way and tried the next.
Nothing.
Down to a coin flip, I ripped out a third wire.
“Maybe you should have started from the top instead of the bottom,” my shadow whispered in my ear.
“Fuck off,” I snapped and cut the last wire.
Sparks flew as bare wires touched. I dropped the multi-tool and yelped.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Unless this lighthouse was running on magic, or had some weird microwave radiation power transfer system or some such sci-fi bullshit, the damn light better have been off.
I shadow-jumped to the top of the stairwell, arriving to find Judy with her back to me.
“Find anything?” I asked.
Judy had the flashlight switched off and was inspecting the multi-ridged lens of Nubble Light by moonlight. She ran a pen over the surface, using it as a probe. “Still too warm to touch, but if she did it like last time, it could be in plain sight but invisible.”
“Wouldn’t the drive melt?”
Judy paused, pursing her lips. Then she resumed her search. “If she can make them invisible, I’m willing to bet she can keep them from melting.”
“What if it’s not a thumb drive this time? I mean, what if this whole place is a clue, like if we saw it from above or something.”
“This isn’t a crop circle, Matthew. Any significant message would need to contain more data than the first, not less. We might find a laptop or an external hard drive instead of USB stick, but it has to be digital m
edia.”
“Fine.”
I guess I had to trust the expert in digital cryptography to understand the basic limits of data storage.
I retrieved the multi-tool and used the housing to begin probing the lens on the far side from Judy. Through the weird refractory angles of the stair-stepped lenses, she was an unrecognizable blur.
Something clattered to the floor. “That was it!” Judy exclaimed, keeping her voice low despite her excitement. “Help me find it.”
I came around her side and got down on my hands and knees. My hand brushed something as I swept it along the floor. After a brief skidding noise, there was a wooden clatter, turning into a rhythmic knocking as something small and plastic tumbled down the stairs.
“Oops,” I whispered.
But going down after the invisible message was the least of our troubles.
Footsteps sounded from below.
Judy’s eyes went wide. “What do we do?” she whispered. “Someone must have noticed the light go out.”
“That bastard shadow of mine was down there. It should have warned us.”
“Well, it didn’t.”
The footsteps drew closer, clomping up the stairs like a soldier’s march.
“Whoever’s up there better have a darn good explanation,” a gruff voice bellowed. “This here is government property, and Uncle Sam doesn’t take kindly to vandals. This weren’t such a nice, clear night, you’d be puttin’ a lot of sailors’ lives in danger.”
“Kiss me,” Judy whispered. “Get on top of me and act like you’re taking my clothes off.”
She looked me square in the eye; she was dead serious. Judy rarely looked anyone in the eye. It took a conscious act on her part.
Some dark part of me wanted to take her up on the offer. If the man on the stairs didn’t buy our story, at least I’d have a little fun before getting hauled back to jail.
That’s all it would have been, though. Even if he believed us, I didn’t see this ending well.
I gave Judy a quick kiss on the cheek and grinned.
“I’ve got a better idea.” I wrapped my arms around her as she knelt on the catwalk floor. “This time you can keep your eyes open.”
