by J. S. Morin
“What am I supposed to be seeing?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I replied. “It’s invisible. Patricia Martinez was an arcanist.”
“Bullshit. If she was an arcanist, she wouldn’t have been such a whiny bitch when I came to put her out of the television business.”
“Come on. You suspected it would be digital. That’s why you stole her computer, but it was already bricked.” I was guessing here, but it all made sense. Martinez had to have known that her laptop was a liability. “Invisible USB drive, right here in my hand. Yours for the low, low price of leaving my friends the hell alone.”
I flicked the drive with a finger from my free hand, fingernail clicking audibly as it hit something that none of us could see.
The Black-Hatted Stranger pointed. “Murph, go see if he’s actually got something there.”
One of the shadowbloods jumped the distance that separated us, materializing within arm’s reach.
I flinched and cursed myself for it.
But the chorus of sniggering I’d anticipated never came. Murph took the drive from my hand, and it felt like I was giving away something precious.
Real magic. Until a few days ago, it was the Holy Grail of any fantasy lover.
“Feels like a thumb drive,” Murph confirmed.
“Well, well. Looks like our buddy Matt might be playing us square. We’ll check this out, and if it’s legit, you and your friends have got nothing to worry about—from us, anyway. You just think about joining forces when the Chinese come breathing down your necks. Their timeline is decades, and they’ve got no patience for freelancers changing the game.”
There were so many questions I wanted to ask.
This asshole knew the lay of the land, but he couldn’t be trusted. Could he tell me what I needed to know to keep everyone I care about safe? Probably.
Could he lead me down a path to ruin? It would be child’s play.
Would I be able to tell the difference before it was too late? Based on recent experience, I tended to doubt it.
Kelly took the initiative. “We done here?” she called out.
The Black-Hatted Stranger tapped a finger against his lips. After a moment’s pause, he responded, “Yeah. Get out of here.”
I saw the glint in Kelly’s eyes. She wanted blood. Simon’s death wasn’t going to rest easy on her soul until that blood was paid back.
For today, though, she allowed me to place a hand on her shoulder and spirit us out of danger.
Chapter Sixty-Three
After the harrowing experience at the Museum of Science, I was maybe a little more malleable than usual.
That’s how, after getting stalked by a velociraptor chameleon from another universe and walking into a den of hostile shadowbloods, I ended up going out for ice cream with Kelly afterward.
Despite money in my pocket to cover a couple cones, both of us were still dressed in stolen police body armor. Even hidden under bulky sweatshirts, we didn’t exactly look like we belonged in polite society.
Since the first killings by otherworldly monsters were caught on video, people had started evacuating the city. Not everyone, but enough that businesses here and there were closed and abandoned.
Quincy Cone’s storefront was dark. This was the time of night when a couple teenagers and their high school dropout manager should be cleaning floors and counting the register. Doors locked. Lights On. Getting ready to go home.
Kelly and I shadow-jumped through the front window and helped ourselves to the bins of flavored ice cream behind the counter. Either the owners had planned to come back soon, or they’d left in haste, but someone had kept the freezers running despite remembering to shut off all the lights.
For a pair of shadowbloods like us, it was heaven.
I built myself a cookie dough and pistachio cone. Kelly parked at the bin of chocolate marshmallow and ate straight from the scoop.
For a few minutes, we just gorged, with commentary limited to the selection, how good it was, and where to find various utensils to serve ourselves. Once the initial frenzy subsided, we managed to relax just a little.
“Sorry about back there,” Kelly said quietly. She sat on the back counter, feet dangling. Her bin of chocolate marshmallow sat beside her, pulled clear of the bank of freezers. “I just… hey I heard your shadow talking to you. Does it do that much?”
I nodded and replied with my mouth full. “All the time.” Swallowing first, I continued. “Fucker won’t shut up half the time. Yours giving you trouble?”
Kelly reached inside her sweatshirt and pulled out Simon’s dagger. With a sudden thrust, she stuck it into the butcher-block counter. It was sharp enough to bite into the wood and stay.
“It won’t let up about Simon. I mean, he was my friend. We grew up a couple blocks apart, went to elementary school together. I recommended him for the job with ICS. But…”
I nodded sagely, as if I had any idea where this was going.
“But what part of that signs me up for avenging his death?” she finished.
“Mine’s kind of a dick, but it’s usually trying to convince me to let it do the killing.”
“You know I can hear you, right?” my shadow asked.
Kelly looked right in the direction where my shadow’s voice had originated. “Mine’s quieter. But promises me more power if I do what it says.”
That part sure sounded familiar. Mine tried to pass it off as teaching or practice, but letting it murder Sweeny in the subway tunnel had taught me not to trust what it said.
“It can’t control you unless you let it,” I told her. “You’re in control. And… um… if you can’t handle it, I’ve found that Clozapine can shut it up for a while.”
“Matt!” Kelly gasped. “You? The puritan who doesn’t smoke weed? I don’t even know what Clo-pa-zeen is, but it sounds hardcore.”
“Clozapine,” I corrected her, unable to tell whether she got it wrong just to mess with me. “It’s an anti-hallucinogen.”
Kelly eyed me warily. “Wait…”
“No, I’m pretty sure this is all really happening. I had the same talk with Clara just last night.”
A pall came over the ice cream shop. Kelly set her half-eaten scoop into the bin it came from and pulled out her phone. “I didn’t know if I should let this slide or not. But you need to see this.”
After a few taps, Kelly passed the phone over to me.
“What am I looking at?”
“It’s an unreleased short story that got leaked on the shadowblooded.com forums,” Kelly replied.
I scanned it quickly, barely skimming as I looked for details that stood out to tell me why Kelly was bringing this up now. “I’ve been so caught up lately…”
“I think she was counting on that.”
Looking up, Kelly’s face was stern. “Keep reading,” she insisted.
The short story appeared unusually lighthearted for a Martinez piece. Maybe that’s why it hadn’t seen the light of day before her death. It was a story about the Menagerie at Dayveskeep Palace—a place never previously mentioned in the books. A non-heir prince disgraced himself by giving in to the shadowlord’s temptations. The menagerie animals begin turning into beasts of the shadowlands. Rather than use his powers to help, the prince runs off with a peasant girl who reminds him of his elder brother’s wife.
My skin crawled as the pieces slipped into place.
“You see it, don’t you?” Kelly asked.
“No…” I breathed.
“Come on, Matt!” Kelly shouted at me. “Tell me you don’t see it.”
I swiped back to the top of the page. A forum post usually gets a couple thousand views if it’s a popular topic. This one had a quarter million. But what caught my eye upon closer inspection was the editorial addendum tacked onto the front.
The Prince and the Menagerie is a short story discovered among Patricia Martinez’s personal effects after her death. Please forgive the lack of editing; this story was not intended to ever be
released to the public.
The byline was one of the forum’s moderators: J. Karen Granderson.
I shook my head in disbelief. “Why didn’t Judy mention putting this up? I mean—”
“That the whole zoo-on-the-loose thing is her fault? Why would she? You were too busy to notice, and this way Little Miss Perfect doesn’t have to look like an idiot for the first time in her life. But that’s not the real kicker.”
I shrugged. Wasn’t that enough? “Yeah, that was pretty dumb.”
“No. I think it was brilliant,” Kelly countered, catching me off guard. “Read it again and tell me Martinez wrote that.”
“I mean… it’s unedited. The top of the post even warns that—”
“READ IT,” Kelly shouted, shoving the phone at me even though it was already clutched in my hand. “You got kicked out of Harvard for writing exactly like her. Tell me that Patricia Rosa Martinez wrote this piece of shit story.”
“Well…”
Back into the text I went, this time with a critical eye. I knew Martinez’s work as well as anyone except maybe her editor. She enjoyed language that bordered on flowery, but maybe those verbal flourishes went in later. This bare-bones effort could have been an early draft.
As I read on, I kept stumbling over words that just didn’t sound like they came from Patricia Martinez’s vocabulary. Not that she didn’t know words like contiguous and synchronicity; they just sounded dry and clinical for her personal style of writing.
I picked up on other elements as well, and they sat ill beside the other hypothesis that was forming like a pearl around a grain of sand. “This is allegorical,” I mumbled to myself. “I’m the prince who will never inherit.”
“Which makes…” Kelly said, leading me on.
“Clara is the peasant girl.”
Kelly snatched her phone back. “And Judy’s the one who wrote it.”
I found myself at a loss. “Why would she…?”
“To see if she could,” Kelly suggested. “To test if it worked. Maybe to divert you from getting into trouble with the close-quarters sleeping arrangements.”
For a while, I just fumed. Breaths pumped in and out of my lungs through flared nostrils.
“Shadow!” I shouted. “How much did you know about this?”
“The rabble cares nothing for the artist. The master dropped her brush. I told you to take it up. I’m not surprised someone beat you to it. Such great power to leave lying neglected.”
“The story,” I clarified. “Did you know I was being manipulated?”
“I believe in coincidences. I believe in fate, and that fate can be altered. I know with the certainty of the infinite blackness that Martinez was able to affect that alteration. Your friend has tapped into that power. However, what I don’t know is whether you are strong enough to resist.”
“So,” I said, working my mouth to rid it of the sudden dryness that crept in. “Clara might be into me because Judy wrote that she should be. But she might be a coincidence.”
“I could never discern how well Martinez saw the future versus what she made up out of whole cloth.”
My eyes fixed on the dagger. Dark impulses told me that I could pull it out and shadow-jump back to the hideout in under a minute.
A cold knot pitted in my stomach.
Dizziness swept over me as I realized what I had just contemplated, if only for a second.
I couldn’t kill Judy.
Was this the corruption that proverbs warned of coming with power? I could lash out, do what I wanted, and face no justice but the venom of my own conscience.
Lucky for Judy and me, that was enough.
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Kelly said. “But Judy’s taking control of the narrative. You riding shotgun, or do we take the wheel?”
To emphasize her preference, Kelly yanked the dagger free from the counter and tucked it away.
“Neither,” I replied. Extending a hand for our shadow-jump, Kelly waited for me to finish before taking it. “We get out and walk.”
Chapter Sixty-Four
The hideout was a field of broken eggshells for everyone to walk on. Tim was still MIA, not answering texts or emails—at least from me. Judy claimed not to have heard from him, either, but for how unconcerned she seemed, I found myself not believing her.
In the twelve or so years I’d known her, this was the first time I could remember not trusting Judy Granderson.
Even Reggie seemed to pick up on the uneasy vibe, barely staying long enough to drop off a pizza breakfast in the morning.
Kelly and I used the bathrooms at the same time, and while no one was paying attention, I shadow-jumped into the ladies’ room for a private chat. She knew I was coming, thankfully, so there wasn’t any risk of embarrassment.
“I can’t hang out here,” I whispered right into her ear.
Her breath was hot against my neck. “No shit. It’s the girls’ bathroom.”
“I mean the hideout.”
“Where, then?”
I shook my head a fraction, careful not to bang our skulls together. “Not us. Me. I need you to hang out, keep an eye on Judy today.”
“Oh, come on,” Kelly replied, the whisper stealing the vinegar from her whine. “Babysitting?”
“You want her ruling our lives?” I countered. “I’m going to prove I can break free of her little version of reality.”
“How?”
“For starters, by breaking Clara out of here,” I said. “After that, who knows? But I won’t let Judy decide for me.”
“There are other solutions…”
A lump caught in my throat. “She made a mistake. Judy’s not good with confrontations. It’ll blow over, and she’ll focus on Black-Hat and the Chinatown gang.”
“Matt…” Kelly whispered. “I tell you this as a friend.”
I didn’t like the ominous tone in her voice. “What?”
“You need a shower. I’ll watch Judy. Go do what you need with that little hottie of yours.”
Kelly giggled, fully aware she’d had me going.
With a sigh of relief that there wouldn’t be trouble while I was gone. I shadow-jumped back to my gender-identity-appropriate restroom.
Clara glanced up with a flash of smile when I came out, then looked back down at Incredible Realms on my laptop.
For a while, I hung out and watched over her shoulder. The game wasn’t in bad shape, and I was itching to play it. But I had other things on my mind.
Eventually, everyone needs to take a piss.
When Judy headed for the girls’ room, I whispered to Clara. “Jailer’s off duty. Let’s blow this place. You in?”
Clara’s nod was immediate and enthusiastic.
I raised one hand in a wave to Kelly, took Clara by the other, opened Judy’s rune-warded door, and shadow-jumped away.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Clara and I spent the day on the town.
It hadn’t occurred to me before, but daylight was probably the safest time of day. Sure, it was hell on my eyes, even with sunglasses, but the two factions wrestling over control of Martinez’s succession plan weren’t going to be any more comfortable.
We strolled The Esplanade, caught a movie, fooled around a little. But before all of that, we stopped by Clara’s apartment and both showered.
For the first time since the whole mess with the shadows sucked me in, I felt normal. Even despite the fact that we shadow-jumped to save time any chance I found. Now that she was getting used to it, Clara couldn’t get enough of it.
My shadow even shut up for the most part. It probably didn’t care for sunshine or Clara’s taste in movies.
“You know,” Clara pointed out as sunset approached. “It’s Halloween night.”
I blinked. “Really?”
“I know. Right? I mean, with all the kooky shit going on, who keeps track. It’s just… I’ve got a costume, and there’s bound to be parties going on despite the monsters. Hell, it’s practically like
we get free Halloween mascots this year. Am I right?”
Running fingers through my hair didn’t leave a greasy feeling for the first time in days. “Um, yeah. Sure. I don’t have anything to wear, but I guess we can come up with something.”
“Something” turned out to be a trip back to the Halloween MegaDepot and a Muin of Vys costume that bore a vague resemblance to what the actor wore on the show and none at all to how the books portrayed him.
“A little on the nose, don’t you think?” I asked as I walked onto the street dressed as a television shadowblood, complete with a floppy plastic sword dangling in a scabbard from my belt.
“It’s Clark Kent wearing a Superman costume with the glasses on. It’s hilarious,” Clara answered with a grin. Whatever embarrassment might come if Black-Hat or my father’s goons stumbled across us with me dressed this way, I was willing to suck it up. Just seeing Clara look at me that way was worth it.
Judy never had that look in her eye—probably not even for Tim.
Damn. I had intended to finish the evening without Judy intruding on my thoughts.
We headed back to Clara’s place, and I waited an eternity in her cramped, cluttered living room while she changed. She’d refused to let on what costume she had tucked away; all she’d admit was that I was sure to love it.
I watched the local news on low volume while she rustled fabric and made teasing little noises from the bedroom. The big story was the nythantos that I’d dropped on I-93 South. The couple I’d saved, Pete and Nora Perkins, had become minor celebrities, convinced that Boston had a superhero.
That gave me a chuckle. It was just a warm spot in a sunny day that didn’t promise to end with sunset.
When Clara came out with a ta-da pose, my jaw dropped.
In a toga-like white top and a blue skirt kept separate by an embroidered golden belt, I knew at once who she was supposed to be. The staff with the ornate, almost rune-like head, just confirmed my suspicion.
“Yuna,” I said. “From Final Fantasy 7.”
“See?” Clara teased, swinging a hip in my direction. “Told you you’d like it.”
