by J. S. Morin
I was harboring the shadowlord himself.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
We must have driven for an hour. Kang played uneasy host, offering up drinks from the limo’s wet bar. I reluctantly accepted a water. Clara threw back a mini-bar vodka.
When the limo finally stopped, Ling, my father’s current wife as it turned out, took custody of Clara, snaring her by the wrist before the doors opened.
I stepped out, a free man in body only.
There was no doubt in my mind that I could spirit myself away before Li Zhujiu’s crew could stop me. I was faster than them; deep down, I knew it. But with another shadowblood—or “eyeless assassin” as the cabal called us—holding onto Clara, my only escape would be alone.
We were parked on the tarmac of a tiny private airport. A lone hangar belched out a strip of paved asphalt. Banks of lights provided stark shadows that I imagined were no accident.
Our ride was sweet, I had to give my dad credit for that much. Despite not being an aviation expert, I’d grown up enough of a spoiled rich kid to recognize a Gulfstream G650 when I saw one.
I also knew Black-Hat when I saw him.
The Gulfstream had its door open, the boarding stairs folded down, ready and waiting. My nemesis ducked his head under the doorway and stood at the top of those stairs. His trench coat billowed in the wind.
“Hey, Zoo-Joo,” Black-Hat called out, voice carrying on the autumn breeze. “You think you’re going somewhere?”
At the hangar door, several more shadowbloods boiled forth from the shadows. The Black-Hatted Stranger had more manpower than I’d realized at his disposal.
My father’s motorcade had three SUVs in addition to the limo Clara and I had ridden in. With no idea how many of my father’s henchmen were actually shadowblood, this was shaping up to be two-to-one odds against us at bare minimum.
“Heed my words, Matthew,” my shadow whispered amid the distraction. “Your father is our worst enemy on Earth. He coverts my power—our power—and wants it all for himself. Your friend Joey is an immature ruffian but harmless in the grand scheme. Know whose victory serves you best.”
“Joey?” I mouthed silently.
My father strolled to the fore of our little congregation. “Mr. Abernathy. I didn’t expect to see you here. What a pleasant surprise.” Turning to Kang, my father gave a simple order. “Kill them.”
Kang shouted in Chinese, blurting orders faster than my English-attuned ears could keep up. The cabal’s shadowbloods burst into motion. Some pulled out semi-automatic pistols. Others conjured blades of pure shadow.
All vanished from view in the light.
Of course, it was only a matter of a shift in concentration for me to pick them out from the shadows one by one. They were corporeal still, merely expertly camouflaged in the shadows. At first I wondered why they bothered, then I realized that if I was drawing on the shadowlord’s own powers directly, I might be seeing things the others weren’t picking up on.
“Interesting…” my shadow cooed. It wasn’t referring to the maneuvering now on both sides as the fight for control of the Gulfstream shaped up. With a tug at my attention, the shadowlord drew my gaze to a quiet vehicle sneaking up on the outskirts of the airstrip.
Headlights off and without assistance from the gasoline engine, a Prius was the ninja of the automobile world.
How had Judy found us?
In addition to confirming that she’d gotten my hidden warning in the text message—I had never in my life used the letter “u” in place of the word “you”—she’d tracked us to an obscure airstrip an hour outside town.
Standing at the fore of the brewing battle, Li Zhujiu stood with twin swords of darkest shadow—and my cell phone in his pocket. Judy must have used it as a homing beacon. My annoyance with her spying on me and bugging my phone paled in comparison to my relief that she’d done it.
I edged toward Clara. Ling had dragged her behind the limo for cover but hadn’t relinquished her hold. Courage waged war against the fear of Clara getting hurt. Chivalry was firmly on the fence since saving the girl dressed sort of like a princess meant ambushing my step-mom. Despite never having met the woman before tonight, there was something fucked up and Freudian about that.
The decision was taken out of my hands when Kelly materialized, dagger flashing in the moonlight.
Ling was taken by surprise. She shadow-jumped just before the dagger struck flesh. Kelly’s strike skidded across the limo’s paint job.
Clara remained behind.
Putting a finger to her ear, Kelly held a Bluetooth bud in place. “Got her.” She then took hold of Clara and whisked her back to the car. Kelly was improving, but she still moved like a thrown softball rather than a fired bullet.
Back at the Prius, Judy held a finger to her own ear. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but rather than getting behind the wheel to flee the scene, she stalked toward the battlefield.
Black-Hat’s shadows were flitting around the outskirts of the fray. Gunshots rang out, but no one seemed to get hit. Bullets peppered the fuselage of the Gulfstream, making any getaway involving it unlikely.
And Judy was heading right for that mess.
“Get back!” I shouted to her, not caring who was paying attention or what bringing that attention down on me might entail. When she didn’t stop, or even slow, I shadow-jumped to her side.
An unseen force stopped me short a few yards from reaching her.
“Judy, let’s get out of here,” I pleaded.
Right then, I could have ditched her. Even if she had some warding against shadow-jumping—which seemed likely—I could still take Clara and Kelly and evacuate the area.
“Let them sort this out themselves. There is no outcome that improves with us being a part of this,” the shadowlord cooed smugly.
That just steeled my resolve to stay.
“We need to end this, Matt,” Judy said.
In the air, my best friend traced the outline of a rune. Her fingertip glowed like a fourth-of-July sparkler and left a golden, fiery trail in the air. Geometric perfection had always been a hallmark of Judy’s rune circles when we’d played along with the opening sequence of the show. Now that practice was showing dividends.
A shimmering barrier appeared in front of Judy, between her and the combatants around the hangar and aircraft. It glowed with the same golden fire as her traced runes. When the light faded, I knew barrier was still present.
Engines roared. Not aircraft turbines or the smooth rumbles of the SUV cavalcade. These were pickup truck diesels, and there were three of them barreling toward the runway from the sparse wooded area beyond the airstrip.
The pickups encircled the runway in a loose formation. One of them screeched to a halt just a few feet from Judy.
My mouth went dry.
Not only was Tim in the passenger’s seat, the driver was Randall, the vigilant I’d knocked unconscious at the lighthouse. Both men were armed with shotguns.
“Keep back, young lady,” Randall warned. He loaded shells into his weapon as he stalked toward the skirmish.
As I watched, shadows snapped back to their owners. Shadowbloods fell back into the harsh glare of the airstrip floodlights and the soft glow of the moon.
Shotgun blasts rang out from all directions, making me wonder whether the vigilants were idiots or expert tacticians. I supposed that until the body count at the end, I wouldn’t know.
A distressed moan escaped Kelly. She gaped open-mouthed from Judy to the scene of carnage. “I thought this was a rescue…”
Judy turned. “It is. We’re rescuing Earth from the forces of the shadowlord.”
“Are not,” the shadowlord groused. But both he and I knew that Judy wasn’t hearing.
To Judy’s thinking, which until recently I had thought I knew so well, the matter was settled. Kelly was an ally; her part was over.
But as she turned her attention back to the battle, Judy failed to catch the murderous look of betrayal
in Kelly’s eyes.
Simon’s knife raised to the heavens, and Kelly sprang.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Whatever warding Judy had in place was only protecting her front. Kelly’s shadow-jump closed the gap to Judy from behind in a heartbeat.
I was there in a blink.
With two hands, I caught Kelly by the wrist. Despite being of similar size, embarrassingly enough, Kelly was stronger than me. But two hands against one, I stopped her headlong strike and fell with her to the ground at Judy’s feet.
“Oh, my God!” Judy exclaimed as the tussle for control of the dagger bowled us into the back of her legs.
“Matt! Get off me!” Kelly shrieked. “We’ve gotta stop her! She’s brought in the enemy against us.”
“Feisty,” the shadowlord complimented. “But this is demeaning. End it. I’ll even trust you with the power to do it yourself.”
A dam burst.
Latent power flooded forth.
Tendrils of shadow snaked forth from me in all directions. One pair pushed off, raising me from the undignified wrestling match on the asphalt. Another wrapped around Kelly’s waist and flung her aside like a stuffed animal.
Everyone seemed smaller. Judy was a rodent. Tim a mere garden gnome with a pea-shooter. The squabbling factions with their pistols and shotguns were rival factions of ants, warring with weapons beneath me.
I stormed across the battlefield, shadow tendrils lashing out, shattering SUV windows and shearing a wing off the Gulfstream.
“Randall! Stop him!” Judy’s voice echoed from a thousand miles away.
“This ends now!” I boomed. “Because I say it does.”
Wrapping coils of iron-hard shadow around my father and Black-Hat, I dragged my two tormentors toward me.
“Givin’ him a bit to sort things out,” I heard Randall reply. “Ain’t much point standin’ in the middle of—”
“RANDALL,” Judy bellowed.
Squeezing the life from Li Zhujiu and Joey Abernathy (who I liked better as Black-Hat), I didn’t notice my predicament until it was too late. Bullets passed harmlessly through me. Shadowy weapons swirled and were absorbed into my own shadow.
The gaze of the Order of Vigilants, however, I was powerless against.
I sank to the ground, hardly aware that I’d been carried aloft on spidery legs of shadow essence. Once Earthbound, I collapsed to my hands and knees, dizzy from the sudden shock. My head swam.
Crawling for cover, I tried to find anyplace free from that oppressive gaze to slip back into the safety of the shadows. Vertigo and the fatigue after a spike of adrenaline conspired against me with ideas of their own. After a few struggling paces, the tarmac rushed up to meet my face.
Chapter Seventy
I woke in the back of Judy’s Prius. Middle seat. Flanking me were two vigilants with their freaky three-eyed heads, spaced equally around. Now that I had a close look at Randall, I could see the stitches where I’d cracked him in the skull.
Out beyond the windows, the battle was a clean-up site. Vigilants hauled bodies and manhandled shadowbloods with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.
Both sides had taken heavy losses, and I didn’t mean the Order. Judy’s trap had worked like a charm, preoccupying both sides while the perfect counter to their magic surrounded the battlefield.
It was like turning a lion loose in a petting zoo. At least these lions took prisoners.
Judy got in and closed the door behind her.
“Where’s Clara?” I asked. “What’d you do with her?”
“Miss Davenport is getting chauffeured back to Boston,” Judy replied. I should have been surprised she bothered to learn Clara’s last name. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised by anything from Judy anymore.
“You betrayed us,” I said to her.
Judy angled the rearview mirror rather than turning to look at me. “Matt, you were under the influence of a hounding shadow. Thank you for saving me. It just proves that I was right: you’re not too far gone to save.”
“Says you, missy,” Randall grumbled. “But you’re the heir, so who’m I to argue?”
The passenger door opened.
I shook my head. “It was me. I’m the heir. Martinez got me out of the way so I wouldn’t supplant her.”
The Prius rocked as Tim swung inside and plopped himself in the passenger seat. “Jesus, Matt. Give it up. Judy showed me the third message.”
“Third message?” I asked, perplexed.
Judy backed up the car and turned it around.
“What third message?” I demanded.
“Easy there, young fella,” Randall cautioned in his Pepperidge Farm commercial voice. “Maybe you oughtta get all the facts before you start giving this young lady pieces of your mind you can’t afford to part with.”
“It was buried,” Judy said. “I got it off the thumb drive as soon as I realized what it was. Martinez knew I wouldn’t be watching the second video alone. She left things vague.”
“In the third video, she addresses Judy by name,” Tim put in.
“It’s going to be all right,” Judy assured me. “I need your help finishing up the translations. But we can fix all this. All of it.”
“Even Martinez being dead? Simon? Shit, I mean is Reggie even still alive?”
“That was check mark number two why you’re here, Matty-boy,” Tim said. “That warning to Judy was enough for her to know you were in deep shit. She got everyone out just in time.”
“I didn’t know there would be a bomb,” Judy added, matter-of-factly.
We got on a highway, but unless I misread the signs, we headed north, not south back to Boston.
“Where we going?”
“Someplace quiet,” Judy said.
Chapter Seventy-One
The quiet place Judy referred to was a lakeside cabin owned by one of the vigilants. For a bunch of three-eyed freaks, one of them had made himself a fair chunk of bank to afford a vacation place that housed five of us with room to spare.
They kept me under constant guard by one or both of the vigilants at all times.
I translated otherworldly pictographs into English.
Without the snarky commentary by the shadowlord, it was dull work. Once in a while, the notion to alter what was there snuck into the fore of my thoughts. But I knew that whatever I presented, Judy would decide whether to keep or alter it anyway.
Across the cabin’s rustic, but well-appointed, living room, Judy typed away on her laptop with hardly a pause.
“You don’t write like her, you know,” I pointed out.
She’d hardly said a word to me in the days since we’d arrived at our retreat. By my count, this was my fifteenth attempt to engage her in conversation. If anyone could shut out background distractions and focus on a task, it was Judy.
And that’s what I’d become, it seemed, a distraction.
“I read that short story,” I added. “Kelly clued me in. Dry as saltine crackers. The love story was tacked on.”
Stairs creaked as Tim came down from the second floor. “Shut up and translate. Judy did you a favor. I was about ready to pound your nose down your throat for kissing her.”
Oh.
Tim knew about that?
Figures. Judy probably mentioned it in passing when explaining to Tim why she believed the shadows were real.
Tim watched Judy type. “Just wish she hadn’t picked a girl who looked so—” He trailed off, perhaps sensing there was no good way to end that sentence.
“I didn’t pick her,” Judy explained, somehow not pausing her typing.
How did she do that? If I tried to type and talk at the same time, I’d end up either reading from the screen or typing what I was saying. Not her, though.
“You read it, both of you,” Judy continued. “That’s all the direction I gave. At the time, I wasn’t even sure it would work.”
“This isn’t going to fly,” I blurted, pushing my borrowed laptop away. “One story fooled
the fans once. They’re not going to keep buying shoddy fan-fic. At least let me help writing it.”
“No,” Judy said flatly. “Sorry, but until we get you untainted, anything you do is suspect.”
“Besides,” Tim said. “Contract came in yesterday. The Martinez vids convinced the publisher to let Judy continue the series. The regular Shadowblood editing team is signed on to make sure it looks and sounds like old Patty wrote it herself. Press release is scheduled next week for the new TV season.”
“Show must go on…” Randall observed sagely, popping the top on a can of beer.
Judy looked up from her laptop, eyes red from staring for hours on end without enough rest. “Just hang in there, Matt. One book, and we’re rushing it to market. They know how crucial this is to get on bookshelves as soon as possible. This isn’t just publishing; we’re saving the world. Two weeks, tops, and we’ll have something on the market that gets the Boston incursion bottled up.”
Randall toasted to that. “Oughtta be another fifty years before it pops up this bad again. Here’s to hoping.”
Fifty years.
If that were true, I’d be a decrepit old man before I could taste power like that again.
All I’d need to do to have it back again was to overcome two vigilants with my bare hands or kitchen utensils, then get out the doors Judy had warded against me. Maybe after that, I could find allies, get to Judy—or maybe discredit her—somehow stop her from writing the book that would stop the genie’s bottle I’d been rubbing.
But I kept translating.
In the end, it was the right thing to do.
With no voice in my head except my own, right and wrong didn’t seem so muddied anymore.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Thanksgiving approached.
Tomorrow, my mom would be arriving in town to meet Clara for the first time. A year ago, that sort of thing might have percolated to the top of my list of things to discuss with a therapist.
