The Shadow Stealer

by Melissa Giorgio

  Mom put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me to her side. It was the first time we had had any sort of real physical contact, and I froze, uncertain of what to do. Mom noticed my hesitation and began pulling away. Realizing I didn’t want that, I threw my arms around her and hugged her back tightly.

  “Oh, Gabi,” she whispered in my hair. “I’ll never let anything happen to you again. I swear it.”

  My throat was too clogged with tears to answer, but I knew she understood how much those words meant to me.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  We talked some more after that, but when my fingers and toes began tingling with the cold, we went back inside and made ourselves some tomato soup to warm up. It felt so weird, but so normal to be sharing this experience with her. Other girls probably did this all the time with their moms, taking something so simple for granted, but not me. After missing out on it for seven years, I was going to treasure every moment from this point on.

  With my back to Mom as I stirred the soup, I asked, “So tell me what happened next, after you faked your death and left.”

  I heard her walking around the kitchen, taking her time to answer my question. “I went back to the city. I could have gone anywhere, but unlike the other times when I packed up and moved to a new state, I couldn’t bear being away from all of you.

  “So I found myself in Manhattan. I knew the places Charles liked to frequent, so I avoided those. I got a job at Central Park, working as a gardener.”

  I whirled around, jealous. “Did you really!”

  She smiled at my reaction. “I did, and it was nice. I mean, it wasn’t our garden, but it was everything I’ve always loved doing.” Her smile slipped away as she joined me at the stove and opened up one of the cabinets to take out two bowls. Even after being absent for years, she still knew exactly where everything was. “But despite working, I was still desperately lonely. Leaving Phil had been more devastating than I ever imagined, and to do it again, with you girls? I felt like my heart, which I’d only just mended back together, had been shattered into pieces.”

  Mom handed me the bowls, which I filled with soup. We each grabbed a spoon and napkin and carried everything over to the table. She had that faraway look on her face again, and I instinctively knew she was thinking about the past. Maybe she was even thinking about the day she left us, right before we were supposed to go to Disney World. That had been the worst day of my life, and I was eager to change to subject and focus on something else. “So how did you meet the sorcerers?” I asked. “Jared and your other…extremely unfriendly friends.”

  Mom laughed at my description. “Like I said, the job was something, but it wasn’t enough to fill the holes. I was living in the same city as Phil, but I wouldn’t dare go see him. That hurt more than I can describe, and I knew I needed some distractions before I did something drastic.” She dipped her spoon into her bowl. “So I started looking for other people like me.”

  “Are there a lot of sorcerers running around?”

  “More than you’d expect,” she said. “People have the talent, but they can go through their entire lives without realizing it. Like you with the Sight and healing. If you’d never Seen that demon…”

  Life would still be normal. And Rafe-less. Which, no way. I would never want a life without Rafe.

  “But I was under the impression that sorcerers are bad,” I said. “Aren’t they the reason that Silver Moon even exists? Because they like to bring those creepy things over here for shits and giggles?”

  “Some sorcerers, yes, enjoy doing that,” Mom said with a roll of her eyes. “And they’ve given all sorcerers a bad name. You saw what it was like, and how your friends immediately attacked mine.” I opened my mouth to say we thought they’d taken Kain, but Mom spoke over me. “You can wield magic and never summon a demon, Gabi. If Phil hadn’t been hurt that day, I never would have. But here’s the difference: I summoned a demon to save a life. That’s why Jared and the others accepted me. They knew I wasn’t trying to bring evil into this world.”

  “You’re trying to help it,” I said as I slowly stirred my soup.

  She seemed pleased to hear me say that. “Exactly.”

  “So after you found other sorcerers, what did you do?”

  “I found Jared first. He was a lost soul, like me,” she said fondly. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion, wondering if Jared was her friend, or something more. Actually, I didn’t want to know. “He knew others like us, and we began meeting up on the weekends, sharing what we could do with each other. Everyone learned new tricks, new spells, and it was…nice.” Mom wiped her lips with her napkin before setting it down on the table. “I had something to look forward to each week. And before long, we’d created a little community, and we started selling our trade to those in need.” At my skeptical look, she nodded. “You’d be surprised, Gabi, at how many people out there have problems that can only be fixed by magic. Before long word had spread, and we had more money than we knew what to do with. I was the one who suggested we move to the office building you saw yesterday. We work out of there, meeting with potential clients and discussing cases amongst ourselves. I wanted a place where we could be ourselves, without worrying about hunters or neighbors interfering. We warded the building, set up traps for both hunters and demons, and existed peacefully. Until…”

  “Until Silver Moon tracked you to your office building,” I finished. “Will you be able to go back? Or will you have to move somewhere else?”

  “I’ve been discussing the very same thing with Jared,” she said. “We’ve agreed the best thing to do right now is lay low, stay off Silver Moon’s radar. When things finally blow over, we’ll set up shop again, but somewhere else.” Mom shrugged. “Maybe we’ll go back to operating out of our apartment buildings. Who knows? Right now, that’s not important. Keeping you safe is.”

  I swallowed against the sudden lump that had formed in my throat. “So what do I need to do?”

  She patted my hand and gave me a smile, as if she’d sensed my discomfort. “Nothing, sweetie. Go to school, date Rafe, and act like a regular teenage girl. I’ll handle the rest.”

  “And you’ll really stay here?” Even though I’d already asked her that, I needed to hear her answer again. I hated sounding like a needy girl who couldn’t survive without her mommy because I’d been doing just fine for the past seven years, but the thought of having to say goodbye really freaking scared me.

  “Yes.” She swallowed a few times. “I promise. I’ll always be here for you.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered. The front door banged open and I jumped.

  “I’m home!” my sister called out as my stomach soured. What would she say when she saw Mom in the kitchen? Should I make Mom leave out the back door? No—that wasn’t fair to either of them.

  But Mom was already standing, making the decision for me. “We’re in here, Chloe.”

  Chloe’s footsteps halted. I got up as well and rushed out of the room, meeting her in the hallway.

  “What’s she doing here?” Chloe hissed.

  “She wanted to talk.”

  “About what?” She narrowed her eyes. “Why she left? Or is she trying to come up with a plan to win Dad back?”

  I sputtered. “Win him back? Do you honestly think that’s going to happen?”

  “Hmm, after hearing them fight yesterday, probably not,” Chloe said. “So what does she want?”

  “To talk,” Mom said, also emerging from the kitchen, “with my beautiful, grown-up daughters.”

  Some of the misgiving on Chloe’s face melted away. I shook my head. Leave it to Mom to know exactly what Chloe wanted to hear. My sister always complained about how Dad treated us like a couple of kids, and now Mom had just declared we were grown-ups. I could already picture Chloe telling Dad, “But Mom said there’s nothing wrong with learning how to drive when you’re fifteen!” or some other equally ridiculous thing.

  “Dad won’t like it if he sees you here,” Chloe protest
ed weakly.

  “I’ll leave before he comes home. He’s going to be late, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he won’t be home for another couple of hours.” Chloe glanced at the clock on the wall and shrugged. “Okay, let’s talk.” And just like that, the two of them went into the kitchen, already chatting about Chloe’s day like a normal mother and daughter. I watched them go, my mouth slightly ajar. And then I shrugged. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? If Mom was going to be in our lives, then she needed to make peace with us.

  All of us.

  Crossing my fingers, I walked away, leaving Chloe and Mom alone so they could start mending seven years of hurt.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Upstairs in my room I called Philip, but it was Kain who answered the phone. “Hello, Gabiella!” he said, his voice cheery.

  “Oh. Um.” I blinked stupidly at my phone, checking to make sure I’d called the right number. Sure enough, Philip’s name was displayed on the screen. “Hi?”

  “Philip went out to get some things, and apparently he picked up my mobile instead of his. No worries—you can talk to me instead.”

  Typical Kain. I laughed and shook my head. “How’s your head? And the cut on your chest?” Sitting on the edge of my bed, I picked up the chocolate-scented bear Rafe had gotten me for Valentine’s Day and inhaled deeply. (Seriously, did my boyfriend know me or what?)

  “Ah, everything is healing nicely. Your brother has been taking care of me. It’s been rather nice.”

  “I can imagine.” Again, I cursed my punishment. If I hadn’t been grounded, I could be over at Rafe’s apartment right now, “taking care” of him in my own special way.

  Focus, Gabi.

  “Oh, actually, it’s good that you answered,” I said. “I needed to tell you something.” I explained how Mom had removed the last bit of the parasite spell from Rafe, and after Kain apologized multiple times for missing it in the first place, I told him about her bombshell regarding the origins of the spell, and how we believed Nina learned it from Collins.

  Kain cursed softly under his breath. “Demon magic? I—I had no idea. Forgive me, Gabiella.”

  “None of us did, Kain, probably because no one expected it.”

  “This is bloody unbelievable.” His frustration was clear, even through the phone. “Wielding demon magic is as taboo as mixing your blood with one. You have to consort with it, which means you have to summon it. What kind of hunter is Collins?” There was a pause. “Oh. Bloody hell.”

  “What?” I asked, gripping the phone tightly. I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “What if he’s not so much a hunter as he is a sorcerer? And I don’t mean one like Morgan,” Kain said quickly. “I’m talking about the ones who bring demons into this world to learn from them.”

  My mind was spinning. “I’m confused. I thought they brought demons here because they wanted to use them to, I don’t know, take over the world. What’s the point of learning from them? And do the demons even want to teach humans?” I thought about the demon Mom had summoned, and how much contempt it had for her. “I feel like that’s the last thing they’d want to do.”

  “Ah, but the demons are constantly at war with one another. So if a sorcerer agrees to aid them in their fight, the demon has no qualms about teaching them spells. Especially when the spells can be used on other demons—with devastating results.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “Think of it as like an allergy. If you use demon magic on a demon, you won’t just kill it. You’ll destroy it. In the most painful way possible.”

  I took a minute to process that. “So the demons go around annihilating one another with their magic?” Flopping onto my back, I groaned loudly. “Why can’t the stupid things just wipe each other out and stop coming here?” A world without demons; wouldn’t that be nice?

  Kain laughed. “Then I wouldn’t have anything to do.”

  “You could get a job?”

  “I’m too rich for that, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. God, this sucks.”

  “We must play things carefully.” Kain sighed. “I know things seem bad right now, Gabiella, but have faith, and focus on the good. Philip is your brother, Rafe is finally recovering, and you have your mum back.”

  “My mum,” I teased. “I like the sound of that. Mum. I should call her that. Mummy!”

  He chuckled.

  I sobered almost immediately. “What are we going to do about Collins? I know poking around is dangerous, but I don’t want to be ambushed again, kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to another gray warehouse by a couple of deranged hunters.”

  “I agree. Collins needs to be stopped before he discovers what you can do.”

  “But how?” I whispered, clutching the phone tightly in my hand. “I don’t want to even think about you guys having to fight him. I don’t want anyone to die…”

  “Gabiella, death is always a possibility in battle.”

  A trembling started in my legs and worked its way up, until my entire body was shaking. “Why can’t we be normal teenagers? Magic and demons and worrying about if we’re going to die tomorrow—what the hell kind of life is that, Kain?”

  His voice was thoughtful when he responded. “It’s unfair for someone like you, who never asked for any of this. But those of us in Silver Moon? We chose this.”

  “But did you ever think it was the wrong choice?”

  “I have, in the past,” he admitted. “When my best mate was killed by a demon. This was back in England, before I came to New York. We were in the middle of a routine patrol when the nastiest bugger ambushed us. Killed my mate before I even knew what was happening. It was the worst moment of my life, and I nearly quit hunting after that.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  Kain made a humming noise as he contemplated my question. “I decided, a few months later, to go hunting one last time. Depending on how I felt at the end of the night, I would either continue or give up. As chance had it, I ended up saving a family with two little ones from a demon. When I realized what would have happened had I given up, I knew I had to keep hunting.

  “And it’s a good thing I did,” he continued, his voice now cheery, “or else I never would have decided I needed a change of scenery, come to New York, and met your brother! Or you.”

  “I’m glad you decided to keep hunting,” I said honestly, “even if it’s scary and dangerous. I don’t know what’s going to happen to any of us, Kain, but I hope—” I breathed in deeply, trying to calm my nerves. “I hope we get our happy endings.”

  “As do I. Be strong, Gabiella. We will get through this.”

  As I said goodbye and hung up the phone, I hoped that he was right.

  ***

  When the sky turned dark, Mom left. I didn’t blame her. She looked tired and pale, and I knew she wasn’t up to another conversation with Dad. On the front porch, we hugged tightly, and she promised she’d be in touch the next day. She wasn’t going back to Rafe’s, but to a hotel this time, and even though I knew it would never be possible, I wished she could just end up staying on the couch in the living room.

  At least then when I woke up, I would know she was still there.

  She’s not leaving, I told myself angrily as I watched her walk away. She’d promised to stay, and that’s what she was going to do. And while I believed her and had forgiven her, it was obvious it was going to take me some time to stop setting myself up for disappointment.

  Chloe joined me on the porch, wrapping her arm around my waist and leaning her head against my shoulder. “I’m glad she came,” she said.

  “Me too, Chlo. Me too.”

  By silent agreement, we didn’t tell Dad about Mom’s visit, and he didn’t ask if we’d spoken with her. But something told me he knew we had. How could we not have? Staying away from her was like trying to live without oxygen. We needed Mom. Maybe I’d forgotten that, but now that she was back, I remembered how life was like with her in it.r />
  It was good. Really good.

  When I returned to my room after dinner, I noticed I had a message from Evan on my phone. Just got in. Rafe is sleeping soundly. Talk to you tomorrow.

  A weight lifted from my chest. If I couldn’t be there, at least someone else could be. Day by day, we would get through this.

  Somehow.

  Chapter Forty

  The next afternoon, I was stuck at work (sigh) manning the register while Denise pretended to straighten up when the door mooed. Denise squealed loudly, and I looked up from the magazine I was reading (yeah, we were the world’s worst employees) to see Evan stroll in.

  “Hey, sexy surfer boy!” Denise rushed over and planted a loud kiss on Evan’s cheek. My eyebrows lifted. When did these two get so close?

  “Hey yourself, honey,” Evan replied.

  “You here for cigarettes?”

  Evan shook his head. “Nah, I quit.”

  My eyebrows rose even higher. “You quit?” That was news to me!

  He leaned against the counter, giving me a cocky smile. “It was about time, don’t you think? I’m turning over a new leaf. Meet Evan 2.0. Even more handsome than the original!”

  Excuse me while I puke in the garbage can.

  Denise clapped her hands excitedly. “Oooh, Evan, you’re just being coy. I know that look in your eyes. You got back together with your girlfriend, didn’t you?”

  She knows about Alex? “Okay, time out,” I interrupted. “When did you guys get so buddy-buddy? And how come I didn’t know about this?”

  “Aww, poor Evan here used to come in when you weren’t working to buy cigarettes because he knew you’d give him grief,” Denise said.

  “Yeah, because it’s a disgusting, stupid habit.”

  She ignored me. “And he always looked so glum, so one day I asked why, and then we got to talking. Not only did he tell me about his problems with his girlfriend, but he also listened to me.” Denise put a hand on Evan’s shoulder. “He’s a great listener.”