Shadow Child
Page 17
“Fallen Angel. Like, Angel. Like, Fallen. Like, Servant of...”
“It's OK. I already did that bit, Mom.”
“Riiight. So you're going to – we're going to, like, to. And Maya here's what happens. And a demon queen is going to kill me, to steal her, so she can train her to kill you. Because not even a demon can do it – only your own kid can get close enough to take you out. Because she doesn't have a soul. Which she does. She kills you. But you want her to be born anyway. And that's supposed to makes sense – because?”
The man in black leather shrugs. “Because I'd rather be dead with her, than alive without her.”
“Dad!” The girl hugs the man in black leather. She's not very good at – as if she lacks practice.
“And I'm supposed to believe you.”
The girl looks sad. “No, mom. Not supposed to. You do believe him. You believe him because something's telling you every word is true – and even if you don't know what it is, you trust it.”
The woman sighs. “You too, huh?”
The girl shrugs.
“Perhaps I can help.” Tentacles snake out from the other woman in the room. One settles on the girl's head, the other on the woman's. After a while, the tentacles fall.
“Fuck.” The woman's eyes fill with tears.
“Damn, Mom.” The girl's eyes are equally full.
“Thank you. Whoever you are – thank you.” The woman smiles through her tears.
“Thanks, P. Really.” The girl smiles too, though her tears still fall.
The man in black leather raises an eyebrow.
“Oh, I just gave them the years they could have had. If – well, if they weren't them. And I showed them what She'll do if they aren't. Aren't them, I mean.”
The woman in the bed rubs the tears from her eyes. “And I guess I can't remember this either? Or the bitch will know you know she's coming?”
The man in black leather shrugs, his eyes sad.
“Oh, well. I'm sure your – your 'friend' can take care of that. I guess you lose some...” The woman looks at the girl. “... but I sure won some. Or I will.”
The girl's eyes fill with tears. “Mom!”
The woman in the bed shakes her head. “It's OK, Really, really OK. Of all the things I ever do – you're the best. Always remember that.”
The girl smiles. “I will, Mom.”
The woman grins. “Now get your ass out of here. Your Dad and I have some fucking business to attend to.”
* * *
From The Times Wedding Announcements.
We are delighted to report the recent marriage of Florence Wilkinson and renowned Coleridge scholar Professor Wilberforce Spencer.
Professor Spencer and Mrs Wilkinson first met when Professor Spencer attended Mrs Wilkinson’s appointment as Director at the Coleridge Museum in Nether Stowey, after the unfortunate death of the previous incumbent. Professor Wilkinson was present in his capacity as the new Curator of the British Museum. The former Mrs Wilkinson was attended by her son Robert and his friend Alice Drake...
* * *
Washington D.C. - 350 And Down
Jack sighed, and put down the pen. Bloody field reports. They were supposed to be history – he grinned – after he quit The Dragon. He looked at the kid, sleeping in the camp bed. He shook his head. Complicated wasn’t the half of it. Not now, not ever. But tomorrow was tomorrow’s problem. Right now he had to deal with yesterday. He closed the notebook and took a flask from his pocket. It wouldn’t be possible anywhere but 250. After all, how hard could it be for something that didn’t exist once to not exist twice? He drank – and was gone.
The Shadow cleared. Jack pulled his gun, just in case. He opened the door that didn’t really exist. The two men in leather dusters looked at each other. Both men grinned, and lowered their guns. Jack raised an eyebrow. “I thought you'd be taller.” The man on the other side of the door raised his own brow. “Me too.” Jack reached slowly into the pocket of his duster, and pulled out the notebook. He dropped it on the floor. “Let's not do this again, huh Jack?” He pulled a flask from his pocket, and the smell of Unicorn Horn filled the air.
Epilogue
School's Out
My Daddy's a Shadow. My Mom was a Thief – even if she wasn't my Mom. And I spent a whole long time learning a bunch of shit I'm going to spend a whole lot more time making the bitch wish she never taught me. Because I'm pissed – and my Dad's pissed-er.
So sit down.
Put your head between your knees.
And kiss. Your pasts.
Goodbye.
The End
Also by Graeme Smith, from Books We Love:
JACK SHADOW
This is me. Graeme Smith. Fantasy author. Mostly comic fantasy (which is fantasy intended to make you laugh, not fantasy in comics).
Having Graeme Smith as my pen name is convenient, since it also happens to be my real name. Although sometimes I think it isn’t. Sometimes I think I’m just a remote set of hands for a keyboard. So maybe Graeme Smith is my keyboard’s name, not mine.
When I'm not writing (well, or editing my writing. Or re-writing. Or editing my re-writing. Or... Quite. You get the picture), I'm doing other things. Maybe things involving mushrooms. And knitting needles (but the less said about my cooking the better). Maybe things like online gaming (If you know Bard Elcano, you know me. If you know a grumpy old dragon called Sephiranoth, you know me. If you know a tall, dark, handsome but brooding vampire, charming witty and brilliant - we never met. That's someone else.)
So there you are. Graeme Smith. Keyboard in disguise. Short, fat, bald and ugly (fortunately my wife has lousy taste in men). Time was, I worked on a psychiatric ward. Now I write about people who believe in magic and dragons, and who live where the crazy folk are the ones who don’t.
If you want to find me electronically, you can find me here:
Web page: https://www.graeme-smith.net
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Graeme.Smith.Author
Twitter: @Graeme_Smith_
Turn the page for the first chapter of Shadow Kill, coming in 2017
FROM SHADOW KILL – BOOK 3 OF SHADOW DANCE.
Chapter One
Kitty
Vondelpark, Winter 1941.
Annelies watches the older girl as she skates on her own, her skates kicking clouds of crystal from the ice as she turns. Annelies wonders why she is on her own, when so many skate together. She digs in her skates, and slides over to the older girl. “Hello.”
“Hello.” The older girl skates on, turning slow circles.
“I'm Annelies.”
“Hello, Annelies.” The older girl spins her slow circles on the ice.
“What's your name?”
“I think – I think it should be Kitty. I like cats.”
“I like cats too. But does that mean Kitty isn't your real name?”
“I – I don't know. Does it matter?”
“You don't know your name?”
“I think – I think I've forgotten it.”
“Oh.” Annelies starts to skate alongside the older girl, their skates kicking up ice crystals. “Are you lonely?”
“Lonely?”
“Well, there's nobody with you.”
“People – people don't see me very often. And mostly – they don't like it when they do.”
“I can see you! You're nice!”
The older girl smiles. “Thank you.”
“I'll get my friends! We can skate together!”
“Oh, they won't want to.”
“Yes they will!” Annelies skates over to her friends “Come with me! I have a new friend! We can skate together!”
“Who's that, Annelies?” Annelies' friend Jacqueline looks round.
“It's Kitty! She's over there!” Annelies points at her new friend.
“Annelies – there's nobody there.”
“But... but...” Annelies sees Kitty smile sadly. Then the older girl skates into the rising mist –
and is gone.
* * *
Near Merwedeplein . June 06, 1942.
Annelies stares into the store window.
“Hello, Annelies.”
Annelies turns round. “Kitty!”
People come and go. Nobody seems to notice Annelies friend.
“What are you doing?”
“It's my birthday soon. My daddy wants to know what I want him to get me.”
“Ah. Birthdays must be nice. I think I'd like a birthday.”
“Don't be silly. Everybody has birthdays, Kitty!”
“Not when you're dead.”
“Dead? Are you – are you dead, Kitty?”
“That's why people don't see me. Or they don't like it when they do. Like your friends, at Vondelpark.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Oh, it's alright. You get used to it.”
The two girls look into the window.
“What would you like, Kitty? If you had a birthday? For a present?”
“Oh, I don't know. What do people give you, Annelies?”
“Mostly things I don't really want. But you have to pretend you do, so they don't get sad. That's why Daddy said I could choose this year.”
“I think – I think I'd like a letter.”
“A letter? That's not a present!”
“Oh, it would be for me. It would mean someone still cared – someone still noticed me. Nobody does really – not when you're dead.”
“Well, I could send you a letter! But I wouldn't know where to send one to a dead person.”
“Oh, you wouldn't have to send it. Just to write it. I'd know if you did, and I could read it while you were writing it.”
“But that would scare Mommy and Daddy! Because you're – well, you're dead.”
“Oh, they wouldn't see me. You only get so many times you can be seen after you – well, after. This is my last time.”
“So I'll never see you again?”
“No. But it's alright. You'll forget me soon anyway.”
“No I won't! And I will write to you, Kitty! Every day! But I need something to write in. I know! That's what I'll ask Daddy for, for my birthday! A book to write letters in!”
“But won't he think it's strange if you write letters but never send them?”
“Oh, I won't ask for a letter-book. I'll ask for – what about that one?”
“Which one?”
“The red and white one – there!”
“But that's an autograph book.”
“Right! So nobody will know I'm writing you letters! Kitty? Kitty? Where did you...”
* * *
Near Merwedeplein . June 09, 1942.
“That one, Daddy! Please can I have that one?”
* * *
Washington D.C. - 350 And Down
“We could have saved her, Dad.”
“No we couldn't.”
“Because then the world would be different? More Her world?”
“Right.”
“So a little kid had to die, so we could beat Her?”
“Nope. A little kid had to write a diary nobody would have likely read if she lived – but millions of people read because she didn't. Because it made some of them – even just a few – better people after they read it. It made why she wrote it just a bit less likely to happen again.”
“I'm not sure I like this job, Dad.”
“Me neither. I just like what happens if we don't do it even less.”
“OK. So what's next?”
“Next? Next – we take Manhattan.”