Finally, the watching man removed a compact cell phone from a shirt pocket and called the police to report the thief. He even provided an accurate description.
*
The foot traffic on the downtown streets was getting more congested as Penelope moved determinedly south. Her hurried jog was getting some interested looks, but most people were looking skyward and watching the seemingly endless fireworks show.
Looking frequently behind her, Penelope didn’t see anything or anyone except the people meandering through the streets who were supposed to be meandering through the streets. She didn’t see a giant in a colorful mask that would have stood out like a sore thumb. Nor did she see anyone else wrapped up in a serious pursuit of a thief.
Penelope came upon a Dallas Area Rapid Transit station and slowed to a walk. At this time of night on a 4th of July Friday, DART was busy. It was even more so considering that fares had been forgiven for the night so that people would be encouraged to use the trains instead of drinking and driving. A couple hundred people were milling about. Some were waiting on companions. Others were going to the Trinity Fest. Most kept an engrossed eye on the lively and bright skies. Although the vast majority was dressed in shorts and T-shirts, there were some in long pants and others who were dressed in suits as if they had just come from a fancy party. Dressed in full-length black pants and shirt, Penelope didn’t particularly stand out.
With a leisurely hand she reached up and removed the knit cap, revealing a head full of platinum curls. A few men looked at her then, and she ignored them as she weaved her way through the crowd toward the closest point to where the transit train would pull up to the station.
Dropping the knit cap to her side, Penelope allowed it to fall into a garbage can already filled with party debris. She shifted the cloth bag over her shoulder so that it was on the opposite side of her body and casually looked around. She had been here for several minutes already and didn’t want to linger any more than was necessary. The simple truth was that the DART trains were full, and people were in no hurry to get off or on. The train was late, and would continue to be late, until the crowds dissipated early in the morning.
She stopped behind a crowd of twenty-ish men and women who were cheerfully discussing the pros and cons of party colleges. They had narrowed it down to Louisiana State University and the University of Texas. “Baton Rouge, man,” said one. “New Orleans Mardi Gras proximity. Babes flashing flesh for beads. You know you can buy a hundred strands of beads on the net for $19.99 plus shipping? Do you know how many titties that equates to?”
“Austin, bro. They do a lot more than flash,” replied a second young man scornfully.
“Is that all you think about, Jason?” asked a pretty brunette girl in a middy shirt and shorts that were short enough to reveal the bottom line of her buttocks. She also had a ring in her naval and about ten piercings along the curve of her ears, all filled with silver and gold rings. She all but glittered in the brassy fluorescent lights of the DART station.
Penelope blinked.
Jason chuckled lecherously and salaciously nuzzled the brunette’s neck. “No, of course it’s not all I think about,” he said, clearly not meaning it.
“Oh, hey, baby,” said the one who favored LSU. Penelope realized that he was talking to her. “What’s with the all-black look?”
“I’m a professional thief,” Penelope said seriously. “A bunch of really weird people are after my ass, and if I don’t get on a train pretty damn quickly, then they’re going to rip me up.”
The group of young men and women simply stared at her.
Penelope cast a long glance over her shoulder at the crowd behind her. She saw dozens of multi-cultured people in T-shirts and shorts. Black, brown, and pink mixed easily as they had come together to celebrate. One woman dressed in a purple bikini top and blue jean cut-offs was spraying herself with a bottle mister. Another man was selling fluorescent armlets and necklaces to parents with school-aged children. There was a group of cops on the far side of the platform, who were giving the crowd their usual eagle-eyed stare.
Then there was the subtle movement of people dressed in black. They melted through the crowd like wraiths making their malevolent escapes from an ancient cemetery. Her head twisted slowly as she scanned with growing alarm. There were a half-dozen of them throughout the teeming train station, all making their way toward where she was standing, and Penelope didn’t have anywhere to run. What are they? Bloodhounds?
It was when Penelope was considering jumping on the DART tracks themselves and hauling ass for parts elsewhere, that the train pulled in to the station and began to unload passengers. Many were drunk and happy and blissfully unaware that anything else was going on.
They flowed around her like water released from a dam, and the group of young people who had been arguing the best qualities of party colleges vanished from Penelope’s view. She slithered like a reptile as she made her way inside a car and braced herself on the opposite side of the train so that she could watch who was coming inside. The passengers came and went in droves, eager to be on their way. When the car was full, the doors shut as if they were magically aware of the state of occupation. A moment later the train lurched, but it moved no further.
Penelope was aware of her heart beating frantically. The train pitched forward again and halted just as abruptly. It felt as though someone had pulled it to a stop.
There were a dozen frustrated grumbles from the occupants of the car as many looked forward and out the windows as if that would explain away the delay. Penelope merely pressed herself up against the glass window a little harder, trying to will herself the power of invisibility. The voices faded away as more fireworks thundered above.
Then there was a light tapping that was reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard. She tilted her head to look around the body of a very obese man wearing a Hawaiian shirt with surfers on it. She immediately bit the inside of her mouth.
The beautiful woman with the long black hair and the hazel eyes stood on the platform looking inside the car. She had her head slightly inclined and peered at the crowd as if silently willing them to move. Penelope heard a confused whisper as several people realized that something wasn’t quite right but had trouble putting a name to their unspoken anxiety.
Catching Penelope’s eye the woman smiled, and Penelope distantly heard someone gasp. Long fingernails painted the color of blood tapped at the windows silently demanding entrance. Certain that the eye-catching woman with the chilling persona was coming through the door one way or another, Penelope deliberately looked away.
With a sudden stomach-dropping lurch the train slowly pulled out of the station and toddled on its way to the Trinity Fest. Penelope tried and failed to get her knees to stop shaking.
She had just breathed in a reviving gulp of air when something loudly thudded on top of the car. Several people looked up in bewilderment but didn’t know what to make of the abrupt noises.
But Penelope had a very good idea.
Chapter Six
Friday, July 4th
Taking a rub (slang, origin probably English, circa early 19th century) - to escape the police
“What the heck was that?” someone’s clear alto voice came echoing through the now-silent car. “Fireworks,” someone else answered weakly. Then came an indignant, “Fireworks, my ass. It sounds like someone jumped on the roof.”
That was what it had sounded like to Penelope as well. She was hoping that it was really a figment of her highly sensitized sense of imagination combined with healthy paranoia. That inner voice had prudently shut up since going down into the basement and confronting a seven foot behemoth dressed in a very strange Halloween mask. She rather suspected that her inner voice had been scared witless.
As the train moved southward, Penelope heard muted conversation break out in droves among the sardine-packed car as people readjusted to what they perceived as something normal and uneventful happening. She shifted the bag along her
shoulder and neck and hoped the door just behind her was the one that would open first.
There was a sudden and continuous boom of thunder that abruptly filled the night. Everyone silenced and looked out the windows. “Dammit,” someone said. “That’s the fireworks finale. They’re wrapping up, and we’re missing it.”
All eyes were glued on the windows to the right side of the train. Only the passengers fortunate enough to be sitting there already could see the magnificent end of some thirty minutes worth of bedazzling pyrotechnics. The rest crowded and crouched for a better look. “Look, an American flag!” called someone. “How do they do that?”
Penelope was the lone individual not looking to the right of the train. Instead she stared at the ceiling of the car and waited for the other shoe to drop. This was the time when most thieves would have repented their thieving ways and vowed never to steal again. Rather than that, Penelope was thinking of Jessica Quick, and what would happen to her mother if something happened to her.
The ceiling of the car shook suddenly, and no one but Penelope noticed. She knew something else was moving around up on top, and she was hoping sincerely that they got electrocuted when they ran into the power couplings of the train.
Again the train lurched and people grumbled. “It’s a train, not socket rience,” someone complained loudly and then giggled drunkenly. “Rocket science, I mean.”
Then the train rumbled to a tooth-rattling stop. Penelope cast a look over her shoulder and saw dead space. It took her a moment to figure out that they had stopped on the bridge over the Trinity River. Fifty yards distant was the Jefferson Market Viaduct, and the silver reflection of the Trinity as it wound its way towards the southeast could be seen.
Someone from the far end of the car started moving through the crowd, flickering fluorescent lights dimly illuminating his figure. Penelope tried to move but was hemmed in by a jam-packed car. The large figure didn’t seem to have a problem; the crowd cleared for him. She didn’t want to look up, but her eyes came up involuntarily. Did they dare to kill her in the midst of a train swarming with people?
It wasn’t the thing constructed from darkness nightmares; instead, it was a Dallas police officer, which was another kind of problem for Penelope altogether. A large man with blue-black skin and black eyes, he was a man who liked to work out and lift weights. His dark and intent gaze was directed down at Penelope and pinned her to the map. The name on his badge said McAdams and was almost lost above a row of ribbons collected in the line of duty.
But Penelope didn’t really care much about that. She knew almost immediately that the DPD was looking for her as well. Had the owners of the house on Durfrene Row reported her when they realized that they couldn’t keep up with her?
Penelope stared defiantly back at the cop. All a girl could do in this situation was to be glad that the bag was slung over her back and pretend she didn’t have a single thing to hide.
McAdams’s eyes narrowed at her. He took in her black clothing that was too hot for the 85˚ evening and her pale curls and made an instant judgment. People muttered uneasily on either side of her, and an unenthusiastic space cleared around her. He slowly leaned his head to his shoulder radio and said something urgently into it, pressing a hand to the button there. “You got ID?” he finally said to her.
“To ride the DART?” Penelope smiled as she said the words but winced inwardly. This police officer knew when he had something, and he was like a bulldog; he wasn’t going to let go until he was damn good and ready.
McAdams wasn’t amused. “Your name?”
“Mary Ann Nichols. My grandmother’s name was Mary Louise. But my mother wanted to change it a little and pass it onto me. But you can call me Mary.” Penelope lifted her chin up, challenging the police officer to call her on the falsehood.
“Mary,” McAdams said in a harsh voice that brooked little refusal. “So you been around downtown Dallas tonight?”
“Sure. The Trinity Fest. Fireworks galore. Food. Goodies. You ever have one of those roasted turkey legs on a stick?” She smacked her lips. “Really good stuff. No vegetarian me.”
A nearby man chuckled. The cop did not. He went on insistently, “What about oh, say, Durfrene Row? You’ve been around there?”
“Duffy Row? Never heard of it.” Penelope crossed her arms rebelliously. Then one of her hands came up and touched a platinum ringlet. She wanted Officer McAdams to remember the color of her hair and the insolent bent of her spine, if nothing else. So far the cuffs weren’t on her. She didn’t smell like she had bathed in alcohol or marijuana, and so far, other than a certain description, the cop probably didn’t have anything on her. But cops had their own sixth sense, and this one knew when he had hit pay dirt.
“Durfrene Row,” McAdams repeated with a darker note. He had probably been dealing with happy drunks all evening and had little patience left for Penelope’s smart lip. He looked at her injured wrist and saw the sticky blood on her hand without commenting explicitly on it. “You have any stolen goods on you, for instance?”
“Stolen goods?” Penelope repeated with what she wished was the correct suggestion of confusion in her voice. She shrugged, thinking, You haven’t read me any rights yet. I’m not confessing to anything, especially in front of a crowd and right beneath some things crawling on the roof of a train car waiting for me.
“Hey,” someone protested loudly. “I’m a lawyer, and I don’t think you have a bit of probable cause in order to search her.”
“Shut the hell up,” McAdams advised cheerfully. “And you,” he said to Penelope, “turn around and assume the position. I think you know which one.”
Before Penelope could comply or tell McAdams to go to hell, the lights above gave a last lingering flicker and died. A glass window on the far end of the car suddenly shattered. A woman screamed, but it wasn’t because of the glass, it was because of the black shape that undulated into the broken window and began to sift toward the middle where Penelope and the police officer were standing. Then another window on the opposite end of the car broke, and a similar figure came through with all the effort of a ghostly wisp of smoky wind. The mass of people inside the car started to strain in order to get away from the murky forms that had entered, pushing themselves up against the walls and clearing a path for them so they’d leave them alone.
McAdams craned his neck in both directions trying to understand what was happening. Finally, he began to speak lowly and urgently into the radio on his shoulder, asking for backup. He turned away from Penelope’s perceived lack of threat and reached for his sidearm with an anxious hand. “Stop right there!” he rumbled to the two figures. They didn’t stop. They didn’t even pause. Their murky shapes rolled and undulated through the crowd as if they were made from shadows constructed of the deepest darkness. “Stop, I said! Goddammit!”
She didn’t want to be the one to remind the cop that they were stopped in the middle of the bridge over the Trinity River, and no one was going to be coming to their aid. Penelope’s hand went into her pocket, and for a moment she touched the large stone she had creeped from the house on Durfrene Row. Her eyes shifted to the gloomy form closest to her. The one coming from her right hesitated for a second. It stopped chillingly in its tracks and red eyes stared at her under a hood that made its features shadowy and indistinct.
Penelope’s thoughts raced. She let the gemstone go and touched the handle of her Leatherman Tool instead. She didn’t intend to go out without a fight. The moment she let go of the black gem in her hand, the thing with the red eyes began to move unerringly toward her.
Officer McAdams turned toward the two shapes moving through the shadows of the car and gruffly repeated the order to stop. Penelope wasn’t surprised when they did not comply.
*
The watching man walked out of the house on Durfrene Row in the same manner he had entered. He went through the front door and down the steps, looking around him cautiously as he did. Now he understood why they had taken off afte
r the thief in such a hurry. She had the stone. She had stolen it, and it was what Anthony so desperately needed. He wouldn’t be content until the girl was dead and the precious item returned to his possession. The watching man had known that about Anthony all along; he was disturbingly dogged.
The journey to Dallas was fraught with peril. Furthermore, it was filled with the knowledge that he might be forced to kill someone to whom he was once very close. The Christians had a specific commandment to deal with that mandate. One did not kill. However, the Christians didn’t know what was happening, and they didn’t know that if the watching man failed in his given tasks, then their world was about to end. Violently. Horribly. Undeniably.
The shadow people had already come up from the underworld. They were here to cause as much evil as they could, and Anthony, in his misguided treachery, was gleefully abetting them.
William Littlesoldier, sometimes known as Will, returned to his car, a new dilemma steaming his thoughts like water left to boil too long on a searing stove. The blood on the fetish would protect the girl somewhat, but it wouldn’t save her from the unnatural and unmerciful determination that motivated those things from a lower world. She desperately needed his help. And desperation only scratched the tip of the iceberg. She probably was getting a dose full of that extreme anxiety right now.
But what was to the thief’s benefit was that Will needed her and her continued well-being, just as much as she needed him. Maybe she didn’t know it, and Will didn’t intend on informing her of the fact, but it was the truth. He needed to hurry.
Once Will was sitting in his car, he turned on the police band radio and listened to the chatter of officers reporting back and forth. Then Will started the vehicle and left the area of the house on Durfrene Row. The police would be arriving soon, and Anthony would be doing some interesting explaining to the local authorities to prevent them from entering the house.
The thief had run in the direction opposite to where she had come into the neighborhood. With night vision goggles Will had watched both entrance and exit. Either she lived in the area and knew its streets very well, or she might have been truly panicked from her experience in the basement. Or since she had survived the incident to begin with, it might indicate some level of her intelligence. Wouldn’t a thief protect herself in some manner? If she knew she was going in, what would she do in order to prevent later identification? Lead the pursuers away from something or someplace she wanted to keep to herself?
Shadow People Page 5
