by Michael Dean
Once again, I was let down. I waited and waited some more, no Shade, nor Shadow showed. When afternoon became late again, I decided that I couldn’t wait in any longer. I had to dishonor Mr. Lewis’s wishes and go over there. Worry about Shade was overtaking my conscience and I couldn’t go after Shimmer with my mind in such turmoil. I didn’t care about their questions of how I got over there. I would just tell them that a friend dropped me off.
Without wasting another second, I hauled ass over there. I didn’t fly because there was plenty of daylight still, but when I thought no one was around, I burned up the road ways and forest pathways in a dead sprint as only I can. It didn’t take long to arrive. Shade’s car was in exactly the same spot as it was the last time I’d visited the house. With nervous anticipation, I opened the little white gate and walked into their yard. Before I could get to the front door, Mr. Lewis swung it open.
“Leo! Where is my daughter?” He stomped down the porch stairs and met me halfway up the path.
Chapter 14
GONE
“Wha…what?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“The last time she was seen she was with you…where is my daughter?” He grabbed me by my collar with both hands and started shoving me and shaking me.
“Sir…I have no idea, that’s why I’m here. I haven’t seen her in two days and I was getting worried about her.”
“Richard!” Anne called out to her disgruntled husband from inside the house. “Get a hold of yourself!”
He looked at me with bloodshot eyes, like he’d been awake for days. Tears began to well up within them as he shoved me into a release, letting out a sorrowful sigh.
“I swear to God, son, if I find out you had anything to do with Shade’s disappearance, I will kill you myself.”
“She’s not here?” I asked. He looked at me, shocked.
“Richard, come inside, honey. Let me talk with him.” Anne stood at the doorway, signaling for him to come inside.
Mr. Lewis turned away from me, choking back tears as he sunk his head and walked back to the door. Anne hugged him, whispered in his ear, and patted him on the back as he walked by. When he was fully inside, Anne shot me a condemning look and shut the door behind her as she walked over to her smoking area on the porch.
“Come on up, Leo, don’t be afraid. We need to have a little talk.” She sighed.
I didn’t say anything and cautiously approached her.
“I told him not to call the police yet, even though they told us to alert them if you showed up here. At least he won’t call them until we’ve talked.” She puffed on her cigarette and patted the arm of the empty chair that sat across from her. “Here, take a seat.”
“Mrs. Lewis—Anne…” I sat in the chair. “What’s going on? Where’s Shade?”
She took another hit with a sad smile. “I was hoping you could tell me that.”
“The last time I saw her she was driving away from my house, heading home to you. Her car is here, I just assumed she was inside when I showed up.”
“We found it in the driveway, parked right there, but she was nowhere to be found. At first we thought that maybe you two were walking around, or maybe Sandra came and got her, but we talked with Sandra and she hadn’t seen her, so our last hope was that she was with you, but hours went by and nothing. With all these disappearances lately, I’m not sure what to think. Now my daughter is one of the missing.” She puffed away again, avoiding eye contact with me.
Now I knew why they were so restless that first night and had so many lights on—they were waiting for her to come home. I watched as she nervously stamped out her cigarette, only to reach into her pack and light up another one.
“Leo, there has never been a single day that I haven’t talked or seen my daughter since she was born; same goes for Richard. The agony of staring into her empty room with all of her things in place, not knowing,” her voice began to tremble, “if she is alive…or dead… is pure torture. If she is alive, we can breathe and work on how we can get her home. Even if she’s dead, at least we can do the same. But we’d know either way.”
I listened intently as she huffed out a cloud of smoke, only to hit the cigarette again through a trembling hand. “We have to find out, Leo.” She looked at me as tears streamed down her face. “Do you know anything? Please tell us.”
Naturally I couldn’t tell her about what the real play was, my war with Hell and her daughter’s unintentional involvement in it. No way was I going to mention that I was fighting vampires right before Shade took off for home. But one thing I could talk about, which was true, I didn’t directly have anything to do with Shade’s disappearance.
“Anne,” I reached over and held her hand, “I haven’t done anything with Shade. I would never hurt her. This is the first I’ve heard about her not showing up at home the other night, and believe me, if she is truly missing, I want to find her and bring her back just as much as you and Mr. Lewis do.” I stared at her in earnest.
Anne put down her cigarette in the ashtray and wiped the tears from her face with one hand while still holding onto me with her other one. Then, with the most sincere look I have ever seen her give me, she said, “Can you?”
I think I knew what she meant. All the suspicious looks and questions she had hit me with in the past every time I was with Shade meant that maybe she did have some kind of sixth sense about me after all. I leaned back in my chair and pulled my hand from hers, but she quickly reached over and grabbed it again, confirming my observations about her past behavior towards me.
“Your eyes give you away, Leo.”
I looked to the ground, knowing what she meant.
“They are so cold…empty. They tell on you and what you store inside. It’s easy to see that something else is at work within you, something menacing, unlike any human trait I’ve ever seen. That was my first clue that you were different.”
“And your next clue?” I looked back up at her.
“Leo, we’ve looked for a Cutler family in Mountainside; there isn’t a family with the last name Cutler for hundreds of miles. I picked up on your bogus stories about your parents right away, not so much from you, but from Shade’s aura. Your skin is pale and freezing. As I sit here and squeeze your hand, you have no pulse…how is that possible, son? How are you able to sit right here before me, but yet have no heartbeat?” I pulled my hand away.
I wasn’t sure what to tell her. Do I admit what I am and put another person in harm’s way just to settle her curiosity about me? I couldn’t do that.
“Leo…I’m a sensitive. I can sense things that other human beings cannot. I see spirits of people who have long passed away from this earth, I can read auras, human or not. Because of those auras, I can sense good and evil in people or—”
“I know what a sensitive is.” I interrupted her because I could tell she was about to reference me as the “or.”
“Then you must know that I can sense a darkness within you. You have no spiritual color in your aura, and everyone, and I do mean everyone, that’s of this earth has spiritual color surrounding them at all times. It’s the spiritual glow to their personalities. You…Leo…are shrouded in black. This tells me, more than your eyes do, that you may be evil.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “So, do you feel that I am…evil?”
She took another hit off her cigarette before stamping it out. “I don’t know what I feel about you, son, and that’s what perplexes me. I know you are born of the dark, but I can also sense that you love my daughter, beings from the dark never care for anything, that I know of. The vibe I’m getting from you right now is that you didn’t have anything to do with my daughter being missing…at least directly. This is why I’m so confused on what I am supposed to do with you.”
“Do with me?”
“Yes, do with you. Do I turn you in to the authorities as suspect number one in my daughter’s disappearance, or do I let you go, hoping that somehow, some way, you may have some kind of
insight that no one else has on where to find her? I think you do.”
I continued to stare at her, emotionless, trying not to clue her in on that fact that she was right.
“Can you bring my daughter back to me, Leo?”
There was a long pause between us but we never lost eye contact with one another before I spoke. “I love Shade more than anything on this earth, believe me when I say I will do all that I can, if I can, to bring her back safely…wherever she may be.”
I was still playing it cool. She didn’t need to know what I knew about where to search for her daughter. It could completely interfere with what I needed to do to save her, which meant beating Shimmer and whoever else got in the way.
“Leo…” She reached over to me again and placed my hand in between both of hers and stared at me hard. “Listen, bring her home to me…please.”
I didn’t say another word, I just nodded in confirmation. In this moment, her mother and I affirmed that I was something more than either I, or Shade, was letting on. As to what I was, I don’t think she was completely clear on that yet, she just knew that I wasn’t purely of this earth.
The front door swung open with authority and we released our hands.
“I’m tired of waiting, Anne. He needs to go down to the police station so they can get to the bottom of what in the hell is going on around here and where our daughter is at!” Richard walked out on the porch towards us.
“Wait here, Leo.”
Anne got up and instructed her husband to keep his voice down and that they could discuss this inside.
“Don’t you leave that damn chair, boy.” Mr. Lewis waved his finger at me.
They went inside together, closing the front door behind them. They didn’t walk very far to have their private discussion. Their talk wasn’t very private. I could hear every single muffled word they said.
Anne told Richard that she didn’t want the cops to know that they’d seen me. This, of course, sent him into a high pitched rant about what in the world she was thinking and that they couldn’t just let me walk away without having the cops at least interview me. She calmed him, telling him that she didn’t think I had anything to do with Shade’s disappearance. He objected to that as well, almost not believing the fact that his wife was taking my side on things. After a few more back and forth sessions, she told him to trust her instincts, something that he seemed to respect about her, and let me be, at least for now.
I didn’t hear any confirmation coming from Mr. Lewis, but the front door opened again and Anne stuck her head out. “Leo, come here, my boy.”
I stood up and came over to her.
“You’re on borrowed time…bring Shade back to us.”
With a stern face, I nodded.
“And Leo, son—your eyes may scream out death, but every time you look at my daughter, a spark of life lights within them. It’s because of that spark I’ve seen inside of you that I’m trusting in you now and believing your words.”
She leaned out and actually kissed me on the cheek. I wasn’t sure how to react so I just smiled at her. It was my way of saying thanks for trusting in me and I think she understood. I turned around and trotted down the steps.
“Leo,” she called to me, “be careful. Bring her back…both of you come back.” I didn’t say or do anything. I simply turned back around and kept on walking.
The writing was on the wall now. The whole Jonas thing was a set up right from the get-go. It was a distraction in order to get me looking in the other direction. Again, Shimmer bent the rules to his advantage. He had my girl, I just knew it. He must have used Jonas and his crew as a show that night in order to catch Shade alone. Telling me that she was safe if I won fooled me enough to think that while I was fighting them, nothing was going to happen to her in the meantime. Jonas had indeed led me away to get to Shade. He was the perfect wolf.
I was ticked now. They played me for a fool…and it worked. Now it was time for me to focus and prepare. Shade wasn’t going anywhere now that she was in Shimmer’s custody. At the same time, I couldn’t wait much longer to go after him because I knew he wanted to make her one of his mistresses. But Shimmer was the type to make a show of it. I absolutely believed Jonas when he told me that Shimmer would wait until All Hallows’ Eve before he tried to make her his bride with his bite, but I couldn’t be sure.
I didn’t rush on my way back home. My mind was racing and I thought I would take a few minutes to sit and ponder at this park that was a few miles up the road from Shade’s house. It was in the neighborhood where Scruffy and Sandra lived. Ironically enough, when I got to the empty park, I was pretty sure I saw Sandra’s convertible bug go by, but I didn’t pay it much mind. I picked out the middle swing on the swing set and plopped myself down. I stuck my foot in the worn out groove of dirt in the ground and swayed myself back and forth as I thought.
I never imagined when I started my fight for Diccitidel that so many humans would be in danger alongside me. I realize this sounds harsh, but maybe I should have stuck to the Darryl Kite plan. That would have only taken two lives, and one of them, Shade—would have moved on in spirit to something much greater than what Darryl and I both are doomed to wallow in for eternity. A domino effect is under way now and I’ve endangered more lives than I could have imagined, and by the way things are looking, it appears that I may have lost Shade anyway. Maybe this whole thing was all for naught. I don’t know.
I must confess that every time I start thinking this way and want to throw in the towel on this whole mission, I keep seeing my driving force in my mind, Shade, and it motivates me to push on. Even if she was to die or become one of Shimmer’s mistresses, I couldn’t let her go down without knowing that the only person on this earth and out if it who could fight for her, wasn’t doing everything he could to get her back. My ongoing fight for freedom seemed insignificant at this point. Shade’s safety was priority number one now and I was coming for her no matter what the outcome may be.
With that, I slowly started to get up out of the swing. I wasn’t in a hurry to get there because I knew Shade wasn’t in any less or more danger as of now. It didn’t matter if I got back an hour earlier or later, I was more about clearing my mind and a nice moderately paced walk back instead of a lightning quick run would help. Not to mention there was still plenty of daylight that I had to burn before my flight to Romania tonight. At least I wouldn’t get exposed to daylight until I was over the vacant ocean instead of over a major city somewhere. Plus, the closer I get on that flight, the more pissed off I’m sure I’ll be, so by the time I get there, I’ll be ready to kick some ass.
“Leo,” a familiar voice called from behind me. I turned to see that it was Sandra, and with her was a more relaxed looking Scruffy walking next to her. “Are you okay?”
I looked around briefly, trying to avoid eye contact. I was still being stubborn when it came to Scruffy. I couldn’t help myself, it felt unnatural to me, of course, to be forgiving to anyone else other than Shade. I mean, I am still a Demon. But I swallowed my pride and opened up some dialog with Sandra.
“I’m good. How are you guys?”
“We’re fine. Sorry to bother you, but we saw you sitting here when we drove by and thought we’d stop in to see how you were doing.”
“I’m hanging in there, thanks for your concern. I guess that you two have heard? Mrs. Lewis told me that she talked to you.”
“Yeah, we spoke on the night Shade disappeared, and we’ve spoken a couple times since then. Seems like everyone around Mountainside these days are in close touch because of all these missing kids. We,” she turned and looked at Scruff, “were afraid that we lost both of you after the party that night. Glad to see you’re still here.”
“Sorry about Shade, bro,” Scruffy added.
“Again, thanks you guys, I appreciate that.” I humbly responded, pleasantly surprised that Scruffy had made a small peace offering towards me.
“Her parents thought that you might have had something
to do with Shade disappearing, but we knew—at least we hoped—that you didn’t.”
“I would never hurt her, if that’s what you two are thinking.”
They fumbled around with their words, trying to navigate a way around insinuations and accusations. “I know you’re not trying to point fingers at anyone, she’s your friend. You want answers as much as I—I understand.”
Sandra smiled in relief. Even Scruffy managed to push out a half-hearted grin. Then the two of them fidgeted around as if they wanted to say something else to me but couldn’t find a way to bring it to their lips.
“What? What else is on your minds?”
“Well…” Sandra started, then Scruffy took over.
“Leo, I gotta ask, the other night, when all of those…things…were attacking everyone, I saw you. Much like that night up at Miller’s Hill, you seemed to know what was going on, you didn’t look rattled. If anything, you looked calm. Once again it appeared you stayed behind and here you are without a mark on you, not gone missing, either.”
“So what are you asking me, Scruff?”
They looked at one another.
“Are you a part of those…people? Do you know them or something, or at least, why they’re here?”
I could only smile sarcastically at the two of them before I could answer, putting on my best front to get them off my scent.
“No, Scruffy, I don’t know them…and I don’t know why they’re here.” I shook my head around like I was put off by his questions.
They must have bought into my fake body language show as I played dumb because both of them stammered over the top of one another to find the right words to comfort me.
“Man, I know it seems like we’re coming after you, but I promise you we’re not. I know you and I have butted heads lately, but you gotta know that neither Sandra nor I think anything bad about you. I know you better than anyone, and I know you’re a good soul. I’m sorry if we offended ya, bro.”
