AlcyLeyva_AndThenThereWereCrows_EbookFormatting_Nook

by And Then There Were Crows (retail) (epub)

  But the cherry on top of the rancid cherry were the mouths. Every inch of his body sported a mouth full of sharp teeth. His knees, his thighs. The mouths lined his neck and stomach. The whispers, the odd humming I first thought were refrigerators. These mouths were chattering, mumbling, making rude slurping sounds.

  “But no, Grey. What I’m actually proposing benefits the both of us.”

  “Mutual benefit,” one mouth chimed in.

  “Collaboration,” another added.

  “I’m hungry,” the armpit mouth whined.

  “What can you give me that I would want? I already have one Shade tenant.”

  “Yes.” The Shade got really serious. “Yes, him. That runt.”

  “Traitor.”

  “Mortal-lover.”

  “No, seriously. I’m hungry!”

  “I have information on your friend, Grey. On all of us. Special information on how to defeat us.”

  “I know more than you think.” It felt stupid flying from my mouth. Barnem hadn’t told me shit about the Shades and seemed set on keeping it that way.

  The Shade smiled. “Your mouth moves, but that’s all lies.”

  “Lair!”

  “I’m starving over here!”

  Frustrated, the Shade yelled, “Fine,” and went to a light switch. He flicked it on, but I didn’t see what it was connected to. It was then that I noticed that one of those smiling bastards had ziptied my wrist while it was bent at the wrong angle. The fingers on my right hand hung there lifelessly; probably shattered my hand when they tossed me into that van. This gave me space to work with. I needed to find the right way to bend the loose bone.

  A second later, one of the cultist came down. He didn’t seem phased at all that this creature was prancing around naked.

  “You run around with your little turncoat, catching us, and yet you still have no idea what we Shades really are? You might as well be a child throwing punches in the dark. For instance.” He sashayed his way over to the disciple, who had been waiting patiently for the next order, and placed his hands on his shoulders. “Did you know that we Shades are separated by our motivations? Yes, when we are one, we are one being. But we are creatures of habit. Take me for instance.”

  “No, don’t!” I cried.

  But it was too late. The Shade opened its mouth, all of them, and inhaled. A black cloud poured from out of the disciple’s skin, one which the Shade ate. After one large suck, the man fell to the floor. But then he popped up and his smile grew even greater.

  After reveling and smacking all of his lips together, the Shade said, “I am the mouth of the beast, Grey. I eat fear, hatred, and unpleasantness. But look at what I’ve come to use my powers for. Look at him! Just look! He is happy. So happy. And you know he came in like you; with heartache and pain dripping out of his pores. Dangling from his ribs like cobwebs. That sister of yours leaving. And your parents. You feel abandoned here.”

  It knocked the air out of me. “How did you—”

  The Shade propped up his palm to silence me. The mouth on it told me to shhh. “Do not underestimate the nose of the gourmet of pain and suffering. That’s right, Grey. He came to me like you. And I drew it all out of him. I saved him, Grey. From his own little private hell. Me! Ask yourself: is this the work of an enemy? Hmm? Am I really all that bad?”

  To his credit, the sheepish looking man seemed better; almost lighter. He glanced at his own hands and touched his face in pure ecstasy. But it wasn’t hard to see what was wrong with this picture. “Happy or not, he didn’t choose.”

  The Shade got flustered. “I beg your pardon?”

  “He didn’t choose. There was no choice involved. So it’s … I dunno, empty.” I shook my head. “Let me tell you something that you obviously don’t know. Some humans want to be miserable and well, maybe I’m sort of biased but, I think that’s totally fine. I think it’s okay. Contrary to what you or anybody else believes, I don’t want to be happy all of the time. To me that sounds like hell. Happiness is supposed to be … ice cream and dogs you name Buttons. Things that eventually end. Happiness ends.”

  “You’re not listening to me,” the Shade growled. “Happiness doesn’t have to end. Look at this marvelous specimen of a pure joy. And this was my third time draining him today.”

  The disciple held up both thumbs.

  Then he jammed both thumbs into his eyes.

  I screamed. He went thrashing to the floor as he dug deeper and deeper into his own skull, laughing the entire time.

  The Shade sighed. “They always go for the eyeballs first,” he said, then flicked the light switch a few times.

  “I’m not making a deal with a Shade.” I quickly corrected myself. “Another. I’m not making a deal with another Shade.”

  “What is your deal with the runt? Hmm? Did you agree to feed him all of us, do all of the heavy lifting, while he sleeps away on your couch? Are you not paying attention? He is using you.” He threw his hands on his rolly hips. “At least partnering with me, you’d see a few benefits. All I’m asking is to be left alone while you get the others, starting with the Shade hiding inside the Beguilers.” He watched my body language carefully. Luckily, with my arms tied behind my back, I didn’t have much room to squirm. “So you did know that the Eye of the Beast had created The Beguilers? Color me impressed.”

  “Mhm. Knew the whole time. So to recap, you can go fuck yourself.” I got the rest of my limp wrist to turn and slipped my hand through the restraint, slamming the piece of plastic on the ground.

  “Disappointment.”

  “Utter failure.”

  “We should eat her. All those in favor?” To which fifty mouths all shouted “Yay!” One mouth shouted, “Nay,” and the rest got on him about. One of them even whispered to the other, “That’s why he’s back there.”

  The Shade rubbed his chin. “I guess you’re right. I could eat her.” But as I prepared for the worst, he added, “But I won’t.”

  “What”s that now?”

  He laid down on the ground and crossed his legs. “Oh, c’mon. I’m a lover not a fighter. I played the bluff and you called me out on it. I am defeated.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No shit. I concede. No mas. Your attack was super effective. Just sign me up. I’m on Team Grey. Who am I sharing a room with?”

  “No one. You’re not coming to live with me. Why is everyone acting like I need help? Team Grey is not a thing!” I yelled.

  There was a commotion of laughter upstairs. It sounded like a canned studio audience laugh.

  “Admit it. You need me, Grey. If you ask me—”

  “I didn’t!”

  “But if you did, I say we hunt down the Eye. He’s always been a bit of a stalker, that one. Or the Arm. He’s been snatching women down on the Lower East Side.”

  I groaned. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  The plump, rotting biscuit of a man gave me a golf clap. “Atta girl. And I want to say that you won’t regret it, but I don’t want that sort of pressure.”

  “Fine. Just … you can’t feed on anyone. And you have to release your sheep upstairs.”

  The mouth on his shoulder actually booed me. “Getting bored by the second. All right. All right, fine. But I want to keep one. Just to carry my bags.” The light in the stairway suddenly appeared again, and the Shade rolled over lazily. “Finally. I summoned you hours ago to clean up this mess. Just slap some sunglasses on him and get the guy to a hospital, will you? And oh, pack my good bag. Just a few robes and my good lotion.”

  Someone came flying down the steps and hit the bottom floor with a splat. A rush of footsteps later and I found myself staring at Barnem. His gaze bounced between the Shade’s face and mine. “You all right, Grey?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. You’re late as usual. Was just talking to … wait. What s
hould I call you?”

  But I never got a response. Instead, I looked up and saw that Barnem had driven his entire arm right through the Shade’s belly, rupturing it like a balloon filled with black tar. The sheer violence of it all froze me where I stood. The Shade screamed, but Barnem hit him two more times and the slop flew everywhere.

  And then my roommate charged in and started scooping up the broken flaps and limp body parts and stuffed them in his mouth.

  I sat on the ground, dazed, watching the scene unfold in front of me, wondering if I was actually making anything better or if by some freakish fuckery of luck, I was making things worse.

  CHAPTER 20

  The next morning, with my wrist rocking all the colors featured in Starry Sky, I slunk out of bed and dragged ass to the bathroom. My body ached everywhere. If there was one thing I could thank all of this demon hunting for, it was my first taste of cardio in years.

  Of course, all I wanted was one day to myself, to exhale, to try to dump all of the nightmarish brain matter before it spread to the remaining healthy tissue.

  And of course what I got instead was two people staring at me as soon as I came out of the bathroom.

  Barnem stood by the window, arms crossed. The demon had turned my father’s chair to sit and face me.

  “You know, I can’t help but feel that in some way, you’re pissed off at us for saving your life yesterday.”

  “Leave me alone, Barnem.”

  “Yup. There’s that feeling again,” the Seraph said with a point.

  My roommate launched itself at me but I quickly pushed it away. After eating another Shade, it had transformed again: now into a seven foot tall, stretched out version of a long human shadow. Its face was still incredibly round and its mouth was still big enough to stuff six cats into. But now it had rounded shoulders and long arms; legs with knees, and five shadowy digits on its hands and feet.

  “I told you that I don’t need you to fix every bone I break. It’s called a hospital.” I then remembered that I wasn’t sure where my insurance card was. I went to a drawer instead. “It’s called masking tape.”

  “Do tell then …” Barnem picked his nose. “Let’s say we don’t show up to save your ass. How were you going to vanquish that Shade?”

  “It had given up.”

  “Take it from me, Grey. I’ve been hunting these creeps my entire life. These things don’t ‘give up’. Centuries of screwing with mankind, orchestrating wars and murders and one whole season of Friends, and one talk with you makes it all a-okay?”

  “Don’t say ‘a-okay’. It’s dumb. And yes, it was giving me information. It told me how to find the next two Shades.”

  “It was trying to save its ass!”

  “Well, aren’t we freaking all, Barnem? Isn’t that what we’re all doing? Because the last time I checked, you were a Seraphim who didn’t do his job when ‘The Beast’ of a Revelations came knocking on my door. And you, my shadowy friend. Aren’t you using me to eat all of your best buds? Aren’t the both of you using me because you can’t do any of this on your own? ” I could feel the demon and the angel grow silent.

  “I don’t need you,” I snapped, grabbing a jacket and my keys. “Didn’t need either of you back before this whole mess started and need you even less now. I’ll figure out the demon stuff. I’ll figure out my own life. I’ll figure it all out. And you could be gone. And you can go back to hell. Thank you and good day.”

  I emphatically slammed the door shut behind me and stood reveling in my small victory.

  Of course, this didn’t last long.

  Keeping my eyes down, and with both Barnem and the Shade watching me as I rushed my way back in, I walked back into my apartment to put some pants on.

  Then I left.

  CHAPTER 21

  “We would all like to thank Karen for her gushing review of this book,” Phil said to the group. “Very informative. But I think we all agreed to stick to chapter books.”

  “But we shouldn’t discredit the magic of a good Dr. Seuss book,” Karen replied heartily. “I’m serious. It’s filled with magic. Fox in Socks is clearly a sixty page incantation to inflict pestilence upon our enemies.”

  The group looked uneasy in their seats.

  Phil sighed. “For the fourth month in a row, Karen, we are not—”

  “No. Look, look. ‘Fox. Socks. Box. Knox. Knox in box. Fox in socks.’ It’s all here. I’m not making this up. It’s all here.”

  For the next three days, I kept returning to The Beguilers. I went to their “Darkness Evocation and Resume Typing Seminar”, an Unblessing of Children ceremony followed by a family movie night screening of Free Wily, and of course, their Book Club meeting. Sure I started going to flush out the Shade for myself, but oddly enough, it always felt good to head back. I guess it was our kinship of sullen souls. Or maybe it was that taking out the Smilie Cult had made me somewhat of a rock star. No one gushed over me, mind you, they weren’t those kind of people. They listened to me intently when I spoke and respected my space. The family night was a potluck and everyone brought in the worst dishes I have ever seen in my life. I don’t know what depression and zero culinary skills have in common, but all of these people seemed like kindred souls to me. I guess that’s the allure of a cult in the first place: a bunch of people who are absolutely lost and scared, and decide to buy cups and rent a coffee machine and watch movies of leaping orcas. Even some of the Smilie followers flocked to The Beguilers and didn’t seem to care that I had destroyed their dreams. They seemed kind if used to it.

  Phil, on the other hand, was getting more and more pissed at me as I started showing my face at the various meetings. He had gone from freakish fanboy to furious fifth wheel in a matter of days, and I could understand why. As founder of the cult, I was making the guy look pretty damn irrelevant. Then again, there could have been a darker reason. The Smilie Shade was pretty satisfied with sitting back and corrupting people. Just because the first demon was (literally) hell bent on seeing my head on a spike, that didn’t mean the others would be so proactive. Mason was running for mayor, the skin Shade built a cult, and my roommate once belched the entire jingle to a pickled mayonnaise commercial. I knew that I needed to check him in case he was the Shade, but the guy didn’t want anything to do with me. So I took to getting to know everyone else myself.

  With leads running dry and everyone turning out to be “normal”, the Mason problem was getting worse. What everyone took as a joke his first week was suddenly making every news show and paper headline the next. It turned out that Mason was built for politics. This little punchline of man—of which the actual joke was “What is orange and orange, and orange all over?”—was seemingly rude enough, thick-headed and completely disconnected from human reasoning, to be perfect for the camera. It was never if he was going to say something that was borderline sociopathic. If never came into play when Mason Scarborough was in front of the media, and it made it impossible to choose one. My personal fav was his reply to a reporter that had asked him what he would do if the city faced another teacher walk-out. Mason proceeded to go on a forty-seven minute rant of why the guillotine was created. Then he ended his tirade with, “Thank you. Next question.”

  Figuring to kill two Shades with one stone, I came up with a plan that I knew Barnem would absolutely shit himself if he knew. But since I had pointed out the general direction I wanted him to piss off, I didn’t need approval. The only problem was that the key to the whole thing was Gary, and getting the guy by himself was torture. Shutting down the Smilie cult had made me something of a celebrity. Some of its former disciples had joined, and that meant everyone wanted to talk to me.

  Between the handshakes and compliments, I also had to dodge Phil as much as possible. The man’s glare was now turned up to eleven. His entire face scrunched all the way to the center of his bald head, with a thick vein throbbing by his temple that se
emed to get bigger and bigger as the night went on. I needed Gary, not Phil, if I was going to get to Mason first.

  After two hours, my opportunity fell right into my lap. A rep from the center had called Phil away to talk about how they could turn down the chanting after 8 p.m. (“But that’s what everyone looks forward to,” he said, frustrated.) and I was able to pull Gary to the side where no one else could hear.

  “I need you to do me a favor. But we would need to leave right now.”

  Gary nodded again and hurried off to get his coat.

  “Oh, and electrical tape,” I called after him.

  *****

  In the cab, Gary rode in the front seat to best give our driver directions. Next left. Next right. I was already lost but at least Gary knew where he was going. I was busy using the thick gray tape to bound around my wrist, keeping the loose bone from sliding too much.

  “You sure you know where Mason is?” I asked Gary.

  He laughed. “Just up ahead.”

  “RUN BITCH! OMMAGAHD! RUN BITCH! OMMAGAHD!”

  The sound of that ringer had me wanting to claw my ears out.

  “Gary.”

  “Sorry, sorry. That’s me.” Gary reached for his phone and picked it up. After a few odd non sequiturs, he handed me the cell. It was Phil’s angry voice on the line.

  “Where are you?” he screeched.

  “Gary’s helping me with something. We’ll be back soon.”

  “No! You can’t go out without me. That wasn’t the agreement.”

  “What agreement? Calm the fuck down there, Phil.”

  He screamed in my ear, “I said tell me where you are or I swear I’ll hunt you down myself, you little—”

  I hung up the phone. Phil had always creeped me out, and this was proof positive that the guy was either a Shade or working with one. I made a mental note that after I confirmed where Mason was staying, the weird bald guy who had carved a damn eye into his forehead was next.