by Gina Shafer
“Yeah, but tell your dad about the time she left a dead crow in Ted’s bed after he made her sit in the back of the SUV. He screamed like a little girl!” We all chuckle at the thought of Ted, screaming while decked out in all his tactical gear.
Peter reaches up to pat Willow on the top of the head and I glance in his direction, noticing movement coming from his window. It’s so faint that I barely register it at first, but when a shadow, clearly in the shape of fingers, presses against the glass, I shout, “Peter, your window!” I pull out my gun and aim it at the window, and shift so that my back is butted up against the door. I hear the glass shatter, but before I have the chance to aim and shoot, the scorched hand already has its fingers curled around Peter’s throat, ripping into the flesh. I fire off two shots and hit the shadow-walker twice just above its blackened ear, the bullets bursting into flames when they hit its charred skin. I hear the shrill screech it makes as it crumples off the side of the car. Marcel slams on the brakes and my eyes drift to Peter. His lifeless body is slumped forward and I can hear the blood dripping onto the carpet. There is so much blood that it sounds more like a water faucet left on full blast than the simple trickle of a leaky pipe.
“Peter?” Marcel calls out in question, slamming on the brakes.
“No. He didn’t make it,” I say, after running my eyes over the body next to me.
“Fuck!” Soren screams just before he bashes his knuckles into the dash in front of him. In that moment, as his body shakes with anger and grief, his figure morphs in my mind into the young boy I left behind. What I would have done to shield him from this evil in the world. To never let him feel this way, well… I would have died for that.
“Don’t say anything to Lu before we reach the warehouse,” Marcel whispers to Soren as he places his hand gently on his shoulder. I wonder about Lu and Peter for a moment before the raw power that radiates through my son’s muscles distracts me. He moves his head up and down and I feel the mood shift in the vehicle. Sicarri never could dwell on their grief for long. Only in the lonely moments would true mental suffering set in.
“The demons have gotten faster,” I say as more of a question than a statement. They’ve always had inhuman speeds and more strength than a normal human being would, but to leap on to our speeding car and smash in the window? I’ve never seen that before.
“We’ve learned they grow more powerful the older they are,” Marcel says, and it immediately dawns on me why.
I don’t need his help to put it together. The older a shadow-walker becomes, the more soul fire they’ve had a chance to devour. I shiver at this thought.
“Do they do this often? Unexpected attacks?” I ask.
“Not as often lately, but yes. If they come in contact with us, we never escape without a fight. Normally we’re prepared, and they don’t come around heavily populated areas much anymore. They’re more afraid now since we joined forces with the demons,” Marcel tells me.
“Why do you think the demons went after me at the diner, then?” I ask, remembering their faces when they climbed through the window chasing after me.
“I think they knew who you were, Dad. They wanted to capture you, not devour your fire,” Soren answers.
“What the hell was that?” I hear Ted shout from behind us, no doubt just as confused as we are. Demons, at least the ones I’m used to fighting, don’t attack individually. Where are the rest of them? And more importantly… how did they know we were here?
I reach over Willow and adjust Peter’s body so that he’s not bleeding out on the carpet anymore. I also take his pistol in the hand that isn’t holding my own gun and tuck it into my belt.
My body goes still when I hear Willow growl, realizing she’s ready for more fight. Her lips are raised over her teeth, and she’s staring out the windshield, ready to attack. My eyes follow hers, straight ahead. Marcel and Soren are speculating over how the shadow-walker found us and they have not yet noticed there are hundreds of shadow-walkers lining the street ahead of us.
“We need to go… now.” My voice comes out surprisingly calm considering we’re about to become a midnight snack for these shadow-walkers. They want our flames, our magic, and they’ll do anything to get it. My words snap Marcel and Soren out of their conversation and they follow my gaze forward. I see their eyes go wide as they take in the scene before them.
“Marcel, step on the gas!” This time I shout, and Marcel’s foot slams onto the gas pedal. Soren pulls out his pistol, and Willow rips out a growl crossed with a bark that sends a shiver down my spine. I glance behind us to check if Ted and Xo are following, and sure enough, they’ve matched our speed.
“Use your gun! Xo loaded it with exploding bullets!” Soren shouts just before we reach them.
We hit through the first few shadow-walkers easily enough, but are slowed down by the sheer volume of them. The shadow-walkers are clearly confused, wavering between wanting to attack us and not wanting to get hit by the speeding car. One shatters my window and I put a bullet between its eyes. The shadow-walker’s head bursts into flames so quickly that I can feel the heat against my cheek before it crashes to the ground. Willow stands on Peter’s lifeless legs, using him as a boost, and wraps her teeth around the scorched face of a demon. She pulls, locking her jaw and tearing meat and muscle away until there is only bone left. I aim my pistol and fire a bullet into the cavity of its brain, watching the flames flicker as it falls back.
A shadow-walker climbs onto the hood, slamming its palms against the windshield, its silver eyes locked on Marcel. It’s trying to take out the driver. Soren takes its distraction as an opportunity to reach his hand through the window and aim his pistol at the shadow-walker. His first bullet grazes its arm, causing the shadow-walker to shriek and turn to expose its chest to Soren. The second shot breaks through the shadow-walker’s chest cavity, igniting him from the inside out. The light from the burning body on the hood illuminates the others, and I realize…
There are so many of them. More than I ever used to fight at one time. Their numbers must have grown.
Marcel gains more speed and crashes through shadow-walkers like they’re nothing. Annihilating many of them, crushing them under the heavy wheels. I aim and fire countless times, hitting shadow-walkers with every flame-filled bullet until I notice we are no longer surrounded. The shadow-walkers are running after us, just barely under our speed, but Marcel and Ted are pushing these vehicles to their limits. The trees and buildings blur as we drive for miles, finally reaching the warehouse after a couple of hours.
All this time, and I’m back where I started. The warehouse looks exactly the same, with the same tattered sign still hanging by a thread. I step out of the SUV and look up, taking a deep breath, filling my lungs with clean air. The burning smell of magic is noticeably absent, unlike the last time I was here. Ted and Xo run to the SUV I was just in and carefully grab Peter, carrying him up to the door with a man on each end. Lu follows closely behind, her face stricken with grief. For a moment I consider the relationship between Lu and Peter was more than what lingered on the surface. I want to express my sorrow for her, but I know that now isn’t the time.
Soren walks to me, putting his arm on my shoulder. I know he’s thankful we both made it out of there. I place my hand on his shoulder and grip once, twice, until we both release.
“What will you do with Peter’s body?” I ask my son.
“We still do the burning ceremonies, Dad. Like Grandpa taught us,” he answers. Growing up, this was the way we paid respect to our fallen. Burning them was the only way to insure that their flame could never be stolen. That the demons could never harvest it, never gain more power.
Marcel walks to the door and slides it open, causing the metal to groan in protest. Willow hops out of the car and runs into the big building, and bodies come running out from within: more Sicarri. Soren tenses next to me when another man walks out, and I squint. There’s no way I’m seeing this correctly; maybe the fight has affected me more
than I thought. But when he stops in front of me, there is no doubting it.
It’s Cormac.
“Cormac…” I say, ready to embrace my closest friend. I can’t believe he’s alive. I lift my arms and move my body toward him, but his smile is odd. Not a particularly friendly one, and not a smile I can say I’ve ever seen on Cormac before. I realize that he hasn’t aged a day, just like me. He shakes his head, only slightly, and blinks his eyes once. Sliver flashes behind his lids.
A demon.
“Dad, wait!” I hear Soren plead, but it’s all for naught. I am on the demon in less than the time it takes for my heart to beat twice, with the dagger Vara left me pulled from my pocket in one swift move, now sitting against his throat.
“He’s a demon, Soren, I saw his eyes!” I spit out, pressing my blade into his throat, gratified when I see the skin of his neck bend against the tip that is firmly pressed against his esophagus. I’m so close to drawing blood, but I hold back only because of Soren’s voice.
“Don’t hurt him, Dad, we need him! He won’t do anything,” Soren begs again. I move my eyes to Soren, confused.
My blade presses in deeper for a second more, and then I release him.
“I want to know what the fuck is going on. Immediately.” I point to Soren and then to Cormac with the end of my blade as I speak, and then tuck it safely back into my jacket pocket. Cormac smiles that same inhuman smile once more and my stomach rolls. How can the Sicarri allow this?
“We have a lot to talk about, Elijah,” Cormac says. I glance over his shoulder and see Marcel with his arms crossed and a few other Sicarri men I don’t know standing in the doorway. I run my fingers through my hair and brush past Cormac, knocking my shoulder against his in the process. You better believe we have a lot to talk about, and I will hear every last detail.
Regardless of how badly I want to know what the hell is going on around here, I haven’t spoken to anyone since the argument outside the warehouse. Although I have received stares from just about everyone, when I walked passed Willow’s bed, she didn’t even look up.
I’ve spent the past… Actually, I don’t know how long I’ve been in this shower, but damn does it feel good letting water flow down the ridges of my back, loosening the strained muscles there. When I first got in, I washed the blood from Peter’s body off my right side, and watched as the red mixed with the white tile like two mediums on a paint pallet. Vara’s dagger sits on tile ledge to the left of me, where I placed it after I used the blade to give my hair a trim. I’m beginning to feel more like myself again, now that my hair is shorter and my beard has been shaped. I lift my head and wipe the water from my brow before it drips into my eyes. It’s time for me to find Soren and figure out what this business with Cormac is all about. I turn the faucet slowly, stopping the water with a few twists, and I hear the pipes groan in the quiet shower room. I reach up and grab the towel off the hook on the wall in front of me and begin to wrap it low around my waist when I sense someone on the other side of the room. I reach for my dagger and turn to see who’s entered the showers.
“Ahem...” a throaty female voice echoes against the crisp white tiles. A woman, tall and slender, stands against the wall. Her chestnut hair is shoulder length, and her face is centered with bright blue coal-lined eyes. Her beauty hits me slow, like the tide rolling in. I notice it in little bits as we stare awkwardly at each other.
“I’m sorry?” I ask, confused. She smiles stiffly, almost mockingly, and her pearly white teeth shine in the fluorescent lighting. I notice a few tiny wrinkles set deep between her brows when she frowns at me. And a small piece of tiger’s eye shines around her neck, dangling from a delicate gold chain.
“I’m Karina,” she says, followed by silence. So this is the woman who sent the food with Xo. She’s young, around Soren’s age… so I guess around my age too.
“I’m…” I begin to say, but I’m interrupted.
“Elijah. I already know,” she finishes for me. Her pouty pink lips pinch between her teeth and she shifts in her boots. Something about this woman is so familiar, and I find myself smirking at her. The smile feels awkward on my face; the muscles used for this emotion are lazy from years of unuse. This might be the first time I’ve genuinely smiled since I woke, and I feel a pang of guilt for it. Why should I smile when everything has gone to such shit around me and the only woman I want is missing? Karina must not notice my inner turmoil because she smiles back. We’re surrounded by the silence in the room broken only by the dripping water from showerheads.
“Marcel sent me to find you. They’re having a meeting in the arms room.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and walks from the room, leaving me just as confused as I was before I had time to clear my head in the shower. Damn it.
I head back to the small room Soren brought me to when we first arrived. The warehouse has been converted to a headquarters for the Sicarri, and in the twenty years I’ve been gone, they’ve added barracks for almost every member and their families to reside here.
To say that it was shocking when I first entered the warehouse would be an understatement. The level of technology, equipment, and rooms filling the old shipping factory is truly remarkable. They weren’t lying when they said things were different.
There are two floors separating the warehouse from work and home life. When I first walked in, I saw a mass of computers and desks riddled throughout the expanse in front of me like a maze. When I made my way farther in, I noticed the different steel doors with embossed letters in the center marking the supply room, armory, medical office—hell, even a training room.
There is an elevator, directly in the middle of the wall on the far side of the warehouse that takes you to the second floor, where all the families stay. It’s somewhat like an apartment complex, a long corridor with doors lining either side. Some of the rooms are small, meant for single people only needing one bed, and some of them are huge, meant for families with children. I would be lying if I said that this doesn’t bring me immense joy. Sicarri members are much nearer their families now than ever before. I briefly wonder what it would have been like if Vara and I lived here with Soren.
There is a change of clothes lying on the bed when I come back from my shower. No doubt Soren snuck back in and placed them here for me. I dress myself quickly in the dark jeans, grey T-shirt, and black tactical jacket, making sure to slip my tiger’s eye into the front pocket. The feel of clean clothes is a welcome change from the dirty ones I had on. I push on my dark leather boots and slide my gun holster over my shoulders, slipping in the pistol Xo had supplied me with before we left for the warehouse. The dagger Vara left for me finds its place at the holster on my ankle, and I shift my pant leg down to cover it. I feel… normal. There is comfort for me, having my weapons in their places. My muscle memory was not lost during my twenty-year sleep.
When I finally make it to the arms room, I’m the last person to enter and I stop for a moment to take in the room. The walls are lined with weapons and there is a long mahogany table with black leather chairs lining the sides. I stride to Soren and sit in the empty chair next to him, nodding in greeting. Cormac sits on the other side of the table, and next to him is the same woman from the shower room, Karina, while Marcel sits at the front.
“Elijah, this is Karina… our head of intelligence.” Marcel gestures toward the woman with eyes as blue as the sea. I nod my head in her direction, only making eye contact for a second before shifting my gaze to Cormac. She shouldn’t be sitting next to him. No one should.
“We’ve met. And now that we’ve gotten past the formalities, can anyone here tell me why I shouldn’t turn this demon into ash?” I feel the blood rush to my face at my rudeness, but I don’t retract. Instead, I look around the room at all the different faces and it surprises me who answers first. Karina.
“Because if you do that, our deal with Abe goes to shit, and more people die,” she practically spits at me. I’m not sure if she’s angry with me, or if she’s angry at the
fact that she can’t kill him herself.
“And why is that?” This time I look to Soren only.
“Dad...” He sighs and wipes his palm down his face. He must be dreading this conversation… He knew how I would react all along. It’s odd to have someone know you so well, yet you know nothing about them in return. It’s especially odd when that person is your son. “This demon is named Lincoln.” He runs his hand up and down while pointing to the demon sitting across from me.
An introduction, how nice.
“He was part of the deal the Sicarri made. He’s here to make sure we don’t renege on our deal. We can’t hurt him.” Soren’s words swim around in my head. I can’t make sense of this.
“What happened to Cormac?” I ask, barely able to get his name out without choking on the word.
Marcel shifts in his seat, leaning forward so that I see every speck of darkness in my friend’s brown eyes. “When a demon takes a body and steals the light from the former inhabitant, well… no one can survive without their light I’m afraid. You should know this Eijah,” He shrugs and moves back. I finally let out the breath I had been holding at his closeness.
Marcel clears his throat, gaining the attention of everyone in the room. “That’s how we knew you were awake. Soren said we would find you at the old house. Lincoln got word that you had escaped.” I place my hand over Soren’s, whose hands are clasped on top of the table, and squeeze gently before letting go.
“So what happens next? Are they going to be coming for me?” I ask the room.
“I’ve spoken to Abe about this in detail… apparently it wouldn’t be in Abe’s best interest to start a full fledged war over one simple Sicarri. Though it may have taken some persuasion on my part.”
Finally I look to Cormac—Lincoln, and demand answers.
“Why?” My voice is harsh. I hate this thing sitting across from me. It bothers me to no end that I can’t see his true form, the burned skin twisted by magic that should be covering him. Seeing a demon in human skin is too confusing. He looks so much like my friend. It occurs to me that this must be how they fooled so many of the other Sicarri while I was gone. It’s so easy for them to sneak in, unnoticed and unchallenged.
