Nascent Shadow (Temporal Armistice Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Dunn lets out a scream far too high to have come from a man. We’re twenty-nine stories in midair over the hotel courtyard. My wings stretch far to the sides, acting like a parachute. As if on autopilot, I steer into a spiral that bleeds off speed, heading for an open yard a short distance away on the other side of an empty street. Jason groans, keeps his eyes closed, and keeps muttering “holy shit” over and over. My desire to not smack into the ground slows us even further, as if reality or gravity listened to me. Wings flared, I extend my legs and glide into a landing in an alley half a block away from the fifty-two-story-high Roman candle. Somewhere out of sight in the smoke, the thudding of a helicopter continues.

  Jason stops screaming a few seconds later. He uncurls himself from my embrace and stares into my eyes.

  My reflection in his visor isn’t as bad as I feared. By and large, my face looks the same, except my eyes are glowing pools of dark blue energy and I’ve got horns. They’re maybe four inches with a slight curve, and onyx black like my claws and toe-talons. Hmm. Guess that explains my subconscious attraction to black nail polish.

  “Amari?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” My voice sounds the same.

  “Did that just happen?” He pulls his mask off and gulps down fresh air.

  I look back at the inferno belching fire from windows wherever the building crumbles in fits and starts. The floors have collapsed to about the nineteenth, great plumes of dark grey dust and smoke shroud the structure like a cloak, creeping downward. By some miracle, the pancaking stopped before it went all the way to the ground. Shit, I hope they got those people out.

  “If it didn’t, we’re having one weird-ass afterlife,” I say.

  “What are you?”

  “Other than naked? I have no idea.” I brush ash off my arm. Am I stuck like this? Or how can I change―

  I shrink back to my normal five-foot-six. The armored chitin becomes skin, my wings go back to wherever they came from, and my tail feels like it retracted up into my spine. Now that is funky. The sensation leaves me squirming and paralyzed with ‘ick.’

  And quite normally naked.

  Damn it’s cold. Or… maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s cold to me.

  He drags himself upright, favoring his left leg. After shrugging off his air tank, he removes his long coat and offers it. “Here. You’re, uhh, a little out of uniform.”

  “Uhh, thanks.” I pull the coat on and close it. “Maybe we should keep this quiet huh? Like not tell anyone?”

  Jason nods. “Sure, if you want. You saved my ass. Whatever you want me to say, I say.”

  he brass bought the excuse that something magical exploded in one of the rooms and wound up disintegrating most of my gear. It’s true that cops tease their own when something goes wrong, but they got nothing on firefighters. I’ll be hearing about the naked thing for the rest of my life, but hey, no one knows I’m a… whatever I am. Except Dunn, and I trust him.

  I wound up dragging my highly-confused ass in the door of my apartment a little after nine at night, after we finished at the hotel. They managed to get most of the citizens out of that upper room, but lost seven. Six burned, one guy decided trying (and failing) to learn how to fly beat fire. Jury’s still out on how it started, but in total, nineteen died. That’s the best guess. Two old people had heart attacks, ten are missing-presumed-dead. I overheard some of the investigators discussing it while I’d been packing up to leave. They think the blaze started when something on the forty-second floor exploded.

  The TV’s been on for a while after I got back, whatever channel happened to be on last. A couple of guys in suits are talking about a ‘case.’ I haven’t been paying enough attention to tell if it’s a lawyer thing or a police drama. My brain hasn’t stopped spinning around the bigger question:

  What the hell am I?

  Again and again, the sensation of standing there in the backdraft replays in my head. It’s opened a Pandora’s box of maybe-memories that I’m not sure I want to see again. When my childhood home burned, I’d been trapped in the back bedroom. If the thing had had wheels, my room would’ve been the rear end. The door out was three-fourths the length of the trailer away, part of the living room.

  I stare straight through the television set and see the hallway from that place, that night. Shaggy brown carpet blackens in the flames before my eyes. The PlayStation controller dangles from my fingertips; a hot wind whips my hair back. For years, I’d pushed what had happened over the next few minutes out of my brain.

  Guess I refused to believe it, too.

  Standing there at the doorway of my bedroom, the only part of my home not yet engulfed in fire, I remember being terrified. I had nowhere to go―in front of me, everything burned. My room’s only window had an air conditioner bolted into it from outside. I couldn’t make a decision. Staying in my room equaled dead, but so did anything else. How many twelve-year-olds gaze at the moment of their imminent death and think, Wow, that sucks?

  Something kept me from panicking, and after what happened this afternoon, it makes sense. A deep, inner part of myself must have known the fire couldn’t hurt me. Why? Who bloody knows? The trailer had begun to collapse. The roof peeled apart on the right side and a cluster of flaming toilet-paper rolls bounced into the hallway out of the closet. One of them came to a halt on my bare foot, and it didn’t hurt. That’s what snapped me out of the haze.

  I didn’t have any pets, but I did have one precious thing: my PlayStation. After tossing it―and my controller―out the little bit of window between the frame and the AC, I ran down the hall. The fire torched my clothes when I got stuck under a collapsed pile of wall. By the time I dragged myself free, my pajamas were history. Now that I think about it, the jagged metal had been more of a threat to me than the burning.

  Calm, and mesmerized by how pretty the fire was, I wandered around the holes in the living room floor. I walked barefoot over glowing embers, and naked straight into active flames, right to a hole in the floor where the fire hadn’t gone. On hands and knees, I crawled half the length of the trailer to a gap in the skirting, and made it outside, only a charred ring of fabric around my neck.

  I remember thinking it looked stupid, so I broke it off and tossed it before anyone noticed me standing there. Running around with nothing on didn’t bother me, still doesn’t actually, at least not from an ‘embarrassment’ point of view. I generally don’t because it’s not considered ‘cute’ now that I’m grown up. Like I said, Mom had her hands full.

  A crowd gathered by a row of police cars and fire trucks. Residents of nearby trailers. Mom had been there, sobbing hard on the shoulders of a cop who’d probably been holding her back from running inside after me. I’m sure the man had told her I’d died, since no one could’ve possibly survived a burn like that.

  It must’ve been two minutes or so of me standing there shell-shocked, the bystanders and flashing lights melting into a blur of random color. Eventually, Mom noticed me. She screamed and pointed. At the sound of her voice, I took a few steps toward her before a fireman ran over and wrapped me up in an itchy blanket.

  The rest of that night and the following day, I hadn’t ‘forgotten.’ Mostly, it had been me saying “I dunno,” a lot to a bunch of uniforms who wanted to know how I got out alive. At least blocking the memory out helped me lie. Was it technically lying since I couldn’t make myself remember?

  Bah. I really don’t have the ability to think clearly right now.

  Time swirls into a drain of nothingness as the probable truth of what happened that night orbits my head. I’m still having trouble opening the door and accepting it, but between the fire earlier today and me surviving back then, it has to be true. I already know I’m abnormal. Normal people can’t move stuff with their mind or know what a person’s intentions are by merely making eye contact with them.

  Sudden inspiration launches me off the sofa. I run to the kitchen and turn one of the stove burners on. The metal coil goes from dark to glowing orange in a
moment. Inch by inch, I ease my right hand closer, but it’s more like I’m closing in on a fresh cup of coffee. My logical side screams at me to stop, but my arm keeps going. Mouth open, heart racing, I stand there feeling like I’m no longer in control of my body.

  When my fingers touch the heating element, I start to scream―but it’s purely mental. I’m not burning myself. No smoke, no melted skin. Whoa. The red-hot coil is like a hand warmer on a winter day or a cup of steaming tea. Still breathing in tiny, rapid sips of air, I lower the rest of my hand until it’s covering the burner. Once I’m sure my skin isn’t going to spontaneously combust, I shut off the burner and stare at the faint spiral smudge on my palm. Guess it’s been a while since I cleaned the stove.

  Oh, this is too freaky.

  I guess I can’t burn?

  Okay. Experiment two.

  Can I do that… other thing at will? Or only during ‘oh shit’ moments?

  My air tank and coat made one thing clear. I need to give the extra parts room. To that end, I zip into my bedroom and grab a racer back top and a black lacy miniskirt. May as well go commando so the tail doesn’t destroy a second set of panties in the same day. For the same reason, I skip shoes. Anything in here, I would have to pay to replace. My keys go into a hip pouch, and I’m out the door, heading for the roof.

  Our stairwell that I loathe so much goes all the way up to the top. There’s supposed to be a padlock on the door, but someone broke it long before I moved in here and our super doesn’t give a shit. I push the dingy brown door out of my way and stroll out under the night sky. Here, I’m fourteen stories above the ground and pretty well out of sight of everyone in the area, minus the birds, but they’re awesome at keeping secrets. It’s dark and uncomfortably chilly due to a continuous breeze. At least the air smells clean, free of trash, piss, or chemicals―an infrequent pleasure in this part of the city. The waist-high wall at the edge lets me force myself to peer over without panicking. Fire never scared me, but heights are another story.

  I have wings. I might be able to fly. I’m scared of heights.

  The complete ridiculousness of that hits me. My sudden, sharp laugh terrifies dozens of pigeons, which flee to the sky in a cloud of grey feathers. Some circle back and land, while most keep going off into the darkness.

  Feet apart, arms out. Flex fingers. How does this work?

  Eyes closed, I concentrate on wanting to have wings. A glimmer of energy inside my brain forms near the back of my skull. It feels about the size of a cherry tomato, sliding around and eluding me as I envision a mental ‘hand’ trying to grab it. Whenever I think I have it pinned down, it slips free. Over and over again, the gelatinous mass squidges out of my grip, almost as if it knows how I’m going to attack it before I do.

  “Dammit!” I shout, my voice echoing a few times off the walls of nearby high-rises.

  I lean against concrete, head bowed, hair fluttering in the wind as I stare down the length of my apartment building at the street. Maybe it has to be a ‘stressful’ situation? Would the wings work if I jumped?

  No way am I trying that test. The burner’s one thing; even if that had failed, a nasty burn to the hand could’ve been fixed by a Lifemage. Going splat on the sidewalk would be kinda final. Damn that thing in my brain.

  Wait.

  It’s in my brain. Or it is my brain. No wonder it knows what I’m doing―it’s me.

  Again, I adopt a wide stance with my arms out a bit like a gunslinger. I want wings. The energy ball coalesces in the back of my thoughts. This time, instead of trying to ‘grab’ it, I try controlling the nugget of strange feeling directly. It slides down my spine, and a loud, fwoof breaks the silence.

  A bit like I’d imagine opening a fourteen-foot-wide leather umbrella would sound like.

  I don’t have to open my eyes to know it worked. I’ve got two extra body parts complete with a sense of touch. The previously-mild wind has become an annoyance trying to push me over backward, but it’s fairly easy to lean into it and keep my footing.

  My wings are as pale white as the rest of my skin, though the leading spars feel hard and smooth at my touch, like a crab shell. Dense black membrane connects the smaller interior spars, and a nine-inch curved talon sprouts from the main joint. When I stretch them out as far as I can, they span more than my height in either direction. Folded, the talons at the bend reach about three feet over my head, and the tips are an inch or two off the ground.

  Well, damn. I stole the wings from a dragon.

  A quick grab of my ass confirms the lack of a tail. A hand to my forehead confirms no horns there. I think about horns and feel that same odd tingle at my temples. When I want them ‘away,’ they disappear.

  A wicked grin spreads across my face. Well, all right. This is kinda cool.

  The racer-back shirt remains intact, since it exposes my shoulder blades on either side of a narrow strip of fabric. So, wings don’t automatically mean tits out if I’ve got proper clothing. Good to know. Seeing these things with the presence of mind that comes with a lack of ‘oh shit we’re going to die!’ is both amazing and unnerving.

  A light scratch from my fingernails at the membrane almost hurts. It’s sensitive, but thin. I bet it would heal even faster than a bullet in my shoulder. Speaking of which, I suppose the reason that healed is due to whatever the hell I am. Poor Kwan, guess he’s not a Lifemage―which explains the convenience store. Prodding the membrane is about as comfortable as pinching the stretched web of skin between my thumb and index finger. Right. Protect the wing membrane. Damage there would be superficial, but painful.

  Experiment three: normal me.

  Putting the wings away comes far easier than finding them. A few seconds’ worth of concentration causes them to collapse into a wing-shaped coalescence of black smoke, which rushes into my back. Neat.

  I summon them again, this time keeping my eyes open, and discover the smoky thing happens when they appear. It’s much easier the second time, and even easier the tenth. For a little while, I’m a four-year-old who found her mother’s collapsible umbrella and went wild.

  A metallic squeak echoes up from the edge. Probably one of our wonderfully-maintained balcony doors. I’m nosy, so I peer over the side, down at a bottle-blonde head at the sixth floor. As soon my attention focuses on her, the conversation she’s having with a phone becomes clear to me.

  “… know what to do. She’s never pulled anything like that before,” says Tracy, my neighbor.

  Hmm.

  I curl my fingers over the wall and crouch to make it harder to see me.

  Tracy bobs her head while listening to the phone. “I caught her playing with candles.”

  A murmur emanates from her phone.

  “Don’t give me that ‘all kids play with candles’ crap. It’s not a pyromaniac thing. She wasn’t just playing with candles. My eight-year-old daughter had them set up on a pentagram! When I asked her what she was doing, you know what she said?”

  She listens for a few seconds.

  “Oh, that’s funny.” Tracy sighs. “She told me she was trying to summon a demon to make Frank go away.”

  Aww. That poor kid. That’s so sad. I glance up at my wings. Hang on. The heck? Did that girl know something I didn’t?

  “Phase. Like hell!” yells Tracy. “Did any of your kids go through a devil-worshipping phase at that age? Fifteen, sixteen, sure… but eight?”

  The voice on the phone gets loud enough for me to hear a woman snap, “I didn’t shack up with a creep! You need to get Ashley away from that man.”

  “I don’t need your judgment, Jo, I need advice!”

  Oh, this is getting good. I lean up to listen better, but startle at the sense of ‘hey, I’m not alone.’ I gasp, whipping my head around to stare behind me, and my blood freezes in my veins.

  In the shadows behind the small rooftop shed with the stairwell door, a tall, male figure stands in silhouette―except for glowing golden eyes. Who or whatever he is, I do not like the way he�
��s staring at me. I can’t ever remember being so damn scared of anything in my life.

  For an instant, I’m a little kid about to be lured into a stranger’s car again, only now I feel as terrified as I should have been.

  The gold eyes narrow.

  Shit!

  Overcome by panic, I fling myself off the roof. Instinct takes over, stretching my wings. They catch my weight, letting me glide. Without the burden of a firefighter in my arms, I wind up flying instead of parachuting. It takes only a few seconds for the fright of that bizarre glowy-eyed stranger to wear off. I’ve got wings, and they work!

  This is awesome!

  Whoa, hang on, that building is coming up fast. Turn! Turn!

  I flail my arms and shift my weight, but I have all the grace of a styrofoam toy glider some kid threw at a wall. An instant before impact, I manage to pull up, so I smack into the obstacle vertically. The meaty slap my crash makes resounds several times.

  Somewhere above and behind me, a haughty-sounding man laughs. I’m in too much pain to move, and too frightened to dare try to open my eyes. The laughing fades into the distance; whoever he is, he’s leaving me in peace.

  That’s weird.

  Oh, and screw him for laughing at me.

  A moment later, the stinging of the world’s most severe belly flop fades. I risk peeking and find that my nails―hands and feet―have become claws, pierced into the bricks. I’m clinging to the twenty-somethingth story.

  Okay, think. I’m flying better because I’m not carrying Jason, and my body isn’t covered in bone armor. I can’t steer because… I’m new at this? Wait, I remember something in biology class about birds. Hmm. Tail?

  I concentrate on the idea of having my tail out. Initially, it feels like I’m about to drop a number two, but a bony edge scrapes at the back of my left ankle. I peer down, and sure enough, tail. It’s a little disturbing, if I’m honest with myself. It’s hairless, and the same white as the rest of my skin. Where it meets my spine, it’s about as big around as my wrist, and it tapers to a little more than finger-width that goes into a shiny onyx barb that looks like the head of an ancient spear.