by J. L. Sutton
Everything felt stirred together in my head, making it difficult to separate my emotions from each other enough to decide why I was feeling the way I was anymore. I was beginning to think that maybe there was more to this supposed duality to my path than I wanted to admit. I didn’t want to believe any of it, because if I did then I also had to admit it was Claire’s time, and I was wrong to pursue this any further. I couldn’t just write off everything that happened since the night I met Dawn as one hell of a coincidence either.
That was, in essence, the problem with the fate argument. If I didn’t believe in fate, then whether or not it existed made no difference to me. I would be oblivious. If I did choose to believe in fate, how would I know what events were being nudged in a particular direction, or just random chance on a day like any other? Still, Logan decided I could follow this path. Fate may have given me a choice, but what I did next wasn’t up to Fate. It was up to me.
When I arrived home from work two days later there was a torn piece of paper from one of my yellow legal pads waiting for me on the kitchen counter. With trembling fingers I unfolded the note, and a thin smile spread to my lips as I read the name.
Now, it was my turn to become the shadow.
18. Truths
I spent the last eleven days of my life looking into the man whose name was on the scrap of paper.
Two hundred and sixty four hours wasted was probably more accurate, considering just how little I managed to accomplish. It wasn’t that I hadn’t found anything—by now I could practically recite everything about him from memory. Reese James Paulson, thirty one, unmarried mechanic born in St. Johns hospital, Maryland. When I closed my eyes I could perfectly recall his face, even though I never met him before. He stood at five foot nine, medium build, short black hair with a widow’s peak and flat blue eyes. I had his private life nailed down, from his work schedule to his social security number. When he was younger he did a two year bit for battery and narcotics possession. Reese’s parents were estranged, his friend Diego was a small time bookie, the old lady living next door to him liked to bake.
I knew everything about the man who killed Claire, and none of it made any difference whatsoever. As much as I learned about Reese, nothing I found could even remotely link him to her death.
I slammed my fist down, sending my pen holder flying from my desk and a stab of pain down my wrist. How naïve I was to think knowing who Reese was would bring me any closer to him getting what he deserved. Dawn, who was quietly sitting on the chair in the corner of my office, looked up from her book with a concerned expression.
My frustration with the hamstringed situation I placed myself in was growing by the hour. I knew from Dawn’s memory he was guilty without question, and that was exactly the problem. The only place there could possibly be any evidence within reach was in his home—a stray possession of Claire’s he kept, or possibly the gun he used. Even with my sway down at the station, for the police to find evidence they needed a warrant, and for that they needed grounds—which I couldn’t provide, because technically my witness didn’t exist. How bitterly ironic it was that despite the fact Dawn was right in front of me, the old adage that the dead couldn’t testify still held true.
“You have not put the file down all morning. I think it is time you took a break,” Dawn suggested wearily.
What little time we spent together was strained these past few days. Normally I would’ve been glad to have Dawn around, and I knew she was only trying to help, but as the days went by I hadn’t failed to notice my obsession affected her too. Reminding myself Dawn wasn’t the one I was angry with, I managed to push back the sarcastic comment that came to mind.
“What would you have me do, Dawn? I can’t just sit around and wait another three years for the next development. I chose to do this, and it’s my responsibility to see it through.”
“That does not mean you cannot take a moment for yourself. You have not had a decent night’s sleep since I gave you the note.”
“I’m fine.”
Dawn shook her head, looking down at her hands. “You are not. This is frustrating for me too you know—watching you beat yourself up, while I sit here with my hands tied.”
It wasn’t Dawn’s intention, but I immediately felt guilty. Even though she still thought she was responsible for bringing me into this, and thinking my decision was a mistake, she gave me exactly what I asked for. The way I was pushing myself now only served to make her feel worse, not to mention her having to feel everything I did. I took a deep breath. “You’re right, I’m sorry. My head’s a mess right now.”
“No apologies necessary,” she said, the tension in her voice ruining her attempt to sound dismissive. Her face became thoughtful then. “This is definitely a bad idea, but I think I have a way to get your mind off this, for a while. The kind of idea I think you would approve of.”
I highly doubted anything could quell the frustration I felt right now, but the way she phrased her words had me curious enough to find out. Ah, how well she knew me. “I’m listening.”
“I think it would be easier if I just showed you.” Dawn walked over to me and held out her hand, pulling me to my feet so we were inches apart. “Still trust me?”
She sounded anxious, like she wasn’t quite sure of herself, but then she looked up to me with those big eyes and I was sold. I nodded automatically, eager to see what would happen next. A nervous smile broke across her lips as she reached out and rested her tiny hands just below my shoulders. Even through my leather jacket the cool sting of her touch felt like it was fluctuating up and down in tens of degrees against my skin. She was careful, but still nervous, fighting for control of herself.
Dawn closed her eyes, her eyebrows furrowing in concentration. “In a moment you are going to feel a nasty pinch run through your entire body, and a strong sensation to pull away from me. No matter what happens, I need you to stay absolutely still.”
After almost half a minute passed Dawn’s temperature seemed to stabilize, and a low thrumming ran across my skin, spreading from where her hands touched my shoulders. I began to feel as if my body was swelling with fluid, pushing out icy tendrils from the center of my bones, like I was drowning from the inside out. The room started to spin with the force of a whirlwind, and my mind was overcome with a powerful urge to throw Dawn’s hands off me. With supreme effort I resisted the urge, and as the sensation intensified I felt oddly weightless, like gravity no longer had a hold of me. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold on any longer everything around me suddenly stopped dead, the blurred scene around me frozen for the briefest moment before it was obliterated.
The next moment I hit the ground, the force of the impact knocking the wind out of my lungs. Half gasping I rolled myself over onto my back, inhaling a ragged breath. I felt Dawn’s cool hand grasp mine, the gentle touch stirring my eyes open.
“Are you alright?” she asked anxiously, a half terrified expression on her face, but I stared straight past it—to the glaring, bright midday sun overhead.
I bolted upright, the sudden movement making my head spin and Dawn jump back almost three feet. Where less than a minute ago we were standing together in my office, I now sat on the shore of a beach, stretching across a small, untouched natural bay, the pale blue waters flanked on either side by jagged rocky outcrops. Gentle waves lapped against the coarse, tawny sand near my feet, leaving behind a dirty film of tiny bubbles where the water receded. The beautifully rugged spot was one I had seen once before—through Dawn’s eyes, in one of the first memories she showed me. I dragged my fingers gingerly through the warm sand.
“What just happened?” I asked, in what was meant to be a level voice. Even in my state of disorientation I knew this was no memory.
“I leaped us here,” she replied as she kneeled beside me. “That is how we move around so easily when we need to. As long as I have been there before, I can displace myself to almost anywhere I want. Sorry about the rough landing, I have never been very good at i
t.”
I stared blankly at Dawn as I tried to swallow the latest little talent she conveniently failed to mention before. Seeing Dawn perform the incredible feats that looked so natural to her was one thing, but I was having a little trouble with the fact that we just, hell I don’t know, popped through a wormhole? Even saying the words in my head had me thinking I was nuts. If it wasn’t for the breeze blowing beach sand into my shoes I wouldn’t have believed it. Scarier still is how easily I was willing to accept it. She was unfathomably remarkable, and no matter how overwhelming things got I was truly glad I met her. I grinned, mentally answering a question I often wondered about—no, Dawn would never stop surprising me. “You’re telling me you can be anywhere in the world right now, and yet you decide to spend all your time with me?”
Her lips formed into a familiar smile, the one that looked almost like she was blushing. “I like spending time with you.”
“Even when I’m being unreasonably stubborn?”
“Even then.” She laughed. It was the first time I ever heard the real Dawn laugh, and it was the most delicious sound I ever heard.
“Why did we drive all the way to meet your cadre when we could’ve been there at the snap of your fingers?”
“Because, I knew the moment I told you about this you would want to try it.” Dawn smiled knowingly. “It takes decades of practice to be able to leap precisely where you want to go. At one time or another, most seraphim have made a careless mistake and gotten stuck in a solid object.” She winced, no doubt remembering a particular mistake. “Arriving where I planned to be still wearing my clothing is difficult enough, but taking a passenger that is not nearly as durable as I am, is insanely dangerous.”
Dawn was right of course, if she trusted herself to take me I would’ve wanted to leap with her in a heartbeat. I chuckled darkly. Her immortality may come at a high price, but it definitely had its selling points. Pushing myself off the soft sand I managed to get to my feet with some effort, still feeling the after effects of my abrupt arrival. As Dawn rose I couldn’t help noticing how her movements were accentuated by her lithe frame.
“Where exactly are we?” I asked as we slowly walked down the beach with no particular destination in mind, Dawn’s bare feet leaving perfectly uniform indentations in the wet sand.
“Just north of Salem. I spent my first night in the New World on this beach.” Smiling wistfully, she turned to the rolling waters and closed her eyes, pausing to listen to the sound of the waves. “I remember feeling so lost—fresh to this new existence, in a strange land with nothing to hold onto. I was not sure I wanted any of it. For almost a hundred years I floated through the Americas, from Washington all the way down to Chile. I even returned to Europe for a time, but somehow I always found myself drawn back here, to this spot. No matter how bleak my outlook was, this place always seemed to bring me peace.”
Dawn sighed contentedly as she opened her eyes, looking more alive than she had in days. Standing side by side we stared out into the seemingly endless ocean, neither of us feeling the need to speak. These comfortable silences we shared were one of the things I liked most about Dawn.
Though we weren’t all that far from home, this isolated haven of Dawn’s seemed to strip away everything that wasn’t her or me, and for a moment my concerns were a world away. But only just for a moment. The agitation from this morning was still simmering just under the surface, like a fever I just couldn’t sweat out. It felt like every part of my life was somehow reshaped by Claire’s death. So how was it possible I could be so committed to seeing this through, yet still doubt?
“Why do you think I’m making the wrong choice?”
“Because I have seen what happens when people walk this path, and nothing good ever comes of it. It is a dark road to walk, Benjamin. I see the fire inside of you, that burning desire to set things right—even if you have to burn everything to the ground to do it. I know that man is not you. Your feelings are getting in the way of your judgment. Let’s say in the end everything works out the way you want it to. You will be sated for a time, maybe even satisfied, but ending this will not bring you closure.”
Even if she was right, hell, I wanted her to be right, I couldn’t let go that easily. Not when I was so close. Right or wrong, Reese was still a murderer. “So you’re saying I should give this all up, let go and just forget the promise I made?”
“I am not saying you should go back on your promise. You know better than that,” she replied calmly. “Just remember why you made the promise—not the feelings it brings to the surface. I did not know your Claire so I will not speak for her, but I do not believe she would want you to miss out on the rest of life while you let this chase consume you.”
Again, Dawn was right. Since I found out who Reese was, catching him became my every waking thought. As painful as it was to admit, nothing I could do would change Claire being gone. I’d be damned before I let him take me along with her. “You’re right.”
“We all need to be reminded we are only human now and then, even those of us who no longer are,” she mused.
“You’re far more human than you give yourself credit for.”
Dawn smiled sweetly. “You bring it out in me.”
She stood still for a moment, a sorrowful expression on her face, and then her outline began to blur. It happened so quickly that it was difficult to describe exactly what happened next.
For the briefest second she became nothing more than an apparition, a faceless shadow given solid form. Black as her midnight eyes, the spectral shape seemed to writhe inside itself before she vanished, leaving behind a wispy trail of glossy vapors that quickly dissipated. Before I could process what happened I felt two light, cold taps on my shoulder, and I whirled around to find a very corporeal Dawn standing two feet away.
Slowly, she looked up at me, her kind features twisted into a grimace. “But never forget—I am not human.”
I stared back at her, taking a series of deep breaths until I was sure I could speak articulately. “You seem to be full of tricks today. And here I thought my seraph friend gave up trying to scare me.”
“We have an unlikely bond, you and I, but there are more than enough obstacles we are juggling between us right now. Like it or not I have seen your demons, so it is only fair you see mine. So from now on I am going to try and be more honest with you.”
That was true—between our connection to Claire, my fate, and wherever Dawn and I stood right now, keeping things from each other wasn’t helping anyone. We also trusted each other enough to know what we were hiding wouldn’t widen the spaces that had formed between us.
I knew I hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about my feelings for Dawn, but I was starting to think it wasn’t much of a secret anyway. By now she must’ve known—I couldn’t exactly hide anything from her, and I was wondering about her feelings towards me. It wasn’t that I was afraid to know if what I felt could lead to anything, but with everything else still unresolved it seemed selfish to find out. So I put other priorities first, and I think she did the same. Then again, maybe she just didn’t want to shatter my illusions. We both seemed more or less content with the way things were for now, and I had to admit I liked the tension—that charged, nervous energy of potential I hadn’t really felt in years.
“You never needed to hide anything to begin with,” I said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She smiled then, a transfixing smile that could make me forget my name. “And neither am I.”
“Good. So are you going to tell me what I just saw, or will I have to search online?” I chuckled. Sadly, “secret seraphim tricks” was possibly the one thing the internet didn’t have the answer to.
By way of answering Dawn closed her fist, turning it palm up. When she unclenched her fingers individual trails of the black substance joined together to form a small sphere slowly spinning in her hand. The shimmering smoke moved unnaturally, its state shifting constantly between the thick, glassy vapors, and a viscou
s liquid not unlike molten glass. As if some long dormant instinct had woken, the pins and needles in my head, that lately I managed to largely ignore, became distinctly noticeable.
“What is it?” I asked, a mixture of fear and curiosity leaking into my voice.
“If you have life flowing through your veins because you are alive, what do you think runs through mine?” My entire body fought against my mind to shy away, but I was immobile, my gaze fixed on the oddly mesmerizing shadow that shared the color of Dawn’s eyes. Death. The sphere stopped spinning, almost solidifying for a moment before it collapsed, shrinking into itself as she closed her fist. “This is what happens just before I leap. You saw a glimmer of my makeup, the real me. I am a child of Death—a shadow, the shadow, all shadows.”
I looked into her eyes, those wild eyes that were always so filled with concern for me, and I smiled. One look into those eyes was all I needed to see the life in her, and I could look past the rest. Throwing caution to the proverbial wind I closed the gap, breaking through the imaginary bubble that usually separated us so we were only inches apart. Dawn went rigid as iron, the muscles in her shoulders locking into place as I tenderly turned her tiny hand over, running my fingers over the smooth skin of her cold palm where the sphere had formed.
She closed her eyes, managing to somehow smile through her tense expression. “How can you be so willing to touch me after that?”
“You don’t scare me, tiny Irish.”
Dawn smiled. “That, is a good thing.”
