Alchemy of Shadows

by David L Burkhead

  The world went red, a brilliant, almost blinding red. The goggles stopped all incoming light but enough leaked through my skull to stab through my eyes.

  The scream I heard jabbed at my ears like twin needles. I dropped the flare and covered my ears to no avail. My legs folded under me and I dropped to my knees.

  After an eternity of blinding red that could only have been a few seconds the light faded, leaving me in darkness. The screams stopped, replaced with a feeble mewling.

  I pulled off the goggles. Murky darkness shrouded the room. I felt in my pouch, seeking a standard road flare to provide ordinary illumination, but I noted that the hallway light glowed in the ceiling, a dim illumination.

  “Coach?” the voice came from the far end of the hall. A door opened and I saw a dark silhouette framed within the doorway.

  “What the? You!” The dark form charged down the hallway.

  Another form, still indistinct, rose before me.

  “Hey, Chuck.” Jeff.

  The two forms collided like a train wreck. I fully expected the house to shake at the impact. My vision started to clear. Jeff had come in low, driving his shoulder into Chuck’s waist and wrapping his arms around Chuck’s midsection. Chuck skidded backwards at the force of Jeff’s drive, but he stayed upright, bent over and raining blows on Jeff’s back.

  Ata lay curled in a ball on the floor, soft moans leaking out of his open mouth. Jeff’s goggles lay where he had dropped them next to Ata.

  Chuck’s feet hit the wall at the end of the hallway. Unable to back farther, he ceased pummeling Jeff and wrapped his arms around Jeff’s waist from behind.

  My vision had returned to almost normal. The two giants struggled in front of me. Jeff slowly sank to one knee and I saw Chuck’s full weight pressing down on him.

  My hand found the road flare it had been seeking. I brought it out. Chuck wasn’t wearing sunglasses. Light, I thought, should at least disturb the Shadow riding him. I didn’t want to use Tru-magnesium again so soon, not without more than the goggles for protection.

  I lit the flare and shoved it close to Chuck’s face.

  He flinched away but...no other reaction. My jaw fell open in shock.

  “Move...Adrian.” Jeff’s voice came as a strangled grunt.

  I sprang backward.

  Jeff erupted upward, arching his back. Chuck’s feet flew up from the floor as he flipped in the air. Then, Chuck was falling, first head first, then continuing to pivot to crash to the floor on his back, Jeff landing on top of him. This time the house did shake.

  Chuck lay immobile except for a weak twitching of his legs as Jeff twisted and half-straddled him, one knee at his side, the other pressed into his stomach, just below the breastbone. Jeff placed one hand on his throat and drew back the other, his fist clenched. He paused.

  Chuck clearly had no fight left. He lay gasping, struggling for breath.

  “Why didn’t the light affect him?” I wondered aloud.

  “Let’s ask him,” Jeff said.

  #

  While Jeff remained atop Chuck, holding him pinned, I removed Chuck’s belt and used it to tie his hands together. Ata’s belt served to secure Chuck’s feet. Ata remained curled in a ball. I kept a watch on him but I didn’t think he would be a threat for some time.

  Just as Jeff was putting the last tug on the belt around Chuck’s ankles, Chuck recovered enough to start to struggle. Jeff leaned on the knee he had pressed into Chuck’s stomach.

  “Ah ah,” Jeff said. “Not nice.”

  “They’re going to get you,” Chuck said. “You’ll join them or die.”

  “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard threats like that over the centuries?” I shook my head.

  Chuck swiveled his head to look at me. “They told me about you, Johann, but I don’t believe it. No way a punk like you can...” His mouth closed with an almost audible snap.

  “Can what, Chuck?” I leaned forward.

  Chuck swung his bound arms in my direction but I leaned back out of reach.

  “Can what, Chuck?”

  “Fuck you,” Chuck swung again but I was well out of reach. He swung at Jeff. Jeff caught Chuck’s arms and pushed them back over his head. The movement put more pressure on Jeff’s knee in Chuck’s stomach and Chuck gasped.

  I dropped to a squat so I could see Chuck’s face in the gap under Jeff’s body.

  “What is it they think I can do, Chuck?”

  Chuck’s mouth worked but no sound emerged. I glanced back at Jeff’s knee in Chuck’s midriff.

  “Jeff, can you ease up a bit? I don’t think Chuck here can talk.”

  Jeff brought his left knee up closer, letting it take more of his weight. Chuck drew in a wheezing breath, then let out a string a profanity.

  I sighed theatrically. “Jeff?”

  Jeff leaned harder on his right knee. The stream of foul language from Chuck cut off as he fought just to breathe.

  “I’ve got all day, Chuck,” I said. “What do they think I can do?”

  It took several repeats before Chuck finally ground out the word “Light.”

  I sat back. “Light?”

  Chuck said nothing.

  “Let him breathe a bit, Jeff,” I said.

  “You sure?” Jeff frowned down at Chuck. “I think purple suits him.”

  I smiled. “I’m sure. I think we’re making very good progress here.”

  “I didn’t think torture would be your style,” Chuck ground out once Jeff had removed his knee from his stomach.

  I leaned close to make sure Chuck had a good look at my eyes. “You think this is torture? I lived through the Inquisition. I lived through the Black Death. And you should really have seen what some of the American Natives did to prisoners. Torture? You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  I sat back again. “Now. Light?”

  “They can’t bear light. They think you can do something about that.”

  “They can’t bear light. That’s why they want me?” I looked at the expended road flare. “And yet you...” I stared back at him. “You aren’t...you weren’t ridden.”

  Chuck sneered. “You call it being ridden. I call it power. With a Shadow partner I’m a cinch to go pro. And then...wealth and fame, and women? All I could ever want.”

  “And what about Becky?” Jeff snapped.

  “She was a good enough lay I suppose but...”

  Jeff’s fist sped almost invisibly fast to drive into Chuck’s cheek. Blood sprayed from Chuck’s mouth. Jeff drew back and struck again. And again. And again.

  Chuck laughed weakly. “Oh, yeah, she was...”

  Jeff drew back a fist again.

  “Jeff?” I said softly. “I need him able to talk.”

  “Right.” Jeff relaxed his fist, opened his hand and patted Chuck lightly on the cheek. Then he hopped up and came down with his entire weight behind the one knee he drove into Chuck’s stomach.

  Chuck gagged audibly but did not throw up.

  “They didn’t have to do much to coerce you, did they?” I asked.

  “Coerce? Once I saw what the partners can do?” He turned his face to look up at Jeff. “That lame quarterback we had? Thought he had an arm? Well, the partner gave him a good ten yards on his forward pass. And accurate? Once he had the partner he never missed. Ever.”

  I shook my head. While I had never known what the Shadows’ overall plans were, I had seen enough that I had no trouble applying the term “evil” to them. And Chuck had simply joined them for nothing more than winning at football.

  “So why didn’t they put another one in you?”

  “Coach Ata explained that light hurt them. He asked me to be their assistant, someone who can go into the light without difficulty.”

  “Their Renfield,” I said, disgusted.

  Chuck just looked at me with an expression that told me he did not understand my reference.

  “You revolt me.” I stood.

  “What do we do now?” Jeff asked.


  “I guess that’s all we’ll get from him.”

  “Oh...good.” Jeff slammed his fist into Chuck’s face again. “Becki loved you, you bastard.”

  Jeff stood up.

  “They will get you, you know, Adrian or Johann or whatever your name is. They’re too strong. They’re the future. Nothing can stand against them.”

  Once again, the panic, the urge to run, rose in me. I had been running from these things for more than two hundred and seventy years. But a glance at Ata, still curled in a fetal position, dispelled the fear. The Shadows weren’t invincible.

  “I’d think you would know better than that,” I said. “Or maybe you could ask Ata whether anything can stand against them.”

  I clapped Jeff on the shoulder. “Can we leave Mr. Renfield here?”

  “No reason why not. It will take him a while to wriggle out of that.”

  I nodded toward one of the interior doors, the one Chuck had come through. “Let’s talk.”

  Jeff followed me through the door which led into a den or study. I closed the door then turned to Jeff.

  “It looks like Ata is out of it for a while. I still want to question him but I don’t want to expose my current ID if I don’t have to. We might need it if we still need to run. Can you handle him by yourself if he recovers?”

  “Maybe. What do you have in mind?”

  “Stuff Ata in his car and take him to someplace quiet where we can wait for him to recover to question him. I’ll follow in the rental and Becki can meet up with us.”

  “That’s kidnapping and grand theft auto,” Jeff said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, it is.”

  “What the hell?” Jeff said. “I’m game.”

  I drew a deep breath and sighed. “Okay.”

  I opened the door back into the hallway. Chuck sat up bent almost double. His hands worked at the belt securing his feet.

  “Ah ah.” Jeff kicked Chuck in the small of the back.

  Chuck grunted and his back arched. Jeff aimed several more kicks at his side before setting a foot down on his chest. “Naughty naughty.”

  Jeff looked up at me. “Hey, Adrian, why don’t you take a look around and see if you can’t find something better to secure our two prizes here. Not that I mind beating on Chuck but, well, we have places to be.”

  I nodded and tried one of the other doors. “Keep an eye on them?”

  “Count on it,” Jeff said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I found the door to the garage. Inside, I found a coil of what looked like clothesline. With that, Jeff not only got Chuck more securely tied—Jeff swore Chuck would be able to work himself loose, but not before we were well away—but we had Ata bound as well. Ata continued to be non-responsive. Jeff and I could pull him out of his curled ball, but he returned to it when we released him. Killing or driving away the Shadow that had been riding him seemed to have broken something inside him.

  I hoped he would recover enough to answer questions.

  Jeff stuffed Ata in the back of his car. I circled back through the house and gave Chuck a quick check, patting him on the head before leaving through the front door.

  I took the rental car to where we had left Becki, then she followed me to the rental company. I parked the car in their lot and dropped the key in the after-hours return. I did not let the idea that someone might come along and damage, or even steal, the car worry me. That could have happened anywhere I parked and I had paid for the insurance, the better to just vanish as far as the rental was concerned.

  Becki shifted over from the driver’s seat allowing me to take her place. While she’d picked up driving a manual well enough, she still was not comfortable with it. Practice, I thought, would take care of that. It was Jeff who was finding the complexities of clutch and throttle a mystery.

  We needed a secluded spot away from anything that could be traced to my new ID. I had suggested one to Jeff, showing him the map on my phone and he had agreed. Well outside of town. Publicly accessible so we wouldn’t have to break in anyplace. As late as it was, likely no one else would be there. If someone was, I would simply try something else.

  “So how did it go?” Becki asked as I put the Menace into gear.

  “The Tru-Magnesium seems to have worked.” I looked to the left to check for traffic before pulling out of the lot. “It looks like we were at least able to drive the Shadow out of Ata. Jeff’s got Ata trussed up in the back of his own car.”

  Traffic was light. I pulled a U-turn at the intersection to head back toward the Interstate. I cast a sideways glance at Becki and drew in a deep breath. “Chuck was there.”

  “Chuck?”

  I drew another deep breath. I did not want to tell her what I had heard but she deserved to know.

  “He was working for Ata, for the Shadows. He wasn’t ridden. He was working for them of his own free will.”

  She stroked her throat with her right hand. “Working for the man who cut my throat?”

  I winced at the memory. The need to concentrate on merging onto the highway saved me from having to answer for a moment.

  “It would seem so,” I said at last.

  “That...that bastard.”

  “They promised him a pro football career. Wealth. Power. Women.”

  “And I thought...”

  I let the silence drag on, wondering if I should tell her the rest. Again, I decided she deserved to know.

  I sighed and said, “He said you were a good enough lay, he supposed.”

  Becki’s face went purple. I thought she was going to explode but she only whispered.

  “That bastard.”

  #

  We pulled into the parking lot of a public fishing area. The only car I saw was Ata’s. Jeff stood next to it, waving at us. I parked next to him and hopped out of the Menace.

  “Has he said anything?”

  Jeff shrugged. “Just gibberish.”

  I heard Becki’s door close. She came around the car. “Where’s Chuck?”

  Jeff looked at me. I nodded to indicate that I’d told her what Chuck had said.

  “I left him at Ata’s. You can’t kill him.”

  “Oh, no?” Becki’s body was so tight I feared she’d strain something. “Watch me.”

  “Beck, leave it.” Jeff said. “He was trash.”

  Becki relaxed just a fraction. “Yeah, you’d always said that. Guess this is where you say, ‘I told you so’?”

  Jeff held up his hands. “Never.”

  A moment later the two siblings wrapped each other in an embrace. Jeff held his sister for several long seconds before she gently pushed herself away from him. Her cheeks glistened with moisture.

  My teeth ground together as I suppressed my own urge to find Chuck and do something unpleasant to him, like shove a Tru-Magnesium flare up his rear end and see how it shined from inside his body.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s see if we can squeeze anything out of Ata.”

  Jeff opened the back door of the Acura and dragged Ata out by his collar. Ata trailed limply behind him. Ata’s body thumped to the pavement, leaving his legs still in the car. At least he no longer curled into a ball, which I took as a sign of improvement.

  Jeff looked down at Ata in disgust.

  “To think I admired this guy.”

  I shook my head. “Losing the Shadow cost him it seems. I wonder how much was the man and how much the Shadow.”

  I squatted next to Ata. I could see his mouth move.

  “Ua leai,” he said. Over and over he repeated the words.

  “Ata?” I said.

  “Ua leai.”

  “Ata!” I shouted.

  “Ua leai.”

  I stood and sighed. “This may be harder than I thought.”

  “Can’t you do something with your alchemy stuff?” Becki asked.

  I shook my head. “Even if I had any elixir left, it only works on physical ailments and injuries. His mind has snapped.”

  Becki looked a
t me, then down at Ata. She nodded.

  “Jeff?” I pointed. “Can you carry him and sit him against that tree?”

  Jeff did not bother picking Ata up. He just twisted his fist in Ata’s collar and dragged. A moment later he had Ata sitting, his back leaning against the tree.

  I squatted again.

  “Ata, tell me about the Shadows.”

  His head twitched, then turned. He looked at me. No. More through me.

  “Ua leai.”

  “English, Ata,” I said. “I don’t understand whatever you’re speaking.”

  “Ua leai,” he said again.

  I sighed and leaned back. I looked back over my shoulder at Jeff and Becki.

  “This isn’t...”

  “Ua leai. It’s gone.”

  My head snapped back around to Ata.

  “It’s gone?” I leaned closer. “The Shadow?”

  “Shtakara.” His head sagged back against the tree. “They call themselves Shtakara.”

  “And what are they?” I asked.

  “They are what they are. You call them Shadows. That is good enough. They are the darkness that men fear. They are the darkness that extinguishes the light.”

  “Even a single candle,” Becki said behind me. “Drives away the dark. Light always defeats darkness.”

  Ata chuckled. “You fool. You have no idea. None. This darkness kills light.”

  “And yet,” I said. “We sit here because light drove out or killed the Shadow riding you.”

  “Yes. They are still weak against strong light.” All at once Ata’s eyes focused and he was looking at me clearly. “That’s why they want you.”

  “Me?”

  “You can make them strong against light. I do not know how but some knowledge or ability of yours is the key. It will let them come into the light and then no one can stop them.”

  “What do they want with the school?” Jeff asked. “And why the football team?”

  Ata’s head slowly swiveled until he looked up at Jeff. “Control. The Shadows have long worked to influence the powerful but now they were trying instead to influence the young and place them into power. A brand-new football program. What better place to recruit those driven by competition and who might be amenable to Shtakara influence? I never understood all their thoughts and plans. They just told me to do and I did. I just know that they picked Indianapolis because they already had a strong presence in Unigov. But Indianapolis lacks a Division One football team, so...”