How to Hunt a Menacing Magical Shadow

by Christine Schulz

  “Oh, hey Nolan!” I was definitely getting drunker. What was going on? Lizzy revved the engine and attempted to swerve around Nolan standing in the middle of the vacant city street lit only by a dim sidewalk light. Nolan suddenly appeared next to us. Lizzy tried to redirect the bike, but an ominous black darkness engulfed her, sending her flying off the seat and rolling across the asphalt. Without a driver, the bike wobbled out of control, hitting a parked car on the side of the street and hurling me over the hood in the opposite direction of Lizzy.

  “You are coming with me, my friend.” Impatience oozed from his words. His seething voice was everything but friendly.

  “Adrian!” Lizzy ripped off her helmet, limping as she tried to stand up across the street.

  “Bye, Lizzy! I’m going for a ride with Nolan!”

  Nolan curled his gloved fingers around my shoulder as I waved my hand furiously back and forth at Lizzy. Tendrils of shadowy black and violet magic began circling around me. And in a single whoosh, everything turned dark and disappeared.

  Chapter 30

  I dropped to my hands and knees. Nausea clawed at my throat, and before I knew it, chunks of partially digested burrito spewed out across the frosted grass, splattering on Nolan’s shiny black boots. The pungent smell burned my nose, the back of my throat on fire from the acidic upheaval of whatever was left of my dinner along with an entire bottle of gin. I wiped a chunk of corn from my mouth with my shirt sleeve, then peered up at Nolan.

  “That did not taste as good coming back up as it did going down. What did you do to me?”

  “It will pass soon.” He plucked a vile of bubbly red liquid from his jacket pocket. “An intoxication serum. You were drunk on alcohol, but this serum makes you drunk on magic. Daisy may have slipped it into your drink at the bar.” So I was drugged. I knew it. I was so drunk on both magic and alcohol I had no idea what I was doing.

  “But I am a Nullifier! That shit shouldn’t work on me!” Whoops, did I say that out loud? I don’t think the alcohol has completely worn off yet.

  “You are many things, my friend. Now, if you’ll follow me, I’d like to get started.” He spread his arm out until it pointed in the direction of a colossal structure sitting proudly in the middle of a well-manicured lawn, even in the onslaught of winter. Wherever we were, it hadn’t snowed here like it had in the city.

  Ivy climbed up an eight-foot stone wall that surrounded the perimeter. The morning sunlight reflected across the tall, shiny windows lining the building. The mansion looked like something belonging to a high ranking crime lord...oh wait. It did.. Exquisite stone siding, imposing wrought iron entrance doors, and a marble fountain circling a granite driveway tied the mansion all together.

  “This is where you live? I should have asked for a pay raise,” I mumbled under my breath. “Why am I here? Where is here? You know what? I don’t care. Take me back. Now. Impetus!” As he suggested, the effects of the spell had started to wear off and I was regaining my scattered thoughts. I pointed my index fingers at Nolan, thumbs reaching up to the sky.

  “You ask too many questions. Come inside. It’s cold out here.” I could have made a run for it, but I had no idea where to go and I was still recovering from a pretty rough night. Ignoring my threat, Nolan chopped me across the back and my knees buckled from underneath me. He then grabbed my elbow and dragged me through the double entrance doors as I reluctantly dug my feet into the ground trying to prevent him. His impossible strength made my attempts futile.

  Once inside, he let go of my arm and I shot a radiating orange bullet at his head. Nolan disappeared in a swirl of shadowy smoke and reappeared behind me. A crash sounded, knocking some priceless looking vase off a pedestal and shattering it across the glossy marble floor.

  “I would appreciate it if you did not destroy my home.”

  Those moves...the shadowy disappearing act, reappearing behind me, the chopping motions. “You...you are the shadow! You’re the one murdering me in my dreams at night!”

  “It took you long enough. I was afraid I’d have to spell it out for you,” he scoffed at my sudden enlightenment. “Yes, I have been the one appearing in your dreams with the help of Raven’s illusion magic. Now come, preparations must be made. There is much to discuss, my friend. But first, let me direct you to where you will be staying.”

  He began making his way up the imperial staircase, his boots echoing throughout the cavernous room with each step. The place had a lot of character with its intricate furnishings, but everything was pristine white. Textured white walls, glossy white marble floors, white wooden decorative ceiling panels. The only things adding any semblance of color to the place were the elegant antiques and unique furniture scattered around.

  “I will give you one chance to comply. Do not test me. I will not hesitate to force you into following my orders. We will torture you until you’re breaths away from dying in a vicious never-ending cycle of pain. Imagine that feeling day in and out.” I laughed to myself. How was that any different than the brutal training I endured from Blair, Lizzy, and Eli?

  “Wait, we?” I analyzed the room around me searching for others. Raven appeared at the top of the stairs on the massive landing, leaning over the railing. Her long, silky onyx hair was braided down her back. She had renounced the spandex bodysuit for more comfortable pajamas.

  Rubbing her eyes like she had just woken up, she announced to no one in particular, “What was that crash? Oh, Adrian! What a delight to see you again. I look forward to enjoying our stay together while you are here.” Oh, I couldn’t wait. I thought about choosing Nolan’s torture after all. It was better than suffering with Raven treating me like a prized pony.

  Straight ahead, another familiar face rose from a light grey leather wingback chair. Daisy placed a book on the side table next to her and turned to enter through the wide archway that separated the sitting room from the double stairwell on either side of the foyer. She was covered in deep lacerations and her skin was a colorful mix of blue and purple splotches. Lizzy must have done a number on her.

  Then two unfamiliar faces made an appearance. A bald, goliath of a man with chiseled muscles straining against his white t-shirt came in from the left, while a scrawny woman with short black hair wearing a lab coat and thick black rimmed glasses entered from the right. They had me surrounded.

  Nolan continued staring at me with his cold, dispassionate eyes daring me to try something stupid. After contemplating my options, I figured it was in my best interest to follow him up the stairs.

  He led me down a mile long hallway large enough to rival a five star hotel. Sleek silver pendant lights hung from the high ceiling, each with a crystal shade that dispersed colorful particles of light across the textured cream-colored walls. The marble floor seemed to run throughout the palace, a beige floor runner with a floral leaf design centered down the middle.

  About every ten feet was another regal white door. Near the end of the hallway, Nolan stopped and gently swung open the door to the corner room.

  “This is where you will stay. Since you refused to come willingly, the door and its surroundings have been spelled to prevent you from leaving so do not bother trying to escape. It will hurt. You will remain here until you are called upon. There is a bathroom attached. I suggest you take a shower. I will have someone bring up clean clothes and some food to replace what you left on my front lawn.”

  He slapped a piece of paper onto the door. “Irretio.” I felt a wave of magic pour into the room, then he slammed the door shut and left. I immediately tried to jiggle the handle open, and was rewarded with a powerful blast of magic hurling me through the air. The force of my body slamming against the window across the room would have normally shattered it had it not been spelled to prevent me from doing so.

  I rubbed my aching muscles, then sat on the floor and let out a defeated sigh as I circled my surroundings. His renovation budget must not have extended to rooms reserved for prisoners. Although the space was quite large, only a sing
le folding cot was pushed up against the far wall. A dull gray fleece blanket lay on top with a flat white pillow at the head. No pictures hung on the stark white walls. No rugs covered the light oak wooden floors. Aside from the bed, the only other piece of furniture was a distressed white dresser with enough drawers for storing all my garnered hatred for this world.

  I took Nolan’s advice and hopped into the shower to wash off the layers of booze, snot, and shamefulness from the night's events. As promised, an unopened bottle of water and a bowl of gloppy oatmeal sat on a silver tray next to the folding bed when I got out. At the foot of the cot was a set of nicely folded sweatpants and t-shirt. What I was not expecting was the woman occupying the cot next to them.

  “Oh, Adrian!” Raven gasped at my half naked body. Her captivating eyes were caught in a trance on my bare chest, the only thing covering the rest of my body was the white bathroom towel I used to dry myself off.

  “What do you want?” I snarled, snatching the clothes from the bed.

  “The Master demands you meet him in his lab when you’re finished. I could wait with you if you’d like some company. I can only imagine how upset and confused you must be right now…let me comfort you.” Still in her pajamas, she batted her dramatic black eyes at me, then seductively bit her lip.

  Master? Now that was kind of amusing to hear. I supposed if Nolan was leading a criminal organization, he would be the master. “Forget it. I can put on my own pants, thank you very much. Get out.” I pointed to the door, holding on to the towel to ensure it didn’t flash her an unexpected show.

  She breathed out her sadness then rose to her feet. “Very well. I will be outside waiting. Just let me know when you’re ready. I will deactivate the spell and open the door to escort you to Master Nolan’s lab.”

  The door clicked shut and I locked myself back in the bathroom to change. I wouldn’t put it past her trying to sneak a peek through a slit in the door or something.

  I chugged down the bottle of water and stared at the glob of unappetizing oatmeal in front of me. Do I eat it? I desperately needed something in my stomach, but what if it was poisoned? After all this, I would hate to experience death by oatmeal.

  Remembering that Nolan had told Daisy he needed me alive, I figured he had other plans for me. This whole situation was strange, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I was his prisoner, but he treated me like a guest allowing me to shower, and providing me food and new clothes. Whatever he needed me for, his fake generosity wouldn’t fool me.

  I shoveled the oatmeal into my mouth. One last time, I searched the room looking for anything I could hide as a weapon or use to make an escape. When I came up empty handed, I dreaded at what I was going to have to do next. I called for Raven to let me out.

  She accompanied me down several hallways and flights of stairs into the basement. I tried to map the place out in my head, but even if I could leave my room, I doubted I’d even be able to find my way out of this maze.

  I expected the basement to be a dark dungeon full of medieval torture devices and savage chimera monsters clawing from behind bars born from science projects gone terribly wrong. Instead, I entered a brightly lit space that expanded the entire length of the mansion. Like the rest of the house, everything was pure white. Although here, everything reeked of freshly unwrapped plastic and had a much more modern, state-of-the-art look and feel.

  Hoards of machines filled the massive lab, humming as they laboriously worked to do whatever it was they were supposed to do. Test tube racks, beakers, burners, and other equipment I recognized from the police station cluttered the workspace everywhere. The black-haired woman from before was sitting at a table constructed with a stainless steel countertop, meticulously piping drops of red liquid into a petri dish.

  “I can assume you will not do this willingly?” For some reason, I still had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact this Nolan was a completely different man than the one I had spent the past two years with at the police station. There was dispassion in the way he spoke, and he carried his body with a strict purpose. Nolan’s bubbly voice I was used to hearing around the police station, before I found out he was a murdering criminal mastermind, had turned into something much more dangerous and dark. It angered me that I had fallen for his bogus act this whole time and let myself believe he was actually a good person.

  “Whatever it is I will do it kicking and screaming like an immature toddler.” A callous smirk tugged at the corner of my lips and I crossed my arms over my chest to hold my ground.

  “Very well. Ms. Canmore? Will you do the honors?” The woman rose from her seat, nudging the bridge of her thick, black rimmed glasses and brushing the bangs off her face. She wore a white lab coat that reached just above her knees. Her short messy hair was pulled into a pointy ponytail, the lack of length allowing strands of loose hair to frame either side of her face. If she was a Canmore, I could only assume she was related to Sarah Canmore, the former and now dead CEO of Arcane Enterprises.

  Her round sapphire eyes glinted through her thick lenses and caught onto mine. And in that moment she stabbed me in the neck with a syringe filled with another vial of that blazing red, intoxicating magic liquid.

  “Oh, come on…” At first, it felt like a surge of power coursing through me. But then everything around me began spinning again and my body began to weaken. The clean white room turned a colorful array of sunshine and rainbows. I hunched over, swaying back and forth on my feet to keep myself from falling over when the firm grip of Nolan and his assistant caught my elbows and dragged me across the tiled floor. They slung me into a reclining medical chair resembling the kind of torture device I was expecting to encounter when I first arrived. They each tightened a thick leather strap around my wrists and ankles and locked my head in place with a metal contraption, tugging the remaining straps snug across my forehead and chin.

  “Let me GO! Im— Imp—” My words began slurring and I couldn’t formulate the words on my tongue, the tightened strap limiting my ability to speak clearly. Nolan removed the watch from my wrist, and placed it on the metal tray next to all his other medical tools I was certain he would be using to dissect my brain.

  “No! Give that back! It’s mine! I need that power to defeat you.” I mumbled somewhat coherently.

  Nolan paused to give me a bewildered stare. “Have you not already figured this out, my friend? This watch has nothing to do with any power you might wield. That is all your own. This watch serves a different purpose.”

  “Lies! Give it back!” I jerked my arm secured firmly against the restraints, the metal contraption around my head doing a poor job at keeping it from thrashing around.

  I squirmed in the chair, mumbling screams at the top of my lungs just like I said I would. Although it was getting me nowhere physically, it was annoying the hell out of Nolan.

  “Ms. Canmore, inject him again.”

  “But, wa—wouldn’t he overdose?”

  “Must I remind you who is in charge? Now, administer the drug, Daphne, before I lose my patience with you.” Nolan stared menacingly at the frightened woman, who then proceeded to stick my arm with another needle full of bubbling liquid.

  My senses went into overdrive. The hazy rainbow of colors turned vibrant and blinding, straining my eyes. My brain couldn’t process the influx in mental stimulation to everything around me, and began throbbing inside my skull, threatening to crack it like a fragile eggshell. An aggressive howl slipped off my tongue as the burning magic liquid, a more intensified sensation than the normal warmth I was used to, pulsed through my veins, traveling to every muscle in my body.

  “I forgot to mention this will not be pleasant, my friend. But it is necessary. There is someone I need to speak with first.”

  Just like at the bar, my vision began drifting in and out, fading around the edges until eventually I could see no more. But this time, I wasn’t just out of it. My mind was completely slipping away, like I was being pulled into some kind of magic induced c
oma. I struggled against the fatigue, trying to will my Nullifier ability to cancel out whatever magic was overloading my system but it was no use. I couldn’t concentrate and it was too powerful. Eventually, I lost the fight, closing my eyes and relaxing in the seat. When I came to, a damp, chilly air was brushing across my skin. I beat my hands against the hard rock, trying to blast my way out with magic. Then I stared at the shimmering magical barrier I was trapped behind.

  The mysterious man trapped behind this magical barrier within the cave was gone. And now my mind was a prisoner in my own body.

  “Benson...” My lips were moving, my deepened voice speaking the words, but they didn’t come from me.

  “Rezith, my friend. Welcome back.”

  Chapter 31

  A lthough my mind had been taken captive, I was still aware of everything happening around me. Through my own eyes, I could see Nolan giving a smug grin to the man possessing my body.

  “I will kill you!” My hands and legs struggled against the restraints, and I could still feel the metal buckles scraping against the padded armrest they rested on.

  Well, that was unexpected. It would appear this Rezith man also wanted Nolan dead, which didn’t bode well for me. While I would love nothing more than to make him suffer, if Nolan were to die before clearing my name, I’d be branded a murderer forever with no way to prove what really happened. Not to mention, I would actually be a murderer for killing him.

  “I know you are trapped. Let me free you, my friend. Tell me what happened and I will fix this,” Nolan pleaded with the man.

  “You backstabbing, lying, arrogant son of a bitch! You know exactly what happened. It’s only a matter of time before I take over this body and there is nothing that can be done to change that. I don’t need, or want, your help. I will do this on my own.”

  “But you don’t understand—” Nolan motioned to place a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder when Rezith attempted to shrug it away.