The Cloak's Shadow

by Elle Beauregard

  She stopped and looked at him, clothes in her hands. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

  "You didn't," he replied—at least he didn't think that's what had woken him. It was then he fully registered what she was doing: picking her clothes up off his floor. "Are you leaving?"

  "Yeah, I should go." She picked her jeans up and started sliding them on.

  He glanced at his phone to get the time. "It's the middle of the night," he said, pushing himself up in bed with the hope of clearing the cobwebs from his brain. "At least sleep until the sun comes up."

  "No, I should get back," she replied as she stuck her arms through the sleeves of her t-shirt before pulling it over her head. She rubbed her hair so it was bed-head messy and almost looked intentional.

  Images of all the reasons her hair was messy ran on fast forward through Callum's head.

  "Look, this was a mistake,” she said.

  Which stopped the reel of pleasure in its tracks. His brows furrowed. "Huh?"

  "I shouldn't have let this happen," Zander went on, stuffing her foot into her shoe. "It was great, don't get me wrong. It's just—I need to focus on my career, you know?"

  Callum could only sit there for a second before words came to him. "O...kay... Wait, how does this preclude focusing on your career?"

  Zander gave him a look.

  "We worked first!" he argued, trying to make light.

  "Yes, and then we fucked like—" Zander sighed, the tension in her shoulders bleeding out so Callum thought, for a moment, he'd convinced her to stay. "I can't lose focus on what I want," she said.

  Okay, so apparently he wasn't that persuasive.

  "Neither can I!" he shot back, leaving out the fact that what he wanted was her, and trying hard to ignore the nagging almost-anger lighting behind his ribs. "Look, if you're not that into me, fine." Though, that's not the message she'd been sending earlier...

  "It's not that," she argued, shaking her head and looking for her left shoe.

  "Then what's the problem?" he challenged. He wasn't sure where all this challenge and anger was coming from; he would never have fought to keep another girl in his room. "Focus on what you want—go for it," he went on. "But don't use that as an excuse."

  When she looked at him, there was gasoline-anger in her eyes, waiting to catch. "You want to know the real reason?" she challenged. "You sure?"

  Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his mind, a warning bell was chiming. That fuel in her stare only needed a spark to roar into a blaze. But his goddamned ego wouldn't let him stop. "Yeah, I am."

  "Maybe I am into you," she said. "Like really fucking into you. But you know what? This," she motioned between the two of them, "never ends well. Whether we keep it casual or not, it will go down in a ball of flames—and I don't have the time, nor the care, to deal with that."

  "It doesn't have to—"

  She barked a laugh that cut him off. "Yes. It does. Trust me on that. And I worked my ass off to get this job, so I'm not going to risk fucking that up. Even for you."

  He just sat there, stunned for a few heartbeats while she found her other shoe, snatched it from the ground and shoved her foot into it.

  "I'll—see you around or something," she mumbled as she bee-lined for the door.

  It was another beat before he shook himself and followed her. "Zander, wait." He trailed her determined strides down the hall, through the front door, out onto the porch, and down the few front steps. "Let me put on clothes and I'll drive you back to your place." Then they could talk. He could figure out what was going on—because sure as shit there was something fueling this. Something bigger than the two of them and the amazing sex they'd just shared.

  "A car is on the way," she replied, raising the cell phone clutched in her hand. "It's meeting me on the next block. I'll be fine." But she paused for a breath at the gate, throwing him a glance. "Really. I'm good." Then she was taking off again on those long legs.

  He started to go after her but had to stop when he realized he was about to walk out into the street buck naked. Instead, he stood on the edge of his front yard, behind a conveniently sized shrub that covered him from the waist down, watching her walk away.

  What. The. Fuck.

  It didn't take a psychic to know a lot of what she had just said was fueled by experience—likely shitty experience. The thing was, he was uniquely qualified to understand shitty experiences, due in part to his own set of life scars. Not that she'd given him the chance to show her any of that.

  The dark hiss of a chuckle made Callum realize he'd walked beyond the runes' protection.

  "There you are," the deep, rasping voice mused. "I was getting bored."

  Callum just continued to watch Zander walk up the block. He could ignore the Shadow long enough to watch until her car got there, just to make sure she was safe until then. Assuming it was picking her up close enough he'd be able to see.

  From his peripheral vision, he saw the Shadow's nondescript suggestion of a head turn, like it was following his gaze. Callum had to suppress a smug chuckle, the Shadow could look all it wanted—there was no way it could see Zander in the dist—

  "Isn't that interesting," the Shadow mused.

  Fear speared Callum's gut. No fucking way that Shadow could see Zander. Right?

  Before he could even begin to figure it out, before he could check his surprise, the Shadow rushed toward him, plunging the side of his body into ice.

  Callum struggled to breathe through the pain of a thousand frozen needles piercing his skin as the Shadow pressed against him. The tattoos on his shoulder and pec grew warm—the only thing that kept the Shadow from passing through Callum's skin and taking control.

  A hissing voice raked into Callum's ear: "She's the reason you disappear from time to time, isn't she?"

  A cold sweat broke out all over Callum's body—though from the attempted intrusion, or because of what the Shadow was saying, he couldn't be sure.

  Callum's thoughts raced: What the hell was happening? How could the Shadow see her? Was it seeing her through him? This broke all the rules he’d heard about Cloaks and how they worked.

  A snarling growl sliced the late-night air.

  Rhia arrived at Callum's side, her low, menacing snarl echoing around them. She pressed herself between him and the Shadow, razor sharp teeth bared and gnashing.

  The Shadow darted away, releasing Callum from the freezing pain, but it didn't retreat completely. It hung back, looming yards away to the continued soundtrack of Rhia's threats.

  A tremor of shivers ran up Callum's spine the moment he was released from the ice bath of the Shadow's touch. He stole a glance back toward the house as he wrapped his arms around himself.

  Scott was in the doorway, looking worried.

  The Shadow's voice was less amused when it spoke again. "I can fix the girl so you can't disappear from me. You know that."

  Fear-fueled fury shot through Callum's veins faster than he could control it and the words were out of his mouth before he could suck them back, "Don't fucking touch her!"

  And, goddammit, he wished he could suck them back.

  The Shadow just chuckled, the sound of it a menacing rasp that made Callum's skin crawl as it faded from view. "That's my boy."

  "What the fuck was all that?" Scott demanded as Callum came back into the house. "Our neighbors probably think we're cracked—not that I care, but still. Also, catch."

  Callum turned in time to catch the pair of sweats Scott tossed his way. "Thanks, my man." His head was buzzing, thoughts flying as he shoved his feet through the legs and yanked them up.

  "Redo the runes," he said absently as he headed for the bathroom. He was freezing, shivers running back and forth under his skin, chattering his teeth so hard he thought they'd crack. He threw a glance at Scott over his shoulder. "I gotta shower."

  Scott raised his hands in a what-the-hell kind of gesture. "Then what?"

  "Then I gotta go see my Mom."

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
<
br />   "I'm here to see Miriam Ambrose."

  The nurse behind the desk looked up from what she was doing and smiled. "Callum! Good to see you. I'll take you back."

  He gave a nod. "Thanks."

  The nurse—one he'd spoken to many times since moving to New Orleans more than seven years ago—came around the reception desk and motioned for him to follow her. Her brunette ponytail swung gently as she walked in front of him. Her pale blue scrubs and soft-soled clogs were sensible and suitably somber, the colors calm and gentle.

  He wished he hadn't worn flip flops as he walked behind her and the sound of them echoed down the otherwise quiet hallway. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop.

  "It's so good of you to visit your mom," the nurse said, glancing behind her as she led the way through the labyrinth of halls. She stopped to hold the door open to a common space, currently unoccupied. "So many of the patients here never receive visitors."

  "That's depressing," he remarked as he passed in front of the nurse then paused to let her take the lead again. Not that Callum could blame them. The staff were warm, knowledgeable, friendly—the building, however, was enough to give anybody the creeps. Though well-maintained, it was old, the hallways narrow, the corners blind so you never felt certain you weren't about to run into someone—not a pleasant prospect in a place like this.

  Hell, if this place was enough to creep him out, a normal person who didn't talk to the dead on a regular basis didn't stand a chance.

  So, yeah, he couldn't blame those mystery family members who rarely visited.

  Speaking of the dead, this place was crawling with them. And he couldn't bring Rhia—hospital policy—so he was on his own until he got to his mother's room.

  "How has she been?" he asked the nurse to distract himself from the spirit of an old man who'd been staring at him.

  "Holding steady," the nurse replied before glancing back over her shoulder again. "She won't come out of her room since that last episode, but she's stabilizing, which is what we all hoped for, really."

  Callum nodded again. Stable-but-a-little-off was certainly better than completely unhinged. He wondered when the goal of her treatment had turned from getting-her-back-to-normal to just-getting-her-through-the-days. If normalcy had ever been the goal, it had been during the twelve years between eight and twenty years old when he hadn't known her.

  The farther they walked, the tighter his stomach became. It was always this way. The first time he'd come here, he hadn't even made it this far before chickening out. It had taken two more attempts before he'd stuck it out and seen his mom for the first time as an adult. It wasn't the spirits that had spooked him—though they certainly hadn't helped. It had been nerves and a whole lot of other feelings that had turned him around on his first three attempts. Now, he was used to it all. That didn't mean he didn't get nervous every time he came, but he could shut off some of the other feelings—at least long enough to speak with her.

  The nurse paused in front of a door, scanning her badge and pushing a button on the intercom alongside it. "Miriam," she said into the speaker box. "You have a visitor." She peeked in through a window in the door, then turned to Callum with a smile. "Go on in. I'll be at the nurses' station, like usual."

  Callum gave her another nod and a quiet "thanks" before turning the handle and pushing the heavy door open with his shoulder. As he stepped into the room, the noise from the hallway—noises of the living and the dead—all ceased. His eyes slid over the runes hanging on the walls.

  The room was small, but the one window on the far wall was large, the bars across it thin enough to let in plenty of natural light. The bed was narrow, with a light blue bedspread. The walls were the same color as the floor: white. There was a desk across the way, the old kind made of metal with a white top. It had books piled neatly on top of it and an empty bookshelf alongside.

  The woman sitting in the middle of the white floor could have been easy to miss. She was slightly built with dark hair; her head was down-turned, and her hospital-issued pajamas were a pale gray that complimented the tile beneath her.

  But his mother looked up when the door closed behind him with a soft click and her blue eyes shown like aquamarines in the pale space. At first, her brows were furrowed in question or suspicion, but they raised high above her gemstone eyes and a wide, bright smile lit her face as soon as she saw him.

  "Callum!" She rose to her feet, dusting the unseen floor grime from the back of her pants as she came toward him.

  He began to raise his arms, mirroring her coming-in-for-a-hug posture, but quickly dropped them again when she reached for his face instead.

  She pulled down the bottom lid of each of his eyes, peering intensely into them, though what she was looking for, he couldn't know. Then she held his chin, a wordless request for him to open his mouth, which he did. She peered inside, checking his teeth, he supposed, though he'd never been able to bring himself to ask what she was doing. Next, she pulled aside the collar of his t-shirt, before pushing up the sleeve, inspecting the tattoos that laced his skin as she went.

  "Good, that's good," she mumbled as she traced them with her fingers. "Your runes are intact. That's good."

  Since they were tattoos, they weren't going anywhere but he chose not to say that aloud.

  Her fingers stopped above a particular mark before tracing the shape with special care. "Good. Even this one."

  Yep, even that one. He wanted to take her hands and give them back to her. He wanted to tell her to change the subject, not to dwell on his tattoos, or on the drawings that littered her floor. He wanted to tell her to be normal. But that would be cruel. So, he stood while her fingers traced the shapes on his skin, listening to the story she told whenever she saw that damned tattoo, silently comparing her dramatized version, seen through the filter of an addled mind, to the truth in his memory.

  "That was your first rune," she said. "The first one. I made sure you were safe. That rune kept you safe. I taught you how to draw it. Do you remember that?"

  He nodded, finally taking her hands in his and clasping them in front of his chest so she would look at him, instead of that rune. "Of course I do."

  She beamed up at him. "Look how handsome you've become."

  "Thanks, mom." He wished he could take compliments like that seriously.

  Her eyes were back to his shoulder again, though his t-shirt sleeve covered the runes on his skin now. "Who gave you the other runes? Who drew them for you?"

  "My buddy, Scott, remember?" He'd told her that more times than he could count.

  "That's right, that's right." Then, taking her hands from his grasp, she opened her arms and wrapped them around his neck, standing on her toes so she could make her head rest on his shoulder. "I remember."

  He put his arms around her, wishing this hug could feel like the hugs he remembered from when he was young.

  She pulled back suddenly, eying him with suspicion, her arms unsnaking from around him, her hands pulling into her chest. Her eyes darted to the door, then back to his face. "You're being followed."

  Well, her perception wasn't diminished, was it? He nodded once, but smiled in an attempt to make sure she didn't get upset. "I am, but it's fine. I'm fine. Besides, look at all these runes—nothing could follow me in here if it tried."

  Attention turned, his mother sighed, going back to her drawings on the floor and crouching low so she could touch the papers with careful fingers. Her dark hair, cut close to her chin, fell like a curtain across her face, and a pang of sadness hit him. Her hair had been so beautiful. In his childhood memories, it was long and blowing in the wind as they drove through the desert with the windows down. Her eyes had been lit with humor and love, even while there had been a heaviness, a fatigue there he'd recognized, even then.

  "Have the nurses and doctors been treating you well?" He asked her that every time, though he wasn't sure he'd have been able to trust her answer if she told him they weren't.

  "Yes," she replied. "But they took some of my
veves. I was very angry at them."

  "It looks like they left you plenty," Callum replied.

  "There's not enough," she insisted, eyes still resting on the symbols at her feet. "There's not enough. All the walls—they have to be covered."

  "But you don't need to do that, Mom," Callum said, trying for a reassuring tone, worried she could hear the exasperation he felt. "You only need them on the cardinal points."

  Runes on a structure rendered its inhabitants invisible to the other side. Unlike runes on a person, which only protected from spiritual intrusion.

  "What is following you?" Her gaze turned upward suddenly to meet his—but he found his skirting away in response.

  He sighed. Maybe coming here had been a mistake. He looked to her again. "A shadowy figure."

  Her eyes went wide. "A diab!" Rising to her feet, she darted to the desk and inspected the books stacked upon it. "Ah! This!" She unwedged one book from among the others. Then she rushed back to Callum, cracking the book open as she went. She pointed at the page. "Voodoo," she said simply.

  She pressed the volume against him, the corners of the hardcover digging into his stomach. On instinct, he raised his hands and took the book from her, studying the page while she hurried back to her desk and selected another.

  Callum rolled his eyes though he tried to hide it. "Is that like when-in-Rome, only in this case we're in New Orleans?"

  One of the images on the page he peered down at matched a part of his tattooed lattice of sacred symbols: a veve –a symbol—for the Voodoo loa Papa Legba. Another book was shoved into his line of sight, placed on top of the first he was holding. One of his mother's slender fingers pointed at another image of the same veve.

  "Papa Legba," she said. "You ask for his help." Her finger tapped hard against the image, three quick raps. "But you have to sacrifice a chicken."

  Callum's head shot up, certain his expression held all kinds of “fuck that!” but Miriam was off again. She shook her head and waved a hand as she went back to the desk, as if saying “wait, I have something about that.” Sure enough, a few seconds later, she returned with another book, though this one she kept in her hands instead of adding to the stack in Callum's arms.