The Cloak's Shadow

by Elle Beauregard

  "Yeah. He's an amazing artist—all kinds, not just tattoos."

  "This shape," Zander said, tracing a particular set of lines, the shape swirling and primitive. "It's the same as the one above your front door." She’d noticed it as they walked into his house tonight.

  There was a short pause. "It is, yeah." Callum's voice was stiff.

  Zander looked up at him again. "What does it mean?"

  His gaze searched hers, his brow furrowed slightly like he was reading some language in her expression. "It's a sigil," he finally said. "A visual representation of a spell."

  Zander's smile spread, this time in disbelief. Was he really talking about spells? Like, magic spells? The same kind Wren had been talking about? "What kind of a spell?"

  "For protection."

  "Protection from what?" She laughed quietly.

  "Bad energy," Callum replied with a shrug. Then he slid down deeper beneath the covers, joining her face to face. "Scott is very superstitious."

  Zander couldn't help but smirk through a nod. "Mm. He certainly sounds that way." She didn't voice the rest of her thought, which was to ask why Callum had the image on his skin if Scott was the one who was superstitious.

  "He believes in Santa Claus too," Callum went on, mumbling as he drew closer, ducking his head to bring his mouth to Zander's shoulder.

  "And the Tooth Fairy?" Her heart jumped in her chest with the brush of his lips on her skin.

  His breath was warm as he skimmed his lips up her neck. "Definitely the Tooth Fairy."

  Zander gave up thinking of another quippy remark and met his mouth with hers.

  Buzz-buzz-buzzzzz.

  She pulled back by an inch. "That's my phone."

  Callum drew his mouth back to her jaw. "Ignore it."

  She wanted to, but—

  Buzz-buzz-buzzzzz.

  "Nobody calls me but my family." Or maybe Wren.

  The air in the bedroom felt cold against her skin when she sat up and let the covers fall. It was too late for this to be a social call—which meant something had happened, which meant she needed to answer it.

  Buzz-buzz-buzzzzz.

  Reaching across Callum, she grabbed her jeans from the floor alongside his bed and pulled her phone from the back pocket. Her brows furrowed when she saw the screen.

  Why was Alyssa calling her?

  Zander let her chest rest against Callum's, who was lying mostly beneath her now, as she brought the phone to her ear. "Hey Alyssa, what's up?"

  Callum's fingers ran goosebumps up and down her spine.

  "Cecily is really sick. We need you to come home."

  Zander's heart jumped into her throat. "What?" She sat up, throwing the covers off of her and Callum alike.

  "There's this evil spirit in the apartment," Alyssa went on, talking a mile a minute. "It-won't-leave-Cecily-alone-and-I-think-it’s-bad-news-and-it-kind-of-did-something-to-her-so-now-she-can't-leave—"

  "Alyssa, slow down," Zander urged, cutting her off. "I can barely make out what you're saying. Evil spirit, what?"

  The mattress shifted, then Callum's hand was running down her back. When she glanced at him, his furrowed brows were full of concern, not come on.

  "There's this thing," Alyssa went on after a breath. "An evil spirit. I can't see it. But it—" she dropped her voice. "It did something to Cecily."

  What in the hell was Alyssa talking about? Zander shook her head, exasperation rising in her chest. When Alyssa had said Cecily was “really sick,” an evil spirit was not even on the long list of worst-case scenarios her mind had jumped to. Way to freak her out over nothing. "Stop fucking with me, Alyssa. It's not funny. I thought something had happened."

  "I'm not! I'm not fucking with you," Alyssa exclaimed. "She calls it a shadow. And it's, like, stalking her."

  "A shadow is stalking Cecily," Zander repeated, her voice flat with annoyance. They were so going to pay for their bad timing. "I'm hanging up now."

  "Give me the phone,” Callum said.

  Zander looked at him. His expression was a hundred times more serious than she'd expected it to be—just like his tone had been.

  "Who was that?" Alyssa asked into Zander's ear.

  Callum held out a hand, his blue eyes stark and determined. "Seriously. Give me the phone."

  Wordless, and not sure why she was doing it, Zander handed the phone to Callum, who immediately brought it to his ear.

  "Hi, Alyssa was it?"

  He scrubbed his jaw with his free hand before running it through his hair. "Hey. I'm Callum. What did you say about a shadow?"

  Zander sat there staring at him while he said “mm-hm” and “uh-huh” like everything Alyssa was saying made perfect sense.

  "It's been going on since Zander moved, I bet?"

  Was he actually buying Alyssa's story? Were they pulling him into the family joke? He had to be kidding.

  Zander crawled off the bed and found her shirt and underwear on the floor. She pulled them on to the soundtrack of more "uh-huhs” then she went back to the bed.

  Callum gave her a distracted smile and ran a hand down her back again as soon as she sat down beside him.

  "Okay. That sounds like an intrusion," he said. "It seems like it was only for a second—like maybe it was testing the waters or trying to scare her—but even then, that would leave her pretty scrambled for a while and if it’s in your apartment and she can’t get away from it... yeah, that’s not good."

  Jesus. His tone said he knew what the hell he was talking about—even though the words coming out of his mouth made no sense whatsoever. A creeping kind of anxiety picked its way up Zander's spine, the kind of anxiety she'd only experienced when logic and reality didn't agree.

  "Okay, look," Callum said after another short pause, his tone matter-of-fact but warm. "Zander is going to text you a picture. I need you to draw the symbol in the picture on Cecily's skin—anywhere, it doesn't matter where. Can you do that?"

  He gave a chuckle after a breath's pause. "I know the feeling. Okay, then have her draw it on herself. Then sit tight. Don't acknowledge the shadow's presence. Don't talk about it and tell Cecily not to look at it—definitely don't talk to it. Got it?"

  A pause.

  "Okay, hold tight for that text."

  Callum ended the call and held her phone out to her. His eyes were serious.

  "I need you to take a picture of this," he said, pointing to the very tattoo she'd asked him about just minutes before.

  But she didn't take the phone from him. "So I can text it to Alyssa?"

  He nodded and sighed, obviously uncomfortable, like he knew he sounded crazy.

  Which was good, because she was not relishing the thought of being the one who had to tell him.

  "I'll explain," he said, placing a hand on her knee, his blue eyes burning into hers. "I swear. Just—do this for me."

  She stared at him for a breath, unsure what to do. He sounded so sure and in his eyes was nothing but genuine concern and real caring—but none of this made sense. Shadows couldn't stalk people. Pictures couldn't cast spells. Magic didn't exist.

  If you really think that's true, what are you still doing here?

  What if it all hadn't been a joke? The question rang in Zander's head. What if every time she left, the weird stuff Cecily and Alyssa, and even their Mom, told her about had really happened? What if they weren't making it up, but were laughing about it because there wasn't anything else to do?

  What if Cecily was really being hurt by something evil?

  If it was true that creepy stuff only ever happened when Zander left, then it was her fault Cecily was being hurt now.

  "Okay, fine." She took the phone from Callum's outstretched hand, heart pounding.

  A minute later, tattoo pics taken and texted, Callum crawled off the bed.

  Zander watched while he wordlessly crossed the room, pulled open a dresser drawer and fished out a pair of sweats, followed by a t-shirt. She watched the long, lean muscles on his back flex while
he pulled the sweats up his legs, then the shirt over his head. When he turned around, she didn't try to hide that she'd been staring. She hadn't been admiring him so much as waiting.

  "You gonna fill me in?" she said.

  At the same time he said, "I'm a medium."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "Don't go." Callum couldn't watch her leave. Not again. Not knowing how badly he'd fucked up.

  He knew the Shadow had been leaving him alone—he’d never, in a million years, imagined Zander's sister was its new target!

  How fucked up was that?

  But that's exactly why he'd had to tell Zander he was a medium. He couldn't help if he didn't tell her—and he had to help. At least as much as she'd let him now that she knew.

  "Talk to me. Just, seriously—don't go," Callum said again when Zander picked her bag up off his floor.

  He'd explained. At least, he'd gotten as far as what he meant when he said he was a medium, that he could see and hear the other side. That spirits sought him out. That it had always been that way.

  She just hadn't said a word through any of it. Even when he'd finally stopped talking and sat beside her, hopeful she would say something, she'd sat silently. Then she'd stood up and finished getting dressed in silence.

  She dropped her bag on the end of his bed with a bitter sigh. "I don't want to go," she said, finally.

  Hope jump-started Callum's heart in his chest.

  But then she took the bag's strap and put it over her shoulder, fire flaring in her eyes. "But what the hell else am I supposed to do when the guy I just slept with tells me he can talk to ghosts?"

  She turned and pulled open his bedroom door, a horrible déjà vu.

  But this time, Callum went after her instead of standing idle and letting her leave, a fire of his own sparking to life and roaring into a blaze somewhere in his chest. "I'm telling you the truth," he barked as he followed her down the hall and into the living room. "What else do you want me to say?"

  She stopped when she got to the front door and turned back, question and fire, acid and hurt in her eyes.

  But he didn't stop.

  If he was about to lose her, he needed this last connection. Needed to lose her with the taste of her on his lips.

  He walked right into her—and kissed her.

  She tensed and he was ready to let her step back, to let her pull away, but she didn't. She leaned into him, inhaling deep, breathing him in as she drew her hands to his chest. There was desperation in the way she leaned into him, a sadness in the way she inhaled. He squeezed her waist, his fingers aching to prove she was still there with him.

  When she did finally pull back, it was by inches. And her eyes swam with unfallen tears.

  The fire in his chest instantly faded to a smolder. He opened his mouth to say something. Anything. Something comforting, something to make this right, to make her stop crying—but she spoke before he could come up with anything good enough.

  "I need a cigarette."

  Then she turned, opened the door and walked out onto his front steps, leaving him standing in the doorway, unsure what to do—unsure he'd even heard her right.

  When she turned back, her eyes were clear so you'd have never known she'd been crying. "You coming?"

  Callum shook himself. He shoved his feet into the flip flops that were sitting by the door and followed, stepping out into the late-night darkness and closing the door behind him.

  "There's a Pack-a-Sack a couple of blocks away," he said as he met her on the bottom step.

  She turned and started walking. "I have no idea what that is, but I assume they have smokes and are open late."

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  Callum watched Zander take a long drag from her cigarette, the light from the flaring-orange tip illuminating her features as they sat side-by-side on his front steps in the dark. The only light came from their lit cigarettes and the streetlight a few houses down.

  They hadn't said much to one another since walking to the convenience store. He'd paid for the smokes because it seemed like the right thing to do, but he'd had her pick the brand—which happened to be the same brand he liked.

  So it was a desperate kind of win-win, he supposed.

  He took a pull from his own cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs before blowing it away.

  It probably wasn't the right thing to be thinking just then, but he had really wanted one of these a couple of hours ago, while they were lying in bed together—before he'd potentially ruined everything.

  "I didn't peg you for a smoker," he said instead of voicing that thought, cutting the dense silence once it became too heavy to bear.

  "I'm not," she replied quietly, flicking her ash like a pro.

  He smiled. "Could have fooled me."

  Her laugh was so low and private, he wasn't certain he'd heard it.

  "Little known fact about me," she said quietly before taking a drag. She talked through the smoke bleeding from her lips. "I chain smoke when I need to get my head straight. I do it until I feel better—or until I'm so sick I don't care about whatever was bothering me anymore."

  Callum wasn't sure what to say to that. He remembered the things she'd said as she stormed out of his room that night—the first time she'd done it. He remembered thinking how they'd sounded like words born from life experience. If so, he could relate.

  He put his cigarette to his lips and inhaled deep while he nodded. When he exhaled, he'd thought of a response: "I don't keep these in the house anymore—too tempting."

  Zander's laugh was a little more believable this time. "That's a shame, I could have used one earlier." She threw him a wicked smirk.

  It took him a second to put together that she was saying what he had been thinking just moments before.

  He gave a low chuckle and lifted his cigarette like a toast. "Amen to that." Then he took another drag.

  "Look," he said after blowing his smoke away, angling his head so it would be carried on the wind instead of sitting over them. "I know I probably sound like a lunatic—"

  "I don't believe in God." She let the statement sit while she rubbed her cigarette out on the step before looking at him.

  He shook his head with a shrug. "Neither do I." And this was news, how?

  Her scoff was a challenge without words. "How can you say you see the 'other side' but not believe in God?"

  "I don't pretend to know who's in charge," he replied truthfully. Was that what she was upset about? "I don't even really care. All I know is what I can see—and hear, and touch." He reached and took her narrow wrist in his fingers. "You. This." He looked out at everything around them before letting his eyes land on her again. "And all the rest of it you can't see."

  She looked around them now, out into his front lawn and the street beyond it, and sighed. "The weird thing is I think you might be right."

  There wasn't anything to say to that, so he just took another drag from his cigarette. On the one hand, there was a certain rush of happiness to hear she might believe him—on the other, she didn't sound happy about it.

  "So, are there ghosts around us now?"

  He nodded as he exhaled. "Probably. They're everywhere." He didn't want to freak her out, but he also didn't want to lie.

  "I thought you could see them."

  "Not when I'm with you."

  She looked at him, her expression full of question—plus a skeptical edge he admired.

  "There's a veil," he explained, running his fingers across her wrist and propping his other arm across his knee. "At least that's what I call it, I don't know. It divides our world from the spirit world, and it's everywhere. But, it doesn't apply to me. I can see through it, and they can see me." Holding his breath, he slid his fingers up her palm and laced them between hers; an act that felt more personal than anything they'd shared yet, in or out of his bed.

  She closed her fingers over the back of his hand, and he did the same, letting his thumb run gently over hers, up and down, up and down.

&
nbsp; "You, however," he went on, forcing his voice to work through the pounding of his heart, "have your own veil. It's opaque; it covers you and it covers anyone you're with."

  "Even you,” she said, her voice low and her eyes trained on their hands.

  He nodded. "Even me."

  Her gaze found his, but she didn't try to pull her hand away. In fact, she squeezed it tighter. "Is that why you asked me to coffee when I ran into you that morning? So you could have some peace and quiet?"

  He couldn't help the low chuckle that rose from his chest. "A little, at first," he admitted. "Really, though, I think it just gave me the guts to actually ask you out."

  Zander tried to laugh, but it faded into a sad kind of sigh. She looked up toward the dark sky. Then she squeezed his hand—and let it go.

  She stood, and Callum's chest ached.

  He couldn't say he blamed her, but it would suck to watch her leave him.

  Then there was the whole thing about needing to help her little sister. He couldn't leave her alone and defenseless, whether Zander wanted anything to do with him or not.

  She grabbed her bag and went down the steps as he rubbed the cigarette he'd let burn down to the filter out on the stair.

  She turned back. "I'm going back to my place so I can pack," she said. "If I buy two tickets to Seattle, can you pay me back for yours?"

  Huh? He looked at her, surprised.

  "Assuming you're up for meeting my sisters," she went on with a shrug. "And my Mom, if she's home. I mean, I have to fix this. And I don't know the first thing about any of it. But you do. So... yeah."

  "Yeah," he replied quickly, shaking himself into this new reality. "Yeah, I can pay you back. But I need to have Rhia added to my ticket."

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  Jesus, could this plane take off already?

  Callum peered out the window. Below, checked baggage was being loaded into the belly of the plane, the bags being slung from a truck onto a conveyor belt. Beside him, Zander was sitting in the middle seat, her head resting back against the headrest and her eyes closed. She was probably trying to get some sleep, which was smart since they hadn't gotten much—or, like, any—during the night. But as much as he knew sleeping was a good idea, he also knew it was so not going to happen for him. At least not while he was sitting on a plane.