Sweet Shadows

by Tera Lynn Childs

  The image of Gretchen, leaping into the portal, into the abyss, to save her friend, flashes through my mind. She had no thought beyond protecting her own, even at the cost of her safety. She is courageous and loyal. She would have done the same for me or Grace without hesitation. What kind of sister—what kind of guardian—would I be if I didn’t show just as much courage when it comes to rescuing her? I might be scared—terrified—but she’s my blood.

  “All right,” I finally say. “We can do this.”

  “I think I know where to find one,” she says. “Gretchen told me about a kind of hotspot. An abandoned warehouse pier where she found tons of monsters over the years.”

  I nod. For a moment I think about suggesting something safer, like the giant spider who is the custodian at my school. But that would mean bringing the two parts of my life together, and I want to avoid that at all cost. For as long as possible.

  Besides, I like Harold. I don’t want to torture him for information.

  “Sounds good,” I say, even though it sounds terrifying. “We can bring it back here.”

  No one ever comes down here anymore, not since I stopped having slumber parties. Mother and Dad won’t be home until late and the housekeepers only clean this room once a month. I won’t have to explain why there’s a monster—who looks like a man—tied up in my basement. I only hope this hunt brings us the answers we need.

  An hour later, Grace and I crouch on a stack of crates outside the warehouse, peering in a filthy window.

  “Holy goalie,” Grace gasps.

  I shake my head. “What in the world is going on in there?”

  The scene before us, in the dark abandoned warehouse, is like something out of a postapocalyptic movie. The space is crowded with stacks of boxes and pallets, tarp-covered piles, and dusty forklifts. In the center of the floor there is a clearing, a square about fifty feet on each side, where there is a gathering.

  Two dozen monsters of all different kinds, but all of them evil looking, stand guard around the clearing, circling the space to form an impenetrable barrier. Keeping the humans from escaping.

  My heart stutters.

  In the middle of the clearing, standing in very military-looking formation, perfect lines in perfect rows, are dozens of humans. Maybe more than a hundred.

  They are dressed in ordinary street clothes and many of them look pretty out of shape, so they clearly aren’t real military personnel. They stand, unmoving, like someone has turned off their power switches.

  The creepiest part is their faces. They are completely and utterly blank, as if someone—or something—or a lot of somethings—has hypnotized them. Not only are the lights off, but nobody’s home either.

  Grace gasps again.

  I follow the direction of her gaze, to the front of the human formation, where one of the monster guards is approaching a tall, middle-aged man who is wearing a business suit. The monster lifts the man’s wrist and chomps down.

  I smack a hand over my mouth.

  “What is he doing?” I whisper.

  “I’m not sure,” Grace replies, “but Gretchen said the monsters drain human life force.”

  “Drain them?”

  “Something about feeding on human energy gives the monsters extra power in our realm.” She stares blankly through the window. “I think … it looks like they’ve hypnotized them.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” a mocking male voice says behind us. “Killed the cat.”

  I turn, slowly, afraid of what I’ll find.

  There is a two-headed monster standing on the crate just below us. He must have snuck up on us while our attention was on the humans inside. He grins, a pair of sickening smiles, like he’s just found the biggest prize ever.

  One head says, “Killed the huntress too.”

  Grace elbows me in the ribs. I cast her a sideways glance and see her gesturing with her eyebrows. She’s kind of jerking her head at the double monster below us.

  She mouths, This one.

  Really? I mouth back.

  She nods.

  I take a deep breath and sigh. Guess we’ve found our potential informant. And I suppose it’s my job to distract the thing. I take another deep breath, reminding myself of my duty.

  “I must have hit my head, because I’m seeing double,” I say with a big fake smile on my face. “Double ugly, that is.”

  One of the beast’s faces scowls in confusion while the other contorts in anger.

  “Actually,” I say, moving slightly to my left and stepping toward the edge of our crate, “I think you might have two of the ugliest faces I’ve ever seen.”

  The creature lunges for me. I leap down to the next crate over—grateful that I changed into flats for the hunt—trying to keep my balance and keep out of the monster’s reach. The monster follows after me, turning his back on Grace.

  While his attention is focused on me, Grace steps up to his back, reaches out wide with both hands, and then—crack! In a swift movement, she knocks the two heads together. Hard.

  I dodge to the side as the creature crumples to the ground, tumbling down the pile of crates until he lands on the wooden pier with a thud.

  “Perfect!” Grace squeals.

  I stare down at the unconscious creature. “How are we going to get him home?”

  Grace makes a face. Clearly she hasn’t thought that far ahead either.

  “Come on,” I say, bounding down from crate to crate. “We’ll figure it out.”

  While Grace stands guard over our quarry, I fetch my car—dent free and fresh from the body shop this morning—from its parking spot two blocks away. I lower the convertible roof. That’s the only way the thing will ever fit in my tiny backseat.

  I execute a quick turn and then I’m backing down the pier toward Grace. I stop in front of the still-unconscious creature.

  “I tried to drag him into the open,” Grace says as I climb out of my car. “He’s too heavy.”

  “We can do it,” I insist.

  We each lean down and grab a shoulder. Together we manage to inch him over to my car. As we struggle to shove him up into my backseat, I say, “Sure could use Gretchen’s superstrength right about now.”

  “Tell me about it,” Grace says, panting.

  A minute later we have the monster strapped into the backseat and I’m speeding home, desperate to get him there and secured before the thing—things?—wakes up.

  After I back my car into the garage, we drag the unconscious two-headed creature through the door to the rec room. We manage to hoist him up onto a bar stool. Neither of us is very skilled with knots, so we do our best to secure his arms behind him and his ankles to the legs of the stool. When we feel sure that he’s not going anywhere, we step back. I take a seat on the coffee table while Grace paces. We wait.

  The first sign of life is a soft groan. Grace slammed the heads together pretty hard, so they probably hurt like hell now.

  Slowly, with awkward flutters, both pairs of eyes open. The beast glances around the room and, finally seeing us, affixes us with twin glares. If the creature’s eyes could burn, Grace and I would be deep-fried right now.

  “You’ll pay for this, little huntresses,” he snarls. “When I’m free, I’m coming for you first.”

  I’m prepared for this. “I’d be a little ticked too, if a pair of girls took me down.”

  One head growls.

  “We’re happy to let you go,” Grace says, walking over to her backpack. She reaches in and pulls out the square of paper Gretchen left before diving into the portal. The oracle’s note. “Just translate this for us first.”

  Both heads glance at the paper, at the lines of symbols that I can’t read.

  “What will you give me for this?” he asks.

  “I told you he couldn’t read,” I say to Grace, taking the note from her.

  “Guess we’ll just have to send him home without his supper.”

  We both face the prisoner and drop our fangs simultaneously.
/>   The creature’s eyes widen—all four of them.

  “I can read,” the head on the left says. “Hold it up where I can see.”

  I step close enough for him to read the note but keep enough distance to avoid gnashing teeth or something equally dangerous. I hadn’t expected our little game to work so quickly. I don’t trust his easy acquiescence.

  Slowly, he reads.

  “In the space beneath the sky, between harbor and haunted ground,

  Where graces and muses weep at gentle water’s shore,

  Be three within three, join life with death in thee,

  To find the lost and take up destiny.”

  As the creature speaks, Grace types the confusing words into her phone. I let the strange phrases dance through my brain. They seem important—critical even—but not the answer to our current problem. It’s a riddle, obviously, but to what? Leading to where? Not into the abyss to rescue Gretchen, that much is clear.

  “Do you know what that means?” I ask the creature. “What is it referring to?”

  “How should I know?” one head snarls.

  “I read the thing,” the other says. “Now let me go.”

  “Sorry,” I say sarcastically, “can’t do that yet.”

  “We have a few more questions,” Grace says, putting her phone away and stepping to my side.

  “Answer those,” I say.

  “To our liking,” she adds.

  “And then we might let you go.”

  The heads grumble, but the thing knows we have him secured. I glance at the knots just to make sure, before I keep on with the taunting.

  “We need to know how to get into the abyss,” Grace says.

  “Why?” both heads say.

  “No one wants to go into the abyss,” one head adds.

  The other echoes, “No one.”

  The whole creature shudders.

  There is such disgust in his voices that I almost feel sorry for him, for being sentenced to life in what I’m sure is a horrible place. Then I remember that he’s an evil, human-eating monster, and I don’t feel quite so sympathetic.

  “Well, we do,” Grace says. “How do we get there?”

  I dare to step a little closer. “How do we find a portal?”

  “You don’t find a portal,” one head says.

  “Monsters don’t look for portals,” the other head says. “We only go back if one of you sends us.”

  Well, I suppose that makes sense. From what I’ve seen, the creatures that come from the abyss aren’t terribly eager to go back. That’s why my sisters and I have to hunt them down and fill them with venom.

  “Then tell us how you get here,” Grace says. “Maybe if we understand that, we can figure out the reverse.”

  Both heads clamp their mouths tight.

  I give Grace a sympathetic look. “Guess he wants to go home after all,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Grace says. “Too bad we’ll have to make it painful.”

  “Do you remember where the pulse point is on this one?”

  Grace circles the monster. “I think so. Right”—she points at the thing’s knee—“here.”

  “Then if we bite here”—I point at the opposite wrist—“it should take the longest for the venom to work.”

  Grace nods. “It will cause the most pain.”

  One head remains tight-lipped, but the eyes on the other widen in fear. As I reach for the wrist, he blurts, “There’s a door.”

  “Shut it,” the other head says.

  “You shut it.” The talkative head focuses on me. “In the abyss, there is a door.”

  “A door,” Grace echoes. “As in the door?”

  “Yes,” the eager head nods. “The door between the realms is sealed on this side but not the other. There have always been cracks in the seal. When we step through the door in the abyss, it leads to an ever-moving portal. We never know where we’ll come through in the city.”

  That makes sense. That’s why portals keep showing up in different places, why we never know where a monster is going to come from.

  For the first time, I see the benefit of unsealing this side of the door. At least then we would have only one location to guard.

  “So you have no idea how to locate a portal?” I ask. “How to predict where one will show up?”

  “No idea,” the helpful head says.

  The other one parrots, “No idea. Now be good girls and let us go.”

  “Oh, I think we all know that’s not going to happen,” I say.

  What I don’t realize is that, while the one head has been spilling his guts, the other has been quietly plotting. In an instant, the thing has both arms loose and is wrapping them around Grace’s waist.

  She screams.

  I react. In a heartbeat, I’m sinking my fangs into the creature’s thigh.

  It howls in pain but doesn’t vanish immediately, and for three long seconds—which feel like three long years—I have to listen to Grace cry out as the creature tightens his grip on her.

  Then, with one final screech, he’s gone.

  Grace crashes to the floor.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, kneeling at her side.

  “Yeah, I—” She turns and rests her back against the end of the loveseat. “Man, that thing had a grip.”

  I wipe at my mouth—the taste of whatever that was is not five-star dining—and move to sit next to her. Great. I sent away our best chances at getting answers. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” she asks. “Why?”

  “I just reacted.” I’d seen the thing grab Grace and protective instinct took over. “I should have knocked it out again. Now we can’t ask it any more questions.”

  “It wasn’t being that helpful anyway,” Grace says.

  “At least it translated the note.” I can’t get the taste out of my mouth. “You want something to drink?”

  She nods and I push myself to my feet. I run upstairs and grab a pair of San Pellegrino Limonatas, and when I get back Grace is dropping onto the couch.

  “Now what?” Grace asks, wincing. She ignores her pain and pulls out her phone. She studies the translation she transcribed as the monster spoke. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know.” I sink onto the couch next to her and hand her one of the cans.

  She shakes her head. “I thought for sure …”

  “It was a good idea,” I concede, popping the top on my can. “A great idea. I thought the oracle’s note would help too. I think it’s really important.”

  I down the entire beverage, relieved when my palate clears of the beastie flavor.

  “Just not for this,” she says, sounding defeated. “Guess we’re back to square one.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t have to.

  With a sigh, Grace leans to the side and rests her head on my shoulder. I reach down and pat her knee. Then, because I feel suddenly relaxed and comfortable, I let my head rest against hers.

  But my mind is still on the problem. On the hope that somewhere just out of reach is the clue we need to get Gretchen home. As much as I love Grace, it’s not the same with only two of us. The Key Generation is meant to be three. We have to get Gretchen back, by whatever means necessary.

  CHAPTER 20

  GRETCHEN

  I think she’s waking up.”

  “Is she still breathing?”

  “What if she bites me?”

  “Bited me once.”

  “I’ve never seen a huntress before. Maybe she’ll—”

  “Shut up!” a final, resounding voice barks. Then, quieter, “Look, give her some space. We have to see what she has to say.”

  I pry open one eye just as one of the earlier voices snickers and says, “Don’t you mean hear?”

  There’s a soft growl and I spot the source, a golden woman who looks like she might be made out of the precious metal. Her body, clothing, even her hair is gold, cascading down her back in a solid, unmoving wave. When she turns to look at me, the motions are ro
botic. Stiff.

  “Hello, huntress.” She smiles. “Welcome to Abyssos.”

  I frown. Abyssos? My voice scratches as I whisper, “Where?”

  “That is the native term for this realm,” she explains. “The original Greek.”

  “Oh,” I say, my cloudy mind not quite understanding. “Okay.”

  “I imagine you call it the abyss.”

  That I understand.

  Everything comes back to me in a flash. Nick, the portal, a dead monster, and almost drowning in the black lake.

  “Who are you?” I ask, pushing into a sitting position. My head throbs and I pinch the bridge of my nose. “What are you?”

  I’ve never seen anything like her before. All the creatures that come into the human realm are full-on creatures. Part human, part monster, part whatever. There hasn’t been a robot lady—or a robot anything—since I’ve been hunting. There aren’t any listed in the case files, either. I would remember that.

  “I am a golden maiden,” she says patiently. “Crafted by Hephaestus to serve at his will.”

  I force my headache under control and open my eyes to look at her. “But you’re not …”

  “A monster?” She laughs, making a light, tinkling sound similar to the clinking of a knife against a glass goblet. “No, I am not. Neither are my friends, here, in the negative sense of the word. We are, however, nonhuman creatures.”

  She swings her golden arm wide, drawing my attention to the rest of the group gathered around me. There are a number of beings—some nearly human looking, some barely recognizable—including the unicorn I saw after I came out of the lake.

  “The water,” I say as my memory returns. “Something grabbed me. Something else—”

  “A merdaemon,” the golden maiden says. “The dark, deadly version of a mermaid. They control the waters here. They keep everything else out, guarding it for their wicked kin.”

  “Merdaemons,” I repeat. Now those are in the case files. I’ve never had to hunt one because they can’t come out of the water. But Ursula warned me that if seal carcasses ever started washing up on the beach or if surfers started disappearing, I’d have to break out the scuba gear and go deep-sea hunting.

  “It had me,” I say. “But something pulled me out, made it release me.”