Shadow Games

by Doug Welch

  Chapter 22

  A New Ally

  Another car roared up just as I was about to punch out my lawyer.

  It scattered him and the three goons. It was a police car.

  The passenger door popped open and a voice from inside said, “Get in if you want to see your friends alive again.”

  I piled into the passenger seat; dragging Alex with me. The driver didn't bother about seat belts. The car's engine roared again and fishtailed around, pointing the other way.

  The driver was Detective Simmons.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I said.

  “Protecting your ass. It's becoming a full-time job.”

  Alex started crying. I put my arm around her and hugged her close. I didn't know whether to laugh or join her. I felt drained of all emotions.

  We clung together while the police car raced back towards Jamestown. After a while, I regained my composure.

  “What are you doing in all this mess, Detective?”

  “The name's Dan, Dan Simmons. Along with a few others, I'm trying to keep you safe. Your mother – stepmother, was my cousin. I'm like you. I can see the Shadows, but I can't join them.”

  By this time, Alex had stopped crying.

  She sat up in the back seat. “Where are we going, Dan?”

  Dan didn’t take his eyes from the road. “My place, sweetheart. They're watching the farm.”

  The police car entered Jamestown and Dan drove to a small clapboard house on the edge of town, sited behind an antique store. The house stood between forks in the road, sheltered by two enormous pine trees that hid it from view.

  Dan checked to make sure it was clear, and we entered through the front door. The tiny house had a postage stamp kitchen, a closet sized bathroom and a bedroom just big enough to hold the bed. The front door had opened to a small living room about half the size of a shipping container. It felt as though a regular sized house had been shrunk down to fit one man.

  “Cozy,” I said.

  “Claustrophobic,” Alex replied.

  Dan chuckled. “It’ll be a tight fit, but it's better than what the Shadows planned.”

  “We need to get back to the farm,” I said. “Our only hope lies there.”

  “That's not easy,” he said.

  “Have they found... anything?”

  Dan focused on me. “Do you mean have they found what they want? I doubt it. Otherwise, they wouldn't want you so badly. –Did you find it?” he asked.

  I hesitated. “I'd rather not say,” I replied.

  He still stared at me. “So, you did find it. –Paris, you have to trust me. I'm probably the only one in Jamestown, other than your friends, you can trust. Like you, I'm immune to their influence.”

  “Why should we trust you?” I asked.

  “I've known about you and Alex for over twenty years. If I’d wanted to harm you, I had plenty of opportunities.”

  “You said Mom was your cousin. We couldn’t find anything about our parents’ relatives,” Alex said.

  “Well, technically, honey, Jenny was not a relative, she was your stepmother,” he replied.

  “The woman who gave birth to us was not our mother. Jenny was our mother,” she said.

  He paused for a moment. “Very well, your mother and I were members of a Shadow Association. It's one of the Shadow organizations where not everyone in the group is related. Our Association is one of the more powerful ones. We are opposed to everything the Borgias represent. They were the ones who made your birth-mother mate with your father. They were trying to produce a hybrid.”

  “Wait a minute, Borgias? Like in Lucretia Borgia?” I asked.

  “Yes. They've been around a long time. They're mainly Shadows. That's why their place in history is so notorious. They're very rich and very powerful. They're the ones who want you.”

  “This is so freaking crazy,” Alex said. “About three weeks ago I was getting ready to attend the University of Cincinnati, and now my parents are dead and I'm listening to a Jamestown police detective talk about invisible people who happen to be related to Lucretia Borgia. I hope I wake up soon, I don't know if I can handle anymore of this nightmare.”

  She sat on the couch, leaned back, and closed her eyes.

  “If you're supposed to be protecting us, where were you, when the Shadows sent a damned SWAT team after us?” I demanded.

  "Easy, Paris – I'm sorry about that,” he replied. “None of us knew that the Borgias would try something like that. It’s got the Council really pissed. We have no idea what repercussions will come of this, but they did it and it's too late. We didn't get word of it until it was a done deal, otherwise we could have prevented it.”

  He paused. “Listen, I've got some beer in the fridge. Do either of you want one?” Dan said.

  “More than one,” I said.

  “I'll take one too,” Alex said.

  I joined Alex on the couch.

  She looked at me. “Paris, I just had an awful suspicion. Do you suppose mother was controlling us? Was that why when we were kids, we never needed to ask about where we came from?”

  I felt uncomfortable with the question. She had a point, but my mind shied way from considering it. “Maybe. –But in a sense all parents control their children, consciously or unconsciously. It’s in the past, Alex. Let it go.”

  Dan returned with two frosty, opened bottles and glasses.

  “There's something I don't get, Dan, how was Mom involved in all of this?” I said.

  “Drink your beer and I'll tell you.”

  He waited until we had taken a few swallows. “Jenny, your – mother, was a very powerful Adept. That's what the Shadows call members who have special abilities. She could have been the head of any House or Association. In fact, you can't be a Shadow organization without an Adept as its head. Once our group knew what the Borgias were attempting, she was asked to investigate you and Alex. She was supposed to help you if you showed any kind of mental illness or stress.

  “I guess you could say that the People feel that a crazy Shadow is a dangerous one.

  “She met your father, fell in love with him, and never left him. It was a loss to the Association, but she was stubborn. She protected you and your father, despite his folly. The bastards killed her in the only way they could, by running her car off the road.

  “About two years ago, Jenny asked me to come to Jamestown to help her. I was tired of being a frustrated cop in a large city, so I agreed. I've watched over your family ever since. What you don't know is that we, that is, my Association, have kept the competing Houses away from you. A lot of effort has been invested in keeping you safe and now it looks like it’s all for nothing.

  “You need to run, get out of Kentucky, both of you.”

  His words brought back some of the old hurt and anger. I choked it down.

  “That's not an option. Dan, we must get back into the house. It’s the only way. I've got to finish what I started.”

  Alex roused herself. “Paris, you nearly died. You can't try that again.”

  “I've got to, Alex. It's the only choice.”

  “Beth won't be there to save you this time.”

  “I know – Alex, if we have to give ourselves to these creatures, we're dead anyhow. I can't live like that. I'd rather die trying to kill them. – Dan, can your Association help us?”

  “The Council won't allow it. There are complex rules governing relations between Shadow groups, and you fall through the cracks. For what it’s worth, I'll help. But the fact you’re keeping a secret that can destroy the entire Shadow world makes most of the Shadow groups want your head. I'm afraid you're on your own.”

  Tell me something new. We've been on our own since this thing started. Maybe some of the Shadows had helped, but it hadn’t changed the outcome. The solution, if there was one, would have to come from our efforts, not a mob of Shadow cowards who hid behind the scenery.

  “What about the Council?” I said. “They have a re
ason to want this resolved quickly. Can't they help us?”

  Dan looked at me with a sympathetic expression. “The Council only negotiates disputes between Houses or Associations. Rarely, if a member of one of the organizations is wronged by a competing House, will the Council intervene. But you must be a member. Neither of you qualify.”

  “What if we joined one of the organizations?”

  “You can't, not without Council consent. Just as I can't switch houses without approval. I'm afraid you're stuck, Paris. The best option is for you to run. Leave Kentucky.”

  There was no way that I could abandon Elizabeth and Caesar. I’d die first.

  I reflected upon his words and began to conceive the glimmer of a plan. It might work, but it needed a fallback.

  “Forget it Dan, that's not an option, I need to get inside the farmhouse.”

  We discussed how we would carry out getting to the farm and how we’d enter the house and Dan suggested we use his bed to get some rest so we’d be fresh. He wanted to try the house at a certain hour when the officer guarding it wouldn’t be alert.

  He promised to give us any information that he found in town and left.

  Alex and I shared the narrow bedroom and fell sleep.