by Alex Rivers
“I talked to some people,” Sinead said. “The Shades are holding Harutaka in a large warehouse located in Malden. We know that there’s very little electronic security. Most of the security is composed of patrols and guards.”
“Even one Shade is enough to stop us,” Kane pointed out. “They’re rumored to be hellishly strong, and I don’t think they can be hurt.”
“We only need to temporarily disable the Shades,” I said. “We need darkness.”
In complete darkness, there were no shadows. Several eyewitness accounts claimed that when a Shade’s shadow disappeared in the dark, the body froze. It would start moving again once the light returned and the shadow reappeared. That meant that there was a common thread between Shades and four-year-olds: Both were afraid of the dark.
“There are six spotlights around the warehouse.” Sinead clicked to a slide with a detailed diagram, displaying a map of the warehouse from above. “And inside it’s lit by rows of strong neon lights.”
“Tonight should be a cloudy night,” I said. “And the moon rises at two a.m.”
“Twelve minutes past two,” Isabel interjected automatically.
I grinned at her. Naturally, the fortune teller knew the movements of the celestial bodies much better than I did. “So the plan is simple. We kill the electricity to the warehouse and its vicinity. All the Shades go to sleep. We break in, take Harutaka, get out. Easy-peasy.”
“Won’t it be a bit… dark?” Kane asked. “What with us killing all the lights?”
“I’ll make us some night-vision potions,” I answered. “We’ll be able to see just fine.”
“One hitch with the plan is that the Shades have a generator which instantly kicks in when the power goes out,” Sinead said, pointing at a square in the upper right corner of the diagram, where it said Spare Gen. “The Shades didn’t want to be at the mercy of the power company.”
“Right,” I said. “So one of us—that would be Sinead—will go and sabotage the generator, while Kane and I kill the electricity and get Harutaka.”
“What about me?” Isabel asked.
I smiled at her. “You sit safely a mile away in a heated car, gazing into your crystal ball. Let us know if anything is about to go very wrong.”
Chapter Thirteen
I sat with Kane in his car, waiting. The air was tense and silent, the stillness before the storm. I clenched my fists, breathing, doing my best to keep my fear at bay. I glanced at Kane. If he was worried, it didn’t show. He seemed to be deep in thought.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked, more as a distraction than anything else.
“Just thinking of my sister. I haven’t visited her for a while.”
“In the hospital? What’s wrong with her?”
He glanced at me, and for a moment it seemed he might answer. Then he looked away.
“Okay, guys,” Sinead’s voice buzzed in my ear. We all had Bluetooth earphones, set up to a conference call. “I’m nearly at the location. So drink up.”
I fished for the two vials I had in my pocket. I had already given Sinead her own vial. I handed one to Kane. Our fingers touched for a second, and a sweet chill ran up the back of my neck. I gritted my teeth. Now was really not the time to be unfocused.
I unstopped my vial and drank its contents in one quick gulp. It tasted like battery acid. My tongue prickled slightly after swallowing, and my throat felt scratchy.
“Mmmmm, yummy,” I said, looking at Kane.
He stared at the vial doubtfully.
“Go on,” I urged him. “It will take ten minutes to work, so we should get a move on.”
He drank it and winced. “Ugh. I think there’s something wrong with mine. My throat feels weird.”
“It’s just the basilisk venom in it.”
“Ha ha, you’re hilarious.”
I glanced at him, quirking one eyebrow, and he blanched in surprise. “You’re serious? There’s basilisk venom in this?”
“Just a bit. It won’t kill you.”
He smiled wryly and looked out the window.
He had worn the same trench coat tonight, and a black shirt and black pants underneath. I wore a similar outfit—a black sweater and black leggings. I had also put on my dark boots. My hair was swept back in a haphazard ponytail. I quickly checked my gear for the hundredth time: lockpicks, a tiny flashlight, a small switchblade. My chain was looped around my wrist, and I had a small gun in an ankle holster, which I prayed I wouldn’t need. Shades couldn’t be hurt with bullets, anyway.
“I’m near the shack with the generator,” Sinead said. “No guards here. Are you guys in position?”
We were, and my eyes automatically went to our target. An old-looking utility pole stood across from the car, on the sidewalk. It was the one that fed power to the entire area around the warehouse. “Yeah,” I answered. “We’re here.”
“Cool,” Sinead said. “Just waiting for your juice to kick in, Lou.”
We didn’t want to kill the light before we could see in the dark. I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter past one. We had ample time before the moon rose.
“Do you know this guy, Harutaka?” Kane asked.
“Not really. Just stuff I heard. He’s supposedly incredibly talented, but weird. We never needed a hacker of his caliber on our jobs.”
“Did you do a lot of those jobs?”
I shrugged. “Some. Sinead, Isabel, and I all worked for the same guy, and he occasionally sent us to break into rich people’s houses.”
“This guy… he’s ABC, right?”
I glanced at him, surprised. “I wouldn’t call him that to his face. But yeah. Anthony ‘Breadknife’ Cisternino.”
“How did a sweet girl like you end up working for an asshole like him?”
I blushed, feeling both a bit giddy and irritated. “I’m not a sweet girl. And he may be an asshole, but for a teenager living on the street, he was one of the only options left.”
“It must have been hard.”
“Working for him? Not at first.” I thought back to that first year. “When I joined Breadknife’s gang, I hated myself. After almost six years in shitty foster families, I felt like I was nothing, that I was worthless. That the only point to my existence was the tiny check my foster parents got from social services every month for taking care of me. As if they were doing it well enough to get paid.”
I swallowed, suddenly swamped by bad memories. I shook them off. “Breadknife can spot talent. And he saw it in me. Something I didn’t know I had. He began teaching me how to pick locks, how to sneak, to climb walls. We would go together on hikes in rich neighborhoods, picking targets together, planning the jobs. It was like a sort of father–daughter quality time. I actually loved it. I was happy.”
Why was I talking so freely? It must have been the basilisk venom in my potion. It often reduced inhibitions.
“What happened then?” Kane asked. His voice was soft. He leaned toward me, listening raptly.
“People got hurt,” I said. “I began to find out about small things. A maid was blamed for one of my jobs, and got fired. She was a single mom. Had the cutest son…” My voice faded away as I recalled the son’s face when I’d spied on them. Tired and hungry. “Then it turned out a bracelet I stole had belonged to a man’s dead wife. Our fence sold it back to him for ten times what it was worth, because Breadknife knew the value of love and grief. I started hating it. Then I made a mistake.” I swallowed, recalling the police cars surrounding me, the cops shouting at me to lie down on the floor. “I got arrested. Spent a year in jail.”
I didn’t add the rest. That a few weeks after the arrest, during a medical checkup, I found out I was pregnant.
“When I got out, I knew I had to stay out of prison. So I left Breadknife and his gang.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. I was eighteen, and could fend for myself.” I was leaning forward as well. Our faces were just a few inches away. I pulled back slightly, trying to regain
my composure. “What about you? How did you end up as a sorcerer?”
“Sometimes,” Kane said, “I ask myself the same question. But if I look back, it almost seems like I had no other choice.”
He breathed slowly, and his eyes had a faraway look. His face suddenly seemed so beautiful and sharp. I saw every detail—his unshaven cheeks, his long eyelashes, his firm jaw.
It was all much clearer than it should have been in the dark. The potion was working.
“Sinead,” I said, turning away. “I think the potion is kicking in. What’s your situation?”
“It’s definitely kicking in,” she answered. “But we’ll have to wait a bit. A patrol car just stopped nearby the shack with the generator.”
“What are they doing?” I asked worriedly.
“Just talking. I think they’re taking a break.”
I glanced at my watch. One thirty-five. “Isabel,” I said. “Do you see anything?”
“Everything looks clear so far,” her soft, low voice hummed in my ear. “The future is calm. There’s love in the air.”
I blushed. “Hardly. We’re just talking.”
“I wasn’t talking about you two.” She sounded amused. “There’s another couple somewhere. They’re in love. I see it in the tea leaves and in the cards. Tonight is their special night.”
“That’s very nice, but what does it have to do with our job?” I asked.
“I can’t control what I see, Lou,” she answered. “I drank three cups of tea already, and that’s the only thing I see in the leaves. Lust and love.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I really need to pee,” she added. “All that tea…”
“Uh… guys?” Sinead said. “I think I know what Isabel is talking about. The cops in the patrol car? They’re going at it.”
“Seriously? Don’t they have a job to do?” I felt outraged. Part of it was jealousy.
“Yeah. It’s kinda hot. The guy is really muscular, and he just took off his shirt. And… Oh, damn, he just tore off two buttons from the girl’s uniform. She didn’t even notice.”
“Sinead, can you just go kill that damn generator?”
“They’re parked practically on the shed’s door, Lou, sorry. But the rate they’re going, it won’t take long. I think these two have been fantasizing about it for a while… There we go, her hand is in his pants. You go, girl!”
I rolled my eyes, and glanced at Kane. He watched me with a half-smile, a roguish glint in his eyes, and for a moment I suspected he was trying to imagine us in the same situation. Then I imagined it, and had to look away quickly.
“You guys should see this,” Sinead said. “Dude, you can’t swallow her entire boob, your mouth isn’t big enough.”
“Sinead, this is really distracting.”
“The tea leaves are very suggestive,” Isabel said.
“Isabel, maybe we should make some tea-leaf porn.” Sinead giggled. “We’d make a fortune.”
I checked the time again. One forty-two. We had thirty minutes before the moon rose. But we had an even more urgent problem. “Listen,” I said. “The potion won’t last for much longer.”
“What? You didn’t say that earlier,” Sinead complained.
“I didn’t think it would be an issue. But we have only about twenty minutes more, depending on body mass. Kane probably has less time. And we can’t drink more of it, because the basilisk venom will kill us.”
“Well, what do you want me to do, Lou?”
“Can you just sneak in while they’re distracted?”
“Well, the girl is straddling the guy, but he’s looking right past her into the street, and the shack door is in front of him. And I have to pick the lock. I mean… they’re definitely busy, but I’d say burglarizing the place in front of them is really testing their dedication to fucking.”
“Damn!” I muttered.
“What’s that?” Kane asked, pointing ahead.
Though it was dark, I saw everything in sharp detail, as if it were the middle of the day. A man shambled toward us, his movements sporadic, limbs jerking strangely. My heart sank.
“Maybe it’s just a drunk,” Kane said.
“It’s not,” I muttered. “It’s a Shade.”
Chapter Fourteen
If you look at the body of a Shade as it moves, it seems to shamble. Its features are lax, empty, its movements jerky and strange. But if you watch the shadow that the body casts, you see a man moving smoothly, quickly, with catlike grace. Because it’s actually the shadow that moves, not the body. For the Shades, the shadow casts the body, not the other way around.
When the Shade came closer, it was easy to see the face of its body. One eyelid was shut, the other open, the eye vacant. The mouth drooped, a trickle of saliva hanging from it. Facial features cast almost no shadows, and were useless to the Shades. Over time, the face of a Shade’s body lost its semblance of humanity completely, marking it for the empty shell that it was.
It moved toward us purposefully. Perhaps to investigate the unfamiliar car, parked close to their warehouse. Or perhaps it sensed Kane’s magical aura. Or perhaps he was turned on by our shadows. Whichever the reason, we didn’t want it to get close.
“Sinead,” I said weakly. “We need the power down now.”
“It’s okay.” She was breathing hard. “I’m getting there.”
“Did the cops drive away?”
“No, but the windows are fogged completely. They can’t see a damned thing. I hope not, at least.”
The Shade was about fifteen yards from us.
“How long?” I asked.
“Damn this lock!” she muttered to herself. “A few more minutes.”
“I’m not sure we have that long.”
“Delay him.” Kane unlocked the door. “I’m going for the power cable.”
“But I’m not in position yet!” Sinead said urgently.
“Better get in position, then,” Kane answered sharply, sliding out of the car.
I opened the door on my side, leaping out. It was cold outside, much colder than inside the car, and it almost felt like the chill radiated from the Shade as it got closer. Behind me, Kane muttered in an unknown language, and the hair on the back of my neck prickled as the magical energy around us shifted, focusing around him. I moved toward the Shade, intent on intercepting it before it sensed what Kane was doing. If it hadn’t already.
Up close, the Shade’s face was even more horrifying. Ugly sores pocked the right cheek, and the closed eye leaked some sort of yellow goo. The shadow didn’t care about the body’s condition. It was just a body, after all.
“Excuse me!” I called. “My husband and I got lost. We were looking for Franklin Street? Our friend is having a baby shower tonight, and we really don’t want to be late.”
Kane’s voice rose as the energy crackled around him. Above us, I heard the staticky sound of electricity, and I saw blue sparks flashing from the utility pole. In one ear, I heard Sinead say “Got it!” as she managed to pick the lock of the shack.
The Shade opened its mouth to speak. Its head faced sideways, but its shadow faced my own, and its lips moved clearly as its voice echoed. What are you doing here?
The voice didn’t come from the Shade’s body’s larynx. It came directly from the shadow, and it almost felt as if it were my own shadow that heard it, and not me. Trying to overcome the bubbling terror in my chest, I smiled blithely and said “Well, I’m Martha, and this is my husband, Gussy. And like I said, we’re looking for our friend’s baby shower. Perhaps you know her—”
The shadow pointed straight at Kane, the body mimicking the movement, pointing randomly in the air. What is he doing?
“Oh, you know, just getting directions from our friend on the phone.”
The Shade froze, and then, with a hiss of anger, it lunged for Kane. I leaped at it, colliding with its body, my shadow intermingling with the Shade’s own shadow. We fell to the floor, the force of the jolt making me bite my ton
gue painfully. The Shade screeched in fury, and threw me off, its power immense. I tumbled and landed roughly on the road, hitting my shoulder, and a hot blazing pain jolted down my arm.
Kane’s chanting was a roar in my ears as the spell hit its climax, and I heard the crackling of electricity. The air filled with smoke as something exploded up above us. As I got up, I saw the Shade running for Kane, hands outstretched—then all the lights in the street suddenly went dark, and we plunged into blackness.
The sky was cloudy, hiding the stars, and the lamps around us had all died. There was still an inkling of light, but not enough for the Shade. The body froze mid-run, its hands stretched toward Kane.
“Well,” Kane said. “That was—”
A sudden loud mechanical sound filled my ear. It emanated from the Bluetooth earpiece, and I could hear Sinead cursing in the background. It was the generator, kicking into life.
Down the street, a spotlight flickered to life. Then another. Shadows materialized on the ground. And the Shade came alive. Screeching, it crashed into Kane, slamming him into the smoldering utility pole. It opened its mouth wide—seemingly too wide—as it brought its jaw closer to Kane’s face. Kane tried to push the thing’s forehead away, to keep that mouth away from him.
I ran at them, my chain unraveling from my wrist and dropping into my outstretched palm. I slung it over the Shade’s head, pulling against its neck and shouting, “Angustus!”
The chain reacted to the spell word, its links shrinking, biting into the Shade’s throat. I pulled hard, trying to haul it away from Kane. It twisted, the huge mouth snapping at me. It was inhuman, a mouth free from the limitations of a jaw bone, the teeth filed to sharp points, yellow and brown with rot, the smell overpowering—
“Got it!” Sinead said victoriously in my ear, the generator coughing and dying in the background. The lights died again. The Shade went limp as darkness swallowed its shadow.