The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “Yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “Dark moody, sexy bastard.”

  Max chuckled. It hurt more than he let on, but he could tell she needed some cheering up. Though he almost got killed tonight, she would have been the one left behind. In most ways that was worse, because Max already knew what was waiting for him on the other side.

  “You’re so brilliant, Max.” She stepped to the bed and put her hand on his throbbing shoulder. “You could have been a lawyer or gotten a PhD and been a professor.”

  “I hate lawyers.”

  “You hate everyone.”

  Max shrugged.

  “At least you’d be making good money.”

  “Is that what this is about?” He was able to look at her with both eyes at this angle from behind the ice pack. She gave him a puzzled look. “Money?”

  She looked like she was about to hit him. “Maxwell, dammit! I just wish you had a job that didn’t involve getting punched and finding dead babies.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.” Of all the people he talked to, she was the only one whose opinion mattered. That made saying anything to her harder.

  “I don’t either.” She rubbed his purple shoulder. Her little fingers were warm and soft. She seemed fascinated with his bruise. She was so weird and that was hot. “I just wish we were normal…or, normaler.” Sadie shrugged.

  Max looked at her chest. It was cold in the hospital, and her nipples were poking through her red t-shirt. “You’re not wearing a bra.”

  Sadie grinned. “I was in bed when Frank called. I wasn’t even wearing this much… and I’m not wearing panties either.” She gave him a naughty look. Max wanted to take her right here, even if it killed him. It probably would have.

  “What was Poppy doing over?”

  “She had a fight with grandma and drove over. I told her she could sleep on the couch. Is that okay?”

  Max nodded. Poppy was usually quiet and claimed she didn’t listen to them having sex. That was good because if he was going to have to stay awake, he’d have to find something to occupy his time… though he doubted he’d be in the mood for it.

  “It turned out to be a good thing because she brought her car.” Sadie touched his face. “I don’t think I could carry you home on my Vespa.”

  Lisa came back and gave him three prescriptions, one for swelling, one for infection from the stitches, and another for pain, though he couldn’t take that one for twelve hours. An orderly with a wheelchair trailed behind and wheeled Max’s busted body out through the sliding glass ER doors. It was somehow warmer outside than before.

  Max was helped into his blood stained sweater and jacket before getting into Poppy’s car. He sat in the back with Sadie holding his hand. Poppy gave Frank a ride back to his car, then the two took a little longer to say goodbye than Max expected. He thought for a second they might kiss, though he knew better. Frank would never make a move on Poppy right in front of her sister. Not that Sadie would disapprove; it just wasn’t Frank’s style.

  He stared at the back of Poppy’s head most of the way home. She was taller than Sadie, though still small since Sadie was barely over five feet tall. Her hair was plain brown, like Sadie’s natural color. She favored her father… presumably. Sadie looked like her mother, and Poppy didn’t, so that must have been where she got her long face and small breasts from. Neither of the girls had ever met their real fathers. As far as Max knew, neither wanted to.

  “Hey, wake up!” Max snapped to attention at Sadie’s voice. He didn’t even remember drifting off, but somewhere between McClelland and Fourth Street he’d slipped away.

  Sadie shook him until he opened his eyes and sat up. “I’ll make some coffee when we get there.”

  “A cigar might help.”

  “It’s too cold for you to sit outside.”

  “I’m not cold.”

  “That’s probably because you have a concussion. I think it can cause you to temporarily lose the ability to feel cold,” Poppy explained.

  “It so completely cannot do that.” Sadie rolled her eyes. “You are a liar.”

  “No! I saw it on like a show or something.”

  “You didn’t see it on anything. You’re just making things up!”

  “Oh…” Max put his hand to the side of the ice pack, now too warm to do any good. “Could you two do that all night and louder, please? I just really like that.”

  “Sorry.” Sadie patted him on the hand.

  Poppy’s apology came next, “Sorry, Max.”

  “It’s okay. I have a brother, so I know how it is.” He wasn’t tired at the moment, but it would come back soon. He looked at Sadie. “I’ll forego the cigar if you stay up with me.”

  “Of course I’ll stay up with you. You think I could sleep knowing you have a concussion?”

  Max rested his head against her shoulder. She patted his bandages through the ice pack and kissed his hair.

  “You’re fantastic,” he said with a yawn.

  He fell asleep again just before they got to the corner of Jackson and B Street, a block from Max’s duplex. Sadie woke him up with a pinch to the leg. It kept him up the rest of the way home.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Max resigned his fate to the concussion gods after a scant three hours. Sadie protested, but he couldn’t stay awake any longer. All the coffee and leg pinches in the world couldn’t stop the onset of slumber.

  At some point, he must have gotten a call from Eileen, though he didn’t remember the phone ringing. He decided he should do something resembling work. Without waking Sadie, he left.

  “Are you all right?” he asked when he saw her.

  She sat on the couch in the same ill-fitting clothes she’d worn the last time. She turned her head towards him, smiled, and nodded.

  Something was different in the way she looked at him. Her face was tilted, and her eyes widened just slightly. It wasn’t a child’s look she was giving him. Max was used to this—not to be boastful, but he’d seen that look before. People have a hard time hiding their initial reaction to someone, good or bad. Max knew this look. It was usually flattering. On her it was just creepy.

  “Where’s everyone else?”

  She shrugged and stood. The overstretched collar of her shirt fell over her shoulder. She almost pushed out of her clothes like a snake shedding skin as she approached. Max couldn’t move. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He noticed, and not for the first time, how powerfully attractive this girl was.

  “Why did you call me?” He should have backed away. He should have been doing a lot of things besides just standing there watching her, feeling guilty about how turned on he was. She stepped so close that he smelled her cheap shampoo. The edges of her breasts brushed his chest as she took his hands in hers.

  “I can’t stop thinking about this,” she whispered. “I think about it all the time… I know you think about it, too.”

  “I don’t…” That wasn’t a lie, he’d never once thought about her this way. Now it was all he could think about. She drew closer and put her face to his chest. Her breath was warm through his shirt.

  “I need this,” she whispered into his chest before looking up with huge, trembling eyes. As though pulled, Max kissed her. It was the worst thing he’d ever done in his life, but he did it anyway, and it felt like sin wrapped in cinnamon when her mouth was on his.

  “What do you need?” he whispered between kisses. “We can’t—”

  “Yes,” She took his hands and ran them over her hips into her shirt. “I need you…” She brought his fingers over her soft little belly and turned his hands down to the elastic band of her pajamas. “I need you inside me.”

  Max abandoned all thoughts of retreat and let her guide his fingers. They passed the worn elastic and stopped over a long wet gash across her belly. Before Max could react, she pulled both his hands into the tear in her flesh and soaked them with warmth. He felt something small and round in the recession. It was cold, and it moved.

  H
e jerked back from her and pulled his hands from her grasp. His fingers were covered with sticky black blood, like tractor grease. When he looked back at her, she’d dropped her pajamas part of the way and revealed the giant tear in her belly. The color had left her flesh, save for the dark purple lines of her veins pulsing beneath waxy skin.

  “I need you to take this out of me!” Her eyes became foggy marbles. “I can’t do this alone… I need you inside me!”

  He awoke screaming. Sadie jolted up and shook off her sleep while Max panted until normal breathing resumed. She asked what he was dreaming about, and he shook his head. In the hazy dream reality, there was nothing unusual about her being all alone, nor with Max’s apparent lack of injuries from the beating. Most people don’t think about these things when they dream, but Max usually did. Not this time, though. He fell back on the bed with a groan. He was relieved to be in as little pain as he was.

  Sadie curled up next to him and put her head on his chest. “Next time you’re hanging out with Moonshadow, do you think you could ask her to stop raping you in your dreams?”

  Max touched her hair. “I’ll try to remember to bring that up.” He was much more comfortable with her assumption than the truth. “Did you—”

  “I called in for you.” She stopped nuzzling his chest when he winced. “Sorry.”

  “I have a bruise there.”

  “Yeah.” She traced the purple edges with her finger. “It’s hot.”

  “You’re so weird.”

  “You love it.” She opened her mouth and ran the tip of her pierced tongue over his bruise. “I’ll lick it and make it better.”

  When the doorbell rang, Sadie swore and sat up so fast it made her breasts shake. Max sat up considerably slower.

  “I’ll get it!” She grabbed a t-shirt from the floor and yanked it over her body.

  “Wait for me.” He slid off the bed and pulled on a pair of sweat pants. He didn’t hurt as much as he expected. His back was a little stiff and his head ached, but otherwise he was functional. Sadie put on some panties from the floor and tossed Max a shirt. He pulled it over his shoulders with a grunt—it hurt to lift his arms too high.

  Sadie checked the peephole. “It’s a guy in a suit with a woman in a suit.” She glanced over her shoulder at Max. “Were you expecting people in suits?”

  Max ushered her aside and stepped to the door. “Damn,” he muttered after peeking out at the visitors. He backed up and opened the door. Sure enough, there stood a man just older than Max and a tall blonde just a little younger. She was the taller of the two. They wore black suits and big sunglasses that obscured their eyes.

  “Maxwell Hollingsworth?” the man in black asked, rhetorically.

  Max nodded and winced. The sun was out and it made his head throb. He squinted and covered his eyes. They unfolded black leather billfolds to reveal ID badges with silver FBI shields.

  “I’m Special Agent Pierce. This is Special Agent Donner, FBI.”

  “No, they aren’t.” Sadie muttered, like they wouldn’t hear her right there. She grabbed Max’s arm. “He’s lying, and the badges are fake.” She almost hid behind Max until he turned to her and patted her hand.

  “It’s okay,” he explained. “I know who they really are.” He looked back at Agent Pierce, visibly awed by Sadie’s acuity. “You know I’m being watched, right? Coming here like this puts me in danger.”

  “We took care of that.” Agent Donner gestured over her shoulder.

  Max stepped forward and looked at the street a block east near the corner. The car typically occupied by Moonshadow’s day-shift stalkers was empty. On either side of it were big black SUVs with super-tinted windows. It made Max grin, which again almost tore his stitches and made his lip bleed into his mouth.

  “Come in.” He gestured to them both. Sadie gave him a terrified look. Well, she never really looked terrified, just concerned to an unhealthy degree. “It’s okay,” he whispered into her face as his visitors entered. “I know who they are.”

  “Who are they?”

  He closed the door. “Mercedes, remember the X-Files? These guys are from… well, the real world equivalent.”

  Sadie left Max alone with his guests, presumably to put on more clothes. She’d never had much of a problem being near naked in front of strangers, which Max found really attractive, but Federal agents were a different matter. Max was content to accept them barefooted and in his pajamas.

  They did drop the disguises on their identification and revealed themselves as agents from Homeland Security: Section for Otherworldly Research and Defense, SORD for short. He and James called them spook spooks. Max knew from his father that they used to be called Weird Events Bureau, or WEB. Max thought that sounded cooler than the new name, which reminded him of comic book characters.

  Their shields looked like they were made of hammered gold with an outdated eagle gripping a five-pointed star, itself circled by a band of rune-covered silver. Max was familiar with these; they were hexed talismans. That meant they had arcane energy infused with the metal via the runes and pentacle. Considering what these agents specialty involved, in addition to being able to disguise them as FBI credentials, they were likely protective wards.

  Poppy left the blankets and pillows all over the couch when she went to school that morning. Max brushed them aside so the two agents could have a seat while Max turned a recliner about and sat there. His den wasn’t very big so it made for a much more intimate meeting with these two than he was comfortable with.

  Max’s chair creaked as he leaned back.

  Pierce jumped right in. “We’ll cut the crap and get right to it. We know all about your little run in with Moonshadow, you’re relationship with Megan Crunk and the dragon—”

  “My relationship?”

  “Your friendship,” he clarified, “…and we know about your investigation.”

  “And you’re here to shut it down?” Max didn’t like Pierce. He reminded him of some of the military officers he’d met through his father when he was a boy. Pierce appeared used to being obeyed. Max wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to find out if this agent had a military background. Donner seemed nicer, though she didn’t do as much talking. She was pretty, too.

  “We don’t operate like that, Mr. Hollingsworth,” he sounded annoyed. “Contrary to what you seem to think, we don’t make people disappear or take over investigations from other agencies as soon as they find something supernatural.”

  Max fixed him with narrow eyes and grinned. “You’ve been following me for a while.” At least since he met with James at the coffee shop, he imagined. Pierce didn’t justify that with a response.

  “We’re here for a very specific reason,” Donner took over the conversation. “We believe you may have inadvertently compromised one of our investigations.”

  “You’re investigating the vampire child sex ring slash meth lab, too?”

  “Not specifically,” Pierce took over again. “But the Aryan Volk Alliance is a terrorist organization with heavy ties to vampires and other supernatural creatures. We’ve been working them for years. Their operation in this area is just part of that ongoing investigation.”

  “And how have I compromised your investigation?”

  Sadie came back, though only briefly. She’d put on some pajama pants and a bra, but Max didn’t get a very good look at her as she passed behind his chair to the kitchen. Donner watched her go before Pierce continued.

  “We have an agent inside their local operation. Last night he went dark.”

  Max’s eyes widened. “Skyler? He’s yours? He almost killed me!” The stitches in his lip stung. Max was beginning to think nothing could tear them, only make it hurt like they would break.

  “Almost killed you,” Donner clarified. “If he hadn’t been working for us, he would have killed you. The only reason he didn’t is because we told him not to—”

  “But beating me half to death? That was okay?”

  Pierce grinned—
the first time Max had seen him do that and hopefully the last. “He had to maintain his cover.”

  “And,” added Donner, “You did hit him with pepper spray.”

  “He would have knocked you out then called us, and we’d have extracted you,” Donner explained. “But then your vampire friends showed up.”

  “They weren’t my friends,” he retorted, rubbing the inside of the split with his tongue. “Moonshadow has had goons following me for a couple of months.”

  “Yeah, we know. We’ve been following them.”

  Sadie came back in with a cup of instant coffee she’d mixed up and gave it to Max. She had one for herself, but made a point not to offer any to their guests.

  “Mr. Hollingsworth…can I call you Max?”

  “No.”

  “Max,” he did it anyway, “You know a lot more than most people—”

  “I’m aware of that, thank you.”

  “I mean about vampires, demons, dragons… most people don’t even know these things exist. Even the people who claim to believe in these things don’t really believe in them… because they haven’t seen them. I don’t know why you’re aware of what so many other people ignore by instinct, but for some reason you are, and that makes you valuable… and dangerous.”

  “Dangerous to whom?”

  “To them,” added Donner. Max found he much preferred it when she spoke than Pierce. “But you’ve got some kind of connection to Moonshadow… whom Zol inexplicably made chief.”

  “I wouldn’t call it a connection,” Max said before taking a sip of coffee. It burned his cut lip. “And I’d be happy if she just left me alone.”

  “She isn’t likely to do that, and you know it.”

  Max took another drink of coffee then pressed the side of the mug to his bruised face. “So what do you want from me?”

  “We want our agent back,” said Pierce. “He’s crucial to our operation.”