The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  The phone rang.

  “I’m busy,” he said. “Be quick.”

  “Whatever you’re doing will wait.” The voice on the phone was familiar but not instantly recognizable. “We have an issue with the agent from away. Lucius and the others are meeting in the Vulture Antechamber.”

  “I’m heading there in a few minutes, anyway.” Propates answered. “The shadows are not sitting well. The Orpheans are about to make an appearance. Is this Otto?”

  “Tsk. No. I’ll see you in a few, Propates.”

  The crass denial confirmed who the voice belonged to, but the caller hung up before Propates could name him. He pushed the button to open the elevator. The carriage was empty, for which he was extremely thankful. The Council of Peacocks was growing. Its membership was well into the tens of thousands now. Members of the upper echelon had taken up residence here in Thessaloniki; there were smaller outposts around the world. With growth, however, came an abundance of administrative duties: papers to sign, rewards and punishments to be meted out, initiations to oversee. The business of trying to save the world from itself was quickly becoming a real business.

  “If I knew it was going to end up like this,” he whispered to himself, “I wonder if I would have answered Wisdom’s question differently.”

  He closed his eyes and thought back to the first time he'd met Echo and Wisdom.

  ***

  In 51 AD, Propates was a sixteen-year-old man living on a farm in the countryside not far from Rome. He’d never been to the city, but he knew about it. Tax collectors and bloodthirsty soldiers came from the city. What more did he need to know? When he married his young wife, a fourteen-year-old beauty named Olivia, his family built an addition onto the main house. Olivia was pregnant with their first child. The oracle who lived nearby said the child would be a boy. In retrospect, Propates remembered the haunted expression on the oracle’s face as she told their fortunes. She must have seen what was coming.

  Early one summer evening, a nobleman and his entourage passed by the farm. Like most nobles, they treated the uneducated peasants as little more than worms. With the weight of muscle and steel behind it, they had the right to take whatever they wanted. In their philosophy, if you could not stop someone from taking your possessions, you did not deserve to keep them. The commander of the nobleman’s soldiers wanted Olivia. Propates stood between his wife and the soldiers. He was beaten for his insolence. While the commander raped his wife, Propates, bloodied and sore, fed and watered the man’s horses.

  After fifteen minutes, the commander returned and forced Propates to smell his Roman fingers. Propates cringed at the smell of his wife on the brute’s body. But he said nothing. He did nothing. The commander laughed and offered Olivia up to the rest of his men. Propates remembered the look on his father’s face. ‘Get used to it.’

  Later, after helping Olivia wash the blood from her body, Propates snuck out of the house and into the darkness of the fields. The open air was the only place large enough for his fury. He knelt and pounded his fists into the damp earth. His eyes burned with tears but he dared not scream. On the way back to the house, he saw a woman. Her hair was long and tightly curled, done up in the style fashionable amongst Roman ladies of the time. In the moonlight the bared flesh of her arms and neck appeared as cold and pale as bone. When he realized he was staring at her, he forced his head down. If the lady complained to the soldiers, if she told them he dared look upon her, they could kill him. And then where would Olivia be?

  “Come here, boy.” The lady spoke, her voice soft like the wind through the grass.

  Fear froze him in place.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” she said. Now there was definite laughter in the voice. Propates felt the fury flush through his face. Who was she to call him boy? Even though she looked like royalty, her soft, wrinkleless face marked her as barely older than him.

  “Yes, mistress.” As Propates spoke, it felt like he had pebbles in his throat. Each word was painful. He walked closer to her, keeping his eyes to the ground.

  “This anger you’re feeling, boy, the rage that’s welling up inside you…I’ve felt it. Oh, you can take that sneer off your face. Believe me or don’t. Why should I care? I am not really sure why I’m bothering with you at all. I just…I guess I just had to talk to someone human, someone who still knows what it’s like to feel pain, to watch everything you hold dear get demolished in front of you at the whim of some monster.”

  Propates looked up. His lips trembled. “You’re rich and powerful,” he said. “A lady. You know nothing about being poor and powerless.”

  The woman stared over at him. For the first time, their eyes connected. There was just as much venom in her eyes as Propates felt inside himself. “I know more than you can possibly imagine about being powerless. Your woman was raped. So what? At least it wasn’t your mother. Or your father. At least you didn’t have to watch it being done to them. Imagine that captain forcing you to slit your brother’s throat then stand still as he killed the rest of your family. Imagine…” Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head. “Oh, why bother? Right now you feel like the biggest victim in all of history. There, too, I’ve been. But you’re not, boy. You’re not the biggest anything. You will rage, you will die, and history will forget you.” Then she looked up to the sky, a small smile on her lips. “But it won’t forget me.”

  From behind Propates, a voice called out of the dark. It boomed like thunder in the distance.

  “Andromeda? Where are you?”

  The lady wiped under her eyes with her fingertips and was silent for a moment. “I’m over here, Wisdom.” When she spoke, all the venom was gone, replaced by a mix of emotions Propates could not identify.

  Behind him, Propates heard the jingle of moving armor and the plodding of heavy footsteps. The sounds moved toward him, but Propates did not turn around. He did not look up. He held his breath and waited for the sword stroke. Then the steps stopped. A firm, warm hand gripped his right shoulder, but he could not see the man who touched him. A mix of sweat and sulfur filled the air. Propates felt uncomfortably warm. The man behind him radiated heat like a living fire.

  “What are you doing with the boy, Andromeda?” The man’s voice no longer boomed like distant thunder. It crackled like lightning.

  “Comforting him.”

  Wisdom laughed. “Comforting? Seducing is more likely. If you want him, take him. There’s no need to toy with…”

  “Everything is a game to you, isn’t it?” The venom was back in her voice.

  “Andromeda, everything is a game. And not just for me. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ll realize that. Nothing we do today affects the greater ripples of time. These people fade and die so quickly. Why be concerned with them at all? You have not been one of them for hundreds of…”

  “Hush, Wisdom.” She stepped away from the tree and approached Wisdom. Propates stood between them, wishing he could fade into the shadows. The tension between them stung like embers. “Never reveal a lady’s age. You should know better.”

  “Humph. Do you want the boy or not?”

  Andromeda grabbed Propates by the chin and forced his head up. She studied his eyes for a moment with a hard, icy intensity. Then her expression softened and she took her hand away. “No. He’s too soft and angry.”

  The hand on Propates' shoulder gripped tighter. “Soft and angry, you say. I can use that.”

  Andromeda took at step back. “No, Wisdom. Please, don’t….”

  “If you don’t want him for a toy, Andromeda, I will take him. I haven’t converted anyone since I took you. This melancholy you’re feeling, maybe it’s just loneliness. Tell me, boy, what is your name?”

  The hand on his shoulder spun him around and forced him to his knees in one movement. For a moment, the pebbles in Propates' throat seemed to clog up his entire voice. He looked up at the dark-skinned man before him and screamed. It was not the violence implied in the blood red flares of the cape
or the highly polished metal of his Roman soldier’s uniform. It was the orange-glow in the man’s eyes, a glow that came from some internal flame.

  “I said, tell me your name!”

  As Propates watched, the orange glow faded and died. The only light now came from the moon above. Propates fought past the pebbles in his throat and the fear clouding his head.

  “I’m called Propates, lord.”

  Wisdom smiled and rested a heavily calloused hand on Propates' unwashed hair. “A fine name. An auspicious name. Tell me, Propates, would you like to live forever?”

  Wisdom tore the thinly woven tunic from Propates. He placed a warm hand on the sixteen-year-old’s trembling chest. In a flash, Propates sensed the pain and screamed. Wisdom’s hand crackled and burst into flame. With inhuman speed and strength, he pushed Propates down onto his back and started chanting. Only later did Propates realize the words were Arabic; at the time, he only recognized them as magic.

  Fire thrust from Wisdom's flesh, inserting its heat into every cell of Propates' body. As it pulsated through his quivering body, his marrow superheated, turning to plasma. His blood flash-boiled, turned to red vapor and hissed out from every orifice in his body. Only a force coming up from the earth, a shadowy darkness, cooled his body enough to keep bones and flesh intact. It was the worst pain he had ever felt in his life.

  He spent nearly a month fading in and out of fever dreams. He was only dimly conscious of the outside world, but he remembered leaving the farm. He knew Wisdom left a sack of currency at the farm, payment to father for a son. He felt more than saw Andromeda come to sit with him. She came often. Propates knew she cried over him and held his hand. But mostly he was only aware of the dreams.

  The place he dreamt of was nowhere on Earth. It was a red city with no sun. Pillars of orange and black shot up from the scorched, blackened earth to a crimson sky. He wandered through buildings as massive as mountains, filled with ephemeral creatures whose translucent bodies were constructed of living flame. In the distance, giant birds flew over a range of mountains composed entirely of glistening emeralds. Later he was in the presence of a man emerging from a pool of lava. Neither the flame nor the heat seemed to touch him. The man’s face flickered, sometimes visible, other times not; but Propates knew the man was Wisdom. In the dream Wisdom grabbed him by the hand and led him into the pool of lava. As he sunk below the molten matter, Propates clearly heard Wisdom’s voice say: “Welcome to Djinnistan.”

  Propates woke with a start, just managing to keep the scream in his throat. Andromeda was beside him, reading silently from a scroll. She was dressed in a fluid, graceful gown that was dyed deep purple. Her hair was down, flowing over her shoulders like water frozen in place.

  “What did he do to me?” Propates forgot himself for a moment. He reached over and gripped Andromeda’s hand, a presumption that previously would have scared him into paralysis. “What is he? What have I become?”

  Andromeda put the scroll down and leaned over him. With a gentle hand, she pushed a lock of sweat-damp hair away from his forehead and out of his eyes.

  “What has he done?” she repeated. “He’s freed you and he’s damned you. He’s damned both of us. As to what he is, I don’t really know. I’ve been alive a long time now, a very long time, and I’ve never met anyone like him. Sometimes he talks of his home, of the place he came from. He calls it the Kaz but I’ve never heard of such a place. Have you?”

  Propates shook his head. His throat was dry and his whole body ached for moisture.

  “As for what you’ve become, only time will tell. We are not like him. Not even close. The things I’ve seen him do, they are inhuman. Maybe he’s one of the gods from Olympus and maybe now we are demigods. I don’t really believe that, but it’s a nice lie. A pretty lie. And it helps me get through the nights. I suggest you find yourself a lie, something that will help you, too.”

  For decades, Propates traveled with Wisdom and Andromeda. Most of that time was a blur of violence and excess. They traveled to England where Wisdom conferred with hidden remnants of the nearly extinguished Druidae. They met with barbarian shamans throughout Europe and mystics in China. Wisdom was looking for something, but he would not tell Propates what it was. A brief stop near Rome gave him the opportunity to revisit the family farm. It was mostly to confirm that Olivia was dead. She’d died in her early thirties, childless and unmarried. The family farm was now owned by the descendants of a distant cousin. Whatever hope he had held that his unborn child had survived the repeated rapes was destroyed.

  Propates said goodbye to the last vestiges of his former life.

  Then they traveled deep into the jungles of Africa, on the edges of the Kingdom of Aksum, and everything changed. On that day, Propates learned to touch the shadows. It was also the first time in centuries that Wisdom faced his father.

  They arrived in the village just after midday. Fresh from two years amongst the Parthian tribes traveling the lands that would one day be Iran and Turkey, the three of them were dressed in rich embroidered beige robes with loose cowls to cover their heads. Wisdom still traveled with a small body of soldiers but the majority of them kept to the outskirts of the village, a gesture Wisdom hoped would avoid panic in the villagers. Wisdom spoke the language of the region – he seemed to know the language of every region – and quickly arranged for room and board. Then he left Andromeda and Propates, disappearing into a hut constructed of mud and straw with a man dressed only in bones and leather.

  “What are we doing here?” Propates was uncomfortably aware of the smell of freshly spilt blood in the air. Something was being slaughtered nearby. He hoped it was for a feast. He hoped it was an animal. “What is Wisdom looking for?”

  “Answers.” Andromeda removed her cowl and ran her fingers through her hair to remove the tangles. “Wisdom is asking the medicine man here questions, the same questions he’s asked the others. When he has answers, we will leave.”

  “Answers to what kind of questions?” Propates looked around for a place to sit and only found the floor. He decided to stand. “What does a man like him need answers for, anyway? The way he talks, you’d think he already knows everything.”

  Andromeda smiled and brushed Propates’ bangs away from his forehead. “You’ve barely changed at all. After all these years you still look like you’re sixteen. Sometimes I wish you were a little older.”

  Propates reached up and touched Andromeda’s hand. “I am old enough. I had a wife once, remember? A wife who is long dead. Let me…”

  “No. Wisdom will...” Andromeda pulled her hand away. “I cannot do this.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Andromeda sighed and pulled even further away. “We have a long day ahead of us. While Wisdom is conducting his research, I suggest you find something to keep yourself occupied.”

  Then she was gone. It was the last time he would see her for several hundred years.

  Propates stayed inside the hut, sitting on the dirt floor with his knees curled up to his chest. Whatever Wisdom had done to him all those years ago had not only retarded his aging process, it had also slowed his mental and emotional growth. Despite his age, he still felt all the roiling emotions of an adolescent.

  “Andromeda doesn’t love him,” he whispered to himself. To his young mind, without love or the promise of children there was no other reason for marriage. Only royalty or heads of state married for political reasons. So to him, that meant there was still a chance he could steal her away from Wisdom.

  He stood and began to exercise, using a series of fluid yet physically strenuous movements he had learned in Asia. Within moments, he was lost in the rhythm of movement. Then he sensed something. A stirring in the shadows. He tensed, shifting his consciousness out of his body to become fully aware of his surroundings. At the back of the hut, behind a stack of clay jars and animal pelts, something was moving in the darkness.

  “I see you,” he said. “Come out.” The shadows churned and Propates realize
d it was not someone or something moving in the shadows. Rather, the shadows seemed to be redistributing themselves around something.

  “What are you?”

  His heart beat forcefully in the silence. For a moment, there was nothing. Then a sound, sibilant like the clicking of pebbles underfoot and the drifting of sand in the wind, spoke from the shadows. “I come as a warning,” it said. As it spoke, the shadows swirled in jerky motions. “One of the Invisible Ones is coming: one of the Smokeless Fire. All will be consumed by him. He comes for his son and nothing will stop him.”

  Propates took a step closer to the shadows. “That means nothing to me, demon. Stop talking in riddles. Tell me what you are!”

  “We are friends, Propates. We have known you since Wisdom touched you the first time. He has shown you nothing and he never will. Come to us, touch us and you will be shown things beyond your current understanding. But we must hurry. The Invisible One is almost here.”

  Propates studied the figure submersed in the gloom, his whole being tensed and waiting for an attack. When it did not come from the shadows, he turned and exited the hut.

  “Damnable shade,” he whispered and spat on the ground. It was not his first experience with an incorporeal parasite. Several times in China, but more often amongst the Parthian tribes, he witnessed attempts at possession by creatures from Beyond. This was obviously some sort of fiend sent to tempt him, lure him to Hades so it could steal his body. He had to find Wisdom and let him know about the attempt. Wisdom would know what to do.

  He was so focused on the need to find Wisdom that he did not see what was right in front of him. The village was quiet. Nothing moved, not even the leaves of the trees all around him. He looked above the trees and bit his lips. The sky was purple and red, like a bruise, and the clouds ran briskly through the heavens. A determined wind blew them but did not touch the earth.