The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “Wisdom?” The village absorbed his voice and offered nothing in return. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with wind rush through his body. As a child, he’d been taught this meant a larva, one of the restless dead, was reaching out to him in warning. He had never really believed it until that moment.

  “Wisdom?”

  A tree branch cracked in the distance.

  “Andromeda?”

  Silence.

  Propates walked further into the village, past circular straw huts and the tree to which only recently the village had secured its cows. There was no one to be seen. Even the cows were gone, though the leather thongs that had held them in place remained. Fire still smoldered in the shallow fire pits and the smell of blood was thick in the air. But where were the people? Where were the bare-chested mothers grinding grain, the toothless old women making pottery, the naked children chasing each other through the dust? He’d seen them all as he had come into the village. He walked a little further and heard a soft sound. His eyes quickly spotted the source – a small red-clay bowl filled with grain spun with diminishing speed. Propates knelt beside it and stopped its spinning with his fingertips.

  And one again, silence.

  ‘Wherever they went,’ he thought, ‘they left recently. And very suddenly.’

  Something moved behind him. Propates turned so quickly he tripped over his own feet and fell on the ground. His eyes shot to the spot the movement had come from, but now he could see nothing. Then something charged out of the woods, an indescribable mess of torn flesh and exposed bones. Only as it grew closer did Propates recognize the dark skin, the threatening mounds of muscle in the shoulders and the look of rage on the shredded face.

  Wisdom.

  Something had done this to Wisdom.

  “What…?”

  Wisdom glanced at him. For a second, he was not sure he even recognized him.

  A roar came from out of the jungle, a sound like screaming children and the smashing of boulders. Bolts of lightning danced a web of electricity in the now-cloudless sky above. Daylight bled out of the air. It grew darker and darker. Propates looked for the sun. It was still there, but with every passing moment it gave off less and less illumination. He jumped as Wisdom grabbed him by the arms and abruptly pulled him closer. Face to face, Propates determined the look he had mistaken for rage was actually fear.

  Wisdom said: “Run.”

  The shredded man pushed him away and then turned back to the woods. Fire sprang up along Wisdom’s body, shrouding him in bright red flame. The sound came again from the woods and it was enough to shatter the last of Propates' nerves. He screamed and ran wildly, barely aware of where he was going. It was as dark as night now, the only light coming from the web of lightning above. In his panic, Propates ran right into a hut and through the straw wall. There was movement to his left, something moving and twitching in the shadows, a swirl of barely visible colors with a sense of enormous mass behind it. Then from out of the darkness, there was a hand, human in shape but black and airy like a shadow. It was followed by a slender arm. It beckoned to him. Then something spoke.

  “Last chance.”

  This time, there was no hesitation. Propates reached out to the shadow hand. He felt a rush of cold consume him. Then he was just gone.

  ***

  Propates left his office, signed an invoice his secretary held out to him, and headed toward the elevator. One level down, he stepped off the elevator and nodded to the white-robed acolyte who sat behind the reception desk.

  Even the ceremonial floor required administration now. Two stories below the apartment complex, the ceremonial floor was connected to centuries-old tunnels that ran from here to the White Tower in one direction, far beyond the city limits in the other direction. Most of the rooms currently used by the Council of Peacocks were newly constructed, like this foyer. The flooring here was pristine white tile. On the ceiling, fifteen feet above Propates' head, was a mosaic of a peacock landing in Paradise surrounded by Edimmu, while in the distance the spirit of Argus with his hundred eyes looked on with a smile. The ceremonial floor had been built mostly by the Edimmu and, being much taller than humans, they required more space. Enclosed spaces reminded them of their subterranean cities. It reminded them of their descent into slavery.

  Propates left the foyer and walked briskly down a tunnel constructed from sand-colored bricks. There was no one else in sight, which annoyed him. Everyone else was probably already dressed and in the Vulture Antechamber. As Argus’ representative on Earth, Propates should have been the first one contacted in case of emergencies, not the last. Lucius and Otto had apparently forgotten their place in the scheme of things. Maybe it was time to remind them.

  The entrance to the cloakroom was guarded on either side by an Edimmu. Both were male, their scaly visages touched with flecks of black and yellow. Both wore ceremonial uniforms – leather kilts, knee-high sandals and heavy claymores strapped to their waists. Like most of the young Edimmu, neither guard wore a shirt nor had any body hair. Neither acknowledged him as he walked between them. They served him now out of need and fear, not loyalty.

  He stripped off his business attire and slipped into a heavy robe lined on the inside with soft felt. The outside of the robe was constructed entirely of peacock feathers. Underneath it he wore a simple white tunic that hung to his knees. All members of the inner circle dressed the same, a remnant of times when to be a member of the Council of Peacocks was a death sentence. The cloak came with a thick cowl that hid the practitioner’s face. What once was a pretext of privacy was now a reminder of humility and the heritage of the Council.

  The Vulture Antechamber was dark. The only light came from small fires burning in copper braziers, one on each of the five raised funeral platforms that encircled the raised dais at the center of the room. The dais itself was thirteen feet in diameter, one foot for each lunar month in a year. If viewed from above, the platforms looked like black rays shooting out from a black sun. Around the edge of the dais stood life-sized statues of vultures carved from black marble. They looked outward over the funeral platforms, a carry-over from a magical rite that only Propates and the Edimmu remembered.

  Frankincense and myrrh were heavy in the air, the incense so thick it hung like mist. In the shadowy recesses of the cavernous room, acolytes and Edimmu chanted quiet incantations in Greek. On the dais, just inside the vulture statues, five figures in robes identical to the ones Propates wore knelt nearly equidistantly around the circle. Their cowls covered their faces and they remained silent as Propates took his place at the Eastern Edge, completing the circle.

  “Why has a full flock been called?” he asked.

  “I called the flock because I have a concern about the agent from away.” Propates believed this deep tenor voice belonged to Lucius. It was difficult to distinguish individuals in the Vulture Antechamber. The magics and the acoustics here turned each voice into a stronger, stranger version of itself.

  “This is not news,” Propates answered. “We all have concerns, but the coming war means we must accept strange allies. I’m much more concerned with the loyalty of the Orpheans than this Defksquar. The demons are called demons for a reason.”

  “But they are our demons,” another voice said. “They come from our planet’s evolutionary cycle, unlike the other one. Defksquar is moving behind our backs.”

  “Again, this is not news,” Propates felt the heat of anger rise in him. “We’ve known for twenty years he wasn’t going to give us the full story about why he was helping us. And we’ve known for five months now he was outright lying about some things. But he is not lying about what’s coming. Our oracles have confirmed it. So have the demons. If we are to survive this war…”

  “Of course we’ll survive it,” a third voice said. “It’s just a question of who we kneel to. Some of us have concerns that the agent from away wants us to kneel to him.”

  “We kneel to no one but Argus.” This came from a truly familiar voice. T
his one was definitely Otto.

  “Exactly,” Propates said with a smile. “And if we stay on this path that is where we will continue to kneel. As for Wisdom, I made it known long ago that he should have been informed about the coming war. I was outvoted. You all believed Wisdom’s father that doing so would be disastrous. Like an idiot, I let you all keep him out of the loop. If we had his help, maybe we wouldn’t need the agent from away.”

  “The agent from away has given us technologies and magics completely unlike anything on Earth.” This voice, with its overriding tone of arrogance and assumption, was the one who had called him earlier. “Without his help we would never have perfected the process of Eyeness. Nor would we have the knowhow to design the weapons the demons are building for the coming war. What would Wisdom have given us?”

  Propates fought the urge to rise and backhand the man. “He could have given us an army of immortals, demigods like me. Beings who could survive the yet imperfect process of Eyeness. We wouldn’t need alien technologies. And we wouldn’t have had to give over our children to the demons.”

  “Our children, not yours.”

  For a moment, the tension was nearly strangling. Some of those chanting in the corners stumbled over their incantations. Now Propates did rise. He moved to the center of the dais and raised a hand. The darkness dissipated and, in an instant, the underground chamber was filled with a bright, warm light. Sunlight. He pushed his cowl away from his face and turned toward the owner of the arrogant voice.

  “Enough. Your petty power games have made you forget yourself. You are not my equal. So you sold your firstborns for a cause. So what? You all know what I went through. I lived in the Black Sea! I dwelt with demonic forces you can’t even comprehend. I was found, saved by the spirit of Argus himself. When I returned to Earth hundreds of years ago, I was able to rebuild his church. The reborn Argusites. The Council of Peacocks. Perhaps you’re thinking that I’ve led too long?”

  None answered him.

  “Your silence speaks for itself.”

  “Only some of us question,” Otto said. “I am not one of them. My loyalty is to you.”

  “Some of us do have questions.” This was Lucius. The magic that masked voices was gone now, but the bravado did not disappear with anonymity. “You’re part of the old régime. Like Wisdom. The Djinnistani informed us the timeline has changed.”

  Propates moved quickly. He gathered the shadows around him, solidified them and constructed a spear. He slammed the butt of the weapon of darkness against Lucius' chest and knocked him to the ground. “You’ve spoken with Wisdom’s father, have you? And you believed him? You doubt an alien but you believe a creature like that? By all my eyes, Lucius, you have just proven to me that you are too stupid to live. I banish you.”

  “No, Propates!” Otto stood and removed his cowl. “This is forbidden. The laws…”

  “The laws?” Propates clenched his fists and the light of the room wavered. “I wrote the laws! And this insignificant termite is trying to eat away at everything I’ve built. Living in the shadows was good for my character. Maybe it will be good for his.”

  With a mental command, Propates called upon the darkness, a crepuscular world of death populated not by the demons or Edimmu, but by ghosts and fear. Long ago, this world had reached out to him, captured him and perverted what was left of his humanity. Ever since Argus had freed him from the land of the shades, Propates had become their master. The things in the shadows now obeyed him. The artificial sunlight quickly faded. In its place was a sooty gloom beyond night. This was more than the absence of light or the vacuum of space. It was the antithesis of life. Within the darkness, unseen by any but Propates, the denizens that haunted the netherworld moved. Little more than centers of gravity, they circled around Lucius, not placated by his screams of raging. Then rage gave way to pain as unseen hands tore at him and dragged him away. In a matter of seconds, the shadows retreated and all trace of Lucius was gone.

  The Vulture Antechamber was silent. All chanters, Edimmu and human, stared at Propates in awe. Terror. ‘Good,’ he thought. ‘That reminded them.’

  From behind one of the vulture statues, someone, something, cleared its voice and said: “Sorry to interrupt, pets. We could come back later if you prefer.”

  Propates ran a hand through his hair, took a deep breath and relaxed his powers. He slipped the cowl back over his head and, on cue, the incantations began again. This, in turn, recalled the magic of the place.

  The Vulture Antechamber had been used for over a thousand years to contact other realms of reality. At first, the Edimmu had used it as a form of telecommunication, talking with encampments of their people in the underground cities of Kazakhstan and the subterranean country of tunnels and cities beneath South America. Then Propates, as head of the Council of Peacocks, used its energies to commune with the peacock-god Argus and the undead creatures of the gloom. Repeated dimensional warping here had weakened the boundaries of normal space. It allowed the agent from away to contact the Council. It also let these two beings, outcasts, stand and breathe in a world that should have been closed to them. These were the Orpheans, demons to most, partners to the Council of Peacocks.

  “Why are you here, Sanchez?” Propates spoke to a hazy blur to the left of the statute. In this world, the Orpheans had no solid form. They were ghosts. Phantoms. The one he talked to was short and rotund. The figure beside the first one was taller and much more slender. Her name was Carla and, unlike Sanchez, she scared Propates just a little. There was a spark in her eyes that spoke of a long, burning rage.

  “Are we unwelcomed?” Carla’s voice was just as thin and strained as Sanchez’s, as if they were shouting from somewhere far away.

  “Of course not,” Propates said with conviction. “Our allies are always welcome here. Did you need bodies to possess?”

  “No,” Carla spoke quickly and looked down at Sanchez with an expression that told him the subject was not up for debate. “We cannot stay long. We will find bodies elsewhere soon enough. We bring word from our Lord Ahriman. He confirms what the Djinnistani told us. Wisdom has been traveling in time. The ripples are faint, well-hidden, but, once Ahriman knew what to look for, they were easy to see.”

  “Has he changed anything?” Propates was glad his face was covered. It allowed him to conceal the loss of blood to his face.

  Carla and Sanchez exchanged a slow, meaningful look. Then Sanchez spoke. “He has changed much, but nothing of consequence to our plans. He still does not know what is coming and, in the end, his father will take him away. We must focus instead on our own concerns. Our children must be gathered. Initiated. The time of the Activation approaches.”

  Then the Orpheans were gone. In a wink, the hazy figures faded from view, leaving only natural darkness. For a moment Propates kept his silence as everyone in the room reflected on the warning.

  “I suggest you all remember their words,” he said. “Our world is in jeopardy. Everything we hold dear is in danger of being ripped away from us. We do not have time for in-fighting. I will waste no more time on it. I strongly suggest you do the same. And as for the agent from away, we’ve been in bed with him for too long to start wondering now if he’s diseased. Our path is set, for good or bad. The Activation is coming.”

  Chapter Ten

  The classroom was larger than David expected. It was the size of a small banquet hall and, for the most part, empty. When he stepped through the door, the first thing he noticed was a long oak desk at the head of the room. Three stacks of files were piled neatly upon one corner while the rest of the desk remained empty.

  The second thing he noticed was the big-boned woman by the windows. She looked out over the city as she ruminated on her lower lip. Her left arm was in a cast and sling. Taking in the rest of the room, David saw three rows of reclining chairs, all black leather and surgical steel. Each chair was five feet away from the others, spacing them out over the width of the classroom. They faced a chalkboard that took
up the majority of the wall opposite the windows. There was nothing else in the room.

  Amy, Barbie in hand, sauntered in with Jessica. Jared gave up pounding his head against the wall long enough to take a seat. Garnet did not show up. David assumed she must be in another group. He waited until everyone else was seated before selecting a chair. He chose the one furthest away from the other students.

  “How is your arm, Ms. Ryerson?” Jared asked. When he spoke, there was a dangerous glint in his eye. To David, he looked more like a boy with a magnifying glass over an anthill than a student asking a teacher about her injury.

  “It’s still broken,” she answered. She moved away from the window and David inhaled sharply. The right side of her head was covered with a large white bandage. Her neck and cheeks were red and raw with visible burn marks. Her eyes ran over Jared then settled on David.

  “I am Ms. Amelia Ryerson,” she said. “As you’ve probably been told, I teach a few things here you don’t learn in a normal classroom. So let’s set some ground rules right now.”

  She took a deep breath and suddenly looked back out the windows. Her expression, like looking back on a lover she was forced to walk away from, made it very clear she wanted to be somewhere else. Lips pursed, she looked at the ground and then began to speak again.

  “This is not high school, so there is no acting like children. I have no time for it, and after yesterday it seems like none of us do. I need to also point out that I am nothing like you.” Her good arm fell free and she paced back and forth in front of the chalkboard. “Jessica, will you please explain to the verbose Mr. Ross what exactly you are?”

  The young girl opened her mouth to respond, stopped for a moment and then looked to Ms. Ryerson. They stared at each other for a heartbeat before Ms. Ryerson responded.