The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “Oh, Christ. That’s how the creature touched me. The Edimmu. I knew it. It liked me. I…I think I might be going into shock. I can’t feel my legs anymore. It knew my father.”

  Jessica slipped off her wooden chair, kneeling in front of him. She put a comforting hand on his knee. “I saw it, too, Josh. It was real. I don’t understand it any more than you, but I can tell you it really happened. Who exactly is your father, Josh?”

  Elaine pulled Jessica back and put her palm on Josh’s forehead. “Enough. Look at him. Garnet, get some blankets. The linen closet is at the end of the hall by the spare room. Hurry. David, I need your help.”

  Josh felt David throw his arm over his shoulder, leading him off the chair to a couch. Josh stared at the floor, unable to concentrate on anything. He heard voices, but they made no sense. Everything was distant and secondary, like moving through a dream. His knees buckled and then Elaine was beside him, helping him. Then his head fell backwards and the world just stopped.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Josh stared at the ceiling with open vacant eyes.

  Todd paced back and forth by the windows. “We can’t just leave him like this.”

  Elaine rolled her head back, stretching out her neck. “Well, I can’t let her play around in his head anymore. Look what she’s done already?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who said we couldn’t afford the luxury of amnesia, remember?” Todd spoke with uncharacteristic anger. “Well, Jessica has unlocked something poison in his head. If she doesn’t get it all the way out, who knows what will happen.”

  “Christ. David, can you go wait outside the spare room? Let me know if Wisdom wakes.”

  David ran a hand through his hair and nodded.

  Elaine looked around the room and grunted with annoyance. “Has anyone seen Jared? Jessica, can you look for him? When was the last time anyone saw him?”

  Jessica closed her eyes. “He’s fine. I can feel him down on the beach.”

  “What the hell is he doing wandering off?”

  Jessica shrugged. “He’s a total dork. Who knows why he does the things he does? I’ll be right back.” She walked out on the patio and headed down the wooden steps.

  Elaine turned to Todd. “I made a mistake, Todd. What if he’s somehow connected to the Edimmu? If he’s our enemy…”

  Todd backed away from her. “You can’t shoot him, Elaine. Look at him! Does he look like a threat?”

  “Looks can be deceiving. You don’t look like a threat either, but I’ve seen what you can do. I’m not promising anything. I know you think I’m a hard ass but you don’t know how dangerous the Edimmu are.”

  “I don’t? Jesus. I was thrown around by a few of them this morning, remember? I lost my best friend.” He stopped and gasped. Then he hung his head and continued in a very quiet voice. “I lost my best friend to them, watched three of them slaughter and abduct others I care for. I know they’re dangerous. Whatever Josh is, whoever he knows, he’s not one of them. I am psychic, you know. I can tell that much.”

  Elaine bit the corner of her lower lip. “I’m sorry, Todd, but you don’t really have a clue. No matter what they did to you today, they represent something a whole lot worse than that. You say you can trust him, so we’ll go with that for now. But if he or anyone else crosses Wisdom, you have to know I’ll kill him. Like it or not, it may be the best thing.”

  Todd cocked his head to one side and rubbed his nose. “You know, Ms. Ryerson told us we’re some kind of monster, all us Anomalies. Freaks. So how are we any different than him? Do you plan on killing us, too?”

  Elaine stared back at him. The expression on her face drained the rest of the blood from Todd’s face.

  “Do whatever you want,” she said as she left the room. “Just don’t expect me to watch.”

  ***

  Hours later, Josh sat up, conscious again. Garnet was holding his hand, smiling down at him. Jessica ran over to him and stood beside her.

  “How are you feeling?” Garnet realized she was still holding his hand and went slightly red. She slid her hand back to her lap.

  “Like I was hit repeatedly with a tire iron.” Josh laughed softly, unconvincingly, and put a hand to his head. “I just wish that was the worst of it. Truth is, I know we have to finish. We all need to find out what else I’m blocking. Jessica, can you do your magic while I’m lying down?”

  Jessica nodded and sat on the edge of the couch by his feet.

  “Good. That way I won’t have far to fall if I faint.”

  Everyone smiled at that. No one laughed.

  “Okay,” Jessica closed her eyes. “The Edimmu acted like they knew your father. Why don’t we start there? Start going through your memories of your father.”

  Josh closed his eyes and lay back down. It was easy to bring a picture of his father to mind.

  ***

  The first moment: his dad in a three-piece suit walking beside him. Josh was six years old, riding a bike. His father held one of the handlebars to help keep him stable. This is how he saw his father: a tall, strong man, always smiling and with love in his eyes.

  The second moment: the hotel room in Lebanon. Josh sat on the floor flipping through the channels on the television. His mother lay on one of the twin beds reading an Agatha Christie novel. His father shaved in the adjoining washroom. He was the type of guy women liked to look at: square jaw, blunt nose and high cheekbones. His hair was darker than Josh’s. It could only be called blond in the summer when the sun brought out its highlights.

  The room was small with no air conditioning. One of the windows was open. A slight breeze brought in the smell of spices from the restaurant across the street.

  “You sure you don’t want to go shopping?” His father’s voice was deep. He raised his voice to be heard over the running water in the bathroom sink and the babble of voices from the television.

  “I’m fine here, doll,” Mother said. “Five hours of shopping is enough for one day. Just go to your little seminar thing. Josh and I will be fine here.”

  “I’m bored,” Josh said.

  “Kid, you’re always bored.” His father wiped the remnants of shaving cream from his face with a white towel.

  “Am not. It just sucks here.”

  “Josh, you have a ton of books to read,” his mother said. She didn’t look up from the mystery novel, but Josh still had the impression that she was looking right at him. “Let your father do his thing. When he gets back we can go out for supper, okay?”

  Josh groaned and rolled his eyes. Maybe that’s why he saw the flash of light out of the corner of his eyes. He got up on his knees and looked out the window. There it was again. Across the street on the rooftop, something shone, like a mirror reflecting the sun.

  “What’s that?” He got to feet and walked toward the window.

  “What’s what?” His mother flipped the page on her book. She still didn’t look up.

  “On the roof over there. It’s like someone’s sending signals with a mirror.”

  Then the memory slowed down: a videotape played frame by frame. Disjointed still images linked together in the illusion of movement. Every second was an independent moment in time. He saw his mother lift her eyes from the book and turn to the window. He saw his father run out of the bathroom, razor still in hand, eyes wide in disbelief. Then he saw someone move out of the shadows on the roof, a very large gun in hand.

  ***

  Josh gasped and sat up.

  Jessica stared back at him, shaking her head. “Josh, that can’t be right.”

  “Oh, I think it is very right.” He pushed her away from him and walked toward the stairs. His legs felt like rubber. With each step he worried he would lose his footing and trip over his own feet. But he couldn’t let that happen. This wasn’t the time for weakness. He was vaguely aware of people shouting behind him, but it seemed very far away. The only thing in his mind was the memory of that face on the rooftop and the gun pointed in his direction.


  He kicked in the door to Wisdom’s room. In a heartbeat, Elaine rose from where she sat on the bed, her submachine gun pointed at Josh’s head. Her expression wavered from anger to relief and settled into worry. She cocked the gun and did not lower it.

  “Back away, Josh,” she said. The worry on her face escalated into anger.

  “You shot my mother.” Josh took a step forward.

  Elaine repeatedly pulled the trigger of the gun. Josh saw the mounting horror on her face as each pull of the trigger had the same effect. Nothing. The gun refused to fire.

  With his left hand, he pushed the weapon out of the way. With his right hand, he grabbed Elaine by the throat, lifting her off the ground.

  “You shot my mother,” he repeated. “Why?”

  He stared up into her eyes as her face grew redder and redder. She was choking. The look in her eyes was definitely not fear for her life. Now there was only rage in her expression.

  “Josh, let her down!” Todd was in the doorway behind him. “You’re killing her.”

  Josh did not take his eyes away from her to acknowledge Todd. “I can still hear her screaming. The bullet nearly tore her arm off. And the way my father howled. We thought she was going to die.”

  “Josh, I won’t warn you again!”

  Josh flexed his shoulder muscles, his fingers digging a little deeper into Elaine’s neck. Then there was a sharp pain in his chest followed by a blow to his nose. He dropped Elaine, his head swimming in bursts of heat. Before he could shake the pain away, something slammed into his head and he fell into a dark place.

  ***

  “What the hell was that about?” Elaine rubbed at her neck. “Give me a reason why I’m not putting a bullet in his head.”

  If he were anyone except one of Wisdom’s prized Anomalies, she would have. She was also furious with herself. She should have moved faster. No matter that the kid had somehow prevented her gun from working; it was no excuse for almost getting herself killed. Breaking out of a hold like that should have been second nature to her. What had stopped her from acting? Maybe this Josh was able to affect humans the same way he did the gun.

  “You shot his mother.” Jessica stepped past Todd and came into the room. She knelt down beside Josh’s unconscious body and put a hand to the wound. Elaine had rammed the butt of her submachine gun into his skull. If she was lucky, the kid would have permanent brain damage; but she doubted it. Anomalies were pretty quick healers.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t even know the kid’s mother.”

  Jessica brought her hands back. The fingertips were covered with blood. “I saw it. It was in Lebanon a few years ago. You were on the roof of this building. Your hair was a bit longer and a little blonder but it was you. I’m sure of it. You shot a rifle of some sort through a window into a hotel room.”

  “Oh.” Elaine swallowed and kept rubbing her throat. She would have trouble eating for weeks now. “That’s unexpected. It’s also need-to-know.”

  “Enough with the X-Files cloak and dagger crap.” Todd grabbed Elaine’s arm and spun her around. “We’ve all had enough of this ‘it’s classified’ crap. What do you know about this guy? Why did you try to kill his mother?”

  Elaine pulled her arm free. “You don’t get to tell me when things are no longer classified. Only Wisdom can do that. I can tell you it was about five years ago, just before Wisdom started gathering most of you.”

  “I remember that trip to Lebanon,” Garnet said from the doorway. “I’d been with Wisdom for about six months. You were supposed to kill the father, right?”

  “Zip it, Garnet.” Elaine’s hand slipped to her gun.

  “I don’t think so,” Garnet replied. “Todd, help me bring Josh back into the living room. Maybe you and Jessica can do your little healing trick on him and bring him around. I think it’s time to put together some of the pieces of this puzzle.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Technically, Wisdom was dead. He was just too pissed off to let his body realize it. Rage was his life-support machine; it forced his lungs to breathe, his heart to beat and his organs to heal. Like a sentient hologram, each particle of his body held the blueprint for the whole of his being. His willpower crafted tendons and tissue seemingly out of nothing. A mortal would have bled to death. Wisdom simply grew new blood from the heat and subtle, elemental fire that hung in the air around him. As his body fought to regenerate, his mind traveled back through his history and remembered.

  ***

  “Don’t fidget, dear,” his mother said. “Little gentleman do not fidget.”

  “Who says I want to be a gentleman? I’m just a boy.” He was six years old, walking through the candlelit corridors of a pyramid in Egypt. His dad, an Atlantean statesman, was part of a global initiative to construct a weather machine. They hoped to install crystalline devices in various structures around the world which would communicate through the magnetic fields of the planet. It would allow them to temper the massive hurricanes and tidal waves that had buffeted coastal regions of the world for the last ten years. Eventually, it would be controlled by a station in the foothills outside of Poseidus. Egypt was one of the primary focal points of the magnetic sub-web. According to the experts, one of the devices needed to be installed here. His father was solidifying the deal.

  “All the same, stop fidgeting.” His mother ruffled his hair and smiled. Her face was blurred by the spanning eons but her warmth rushed back to him easily. Her skin was a dark, rich blue, the color of the ocean at night. She was dressed in the style currently popular in the cities of Atlantis: a one-piece pleated dress that hung below the ankles with a plunging neckline barely concealing her breasts. The only jewelry she wore was a commitment necklace: a living crystal choker that pulsed with energy. Because she loved his father, it glowed a healthy green with freckles of comforting red.

  Just outside the door to council chamber, his dad talked with three Egyptians. A native of the north of Atlantis, his father had pale skin with a slightly yellow tinge reminiscent of the surface of the moon. He was dressed, like the Egyptians, in a simple robe that covered his torso and legs but left his arms bare. With a cursory movement over his shoulder, his father waved goodbye and walked into a brightly lit chamber filled with priests. Wisdom would never see him again.

  “Is this going to take long?” He pouted and stared at the floor. “This place is boring.”

  His mother smiled. “It won’t take too long. I promise.”

  “Yeah. You said that last time.”

  “Such a cute little gentleman you are.” She bent down and kissed him on the forehead. “Why don’t you wait over there in that little room? As soon as we’re finished here I’ll fly you home for supper. Anything you want. Okay?”

  Begrudgingly, he smiled and watched her walk into the priests’ chamber.

  He waited.

  His mother didn’t return for hours but that wasn’t unusual. The project was important and she believed he was safe. Egypt was nearly as civilized as Atlantis and he was surrounded by the priests and acolytes that ruled the country. But he got bored, as children will. At first, it was only his eyes that wandered. Then it was his feet.

  He left the cul-de-sac and walked toward the chamber where his parents conducted their meeting. There were at least fifty people in the room. Judging by skin color alone, most were Egyptians but there were several other Atlanteans. In one corner sat three Edimmu in thick cloaks made of vulture feathers. One of them looked over and saw him standing in the doorway. She smiled; an old female with graying scales and deep eyes. Wisdom waved and smiled back. Back home in Poseidus, many of his teachers were Edimmu.

  He listened to the speeches for a moment but they made him sleepy. All that talk about Ice Ages and solar storms. Adults can be so boring. Not far from the chamber was a thin hallway. The walls rose high above him giving the impression of a chasm between two cliffs. No child could resist investigating it.

  The hallway ended in a small octagonal room.
The ceiling was far above him, hidden in darkness. The only light came from small luminescent globes similar to the technology back home. A palpable hush hung over the area. Golden statues ringed the perimeter, some holding light globes, others holding weapons. One held what looked like a still-beating baboon heart. At the time, Wisdom did not recognize what the monstrosity was; he only recognized the fear it instilled in him. Against the eastern wall was an altar crafted from cold, bleak stone gilded with sections of gold and emeralds. But the thing that held him, the thing that he could not look away from was the diamond suspended in midair.

  As a child of Atlantis, he’d seen the marvels of technology: the fences of solid light that protected cities from rampaging dinosaurs, silver disks mounted on walls that relayed pictures from around the world, airships called Pharocai in which they’d flown from Poseidus to the pyramids. Yet looking at the jewel suspended in space, he knew it wasn’t science that held it in place. Even then he could feel the dark mystery of different forces and he knew it by name.

  Magic.

  “What are you doing down here?” He felt a hand on his shoulder. His mother’s warmth and scent flowed over him but he could not turn away. “Little gentlemen don’t snoop. Come away.”

  But he could not move. He had to touch the gem – this thing suspended by forces he could not yet understand but which sang in his bones. His mother’s hands pulled him out of the room but he slid from her grasp and ran for the diamond. She cried out in warning but it was too late. He reached out and clutched the diamond in his hands.

  Initially, he only felt the weight of it. It was twice the size of his childhood fist but seemed to have the weight of an entire planet within it. He marveled at how he could keep something so heavy in his hands. Then he noticed a sound. A hum. At first a hum, then a beating, like a slow heart. He turned to share the joy he’d discovered with his mother.