Ruined by Shadows

by Lola StVil

  I want to tell Carla she’s crazy, but I can’t because she’s exactly right. I can’t do this without Kane by my side. Until he was gone, I didn’t realize how much I relied on him, how much of my strength came from having him by my side.

  It’s pathetic. I’ve turned into one of those damsels in distress that I hate so much, but there it is. I hate myself for it a little bit. I always vowed I would never be one of those women who need a man to get things done, and here I am falling to pieces without Kane.

  I don’t have time to dwell on that and what it might mean for feminism. All I know is Carla is right, and if we don’t get Kane back, I won’t be able to finish this thing, and the feminists won’t be able to hate on me and tell me I’m what’s wrong with the world because they’ll be gone. Arken is an equal opportunities god, and as sure as he’ll kill all of the men, he’ll kill all of the women too.

  The fact that none of the team leaps to my defense tells me they all know it too. I’m starting to think it’s a damned good thing we ran into Carla and Rachel because it seems they’re a whole hell of a lot quicker to be honest with me about the hard stuff than the team is.

  “Guys, I need to ask you something, and I need you all to be honest with me,” I say. “Are you all doing this because you agree with Carla, or were you speaking the truth when you all said Kane did the right thing?”

  No one answers me for a moment, and then Saudia meets my eye.

  “Both,” she says.

  “Fair enough,” I reply. “Then let’s go and get this venom. Pest, where should I open the portal? We can’t just pop up out of thin air where there will be lots of people.”

  “Suite Five of the Residents Suites in Oia,” Carla says. “I have a friend there who might be able to help us.”

  “What?” she demands when no one says anything. “I’m more than just a pretty face you know.”

  I gather the team around me. Sadie, Pest, and Rachel stand to one side watching on as I open up a portal and we all step through it.

  I’m instantly in a white painted room filled with pretty wicker furniture. The air is cool, but a quick glance out of the window tells me that’s because of the AC and not the weather.

  “What the fuck?” a voice says.

  A gorgeous blonde comes into view, her eyes opening wider into black circles. I look away quickly before I can be taken in by her eyes.

  “It’s okay, Esther, they’re with me,” Carla says, stepping forward.

  Esther’s eyes return to normal, and she rushes to embrace Carla.

  “Carla? Oh wow, it’s so good to see you. How long has it been?”

  “Too long,” Carla says, smiling warmly at Esther as they break apart.

  “Sit down, everyone. Make yourselves at home. I’ll grab us some drinks, and then Carla here can tell me what you all need.”

  “Who says we need anything?” Carla asks.

  Esther laughs. “I do. We both know this isn’t a social call. Since when do you do social calls outside of a bar?”

  “Fair point,” Carla says.

  We take seats as Esther goes to the kitchen.

  “Esther is the leader of the Greek branch of the Valkyries,” Carla explains while she’s gone. “If the Erinyes are still here, Esther will know where to find them.”

  “And you trust her?” Perry asks.

  “Of course I do,” Carla replies, seemingly surprised he even asked.

  Esther returns carrying a heavy looking tray. Regal jumps up and lifts a large glass of lemonade from it. She smiles gratefully at him and sets the tray of glasses down. She takes the lemonade back from Regal, and only when we all have a glass does she take a seat and turn to Carla.

  “Okay, what do you need?”

  “We need to know where to find the Erinyes colony,” Carla says.

  Esther shakes her head.

  “I can’t help you with that one, I’m afraid,” Esther says.

  “You expect me to believe you don’t know where they are? You know every detail of this island.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t know where they are. I just said I can’t help you. Carla, I’m sorry, but I have to think of my people. We leave them alone, and they leave us alone. If you go hunting them down, then that’s over.”

  I wait for Carla to pull rank and demand to know where they are. She surprises me by playing nice, and I realize Carla and Esther are equal in rank, they just run different countries. Carla won’t get what she wants here by demanding it.

  “Esther, please. This is bigger than living in peace day to day. I’m not going into details, but believe me when I tell you that finding the Erinyes could be the key to stopping Arken from ending the world.”

  Esther snorts.

  “You think that’s even possible? From what I’ve heard, the whole thing with the Last Seeker has been a game to Arken. He’s got the whole thing sewn up so he can’t lose. Poor girl doesn’t even know it. Why are you letting yourself get pulled into that one?”

  “Fuck you,” I blurt out without thinking.

  Esther turns to me, glaring.

  “Excuse me,” she says.

  “You heard me. Fuck you. I knew exactly what I was getting into with this, and I’ll have you know that Arken might think he’s one step ahead of the game, but he isn’t. Because he hasn’t been able to beat me yet, and he won’t beat me this time.”

  “Esther, allow me to introduce Atlas, the Last Seeker,” Carla smirks.

  I expect Esther to look embarrassed, but instead, she just smiles.

  “Well fuck,” she says. “With a temper like that, maybe we do stand a chance after all. You’ll find the Erinyes at the Dominican Convent in Fira.”

  “Bullshit,” Regal says. “That’s right in the heart of the capital of the island. There’s no way the Erinyes are there.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” Esther asks quietly.

  “I’m saying you don’t think Atlas can pull this off, so you’re trying to save your own skin,” Regal says.

  “Carla, the company you keep is awfully rude,” Esther says.

  “They’re just passionate, Esther.”

  Esther sighs and shakes her head.

  “The Erinyes lived on this island in a remote cave for a long time. They stayed hidden away, only coming out at night to sniff out people they felt they could wreak vengeance on. I don’t know what changed. Maybe they got bored of hiding away. Maybe they weren’t getting to draw enough blood. Hell, maybe their cave flooded for all I know. But for whatever reason, they decided to come into the city.

  “They found a warlock who was willing to work with them in exchange for a vial of their snake venom. He created a potion for them that allowed them to present themselves as whoever they wanted to be. They lived as normal residents for a time.

  “As time went on, they realized that the island was always crawling with tourists, and it was an ideal hunting ground, but hiding in plain sight as they were, they had to be careful. They came up with a plan when they saw that the Dominican Convent was a major tourist attraction. They killed some of the nuns and assumed their positions.

  “They continued doing everything the nuns had done. They house the homeless, feed the hungry, and take medicine to the sick. They pray for the families of sick children to a god none of them believe in. And they do a good enough job of it that no one here suspects a thing.”

  “But why?” I ask. “Why did they choose to go somewhere where they risked being exposed?”

  “Because the convent has a constant stream of tourists for them to sniff out and select those that need punishment in their eyes. So many of the tourists are religious, and in the Erinyes’ eyes, they need vengeance for Uranus, who is no longer worshipped. They mostly do a good enough job at clean up that no one notices anything is off. And the odd time they don’t and a tourist is searched for, well, who would ever suspect the nuns were the killers?”

  “That’s genius,” I admit. “Do you know how many of them there are?”
>
  “Twelve,” Esther replies.

  I nod. “Thanks,” I say. “And how do we kill them?”

  Esther’s eyes open wide. “You don’t even try that if you want to live.”

  I don’t reply, and she sighs again.

  “You’ll have to withstand the terrible screaming and the lasers to get close enough to kill them. Oh, and the venomous snakes, of course. If you can do that, which is a damned big if, killing them is no harder than killing a human. Assuming the human feels no pain, so it isn’t really fazed by anything you can do to them, and if they could regenerate themselves. Each time you make a kill, they’ll come back weaker, but it’ll take some doing to wipe them out.”

  This day just keeps on getting better.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I drink the last of my lemonade and place the empty glass on the tray and stand up. The others follow suit and we move towards what I assume is the way out, leaving Carla and Esther to say their goodbyes.

  “Good luck, Carla; you’re going to need it,” Esther says. “How did you even end up mixed up in this?”

  “Regal is my boyfriend,” she says, nodding towards Regal. “And also, I kind of like being alive, so there’s that.”

  “If anyone can take down the Erinyes, it’s you, Carla. When this is all over, don’t be a stranger, okay? But next time, bring nicer guests.”

  Carla laughs.

  “Next time, it’ll be a major Valkyrie drinking party.”

  They hug again, and Carla comes to join us where we wait for her in the doorway.

  “Oh, there’s one more thing, Seeker,” Esther says to me as we start to walk away.

  I turn back to her.

  “How do you feel about killing innocent people?” she asks.

  “I’m generally against it,” I say, wondering where this is going.

  “Then you should know that there are twelve Erinyes in the convent and around forty real nuns. And I have no idea how to distinguish between the two without the Erinyes choosing to reveal themselves.”

  And again, it gets better.

  I thank Esther once more, and we head for the convent.

  “How on earth do we work out who is a real nun and who isn’t?” I ask as we walk.

  “Well, that’s easy,” Perry says.

  “Is it?” I ask.

  He nods.“Sure. We fire at them. If they die, they were real nuns. If they don’t, they’re Erinyes.”

  I punch him in the arm.

  “Fuck off, Perry; I’m serious,” I say.

  “Wow, Atlas, you really are off your game, aren’t you?” Saudia says. “You heard what Esther said. The Erinyes want to take vengeance on those who denounced the Greek gods. So we go in there and do just that. We’ll talk to the nuns, tell them how we’re all about the Catholic god, and make a few snide comments about the old gods. That’ll get them to reveal themselves. And if it doesn’t, there’s always plan B.”

  “And what’s that?” Regal asks.

  Saudia shrugs and gives a mischievous grin.

  “We stand in the nuns’ earshot and talk about Atlas being the Last Seeker. And then we just watch their reactions.”

  It’s not a great plan by any means, but it’s either that or go in fighting and risk killing actual nuns, not to mention the tourists who will undoubtedly end up caught in the crossfire if we don’t do this right.

  “I think that’s it,” Regal says, pointing.

  All of the buildings here are white with pretty blue roofs. All of them are beautiful, but other than variations in size, they all look exactly the same.

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  “Because of the bell,” he says, pointing again.

  I look where he’s pointing and see he’s right. The building he’s singled out has a little extra addition. At the top is a small turret with open sides, and within it is a large, old-fashioned brass bell like the kind you find in churches.

  We head in that direction, and sure enough, as we get closer, we see the plaque naming the building as Dominican Convent, Santorini.

  “Let’s go kill some nuns,” Perry says, earning us a few looks from the tourists milling around.

  Langston nudges him and laughs. “Stop it,” she says.

  Shaking my head at Perry, I begin to weave a path through the crowd. Everywhere I look there are people. This is going to be harder than I thought. There’s a constant stream of people going in and out of the convent, and I know before we even get in there that it’s going to be even more crowded inside.

  I’m not wrong. We enter the cool building and are instantly in the middle of a crowd, all jostling to see the various paintings and whatever else people come to convents to see.

  “I don’t understand why humans are so easily fooled by all of this,” Saudia hisses to me. “I mean, look at them. They’re like children, desperate to cling to a fairy tale. Nyten and Arken must love all of this.”

  “You know the Catholic story isn’t that much different than the shadow world. God and the Devil, good and evil, and all that.”

  “Well yeah, except no one has even seen either of them. At least in the shadow world, we know what we believe is true because we’ve seen it.”

  I decide now isn’t the time to try and explain how faith works.

  “You better stop questioning it and start believing it if you want your plan to work,” I say instead.

  She makes the sign of the cross and winks at me.

  “How’s that?” she asks.

  “Better,” I say. “But perhaps lose the wink.”

  I walk away from the others and go to stand before a large tapestry on the wall. It depicts the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus in her arms, a radiant yellow light surrounding them both. I’m not particularly taken with the picture, but the needlework is exquisite. The tapestry, if laid on the ground beside me, would be longer than me and twice as wide, and each stitch is so small I have to squint to really make it out.

  I reach out and gently run my fingers across it, feeling the raised stitches.

  “It took over seven years to complete that,” a voice behind me says.

  I turn and find myself face-to-face with a nun. I look into her eyes, trying to decide if I am facing a woman who has dedicated her life to helping others in God’s name or a wicked, vengeful creature whose entire purpose is hurting people.

  “It’s beautiful, sister,” I breathe.

  “How could it be anything else when it shows the blessed mother and child?” the nun says.

  “Indeed,” I reply.

  She smiles graciously and heads towards the larger group of people. Two other nuns appeared while I looked at the tapestry, and the three of them stand together before the group.

  “Anyone who is here for the tour, follow us now, please,” one of them says.

  I catch Perry’s eye, and he nods. I agree. A tour sounds like a good way to get deeper into the convent, and maybe we can even break off from the main group and go and find something that will tell us which nuns we’re looking for. We follow the three nuns across the entrance room and stand away from the rest of the crowd, who mill around. Aside from us, there are around twenty other people, and I feel my heart sink when I notice that there are a few children on the tour. Whatever happens, protecting the children from harm has to be our priority, even if it means we have to abort our mission.

  Five more nuns appear from the side door. They are younger than the three who are already here, and all of them are taller.

  “We’ll take this one, sister,” one of them says.

  “But it’s not your turn,” the nun who addressed the group argues. “And why so many of you?”

  “Let’s just say that there are some people on this particular tour who we would very much like to personally escort around our home. And by the time we’re done with them, they’ll be particularly holy.”

  The original nun frowns in confusion, but then three of the new group step forward, each taking a nun and leading her away f
rom the group. They appear gentle, like they’re trying to help, but I can’t help but notice that they grip the nuns’ arms so hard I can see the red marks they’re causing. The three original nuns are exchanging glances. They know something is wrong.

  I know something else. Finding the Erinyes isn’t going to be as hard as I thought, because five of them stand before us. It never even occurred to me that they might seek us out.

  One of them catches my eye. She smiles, a cold, dead looking smile that says everything I need to know about how this is going to go down.

  “Let the tour begin,” one of them says. “I think this might just be the best one yet.”

  As soon as we move out of the entrance room and into the first twisting corridor, another two nuns join us, attaching themselves to the rear of the group. They move us quickly down the corridors, and I can see some of the group becoming puzzled. Not worried, not yet, but certainly aware that something strange is going on here.

  It’ll only be a matter of time until they start to see just how bizarre this thing is, and when they do, I dread what might happen, as it seems the Erinyes aren’t quite as afraid of anyone working out their identity as Esther seemed to think they would be. At least this way there’s very little risk of us accidentally taking out a real nun. It’s not much of a silver lining, but it’s all I’ve got right now, so I’m taking it.

  “Wait, isn’t that a part of the art gallery?” someone asks as we march past an archway leading to an open space with paintings.

  He cranes his neck, trying to look back over his shoulder and see further into the room, but the group is still getting ushered along. A few of the other group members are also trying to see into the room, but it’s mere seconds before we’re out of sight of it.

  “That’s not important,” the head nun responds without looking back.

  The group is exchanging “what the fuck?” looks with each other now, and I try desperately to think of some way to distract them from what they’re missing without making the whole situation worse, but I can’t.

  “It says in the brochure that we get to look at the paintings,” a female group member insists.