The Shadow Walkers

by Shannon Reber

  I patted the protections duffel. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve got the demon mace, sage, salt, and at least a dozen other wards in here. Nothing is going to hurt us.”

  He huffed at me. “I’m not talking about the supposed ghost, Madison. I’m talking about the odd duck in there who has the Cup of Jamshid in her kitchen like it’s a candy dish. I don’t like leaving you alone with her.”

  I snickered and shook my head. “She doesn’t have a crush on me. I’ll be fine,” I teased, turning to go back into the house. “Uh, Erkens . . . if you hear from Ian . . . never mind,” I broke off, my eyes fixed on the ground.

  Erkens groaned. “That boy is making me crazy and I’m not the one dating him,” he grumped. “If I talk to him, I will tell him to pull his head out of his hind end.” He got into his truck and slammed the door behind himself, rolling down the window before he left. “Be careful, Madison. And keep me posted.”

  “I will,” I said, lifting my hand in a wave as he backed out onto the road.

  I took a moment in the sun to try and wash away the pain of my own mention of Ian. He had promised me before we had even become a couple that we would always be friends, no matter what. My friends didn’t ignore me. The man I was in love with shouldn’t do that either.

  I was so frustrated, mostly with myself. Ian had died and been brought back to life through magic. The last thing he had done before his death was to be used by a dark spirit to beat the crap out of me. Yes, it had been a week ago and it had been a very bad week for me but it couldn’t have been easy for him either.

  Emma had been his baby sister. His best friend had been the one who killed her. Adrian was getting away with her part in it. That whole situation was a horrible, painful mess all around.

  We all had some healing to do. However Ian chose to deal with the mess, it was his business. If he didn’t want me to be part of it . . . then what were we doing?

  Wasn’t a relationship supposed to involve sharing the load? If he didn’t see it that way and saw us only as two individuals going through similar traumas, our relationship was over, if it was ever anything at all.

  My heart tore itself into two jagged pieces at that thought. Ian Gregory had been my world for a few shining months. If we were done, we needed to finish it, quick and clean.

  I swallowed back the lump in my throat and counted to three. Dorothy Otto had to be my priority. I needed to find a way to put everything else out of my mind for now.

  SIX

  Dorothy smiled at me as I stepped back into the house. It was like a Queen sitting with her subjects all around her. She was at home right there and I understood why she wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving the place. ‘Home’ was written all over her face.

  “Are you going to finish your dinner?” she asked, clearly having no idea how bad it had tasted.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not really hungry,” I lied, praying I wouldn’t have to finish it.

  “Alright, Madison. Let’s get your things upstairs and then, I’ll take you down to my museum. I think you’ll enjoy that,” she said happily, her wrinkled, liver-spotted hand reaching out for mine.

  I took her hand and allowed her to guide me through the house again. It surprised me that a woman in her nineties could handle the several flights of steps but Dorothy had no trouble at all. She practically jogged, eagerly pointing out even more treasures.

  Since there was no hurry, I let her take me on a full tour, using that time to watch the amber and see if any darkness came to the stone inside. It changed color many times, though never to black. That was good. It was also confusing.

  After she had shown me everything she found most memorable in her home, we finally turned to go to the bedrooms. I was amazed by the number of bedrooms but it appeared Dorothy had a specific one she wanted me to stay in. I was interested in the house, so followed along, simply enjoying her company.

  We turned to the left at the top of the main staircase, then went up a few more steps. After that, we turned down a short, narrow hallway and found even more stairs. It was like a maze, a beautiful, very well decorated labyrinth.

  The wood floors all gleamed, every rug in the perfect position. Every trinket was dust free and placed where it could be seen clearly. There was no way Dorothy cleaned everything, so she must have a housekeeper or a cleaning service that came by.

  I didn’t even want to imagine the amount of work it would take to clean that whole house. Even the slight clutter downstairs was cleaner than my room. The whole house I lived in was a fraction of the size of the estate.

  Dorothy guided me into a room at the end of one of the halls. It was lovely, with a private bath and king sized bed that had an upholstered bench at the end. The large fireplace took up a good portion of the opposite wall and a set of glass doors looked out onto a balcony. It was the nicest room I had ever seen, let alone slept in.

  The wall next to the balcony had a shelf crammed with books and even more mythic artifacts. I was amazed by the sheer number of things I’d read about in Erkens’ books, being held in one house. The amount of money she must have spent on those things was mind-boggling.

  The three most important things in my world were either on me or in my bag. The helm of awe necklace, my laptop, and the thumb drive Ian had given me.

  It had been a Christmas present but since I’d been in the half-realm during that time, it had turned into more of a belated Valentines present. That thumb drive contained all the information we had on every supernatural creature we knew about. He had made it so that it could be searched by keywords and had room left on it for me to add extra information. That and the ‘Nerd Ninja’ t-shirt he’d given me had made my belated Christmas the sweetest holiday.

  I cringed back from the pain in my heart, clearing my throat as I looked at Dorothy. “This is a beautiful room,” I said in a weak voice.

  She stepped over to the bench and sat, patting the area next to her. “Have a seat, Madison,” she told me, waiting until I had complied before she went on. “I can tell just by our short acquaintance that you are a very intelligent, very wounded girl. I was never a mother, so I don’t have the same mothering instincts some women have. What I have is a knowledge of pain. I’ve had enough of that in my years to understand it completely. Whatever is causing the pain in you, facing it is the only way to heal. Shrugging it aside will only make the healing more difficult.”

  I hunched in on myself, not sure how to handle more compassion. “It’s just been a rough week,” I said, then simply because she was there and had offered her support, I began to spill out the non-paranormal version of our story.

  Dorothy sat, making sympathetic noises as she listened. The simple fact that she paid attention made a world of difference to me. Some of the weight of everything faded back a little, enough to make it clear how I had imposed my sorrow on her.

  “I’m sorry for dumping all that on you. I’ll be fine,” I lied, feeling like a little girl who’d just been busted for doing something wrong.

  Dorothy reached over to pat my hand. “Madison, there is nothing for you to apologize for. It looked to me like you needed somebody to talk to,” she said and stood up again. “Why don’t we go and look through my museum. That always makes me feel better when the burdens in my life are feeling like they’re too much for me. Would you be interested?”

  “I’d love to,” I said and lifted a finger to tell her to wait for a moment.

  I rose and turned to the bed where I’d set my bags, aware that the museum was most likely the place where the haunted object was stored. I took one of the cross body bags out of the duffel and loaded it with demon-mace, salt vials, white sage smudges, a lighter, and a few other things that might help. The amber was still in my pocket, so I was set there.

  I stuck my phone and tablet in the bag as an afterthought, my eyes falling on a bag of pretzels in the duffel. I almost laughed out loud. I wouldn’t go hungry. It seemed Erkens had known about Dorothy’s food habits or he was just b
eing nice to me. Whichever it was, I owed him big time.

  Dorothy led me back downstairs, her eyes moving around warily. It was like she expected something or someone to jump out and grab her. I wasn’t sure if she was being paranoid or simply that she had seen something she hadn’t told me about.

  “Dorothy, will you tell me the whole story? How long have the shadows been whispering?” I asked, my voice quiet as I looked around as well.

  She glanced back at me and sighed. “In the last few days, it’s been very frequent. Before that, it was once-in-a-while that I heard them.”

  “Them?”

  She nodded. “There are two distinct voices from the shadows. They are both male but I can’t even guess at their ages. They’re only whispers.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They seem to be talking to each other. The other day, I heard one of them sneeze. That was why I called Tiberius.”

  “Is that what scared you earlier today?”

  Dorothy shook her head, flicking her eyes around again. “There . . . was a crash. I didn’t have the nerve to go and look. I simply ran. It was wonderful timing that you and Tiberius showed up when you did or I may have had a nervous collapse.”

  Crap. A ghost moving things around wasn’t a good sign. Vengeful spirits had that ability, not the spirits with unfinished business. If I had to face another case with a vengeful spirit, I was asking Erkens for a raise.

  Dorothy and I stopped in front of a large and ornately carved door. It was a massive piece of what looked like hand-hewn wood, a piece of art in itself.

  She opened that breathtaking door and my mouth fell open. It was a large room that had probably been an office at one point. It was no longer an office. It held shelves upon shelves of ‘fairytale doodads’.

  The shelves were of the same wood as the door and just as beautiful. There wasn’t a single inch of shelf that didn’t contain something.

  My eye was caught by a sword set on a stand on the first shelf inside the door. I had just seen a picture of one very similar to it. The sword had been called Clarent and had been used to kill King Arthur. After everything I’d seen in Dorothy’s possession that day, I did not doubt that it truly was that mythological sword.

  There were other swords on a rack hung on the wall, along with shields, bows, arrows, whips, axes . . . it was an arsenal. There were books galore, a place Erkens would totally approve of. It was a breathtaking collection, one I had never even imagined could exist.

  I didn’t even want to think about the amount of insurance she must have on that room. The millions of dollars she had probably spent on it made me feel poor and painfully inferior. That thought brought me up short. I wouldn’t have had it just a few hours before.

  No. I would not allow my proximity to my mom to damage my hard-won confidence. Not. A. Chance. I would stand tall and proud. I would NOT be intimidated.

  I straightened my shoulders and walked over to what looked like an adder stone. It wasn’t as unique as the rest of her things but its properties could be used in a lot of protective and healing charms. It made me wonder if Dorothy was so healthy simply because of her collection.

  I had never seen a woman of her age who was able to move around so well and seemed so clear of mind. I wasn’t sure if it was the Atlantis Ring that was helping her or if it was some other charm in that room. Then again, maybe it was just good genes. It DID happen naturally sometimes.

  I glanced back at Dorothy, looking for the right words to ask her about it. The words froze on my lips when I saw the shadow. It stood behind her in a place where no shadow should be.

  The sun was low in the sky, setting at the other end of the house. There were only shadows from the lights in the room and those were nowhere near Dorothy.

  I acted without thought, taking one of the canisters of demon-mace out of my bag. To avoid hitting Dorothy with the stuff, I darted to the side before I lifted the safety and sprayed.

  The instant I moved, though, so did the shadow. The canister I had grabbed was like police gel. We had another kind of mace that simply let out a puff of dust. The gel had seemed like a better idea when I’d been loading my bag.

  I saw immediately I had been wrong. The gel got nowhere near the ghost. What it got near was one of the swords hanging on the wall . . . and the light of the sun blazed out of that weapon.

  My eyes felt like they were burning in my skull. And that was when the world turned black around me.

  SEVEN

  Lars Nemen hadn’t been looking at the Sword of Light, yet his eyes were still dazzled by its power. What he’d been looking at was the girl. He had thought she was no threat. He could see he had been wrong about her.

  His hands shook as he fingered his knife. He wanted to bury it to the hilt in the brunette’s gullet. It was her fault that purple and green lights floated in his vision. He would make her pay.

  He firmed his grip on the knife until reason came back to him. He needed to make the girl’s death look like an accident. It was the only way.

  He thought about it as he watched the Otto woman help the brunette to her feet. It was clear the girl’s vision was affected far worse than his had been but not as much as he had thought it would be. His eyes narrowed as he saw the necklace the girl wore. The helm of awe. It would have protected her to some degree. He cursed to himself but no. It wouldn’t affect his plan.

  The girl’s room was one with a balcony. Maybe if he threw her off the balcony while she was sleeping, it would break her neck or crack her skull. It could work.

  He prefered the idea of making it look like the Otto woman did it . . . and a smile came to his lips. That was it. He wouldn’t kill the girl right away. He would play with them, make the girl believe the sweet little old lady was trying to hurt her. He would kill her the following night.

  All he had to do was get Stelen in on the plan. It would be easy enough. Stelen’s original plan had simply been to kill the Otto woman. His way would be far more poetic. The death of the brunette would bring about the incarceration of the Otto woman.

  EIGHT

  I wasn’t in a very good mood. It seemed the house truly was haunted. And yes, those artifacts of Dorothy’s could be dangerous.

  I wished I knew precisely what that sword had been. There were a few blades in mythology that held light as a power. Then again, the ghost was the bigger issue.

  Once I had made my report to Erkens about everything that had happened, I would go back to the museum and use one of the white sage smudges to purify the spiritual energy of that space. I needed to come up with more, though.

  I had seen quite a few ghosts in the last six months, though none like the shadow I’d seen in Dorothy’s museum. The ones I’d seen were remnants of their former selves. A shadow that moved was new for me.

  Dorothy guided me down onto one of her couches and rushed off somewhere. I didn’t know where and didn’t ask. I just took out my phone and called Erkens.

  It clicked straight over to voicemail without even ringing once. “This is TC Erkens. Leave me a message,” his voice commanded and a beep sounded out.

  “Dorothy’s house IS haunted. I’ve seen one of the moving shadows myself. I’ll start researching as soon as I can see right,” I said and ended the call.

  I buried my face in my hands and thought about it. Was it possible that the shadow wasn’t our bogeyman but simply the reflected image of the true ghost? Had there been the right amount of light in the room to create that kind of copy?

  I didn’t think so. I couldn’t be sure, though. I had never seen a shadow-ghost, so I was learning on the job. Maybe the answer wasn’t to kick the thing out of the house but to find a way to communicate with it.

  Dorothy had said her husband had died in the house. She had also said she’d miscarried several times while there. If that was the case, maybe one of them was watching over her.

  It was a nice thought. It didn’t seem accurate to me for some reason. I didn’t know why. To me, it felt like th
at shadow had been taunting Dorothy.

  Okay, so if that was true, it probably wasn’t a ghost. There were a lot of trickster-type characters in folklore, ones who got their jollies by causing discord. The majority of them were gods who simply took on whatever shape suited them at the moment. Rabbits, coyotes, foxes, and cats were all used in trickster folklore as creatures of mischief. They taught lessons to people through their tricks and everybody lived happily-ever-after. In some cases, anyway.

  The fact Dorothy had said out loud that she didn’t believe might be part of the issue. Maybe the trickster thing was trying to teach her the truth. Or it really was a ghost and I was way off track. Somehow, I didn’t think I was.

  It had been only a shadow that I’d seen but it was like the thing was mocking me. I had heard something that sounded very much like a laugh when the demon-mace had hit the sword. Gah. I wished Erkens was there. I needed his guidance.

  I jerked a little when the couch next to me descended. I whipped my head in that direction. Oh. It was Dorothy.

  I mentally face-palmed myself. Of course it was Dorothy. It was her house.

  She didn’t speak at first. What she did was hand me what looked like a cup of tea. I wasn’t much of a fan of hot tea. Right then, it was perfect.

  The warmth of the mug mixed with a sweet, spicy scent coming off it made some of my anxiety ease back. I lifted the mug to my nose and sniffed, closing my eyes as the scents of ginger, honey, and tea leaves floated their way toward me.

  “Thank you, Dorothy,” I said, comforted by her presence as much as by the fragrances.

  She sat still for a moment, her own mug cradled in her hands. “I have been collecting my fairytale doodads for years now. I have never seen one of my things do anything that remotely made me think they had power.”