The Shadow Walkers

by Shannon Reber

  What didn’t make sense was the fact that Dorothy didn’t believe, so there was no way she left out treats for the creature. Could someone else be feeding him?

  Everything I’d read about them said that those creatures didn’t like to be seen, which was part of the reason why they worked at night. The fact I’d seen him would not be a good thing in his little mind.

  I looked away, deciding to take the chance since I’d already seen him. “What’s your name?” I asked, my eyes fixed on an ancient book in a different row of shelves.

  The brownie hopped onto the same shelf where I was looking and plunked himself down on the book so he was right in my line of sight. He shot me a death-glare and folded his tiny arms over his equally tiny chest. “I am Slip. Who are you?” he demanded, his deep growl of a voice a stark contrast to his tiny stature.

  “My name is Madison.”

  He snorted. “You’re an idiot,” he grumbled, his nose turned up in an angry pose. “The salt and iron gel you were shooting could have done serious damage to the Sword of Light and it is NOT good for the wood floors, either.”

  My lips quivered with amusement. “You did a good job of cleaning it up,” I praised, hoping that would make him a little less upset with me.

  He humphed in a way that was so like Erkens, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Of course I did,” he snapped, turning his eyes around the museum with pride in his work.

  I raised my brows at him. “Do you know if the shadows are still around?” I asked, pretty sure he was going to leave any minute, so I had to get my questions out fast.

  “There are shadows everywhere,” he stated evasively, his eyes flicking to something just over my left shoulder.

  I could sense the presence of . . . something. It wasn’t cold and didn’t give off the feeling of wrongness that usually hit me when a ghost was near. What it was, was a prickling on the back of my neck.

  I slid my hand back toward my bag, ready for whatever was coming. I slowed my breathing and cleared my mind, thinking through all the things Erkens had taught me over the last six months.

  The door slammed behind me, hard enough to rattle my teeth and make the things on the walls rattle as well. And that was when the light went out. I was in the dark with . . . something. Trickster? Djinn? Vengeful spirit? I had no guess anymore.

  “Leave this house,” a voice whispered from behind me and whatever it was picked me up and threw me at the wall.

  It was an awful feeling. The helplessness. The fear. The expectation of pain. It was over in seconds but they were some of the longest seconds of my life.

  My body slammed into the wall and my head thudded, bounced, then thudded again before I fell to the ground. And all of a sudden, there was nothing. I’d guess the world would have gone black if the lights weren’t off. All I knew, was nothing.

  ELEVEN

  “What is going on?”

  “What happened?”

  “I have no idea. I came down to start some coffee and found Madison right here.”

  “Mads?”

  The last voice was what brought me out of the haze that had engulfed my brain. My eyes felt heavy but I managed to pry them up. Bold blue eyes were the first thing I saw. Ian. What was he doing there? Where was I?

  I blinked and looked around, startled to realize I was on the floor in the front room of Dorothy’s house. My head ached fiercely and my ears rang a little. The main thing I noticed was that my bag wasn’t around me.

  It took me a minute to register all that, then to remember what had happened. Well, sort of. I remembered but that didn’t mean I understood.

  I placed my hand on the floor and tried to push myself into a seated position. My head swam. I fought through it enough to be able to scoot back and lean against the wall.

  That was when I was able to take in everything else. Ian, Spencer, and Erkens were all there. All of them looked furious. Erkens looked . . . beat up.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, seeing bruises around his face and one that rose from the neck of his shirt like his chest was badly bruised.

  He scowled as he motioned to Ian. “According to the mechanic there, somebody emptied a bag of sugar into my gas tank. I managed to get from here to the highway before the engine was destroyed. And having your engine stop on the highway in heavy traffic, that’s not particularly healthy,” he snapped, his tone even more irritable than usual. “My truck is totaled. Since you didn’t have a car to come and pick me up, I called Spencer and he decided to bring him.” He nudged his chin at Ian in a disapproving way.

  My eyes went wide as my mouth fell open. “Are you okay?” I questioned, doing my best to stand up. My head did one of those whirligig things and I almost fell flat on my butt. I would have if Ian hadn’t caught me.

  He propped me back against the wall, clenching and unclenching his hands as his mouth thinned. He looked ready to throw a handy pair of leg irons on Dorothy and march her off to the nearest police station.

  Erkens nodded to me. “I was checked out at the hospital and they cleared me. I’ll live,” he said, eyeing me in the same way. “What happened here?”

  I blew out a breath and rubbed my brow. I told them everything that had happened after Erkens had left, finishing with the lights going out in the museum. “It might still be a trickster. I mean, it could have killed me but all it did was chuck me at the wall, then apparently move me out here.”

  Ian’s blue eyes flashed as he looked at Dorothy. “There are no spirits in this house,” he stated definitively. “What I’ve seen here tells me you hoard things with power, things that might give you the strength to be able to throw Maddie across a room.”

  I faltered, confused by so many things. I had wondered if Dorothy might indeed be the one doing this, simply to get attention or company. But emptying a bag of sugar into Erkens’ gas tank didn’t make sense. Why would she try to kill him when she so obviously had a crush on him?

  Whatever made Ian think there were no ghosts, I did believe that. The fact the lights went out and the door slammed was not the action of a ghost. The lack of cold was another sign.

  The trickster still seemed like the most likely culprit but what if Ian was right? What if it was Dorothy?

  I peered around and spotted a book on one of the marble side tables. It was The Book of St. Cyprian, which was a grimoire. Why would Dorothy have that book?

  Ian saw where my eyes had turned and followed my gaze to the book. “So she’s a witch,” he stated like that one book cleared everything up in his mind.

  Erkens waved Ian off and turned to look at me. “I didn’t think of it being a trickster. That is a viable option,” he said, glancing at Spencer. “See what you can see,” he ordered.

  Dorothy held up her hands and took a step closer to me. “Madison, I need you to understand that I had nothing to do with you being hurt. I called Tiberius because I want to stop these things, get them out of my house.”

  I considered her for a little bit and gave her a slow nod. “I understand that,” I said noncommittally, my head screaming in pain.

  Ian pretended like Dorothy hadn’t spoken at all. “We should get you to the hospital, Mads,” he stated in a bossy tone he would have used on me when I was eight.

  I kept my eyes away from him, trying to think of the best way to figure out what the trickster wanted. All we needed was information. And maybe some aspirin. A lot of aspirin.

  “Has anybody seen my bag?” I asked, worried at the idea of a trickster destroying those protections, as well as my phone and tablet.

  Dorothy motioned to the kitchen. “When I went to make coffee, I found your bag on the countertop.”

  I inclined my head in acknowledgment and stood straight. I had to think for a second where the kitchen was. When it came to me, I turned in that direction.

  My head didn’t want me to go anywhere. I was so far beyond groggy, it wasn’t even kind of funny. Ian reached for me again but I wasn’t in the mood to deal
with him.

  He’d ignored me during one of the most difficult weeks of my life. He had no right to come back around like nothing had happened and start ordering me around. I didn’t even know what he was doing there since he’d specifically told Erkens he was too busy to work with us.

  I stayed out of his way, stumbling toward the kitchen on my still unsteady legs. Erkens reached me first, taking hold of my elbow to keep me on my feet. I was so glad he was there.

  The idea that sugar had been put in his gas tank was incredibly odd. It was hard to fathom what purpose it had served either. What lesson could the trickster be trying to teach Erkens?

  He guided me down into a seat when we got to the kitchen, both of us looking at the wreck in front of us. My bag was indeed there, with everything splayed out over the countertop like it had been searched. The last salt vial was open with salt spilled over the counter.

  Erkens did his brow furrow thing. “What was in the bag when you last had it?” he asked, not picking up any of the stuff.

  I blew out a breath, listing everything from the bag. I listed it as I had seen it last, ending with my phone.

  He looked at everything there, leaning his hands on the counter. “Your phone and tablet are both missing and I’d guess that every protection here has been tampered with.”

  “Agreed,” I said with a slight shrug. “My tech is password protected, so I’m not worried about that thing getting into our system.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “And here I thought you were being paranoid keeping all your things passworded. Your laptop is as well, am I correct?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good. We’ll consider all this a loss. Spencer has a bag of wards in his car, so we’re not unprotected.”

  I thumped my fist on the countertop, my irritation growing when Ian stepped into the kitchen as well. Then again, I was getting what I had wanted all week. My boyfriend was there. Maybe the old Ian had come back.

  He stepped over and eyed the things from the bag. “I think you’re reaching with the trickster idea. I think you like Mrs. Otto and don’t want it to be her,” he told me, motioning to that stuff. “Why would your things be strewn on her kitchen counter if it’s some creature like that?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Ian.”

  “Are you?” he asked, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Being this close to your mom for the first time since she kicked you out . . . I think it’s clouding your judgment.”

  I reared back like he’d slapped me. I felt like he had. He had walked away from me when I had needed him desperately, then came around to imply I was too damaged to do my job. Screw that.

  I got to my feet and stepped closer to him, jabbing my finger in his chest. “You think being near my mom is difficult? You’re right. It is. You want to know what was more difficult? It was when my boyfriend DIED. Oh, oh wait. It gets better.” I clapped my hands together like I was excited as tears rose in my eyes. “That boyfriend decided to walk away, to leave me alone with all that. Oh but then it really gets fun. Then, the grand jury decides to let Adrian off and my boyfriend--”

  “Your boyfriend was trying to deal with his own issues,” he said in a tone that was cold as ice.

  “We’re supposed to be a couple, Ian. Your issues are supposed to be mine too.”

  He blinked, looking away from me as tears slid their way down my cheeks. “My issues have nothing to do with you.”

  I took a small step back. “Good to know,” I said, turning toward the door of the kitchen. “I need to get a shower. I’ll be down in a few,” I said to Erkens, rushing off before the floodgates released all the pain bubbling inside me.

  By the time I got to my room, I felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest and skewered by that Sword of Light. I shucked off my clothes and turned the shower as hot as I could handle, hoping to scald away the heartbreak. I cried my heart out under that water.

  I had spent my whole life believing love was a myth. My parent’s messed up non-relationship had not made me want anything to do with romance. Then I had fallen in love with Ian Gregory and foolishly, I had thought it meant we were a team.

  I wished I knew how to handle the idea of life without him as my boyfriend. He may not have said it but it was what he had meant. I wasn’t important enough to him for him to ask me to share the load.

  It took me a bit to calm down and think in a more rational way. I would focus on the Dorothy situation and figure out what to do about the Ian thing later.

  I got dressed and carefully brushed out my hair, doing my best to avoid the large goose-egg on the side of my head. My whole head ached but that spot was especially tender. As I finished pulling my hair back into a loose braid, a plan had formed in my mind.

  I checked to be sure my stuff hadn’t been messed with when I was finished. Okay. One hair was on my laptop. One hair was looped around the handles of my bag. It looked like Dorothy hadn’t gone back into my room.

  I was glad to see that, yet it made me wonder. The stuff from my bag had been scattered over the counter in the kitchen like Dorothy had been searching it. Dorothy wasn’t a stupid woman, though.

  What if she hadn’t been the one to take my laptop out of my bag? What if it was another trick?

  Smudging the museum had been my first intention. A trickster wouldn’t be affected by the white sage, though. If that was our ‘creature’, all we could do was wait around for him to show his face. Granted, his face could be pretty much anything.

  I grimaced at that thought but my mind changed channels again. Mom. I had sent her a text the night before to let her know I wasn’t coming. She hadn’t responded. I really should go and see her.

  No matter what, she was my mom. Nothing was going to change that. I could shut her out like she had done to me my whole life. Sinking to her level felt wrong. I needed to face her.

  I stepped out into the hallway, my bag over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what to do about anything going on around me. Why did it all have to be so difficult?

  “Maddie?”

  I whirled to find Ian standing right outside my door, his arms folded. I did my best not to be swept away by how he looked but it was difficult.

  He was one of the hottest guys I’d ever seen. The changes in him over the last week were subtle but noticeable to me because of how well I knew him. He looked distracted, his eyes heavy with exhaustion, his cheeks a little hollowed.

  “I need you to listen to me,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

  I leaned back against the wall opposite his and waited. I needed the support of the wall. Ian Gregory was breaking up with me. There was no doubt in my mind.

  He took a step over so he was directly in front of me, his fingers tipping my chin back. “When I died, Tria was on the other side of the veil with me. I was still able to see this world, so I was watching you try to save me. That was when Imogen’s song called me back. Right before she did, Tria asked me if I would help her bring the PSA down, as well as keep an eye on her son. She gave me the ability to speak with the dead.”

  I was shaking so hard the bag fell off my shoulder. That horrible, horrible night played through my mind again. Ian had been on the ground in front of me and Tria’s dead body had been behind me. Tria. The medium.

  My mouth worked for a few seconds before the tears began again.

  “Babe, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he whispered and wrapped his arms around me. “I had no idea what it would be like. I wasn’t walking away from you. I was trying to figure out how to go on with my own life with conversations going on in my head all day. That spirit group Tria talked about can be great but they can also be massively distracting.”

  I sniffled into his chest, a watery chuckle escaping me. “Commentating on your hug style right now?” I asked, my voice croaky with all the tears I’d released.

  He pressed his mouth to the top of my head and breathed out an amused sound. “My hug style seems okay with them but they aren’t hap
py with me about the way I described the situation.” He leaned down so his mouth was close to my ear. “I AM sorry, Maddie. I was just trying to figure out how to do this without ending up in a mental hospital.”

  I burrowed in a little closer, my body still shaky from all the emotional turmoil. “I thought you were breaking up with me,” I whispered, the shattered state of my heart mending itself as he held onto me.

  “Not a chance, Mads. Thanks for not kicking me to the curb when I’ve been such an idiot.”

  “Not a chance,” I agreed, easing back a little to look up at him. “I could really use some coffee and I need to go and see my mom. Would you come with me?” I asked, liking the idea of having backup when I saw her.

  He cleared his throat. “Penance, five Hail Mary’s and seeing your girlfriend’s mom. Go and sin no more,” he said, touching his lips to my brow.

  I rose on my toes and pressed my lips to his. “No penance required. Now that I know what’s going on, I get it. Just please don’t keep me in the dark anymore. We are supposed to be in this together.”

  He jerked a little like something had hurt him before he gave me a pained smile. “Funnily enough, the voices in my head agree with you. No more secrets. I promise,” he said, offering his hand to me. “Let’s go and face the dragon.”

  I laughed, loving the old memory of what he and Emma had always called my mom. It made me feel lighter, more willing to deal with what she would throw at me. With Ian by my side, I felt strong enough to finally stand up to her.

  TWELVE

  The guys had all ridden together in Ian’s car, so Erkens and Spencer would be left alone in the house with Dorothy. I felt a little guilty about that. Not enough to change my mind, though.

  It always helped me to focus on a mystery when I turned my mind to something else. The first thing I needed to do was buy a new phone. It had become a habit recently.

  After I’d remotely locked my old phone and bought a new one, I sent Erkens and Spencer a quick text so they’d know they could contact me again. After that, we went for some coffee.