The Shadow Arts

by Damien Love

  The old man considered Alex seriously, as though debating what more to say, then shrugged. “These machines started as a by-product of my father’s experiments into extending life, Alex. He was exploring the possibility of migrating consciousness. Throwing your mind into another body. So if you were near the end, you could just slip your personality into someone else, take them over.

  “Trouble with that is, it would take a lot of effort to suppress the mind of whoever’s body it was. Personally, I don’t find the idea appealing on any level. I mean, I find it hard enough getting comfortable staying as a guest in anybody’s house. I like my own space.

  “But the robotics line was something Hans Beckman developed, using elements of that technique, and . . . other methods, under my father’s guidance.”

  Alex nodded, trying to ignore the disheartening creaks the branch gave out with every movement they made. This was more than his grandfather had ever told him about the tall man’s eerie machines. Despite their precarious position, he was keen to keep him talking.

  “So Beckman made them,” Alex prodded, picturing the unsettlingly ingratiating little toy shop owner who had once held them at gunpoint, a man whose eyes were perpetually hidden behind the shining lenses of his glasses.

  “Well, the basic mechanics. Beckman was an engineer originally,” his grandfather went on. “Rather clever at it. He investigated creating an artificial body, you see, and transferring the mind into that. That’s how the life-sizers started. I think my father quickly dismissed that idea. But Beckman’s work proved useful.

  “They first bought the toy shop in Prague to keep tabs on any discoveries concerning our old toy robot. While he was cooling his heels there, Beckman had the idea to miniaturize his process and started creating the machines you’ve seen.

  “As far as this one goes”—the old man gestured at the flier—“I’d guess my father used it to do more than just watch you. He, well, tried to put a hex on you. It took that scrap of material for a focus: something of yours, something close to you. Just be thankful it didn’t get something even closer—hair or nail clippings or blood, y’know. I’d venture he’s been trying to probe your mind, size you up, or wear you down. The attack in the street when I met you was probably an angry surge, trying to get at you before I could.

  “Thing is,” the old man continued, “far as I know, they were busy on the continent while this was following you in Britain. So even if he only devoted a little attention to it, using the machine across such a long distance, over that length of time, would have cost enormous mental energy. The machine would have been growing weak by now, in any case. They need, ah, topping up every now and then. Could you give me the spring-heels, Alex?”

  Fascinated by the old man’s account, Alex had almost forgotten where they were perched. Moving with care, he unfastened the apparatus and handed it over to his grandfather, who began strapping it to his own feet. When the old man straightened again, he looked bleak.

  “They know where we are. And they know we know. We have to assume they’ll be coming after us—” He stopped as the branch emitted an unmistakable crack. “Ah. Probably not a good idea to hang around up here, Alex.” He held out the rope. “Think you can shimmy down?”

  Alex considered the drop doubtfully. The branch splintered again and shuddered alarmingly. His grandfather raised his eyebrows. Alex swung down, starting to lower himself.

  “Good man. Probably best to take as much weight off this branch as possible. So I’ll see you down there.”

  Alex felt the trembling relief of the branch through the rope as the old man jumped off and went plummeting past him. He shinned down as fast as he could, the rope slick with rain.

  “That’s the style, Alex,” his grandfather called up from below. “Keep it up.”

  His hands were raw, his biceps trembled, his mind reeled, and the branch above kept shivering. Pausing for an upward glance, Alex was disappointed to see how close it still was. As he watched, the branch snapped from the tree. Suddenly, he was falling, fast.

  Something springing up just as fast slammed into him. He had a jumbled awareness of being wrapped in his grandfather’s arms. Then they were hitting damp green ground, hard. They tumbled forward in a heap together, then spilled apart.

  Alex ended on his back, panting. He lay looking up. The slow gray sky framed by trees.

  “You know, as first lessons in jumping with spring-heels go,” his grandfather said from somewhere nearby, “could’ve been worse.”

  Alex felt rain on his face, tasted grass in his mouth. He heard sudden laughter. It took him a moment to recognize it as his own.

  XIII.

  UP THE HILL

  After they checked there was no damage, they headed back to the car. Alex was about to get in when his grandfather stopped him.

  “Just been thinking. If the flier got close enough to take a cutting from your clothes, it could have got close enough to plant something else.”

  Alex hurriedly emptied his rucksack and pockets, going through everything he had brought. Clothes, phone, keys, wallet, toothbrush, notebook with a pen attached, old toy robot carrying the name of God inside. There was nothing.

  “Might be an idea to give your mother a call,” his grandfather said, nodding at the phone. “Maybe not mention being up the tree, though,” he added as Alex held it ringing to his ear.

  “Hello, you,” his mum said. “What’re you up to? Is your grandfather behaving?”

  “I heard that!” the old man shouted.

  “We’re out walking in . . . Paris. Going to get some . . . balloons.”

  “That sounds nice.” She yawned. “Does Harry still have no idea you’re planning his birthday?”

  “Uh, no. Mum? Listen. I’m sorry I’ve been a bit, eh . . .”

  “Moody.”

  “Yeah.”

  “S’all right. You should’ve seen me at your age. You’re barely an amateur.”

  “Can you tell Carl I said sorry, though? I was a bit of an idiot to him.”

  “Yes, you were. He can handle it. Have you eaten?”

  “Uhm, we’re just going to do that.”

  “Okay. Dunk a croissant for me. Keep in touch. Love you.”

  “Love you.”

  He ended the call, stood staring at the phone, then pulled up the abrupt message Kenzie had sent him.

  Don’t.

  It had just come back to him. The night before, when he was trying to make contact with the power, pushing through the doors of his deep dreamlike state—the dim figure he had seen, trying to talk to him.

  It was Kenzie.

  He typed back:

  What?

  He stood waiting, trying to will a reply to appear, then put the phone away. His grandfather stood scowling at the sky.

  “Foul weather. That reminds me, there’s something I was going to give you.” He dug through his bag, finally producing a rolled-up olive-green bundle. Shaking it loose, he held it out for Alex’s inspection: an old army-style parka coat.

  “Used to be your father’s. I remember he got it when he was a couple of years older than you. Wore it constantly for a while. Yours, if you’d like.”

  After a moment, Alex nodded, lost for words. Something burned behind his eyes as he brushed a palm over the fabric.

  “Might be wise to get rid of that,” his grandfather said, tapping his cane gently against Alex’s hooded top. “They used it to target you, who knows, there might be some residual hexing hanging around. A hoodoo in your hoodie.”

  Alex barely heard him. He shrugged out of his top and absently handed it over, then slipped one arm into the old coat, fully fascinated. The parka was too big and musty from storage, but he didn’t care. As he pulled it on, he felt himself wrapped in a strange sensation, something simultaneously close and far away.

  “Thanks,” he said.
“It’s great. It’s really cool. I mean, I love it.”

  “Well,” his grandfather said, turning away abruptly. He cleared his throat. “Not quite my style.”

  Alex packed his belongings away, gathering up the toy robot last and slipping it into the coat’s deep pocket. Meanwhile, the old man worked at his discarded top with his cigarette lighter and a small can of fluid. He soon had it burning, a small strange fire, bright in the dull morning. Alex stuck his hands in his new pockets and watched it burn.

  Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

  The words just popped into his head. The witches’ spell from Macbeth. He tried to recall the rest. All he could get was, By the pricking of my thumbs.

  He frowned, seeing the blood shining on his thumb by lamplight in his bedroom on that very first night, when he’d accidentally cut himself on the old toy robot’s ragged tin edge, his blood leaking inside, toward the ancient tablet.

  His grandfather used his stick to poke away the last embers in the smoldering heap. With the tip of the cane he drew an obscure pattern through the ashes, then scrubbed it away.

  “Onward.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “HOTEL UP AHEAD,” Alex’s grandfather said.

  They had shot through a series of small towns that were barely more than bright little buildings scattered along the roadside. Now they were in empty country under swollen clouds. The terrain was changing, hills growing on the horizon, dark with trees. The hotel nestled alone in a dip by the road, a cheerful white building bearing wooden balconies brightly planted with meadow flowers.

  “That’s the way to the Kandel,” Alex’s grandfather said, as if wrestling with a decision. He gestured to the road snaking into the solemn hills ahead. “I had hoped we could grab some rest at the hotel before we try for Harry. Can’t risk it now. We need to keep going. Are you up to it?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Good man. Don’t know if I am, mind you. Suppose we’ll find out. Still—” At the last moment, rather than bypassing the building, Alex’s grandfather spun them in a sudden screaming turn into the hotel’s sandy carpark. “We can always book rooms for afterward. Give us something to look forward to, eh? Excellent food in this place, I seem to recall. Ah, keep watching the road for unwanted company, Alex, shan’t be a moment.”

  As the old man headed into the building, Alex stepped out of the car to stretch. Fine rain hung in the air. The hotel looked old-fashioned and friendly, yet, standing bright and small as the last outpost against the forest towering darkly beyond, it made him think of the flickering taverns in the creaky old black-and-white horror movies his mum and Carl loved to watch late at night on TV: the little inns where locals warned strangers to stay away from the woods after nightfall. The memory didn’t seem so funny now.

  A blue banner ran the length of the balcony, emblazoned with one word in big, pumpkin-orange letters, WALPURGISNACHT, accompanied by a date and time: APRIL 30, 7 P.M.

  Tomorrow night, Alex thought foggily, not entirely certain he still had track of the days. In the car park, smaller posters advertised the same thing, illustrated by photographs of people clustering happily in fancy dress: red devils stroking pointy beards, witches making wizened pouts and shaking broomsticks.

  The road remained empty. Alex looked to the infinity of trees looming above and shivered, recalling Harry’s last desperate phone call from somewhere up there. He checked his own phone. A reply from Kenzie.

  Sorry. Had the dream again bad.

  I was shouting don’t stand up. You were going to stand up and something was going to get you if you did. Sent it before I was proper awake. Keep seeing things don’t know what they are. Not feeling well. Sorry.

  Alex read it three times before he remembered, with a cold feeling, hiding outside Harry’s office and watching the tall man just feet away—thinking about standing up and calling out. He typed:

  Let me know if there’s any more.

  He hesitated before sending. Exchanging messages like this with Kenzie was a new experience. The other boy’s meek tone was entirely out of character—but it was entirely in keeping with the way Kenzie had been behaving in recent weeks, and Alex was increasingly troubled over just what was causing it. He added:

  Please. I mean it.

  Hope you feel better.

  He read it over, feeling awkward, then blew out an exasperated sigh and shrugged and sent it on its way. His thumbnail tapped the screen as he tried to straighten his scrambled thoughts. He put the phone away, leaned into the car, and fished out his notebook and pen from the rucksack before he lost the thread of his thinking. He scribbled down:

  USING POWER

  UNCONSCIOUS REFLEX: bedroom homework (my blood got inside toy robot)/guys on train in France/turning invisible/sending thought to golem(?).

  POWERFUL PLACES: Prague on bridge/Prague sending thought to golem(?).

  UNKNOWN???: David’s house, when his great-gran screamed at me.

  He thought for a few seconds, then added:

  KENZIE???: bullies beating Kenzie up in park/the time Kenzie tried to beat me up after school.

  He chewed the pen. There was another moment, he realized, back at the very beginning of his strange journey with the old toy robot. He added it to the last list:

  Kenzie on bus to school (morning after my blood got into robot), when he took the robot off me, but then just gave it back.

  He looked at what he’d written, couldn’t think what to make of it, sighed, and closed the notebook. Then he hurriedly opened it again, scrubbed out the section headed UNKNOWN, and added to the KENZIE list:

  David’s house, when his great-gran screamed at me—Kenzie was there again!! Just outside the window.

  He read it over, wondering what it meant. His grandfather came loping out from the hotel, a newspaper under one arm and a distracted look on his face. He stopped by the car and studied the sky. “Rain’s going to get heavier. But with a bit of luck it’ll keep too many people from going up the mountain.”

  “Are we going to climb a mountain?” Alex asked.

  “What? Oh, no, no,” the old man said. “We can drive up. There’s a parking place up top. Then we’ll walk back down the other side for a bit. There’s a remote spot on the slope we have to get to. That’s where Harry is.”

  “You think he’s still up there?” Alex said as they climbed back into the car. “You don’t think they’ll have taken him somewhere else?”

  “No, shouldn’t have thought so. Now: they were sorting out the morning newspapers in there, Alex. I had a glance through.” He held up the paper, folded to an inside page. “There was another painting taken last night. In Paris. The Louvre itself. Interior of a Kitchen, painted by an artist named Martin Drölling in 1815.”

  The photograph accompanying the story showed a painting that matched the title, figures sitting in a cluttered country kitchen before a high window that framed trees against a bright morning sky.

  “You think . . . ?” Alex said.

  “We have to assume so,” his grandfather said, starting the engine. “And if Harry was right, that means there’s only one more painting left to go. Unless they have it already and we just haven’t heard about it, of course.” He shot Alex a sudden grin. “Still. The good news is, if they were busy in Paris last night, we might have a lead on them.”

  They swung out of the parking lot. The road soon narrowed, twisting upward between trees that pressed in heavily all around. They passed only a couple of lonely cars coming down, the drivers offering waves as they slowed to edge by each other.

  As they climbed, the rocky slopes falling from the roadside grew steeper, until finally they were turning onto a high, bare parking area at the top of the hill. A trio of cyclists passed them, ringing their bells, starting on the road back down.

  Alex’s gr
andfather killed the Citroën’s engine. The gray sky hung vast and low. Beyond the hood of their car, a grassy slope dropped away to frame a far-off vista of tree-covered peaks poking blackly through mist. A little way down the hill ahead, four small helmeted figures were working to fold up what looked like massive sheets of red-and-yellow fabric, the colors so intense against the surroundings they seemed to pulse.

  “What d’you call ’em? Paragliders,” Alex’s grandfather murmured, watching them. “The Kandel is a popular launching spot. Giving up because of the rain, probably.” By the time the pilots had packed and gone, there were only a handful of other empty cars left around.

  “You have the, ah, tablet?” Alex’s grandfather asked quietly.

  Alex nodded.

  “How are you feeling about it?”

  “Not sure.” Alex took a deep breath. “I think I might have an idea. I can try, anyway.”

  “Good man. Where we’re going is just a little way down the hill.” The old man pointed. “There’s a path over there.”

  Towering trees closed in as they picked their way along a thin track that wound muddily down a steep, stony slope. Birds chattered and called. After a while they came upon a small gray hut, sitting oddly alone in the forest, perched out on a high rocky shelf above a valley. There was a bench outside, sheltered by the overhanging roof. Alex’s grandfather sat wearily and beckoned Alex to join him.