The Shadow's Touch

by Scott VanKirk

  “Yeah.”

  “I doubt Jen is in there,” I said. “No one would willingly go in there.” I wiped my lips off with the sleeve of my shirt.

  “Okay, then let’s go over to those woods, on the other side of this field.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police?” I said.

  “I don’t want to end up in a cell, Finn.”

  “We’ll just tell them the truth. They’re not going to arrest us for this.”

  “Hello? Earth to Finn! I’m black, and you’re a fugitive from justice, remember? Even if they don’t arrest us, they won’t let us keep looking for Jen.”

  I sighed. “I guess you’re right. But, we can still call it in anonymously. I feel bad for that guy.”

  Gregg didn’t even try to hide his annoyance. He strode toward the woods on the far side of the field. “There is no anonymous these days, Finn, so just drop it. He’s not going to get any deader.”

  I supposed he was right. I sighed again and said to his back, “Lead on.”

  As I followed him through the field, I called loudly to Gregg, to be heard over the rain. “Do you think your being black would really make a difference?”

  He called back, “Finn, just because you’re color blind, doesn’t mean the same is true for the rest of the world.”

  “Yeah, but we voted for Obama in 2008!”

  Gregg snorted and said, “He was a safe black guy. Sending him to Washington meant he wouldn’t be here. Blacks are okay, as long as they aren’t in your face, ogling your daughters. Why do you think that over 90% of the black population of Ohio lives in Toledo and Columbus?”

  I had no idea if he was just making that up so I decided not to pursue it. His was certainly not the only black family in Newark. I said instead, “I don’t think the police force is that bad. I’ve met some of the detectives there. One’s a Shawnee. I’m sure she wouldn’t be that prejudiced.”

  “Ha! The only thing a minority wants more than being white is having someone they can feel superior to. Like the old song says, ‘Everybody needs somebody to spit on.’”

  I snorted and pointed to a denser patch of woods. “Let’s try that way, Mr. Sunshine. If I were trying to hide, I’d try to stay out of sight.” I didn’t want to say anything, but a non-Euclidean part of me felt certain that was the right direction.

  He waved his hand and said, “After you.” We crossed the field and found another trail leading into the woods. That seemed like a good sign so we followed it. About five cold, wet, minutes later I heard a scream from deeper in the woods ahead of us.

  We ran toward the scream. Suddenly, a simultaneous flash of lightning and a crack of thunder blinded and deafened us. I stopped, closed my eyes, and shook my head to get rid of the afterimage when another flash and crash followed the first. Through the green afterimage I saw Gregg was pushing on ahead of me.

  “Gregg! Wait!” I hurried after him hoping I didn’t run straight into a tree.

  The thought of Jen getting killed by lighting made me feel sick. As the afterimage faded we picked up speed.

  A moment later we found Jen lying face down on the trail. There were two blackened and splintered trees close to her. A couple of branches were still smoking on the ground, but it was Jen who commanded our attention. Mud and or blood soaked through her once-white Shady Oaks robe, and it had fallen open, revealing a shredded and bloody undershirt. Those spots oozed dark blood, which was flowing down the shirt. As the blood mixed with the rain, it bled through the fabric, creating large reddish-gray stains in the twilight.

  Gregg reached her first. He cried her name and turned her over. She wasn’t dead, but I could see her shuddering. From the bites we could see, it was clear that poison wracked her body. She was clutching the caduceus with one hand and seemed to be chanting something. I dropped to my knees on her other side and grabbed the caduceus as well. The surge of its song poured through me, and I could now hear that Jen’s voice was working counterpoint to it. I felt Spring wake up as I followed my new senses into Jen. She was a mess. Tissues were dying as the toxic venom spread throughout her body. I had no idea how to stop it.

  I glanced outside of my body. Gregg was standing. He grabbed a large, blackened branch in his hand and leapt over me, brandishing it like a bat. He charged down the path towards the shadow of a giant snake, which loomed through the rain and gloom.

  I only had an instant to decide where I needed to be. Gregg smacked the snake’s head solidly, and it went down. He seemed to have the matter in hand so I decided that Jen was my first priority. She would die without help. I dove back in. That’s when I encountered her. Not Jen, I would recognize Jen. This was someone else: someone old, strong, and wise.

  It was Il Saia, and she was working to fix Jen’s failing body. She was not panicking, but she was losing against the poison. Wordlessly, she took in my presence and my offered help. She began drawing on my strength. The flow started in the caduceus, came through my body, and transformed into the stuff of life. She had a similar, though smaller, flow coming through her from the caduceus as well.

  We were in a strange realm of unspoken communication. I knew what she needed, and I understood what she was attempting. I offered to push more into her from the stores I had within me. With lightning quick images and feelings, she showed me the dangers in that: the damage that could occur if you pushed too much power into a body. You might burn it out and leave it unable to produce its own life. I recognized what I had done to my dad.

  I had to wrench my attention back to what we were doing now. I could worry about other things later. She showed me how to neutralize the poison and start the damaged tissues on the road to recovery.

  Her capacity for thought under these conditions far outstripped mine. Before I could understand it, she was pushing me away. We stabilized Jen enough to last for a while, and the threats from the external world now had to take precedence. Her intention was clear: go deal with the snake.

  I wrenched my focus back to my physical senses. I gently took the caduceus from Jen’s hand and searched for where Gregg was fighting. I found him a little way away, just in time to see the snake land three lightning-fast strikes on Gregg’s body. The blows staggered him, and he fell even as he was trying to strike the snake one last blow with the branch.

  Gregg fell to the ground. I must have screamed because suddenly the snake met my gaze and locked in on me with its luminous green cat eyes. The snake was enormous and terrifying. Just like with the bear, you don’t quite get a clear sense for what it was like facing something eight to ten feet tall until you’ve been there. In our gaming, we were used to having heroes take on twenty-foot-tall giants. A mere ten-foot monster would seem a piddling nothing.

  It’s not. It loomed in the air over me like a god, a force of nature, and I knew I had no chance against it. I was miniscule and insignificant, and I would end up dead on the ground like Gregg. It wasn’t even worth fighting; I had already lost.

  Finn! Look away from its eyes! The warning from Spring was enough. I could now feel the glamour or whatever it was the snake had wrapped around my brain and shredded it with the mental equivalent of a shrug. I laughed giddily and called out, “You call that a death gaze? I’ve been gazed at by the best. You’re not even a close second!”

  The snake started melting and flowing to the ground. As it shrank, its body got wider and in what couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, Erik Parmely was standing there naked, smiling at me. It was a smile filled with hatred, loathing, and gloating.

  Just that would have been enough to start me screaming a month ago, but now his expression took second seat to the hunger and yearning that emanated from the thing shrouding him. It was enormous, noisome, and black. I could see no trace of Erik’s aura. That blackness radiated rage and hunger and promised pain and oblivion. I have never been more terrified.

  Run, Finn! Run away! screamed Spring.

  Oddly, that seemed to pull me back from the brink of mindlessly doing just that and
stabilized me a little bit. If I ran, at best, I would abandon my friends, and they’d die. That was something I just could not do.

  With all my will, I put up my golden shield. It blazed into existence covering Gregg, Jen, and me. Erik stepped back a bit as if he could see it. I doubt he’d ever seen something like this before.

  Erik stepped up to the glowing barrier and put his hands out to it. His hands penetrated, but my shield stopped the blackness just as it had the smaller ones at the hospital. He obviously didn’t like the feeling any more than I did because he drew his hands back until there was nothing but blackness touching the shield. I could feel its cold hunger as though it was already in my mind. It felt like death and rot. It pushed. Unlike the smaller shadows, I could feel the strain drove into my defenses.

  I had exhausted myself so much physically that I didn’t have much strength left. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case with Erik’s shadow. With relentless strength, it started forcing my barrier back. I fought it momentarily to a standstill, but it kept pushing and started advancing again. Erik was leering at me as he walked confidently forward, grinning evilly, with his hands now at his side, seemingly doing nothing.

  “I have waited for this moment for so long,” he said. “I will feast upon you today, and it will be just the first drop of blood in a flood. I will take back from you what is mine and glory in the taste of your meddling, insignificant life. There will be a reaving and feeding such as the world has not seen in a thousand years.”

  Holy crap! Erik could use the word “reaving” in a sentence? But Erik’s vocabulary didn’t distract me for long. I knew I was losing, and I wouldn’t be able to hold him off. Erik or the thing riding him gloated at my growing despair. He knew the score as well as I did. He grinned wider, brought the whistle up to his lips, and played a three-toned song. It was different from the bear’s song but just as compelling. It burrowed its way into my brain as I watched Erik stretch into the snake again. I could feel him try to trap me with his gaze once more. I countered it, but this time I could feel the effort. I desperately tried to list out my options— I only had one.

  I let my shield collapse in front of Erik. Instead of resisting him, I pulled it back to a little less than arm’s length. The snake advanced behind its darkness, its tongue flicking out, tasting my fear. The shadow touched my barrier again and then spread against it, filling me with cold revulsion. I picked the spot where it was thickest, and I plunged my caduceus through my shield and into the blackness. It was the only weapon I could think of that might have a chance, and I prayed it would work.

  Apparently, God wasn’t listening right then.

  The moment the black wood touched the shadow, it forged another conduit, from me to the shadow. Flames of power ripped from me, through the caduceus and into the shadow. Horribly, the darkness did nothing but devour every last bit. In fact, I could feel it grow in power. I could feel its hunger and its gloating through the caduceus. Frantically, I tried to pull my arm back, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t pull free from the blackness. I felt my life, my soul, abraded down and carried away by the torrent of power flowing through me.

  The snake didn’t strike. Why would it? Rat Breath and the shadow were both getting what they wanted most. It swayed and brought its luminous eyes down to my level as if to better see my defeat. I hated those eyes and the monster behind them. I hated the thought of them seeing my defeat. Since I couldn’t pull back, I did the only thing I could manage. I pushed farther through my golden shield and stabbed the caduceus into the snake’s right eye. It had an immediate and gratifying effect. The snake reared back, taking the hungry shadow with it. Suddenly, the circuit broke and the flow of power stopped. A backlash of pain knocked me on my ass.

  The snake was writhing in pain, wrapping around itself, coiling and uncoiling. Even with the migraine that smacked me hard, it was one of the most satisfying moments of my life to date. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. The snake recovered much too quickly and came at me like an undulating freight train. No way was I going to survive this.

  I held the caduceus in front of me like a knife, hoping at least to strike the snake one last time, when from behind me, I heard an ear-splitting roar. Suddenly, a huge, furry mountain knocked me down and flew over me to crash headfirst into the snake. The snake had no chance to stop the mass of Dave the Bear. The charge carried the snake back ten feet at the least. The bear grabbed the snake in its teeth and shook it like a dog worrying its chew toy.

  I pulled my face out of the mud, and my heart soared as Dave ripped through snake. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that the battle was far from over. The black shadow spread over the bear and caused the bear to cry out in what I assumed was agony or fury.

  Meanwhile, the snake itself started striking at the bear. It landed strike after strike on the bear’s thick furred neck and shoulders. It couldn’t quite reach the bear’s face, and the bear continued its fight. Dave came down on the snake. His claws and teeth raked chunks of flesh from the snake’s body. I couldn’t imagine anything withstanding those terrible wounds, but the snake did.

  Suddenly, the black mass surrounding the snake plunged black tentacles deep into Dave’s head. The bear cried out in agony and instinctively smacked the reptile away from himself. The grasping black tentacles were ripped out of the bear. When the monster reptile landed, its form flowed again and it stood up in the shape of Erik. He stood unsteadily, bleeding from several gaping wounds.

  The bear rose to its full ten feet and roared a challenge. Erik turned and ran. I didn’t even have time to cheer before I heard several popping noises behind me. Dave’s flesh and blood exploded out from three points of impact on his back. He roared and turned around to face this new threat when another pop preceded a fountain of blood erupting from his chest. Dave went down—hard—fortunately, for Jen and me, he fell away from us.

  His bulk hit the ground with a massive thud, and his flesh started shrinking and flowing. In a few seconds, he was just Dave. His pale form lay still on the ground naked and bleeding from the bullet wounds.

  I screamed and raced over to help Dave. I heard a voice at my back yelling at me to get down on my face. I ignored it and fell to Dave’s side. I put my hand on his bare back and went inside to see if I could save him. I could feel three bullets and the wake of mangled flesh they had left in Dave’s body. What I hadn’t expected was to see that damage healing as I watched. The power from the whistle was flowing through him, attempting to repair Dave. I wasn’t sure it would be enough because Dave was bleeding so badly.

  I now knew how to help, so I drove my second sight into him, and did what I could to boost the healing process. Boot-steps crunched up behind me and stopped a few feet away.

  “Get away from the man and get down on the ground, Finn. Don’t make me shoot you.” I recognized the steel in Detective Hunter’s voice. It pissed me off, but it wouldn’t help anyone if she shot me, so I had to deal with this.

  I pulled my sight back into my eyes and found the rain-soaked face of Detective Hunter. She looked totally freaked, and she kept yelling at me to drop to the ground.

  I yelled back at her. “Shut up and let me work!”

  Her eyes grew even bigger, but she shut up. I could feel that somehow I had sent out more than a verbal demand to her. My back tingled in anticipation of a bullet as I turned my attention back to Dave. I went back in and lent my power to the healing forces at work from the bear. It seemed to work. Soon the blood stopped flowing from his chest wound, and his flesh knitted back together. I had no clue as to what to do with the bullets, but I hoped we could just deal with them later.

  When Dave’s condition stabilized, I withdrew myself from him and immediately thought about Gregg. He’d received multiple bites and didn’t have the help of any magic widgets. Ignoring the detective, I scrambled up and looked around wildly until I found him, limp in the underbrush. Blood covered his still body. Desperately, I drove my sight into him and found… nothing. His
body was lifeless and cold.

  I tried to put my power into him anyway. I pushed it in as hard as I knew how. It didn’t matter, nothing changed. I could tell that I had reached my limit— I had pushed too hard and could feel the darkness closing in on me. I gave up and lay there crying over my friend’s corpse while everything receded to black around me. Unconsciousness would be welcome.

  I nearly lashed out when I felt a hand gently placed upon my shoulder. A gentle warmth flowed into me and pushed out the darkness and fatigue. She looked at me with kindness and concern and gestured for my hand. She had to repeat the gesture a couple of times before I understood. I grabbed her hand, expecting her pull me up from Gregg’s body, but instead, I found myself mentally face to face with Il Saia. Our conversation was non-verbal, but it could be translated to something like this.

  He is dead. His… divinity is even now moving on. His fate now lies with the Incomprehensible Boundless Light.

  But, he can’t die! He’s my friend! He’s Jen’s brother. He saved our lives!

  We will honor his bravery with memory and song.

  No, there must be something we can do. Use your magic!

  I cannot save him, only delay him on his journey.

  Journey to where?

  I could feel her troubled thoughts working for a moment. She said, Without the Source available, I do not know where he will go or if he will just linger and fade.

  We can’t let that happen. We can’t just let him fade away.

  If you are sure of this, then I will show you what to do.

  I begged, Please!

  Very well. The weight of her resignation pressed the words into my brain. We will proceed. Look to him. Can you See him leaving his body?

  I Looked. His body still carried a faint aura. It was pale and tenuous. It seemed to be evaporating slowly like ice sublimating under a hot winter sun.

  Yes , I see.

  Good. Now do as I instruct. Take hold of your will and mold it thus...

  I followed her instructions and built a container, a cradle of thought, for Gregg’s remaining essence. She showed me how to create a barrier that stopped his divinity, his aura, from leaving. It was similar to my golden dome. I bundled Gregg’s remains carefully and placed them inside of me. I could see similarities between what I was doing with Gregg now and what Spring and I had created together to hold her inside me. This was much more deliberate on my part, and it would not require continued will to maintain. I hadn’t consciously realized that that was a requirement to keep Spring within me. We both needed to feed our bond with our wills.