789
Michael Bedrik received word of his brother’s death at a quarter till ten. He’d barely made it home before the police arrived. He hurried up from the basement, wiping his hands on a dishtowel before answering the door. The chief of police, Ed Winters, stood on his porch. Bedrik made sure to look appropriately mournful as the man gave him the news.
“Will you need me to identify the body, Chief Winters?”
“Well, it’s really only a formality these days, but in this case, no. He was in the water for a long time, Mr. Bedrik. We were able to identify him through prison dental records, so you don’t need to go through that.”
Bedrik sighed. “Well, that is a blessing, at least. I don’t know how I’d…”
He broke off and wiped his eyes, suppressing the urge to laugh.
Winters looked uncomfortable. “I’m so very sorry for your loss, Mr. Bedrik.”
“I appreciate that. Thanks for coming and telling me yourself, Chief. I know it’s not the easiest part of your job.” He put on the proper expression of grief, not quite getting to tears, but broken up inside, as he shook the man’s hand. “I’m afraid it might take me a few hours to make arrangements regarding Martin’s”— he made himself choke—“Martin’s burial. Is that all right? I don’t want to be a nuisance.”
“No, really, it’s fine. You take all the time you need.”
Bedrik knew that Chief Winters hated thinking about the dead. He saw it in his mind. Talking about them was one of the best ways around to drive the man away. Winters had dealt with too many deaths in his own family. Too many loved ones buried before their times were due. It was a side effect of a history of serving the community: One uncle and a father who were both police officers and a brother who chose to be a firefighter. None of them had lived past fifty and the police chief was closing in fast on his forty-ninth birthday. Fear was his constant companion. Bedrik tasted it in the man’s aura.
“Thank you again. Be safe on the road, Chief.”
“Will do. Take care.”
Bedrik smiled. “See you soon, Chief. See you very soon.”
After Chief Winters left, Bedrik sat down on the couch and stared at the wall. His amusement turned to anger. Of course he’d known of Martin’s death. After all, he’d been responsible.
In order for Bedrik’s plan to see fruition, he’d had to anchor his shadow to someone else—a homunculus. But Bedrik had neither the time nor the inclination to build one, to harvest it from his own semen and blood and hair and shape it in the moonlight—not when his twin brother would suffice. Bedrik didn’t need to waste his power manufacturing a double. His parents had already manufactured a perfect double for him.
It was easy. He’d simply released Martin from his bonds. One moment, his brother was sleeping in his cell. The next, he was standing alongside the Hudson, staring at Michael in shock, wondering how he’d gotten there and why. Michael answered his brother with a knife. He’d carved sigils that would never be found by the police, because rather than being hewn into Martin’s flesh, they’d been carved onto his soul. Then, Bedrik attached his shadow to his brother’s corpse. A simple circle of concealment had finished the job, hiding Martin in plain sight, insuring that his brother’s corpse wouldn’t be found by prying eyes—allowing time for nature to dispose of the evidence. But somehow, that circle had been broken. Martin’s body had been found.
Bedrik clenched his fists. It should have been flawless. The process had taken only a modicum of power.
Power…
It wasn’t an easy thing, the acquisition of power. You could only go so far with your natural talents. After that, if you wanted more, you had to sacrifice and study and wait. Or, if you were Bedrik, you opted for the easier route. Take the power from someone else.
A perfect example was the girl waiting down in the basement.
Sighing, Bedrik stretched and shook his head to clear his exhaustion. It had been a long day and a longer night. There were other forces at work in Brackard’s Point. He was sure of it. The discovery of Martin’s body proved it. Gustav? Perhaps, but this felt like something more. He couldn’t determine what. Still, despite this unforseen occurrence, he’d made some progress. He’d worry about the rest later. No sense wasting power on it now. Wouldn’t do for him to be impatient.
He returned to the basement. Dana Wheeler lay naked and spread-eagled across the workbench.
“Hello, Dana. I apologize for the interruption. Where were we?”
Her bloodshot eyes bulged. Her screams were muffled by the strips of duct tape around her mouth. Snot bubbled from her nose.
“None of that,” Bedrik stroked her hair. “You have to understand. There are only two ways for me to achieve my goal here. The first would take many years of meditation and offerings, and would hurt me a great deal. The other way—the way I choose—is much quicker and less costly; at least to myself. I only had to give up my shadow, and that didn’t hurt at all. You, on the other hand…Well, let’s just say this will hurt you much more than it will hurt me.”
The knife he took to Dana’s flesh was very sharp.
Bedrik whistled while he worked.
When he was finished, he returned to Gethsemane Cemetery, where the shadows rustled with anticipation. He called out to them and the shades answered.
789
Danny stifled a yawn. He’d read through Gustav’s books. Not all of them, but enough to understand more than he’d ever thought possible. Gustav explained that some people had the potential for science and others for magic. They weren’t that far apart, really, but at the same time, they were almost opposites. Math had set rules it followed, and they never changed. Magic had rules, too, but they were different for each person. Sometimes they changed a lot. Some rules applied to everyone, and others seemed to be made up as you went along.
“Magic is a part of you,” Gustav explained. “You were born that way. You have aptitude, yes? But it is also outside of you. You make magic things happen.”
“Is there anything I can’t do?”
“Much. But then again, if you had the time…” Gustav shrugged. He seemed sad.
“What do you mean, ‘If I had the time’?”
Gustav shook his head. “Is not important. You are young, yes? Will have plenty of time to study and learn. You will do much. All it takes is knowledge and power. That is magic—knowledge and power. Knowledge is up to you. Power you can borrow from others.”
“Can I fly?”
“Only one way to know, no?”
“Can you fly?”
“Sometimes.”
“Get the hell out of here. You’re telling me you can fly?”
“Yes, but not so good. Not for a long time.”
“I wish I could fly.”
“Enough of wishes. Wish in one hand. Shit in other. Read.”
Danny did his best, but there was so much to take in. There was talk of different levels of reality, of how to travel to them, of other worlds and gods and demons—and things that were neither. Half of what he read seemed like a history lesson, only a lot more interesting than the shit they taught in school. From time to time, he asked Gustav questions. Before the night was done, Danny learned his first spell—how to stop wounds from bleeding. Shortly after midnight, Gustav took the book from him.
“Enough. Go. Come again tomorrow.”
“What? But I’m just getting to the good stuff.”
“No. No more tonight, Danny. You learn fast. Took me many weeks to learn my first spell but you got it in one day. Go home to your mother now.”
Danny stood up. His legs tingled as blood flowed into them again. He’d been sitting for so long, completely lost in the book, and his muscles were stiff. He had to piss, and was hungry and thirsty. But when he saw what time it was, he forgot about all that. He was late. His Mom would be pissed—if she was awake. He bid his new mentor goodbye and headed for home.
The streets were empty, except for the occasional passing car. Danny jogged until h
is sides ached. Then he stopped. He leaned against an abandoned building, a Greek restaurant that had closed down three years earlier. The boards over the windows were covered with graffiti. Trash littered the sidewalk. Something fluttered above him in the darkness, hidden beyond the reach of the sodium lights; a bird, maybe, or a bat.
Unable to hold it any longer, Danny pulled down his zipper. He shivered with relief. While facing the wall, he heard another noise. It was a faint sound, a distant whisper carried through a long tunnel, only there wasn’t a tunnel around. He quickly pulled his zipper up. Then he turned around. The sound continued, but there was nothing to see. Still, there was something out there. He was sure of it. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
Maybe it’s looking for me—whatever it is.
The sound was closer now; shifting, never seeming to be in one place. Danny closed his eyes and tried to think of any of the lessons he’d learned through the night, but nothing seemed coherent.
I spun a fucking string propeller on my fingertip and learned how to stop bleeding! How’s that gonna help me now?
The sound changed, snuffling like a dog on the trail of something to eat. Not just any dog, but one like Dusty, the big as sin brute that guarded Silecki’s Recycling. Danny knew Dusty from the last time he and his friends had tried sneaking over the fence to collect a few pounds of aluminum to sell back to the cheap bastard. Ronnie had gotten his ass bitten and half the left leg of his jeans torn off before Jeremy nailed the mutt with a rock and made it let go.
For the first time in a very long while, Danny wished for the comfort of his mother. In the shadows, a black shape disengaged from the rest of the darkness and slid towards him. Danny tried to shout, but all that came out was a wheeze. The shadow stretched, reaching for him.
Danny pushed back against the boarded up door of the derelict building. A humming filled his ears, but it wasn’t a sound—it was a feeling. The shadow slunk closer. The door vibrated. For one instant, his body felt frozen and burned at the same time. Danny closed his eyes, screamed…
…and then slid.
He opened his eyes, gasping in surprise. The restaurant was gone. The shadow was gone. He was home, standing in his living room. He stood pressed up against the wall. His mother was asleep on the sofa, curled up in her nightgown. An empty bottle of tequila on the coffee table told him all he needed to know about her condition. The living room was dark, except for the glow of the television. A guy on Channel 11 was talking about a body found on the banks of the Hudson earlier in the day and how it had been identified as recent prison escapee Martin Bedrik.
Danny shivered from adrenaline rush. He closed his eyes again, trying to calm down. The shadow was gone, whatever it had been, and he was home. All he had to do was figure out how he’d gotten here. Slowly, he smiled. The crappy old restaurant he’d been standing against was six blocks away. It was like he’d been teleported, like on one of those old Star Trek shows.
Danny looked at his sleeping mother, and his smile grew wider.
“Magic,” he whispered. “Fucking magic.”
He checked the garage. His piece of shit bike, the Schwinn which he’d left along the Hudson at Gustav’s insistence, leaned against the wall.
Laughing, Danny wondered if he’d done that, too.
Then he wondered what he couldn’t do…
789
By three in the morning, Brackard’s Point slept soundly. Hook Mountain watched over the town, a dark and dour sentinel. Lightning flashed on its peak, but no thunder followed. There was no one to witness it anyway. The streets were silent and empty, the homes dark, their curtains drawn. The bell atop the Baptist church rang out with three solemn tolls. Even the hardest of the partiers and drunks were asleep.
But out in the graveyard, the dead were awake, and they talked for those who could listen. Most of it was a litany of pain and suffering, an endless sigh of desperate frustration.
Someone else was awake in the cemetery, too. Sam Oberman walked slowly, playing his flashlight over the tombstones. Sam’s philosophy was a nightstick to the head of anyone he caught fucking with the gravestones. He wasn’t just the caretaker, after all. His parents and several friends were buried here. The last case of vandalism had been one he’d stopped himself. He didn’t turn in the kids. Instead, Sam made sure they’d never try it again. Fear was a wonderful motivator and a few smashed fingers went a long way to changing a punk’s perspective on the fine art of graveyard desecration.
Gethsemane was quiet, except for the chirping crickets. Sam stifled a yawn. He was about to go back for coffee when motion between two headstones caught his attention. He pulled his nightstick and shined the flashlight beam over the graves, dispelling the shadows. There was nothing there, but he knew he’d seen something.
“You have ten seconds to show yourselves, assholes, or somebody’s going to be in for a world of hurt!”
The crickets fell silent.
Sam let the beam dance across the memorials. No trash or empty beer cans. No condoms. No signs that anyone had been fucking around.
And then the beam of light found darkness.
The shadows shifted, coiling like tendrils. One of them broke from the ground and rose up. It was human-shaped. The shadow stepped toward him. The flashlight beam disappeared into it. Gasping, Sam backed away. With a yelp, he tripped over a grave marker and sprawled in the wet grass. The flashlight rolled out of reach.
The shade rushed toward him. Sam opened his mouth to scream, and the darkness flowed into his mouth, filling him with coldness.
Sam closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he was someone else.
FIVE
Danny showed up early at Gustav’s house. The old man answered the door, a cup of coffee clutched in one hand. His eyebrows furrowed.
“What are you doing here, boy?”
“I ditched school again. Something happened last night. I need to study more.”
“Yes. Study is good. After school, you come here and study.”
“Screw that. I want to study now.”
“You must learn patience. That is important. Patience is one of the keys to magic. Go back to school and study there.”
“Why? If I can do magic—why do I need school?”
Gustav’s eyes glittered. Laughing, he sat the coffee mug down and swatted Danny across the back of his head. The blow was light, but sent Danny staggering.
“Hey,” Danny shouted. “What’d you do that for?”
“Do you want to argue or do you want answer to question?”
“Answer my question. Why should I go to school?”
“Why? To know magic, you need to know the world. They are the same thing, boy. I told you before, you need knowledge. Magic is no good without knowledge.”
Gustav picked up his coffee mug and Danny followed him inside. The old Russian collapsed into a sagging recliner. The springs groaned. The television droned in the background. Reagan was meeting with Gorbachev, and Bruce Springsteen had just announced a tour for Born in the USA. Gustav glanced at the TV and the sound muted. Then he turned his attention back to Danny.
“Something happened last night, yes?”
Danny nodded. “On my way home, I thought I heard something down by that old Greek restaurant that closed. You know where I mean?”
Gustav nodded. “Yes. I miss it. They had good food.”
“Well, I was there. I…I got scared. I leaned against the building and closed my eyes and…”
Gustav leaned forward, his gaze intent.
“When I opened my eyes again, I was home. It’s like I jumped or something.”
“You opened a door, traveled through the Labyrinth. How did you do that?”
“I don’t know.” Danny shrugged. “I read a little about it last night, but I don’t know how I did it.”
“But I know, because I went to school.”
“You’re also a sorcerer.”
“Nyet.” Gustav shook his head. “I stu
dy and practice, even still. That is all. I never stop learning.”
“Yeah, but you study here, not in school.”
Gustav lit a cigarette and threw the pack to Danny. “I study everything. The more I know, the more I can do. That is how I join the Kwan.”
“The what?”
Gustav shook his head. “Never mind. Is not important. What is important is that my knowledge makes my magic strong. Like shop class and geometry?”
“You lost me.”
“Geometry. It is class in school, no?”
“How does frigging geometry help me with magic?”
“If you know geometry, you know how much space is in a box. If you know the space in the box, you can fill it.”
Gustav handed him the lighter. Danny lit his cigarette, inhaled, and then passed the lighter and the cigarette pack back to him.
“Well,” Danny said, “I can fill the box by pouring water in the opening.”
Gustav scrunched up his face and imitated Danny’s words. If it was supposed to be a perfect impersonation, it failed. Danny glared at him.
“You have a good brain, boy. Use it.”
He opened the pack of cigarettes and dumped them out on the coffee table. Then he closed the pack again and handed it to Danny. “Here. How much does this hold?”
“Twenty cigarettes.”
“Ah, yes, but how much water? How much gold?”
“It’s not gonna hold water. It leaks. And who cares how much gold it holds? It’s not like we have any.”
Gustav snatched the empty pack from Danny’s hands. He held it out in front of him and closed his eyes. He muttered something in Russian. Then he opened his eyes again and tossed it back Danny. The pack hit him in the chest. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Danny grunted as the box bounced off his thigh. He reached down and picked it up. It was heavy—no longer empty.
Slowly, Danny opened it and shook the contents into his palm. He stared at the dull yellow lump.
Gold.
“How? How the hell did you do that?”
Shades Page 4