Shadowed Ground

by Vicki Keire

  “Oh, I’m afraid he’s away. Business. Bringing more of our associates over.”

  “Of course,” Alexander snarled again, alarm coursing through him. “Of course.” He turned to his sister. “Don’t worry, Charlotte. I’ll call the vet in Spring Valley.” He gritted his teeth.

  “Oh, yes, that,” a Smith clone said, taking deep breaths from his spot in the shadows. His eyes widened in anticipation. “There are problems with the roads. They’re impassable, for some reason.” He smiled delightedly when Charlotte sobbed harder. Alexander finally exploded into Smith’s face with rage.

  “You bastard,” he spat, struggling to maintain control of his fists.

  “I must admit, I had my doubts about you,” the Clone said, his face upturned in sick ecstasy. “You have managed to resist us so well. It’s quite extraordinary. But this rage of yours… it’s exquisite, in its own way. Not as delicate, perhaps, as sorrow, but still quite nice.”

  Alexander turned to see the other Smith clone actually sniffing his sister’s hair, his hands buried deeply in it while she sobbed over the cub. She acted as if the second Smith clone didn’t even exist. Perhaps, for her, he didn’t.

  That was the exact moment when Alexander knew, in his bones, that his hometown was being taken over by monsters.

  He didn’t know what kind, exactly. Sometimes they acted like emotional vampires, literally drinking people’s fear and hate and sorrow. Sometimes they were more like dark magicians, or aliens, with their strange language and endless money and slowly building force of personnel and weapons and their ability to hide how wrong they were from almost everyone.

  His blood ran cold as pieces clicked into place. Personnel. Building. Weapons.

  Monsters were taking over his hometown and building an army. An army of monsters like the one that petted his sister now, crooning to her as she sobbed over the unconscious, unmoving exotic pet of her dreams.

  Alexander knew he couldn’t wait any more. He knew the time for trying to strategize, to outwit them, was over. He was going to have to act, and soon.

  He would find Carson and make plans to get them out. His mind raced through a list of cash and portable valuables, of places to take her. He realized she was so far gone she might try to fight him. Father has a closet full of sedatives, he thought, if that’s the case. No matter what, he vowed, he and Charlotte would be gone by morning. He shoved the Smith clone off his sister, but she didn’t even notice as she sobbed over the ball of white fur.

  Later that afternoon, Rajah died.

  Chapter Three: Hurricane Chloe

  She stood in the middle of the living room, watching him push a heavy beige couch against the wall. End tables and a bookshelf followed. When he struggled to pick up a huge mahogany roll top desk by himself, she automatically grabbed an end of it.

  He put the desk down and leaned towards her, forcing her to drop her end. “You’ve only been out bed for a couple of days. You wouldn’t eat or drink for days before that. In fact, you only remembered my name more recently than I like to think about. So step away from the desk, Chloe.”

  She crossed her arms and glared. “You said you were going to teach me to fight.”

  He picked up the desk alone, with effort. “This isn’t about male pride.” He dragged it a few more feet, the muscles in his arms tensing. “Just want to save your strength,” he panted out, “for the important stuff. Trust me. Wait an hour.” He leaned against it, breathing hard. There was no trace of humor as he looked her up and down.

  He didn’t look like the Eliot who wouldn’t let her move furniture anymore. He looked like the Eliot that had smashed a man twice her size and weight into a wall. Her adrenaline spiked.

  “What did you do to your hand?” Her voice came out all wrong, high pitched and rushed. Silver duct tape bound two of his fingers to the thumb of his right hand. He held it out to her. A single silver needle protruded about two inches between his two fingers, braced by his thumb. Surprise deepened quickly into dread. “What are you doing, Eliot? Exactly how are you planning to teach me to fight?”

  “I didn’t say I was going to teach you to fight. I said I was going to teach you to defend yourself. I taped my fingers so the needle won’t get stuck in you.” He looked uncomfortable. “Please believe me when I say I don’t want to hurt you. But we don’t have much time, and people want you hurt, or dead, and I can’t take you out there, into the real world, with no idea how to defend yourself.” He eyed the needle taped to his fingers. “This is just going to sting a little. When Cass first started training me, he used a real knife.” She suppressed a shudder. His face closed, and he became a different person, a harder person, right in front of her eyes. Gone was the Eliot who’d been there when she didn’t know his name, and cared for her anyway. “Now take off your shoes and socks.”

  “Um. Ok.” Her mouth went very, very dry. She tried to tear her eyes away from the silver needle but couldn’t. She kicked her tennis shoes and socks into a corner, fast. “Why?”

  “Defense is the most important thing I can teach you right now. Hopefully, it’s all you’ll need. It’s also the foundation of attack. Barefoot, you’ll have better grip and balance. Plus I’ll need to study your feet.” He swept his eyes up and down her critically. “At least you put your hair up. Next time wear something tighter.”

  “What? Why?” she squeaked, horrified.

  “It’s not like that,” he exhaled impatiently. “I need to see exactly how you move your muscles, how you breathe, where you tense up. Plus it gives an enemy less to grab. That’s why. And that’s two questions. You don’t get to ask anymore.” He feinted to her right with the needle, going wide. She couldn’t help it; she tensed and drew into herself. “Wrong. Stay loose. You just made yourself the perfect target. Shake yourself, like this.” She copied his loose-limbed bounces. “Now. I’m going to try to prick you with this, and you’re not going to let me.”

  “But why… Ow!”

  “No questions.” He struck her right forearm. The needle barely touched her, but she felt it. She glared.

  He struck her again, grazing her in almost exactly the same place. “Come on, Chloe. Move, or this will go badly for both of us.” He moved to stick her again, and she dodged him. He nodded approval.

  Then he began to strike in earnest, and her world narrowed to two things: silver needle, and avoiding pain. He struck out again and again. She managed to dodge the vicious little needle about half the time. As much as each tiny bite stung, she could tell he was holding back. That knowledge turned her fear into building anger. A succession of quick stabs tore a loud yell from her throat. A little silver sewing needle. That was all it took to make her want to whimper and cry. She pressed her lips together to hold back her yelps. She blocked a strike with her forearm. It left a long stinging scratch on her skin. “Ow! That hurt!”

  “Dodge it, then,” came the pitiless reply. “Stay balanced. Ignore the pain.”

  He struck out at her again and again, wielding the needle like a whip. She moved from side to side, ducking his stabs and dancing backwards. But he was always faster. He followed her around the room, always an arm’s length away, his little needle poised to strike. “Easy for you to say,” she growled, stumbling in an effort to move beyond the tight perimeter he kept her in.

  “Move, but don’t move too much,” he cautioned, holding the needle at bay while she regained her balance. She was smarting in a thousand places and her skin shone with sweat. “Watch me. Watch me for the next strike, then the next.”

  She focused less on trying to get away from him. It was obvious she couldn’t. She watched for the swath of silver duct tape instead of focusing solely on the needle. After a few minutes she was hardly conscious of what she was doing. She watched for the lunge that told her the bite was on its way, dodging more of his swipes as her focus narrowed to him rather than escape. Her body moved without thinking. Time seemed to slow and there was nothing but attack and retreat between them.

  Watch
ing his arm, trying to ignore the thousand throbbing stings, she moved slightly to the right, just as the silver duct tape began its swing. When the little needle moved in for its bite, she wasn’t there.

  She’d twisted left. Eliot’s right arm was extended mere inches from her. Enough, something inside her said anyway. She pushed into the curve of his body, his needle-tipped right arm already pulling back from its swing. Instead of toppling him, as she’d expected, she found herself held tightly in his arms. His grin was huge. “Now you’re getting the hang of it,” he said.

  “Son of a bitch!” she shouted, enraged. She kicked at his shins, her fists trapped against his chest, useless.

  “Not that you’re hurting me,” he said mildly, “but you are wasting energy you’re about to need.”

  “You let me go, you son of a…”

  “Almost every fight winds up on the floor. If you find yourself in a hold like this, instead of struggling, hook your foot behind the attacker’s knee and push. Go ahead. Trip me.”

  “But my arms,” she started to complain. His face darkened. She felt a foot behind her knee; they were falling before she finished the third word. He landed on top of her, holding his weight off her with the palms of his hands.

  Inches from her, blocking all light, his entire body radiated heat and anger. “You don’t get second chances.” His soft voice was velvet over steel. “Not when someone really, really wants to hurt you.” She was acutely aware of the jeans-clad legs tangled with her own. “Did you get a second chance when that creature burned you? Did your boyfriend give you one?”

  “He was not,” she hissed, moving her arms to hold him while she kneed him in a very painful place, “my boyfriend.”

  But he was already gone. “Excellent,” he told her, grinning, pulling her up beside him so fast the room was a blurry tunnel with him at the end. She wanted to ask if he meant excellent that Griffin wasn’t her boyfriend, or that she had tried to make a eunuch of him. She decided she didn’t care, and that she would make a eunuch of him anyway.

  Next, he made her stand, poised on the balls of her feet, watching her. He moved so close they were almost touching; he, too, stood on the balls of his feet, but he had a tense, coiled readiness she lacked.

  “Look at my eyes,” he said.

  “Mmm-hmm,” she agreed, narrowing her own. “I doubt I’m going to be attacked by deranged hypnotists.”

  He ignored her sarcasm. “An attacker’s eyes always change before they strike. They’ll move their eyes the second they decide which way they’re going. Watch closely.” He tapped her, lightly but fast, with his needle. “Did you see it?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously. Watch my eyes for the change.” He poked her again and again, lightly this time, while he stared intently at her. After a few moments and countless stabs, she began to see it. There was an almost imperceptible flick of his eyes towards his target before he moved.

  “Ok, I see it now. I’ve got this. You don’t need to stick me anymore.” She tried to keep the pleading sound out of her voice. She had a feeling it would only earn her more torture.

  That’s when her muscles decided to remind her they existed. She started shaking. Just a little, at first; then her calves seized up from standing on the balls of her feet for so long. Her arms, worn out from blocking, soon followed. Every strike he’d made against her swelled into a single, huge throb of pain. The muscles in her arms and legs spasmed and there was not enough oxygen in the room.

  “Chloe?” he asked, his breathing already steady, his voice completely calm and reasonable. His left arm joined his right one at her waist, holding her lightly. “Are you ok?”

  His stupid, casual, comfortable question enraged her. Her rage was so blinding and instantaneous it burned cold deep within her. She felt frozen inside, and inside the frozenness, she found a calm place that pulsed with power. She didn’t even have to reach for it; it wrapped itself around her and turned off her brain. Her body temperature dropped a few degrees. She felt distant waves pounding against her skin exactly as if she was made of sand, and not a person in a living room at all.

  “No,” she heard herself say flatly. “I am very much not ok.”

  Eliot’s eyes widened and his entire body tensed as he felt her building fury. “Chloe, don’t,” he half snarled, half warned as he pulled her flat against him and dropped, burying her face in the crook of his neck. His arms scissored up, covering their heads as all the windows in the room exploded inward. Glass and wet sandy wind smacked against walls and furniture, sweeping objects off tables and knocking pictures from walls. His hold on her convulsed and tightened as another gust of water-soaked wind swept through the shattered windows. It sent broken glass skittering and soaked them both. Eliot jerked; she felt, then, that he’d been hit, and she struggled to get out from underneath him.

  “Not yet,” he cautioned. He waited before easing off her and onto his knees. He pulled a chunk of glass out of his bicep with a wince. For the first time, she noticed he was bleeding. She looked at the mess around her. In her blind rage, she had completely and totally trashed the house. Everything was covered with glass and sand. Pools of water dotted the floor. Shredded curtains dangled in shattered windows like shrouds.

  Eliot held a six-inch long shard of glass tipped with his blood.

  “Oh my god.” She started crying, hard. “I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know. Everything hurt, and then I felt cold all over and it wasn’t me anymore.” She hiccupped. She always hiccupped if she got upset enough.

  He ignored the house and the blood and watched her closely. “Ssshh,” he said. “It’s ok. Just calm down.” He was concerned, but not for himself or his trashed house. His was concern was for her, and that made her cry harder.

  “You’re,” hiccup, “bleeding. And I,” hiccup, “destroyed your house.”

  “I expected some kind of reaction. Hoped for it, even.” He took in the damage with a swift arc of his head. “Not that reaction, exactly, but that’s ok. Do you feel better? Can you get up?” She nodded. She wanted him to hold her so badly she could taste it, but he was soaked and injured with the force of her anger. She was suddenly terrified of that anger, and of the other unexplored, powerful parts of herself she had just brushed against. “Good,” he exhaled, relieved. He brushed her hair back from her forehead with a relatively uninjured hand. It trembled a little, and she realized he was afraid, too. Her Guardian was afraid of her. Or for her. Great. Just great. “Let’s get out of here for a minute.” He hauled her up quickly, decisively. “I have glass in my back and I can’t get it out by myself. It stings like hell.” She started crying and hiccupping again.

  He took her away from the house, to the very end of the boardwalk, before he let her see his back. Her hands shook as she pulled out large chunks of glass. The smaller shards came out when he pulled off his shredded shirt. Old scars and bloody new marks decorated his skin, so different from her own pale smoothness. Except for my burn scar, she realized, startled.

  After she removed the glass from his back, he patted the boards beside him. She eased herself into a reluctant crouch beside a shirtless Eliot who had his legs stretched over the side of the boardwalk. For a long time, they just listened to the waves.

  “You were doing so well, moving quickly and concentrating so hard.” He curled bare toes in sand. “When Cass first ran me through those exercises, I cried and screamed like a baby.” He grinned and kicked at the sand. “Of course, I was a lot younger. And Cass used a real knife.”

  “Of course,” she returned dryly.

  He grinned at the sun instead of her. “But you didn’t. You kept going. I should have seen, and known to stop. I’m sorry.” He paused, hunting words. “You can hurt yourself, pulling on the elements like that. You’re not supposed to be able to do it before….” He hesitated. “Before we get to the Landing. We’re alone in this and in a lot of ways, I have no idea what the hell we’re doing.”

  “Neither do I,” she almost w
ailed. “I couldn’t control it. It just took me over, Eliot. That was scary as hell.”

  “But that’s a good thing,” he insisted. “I mean, the house is well and truly trashed, don’t get me wrong. But this is a part of you that’s coming to life, and it will only get stronger. Better to know now, and figure out how to channel it at our enemies.”

  “What if I do it again, but worse?” she whispered.

  He looked out at the waves for a long time. “Everyone I know who can help you with this is dead.” The last word came out in a whisper. “I can’t help you with the elements, Chloe. I can tell you that using them around the Abandoned will draw them, quickly. I can tell you that drawing on land that’s been poisoned- by their presence, by chemicals and industry- can make you very sick. That’s part of what happened in Atlanta. I can tell you that you’re the best weapon we’ve got.” He grinned at her suddenly. “And of course, I can get better at not pissing you off, and getting us the hell out of the way when I do. But a lot of people want to kill you, so we can’t afford to stop training. As much as it kills me and hurts you, a little pain and soreness is a decent trade for an increased chance at your survival.” He squeezed her fingers and pulled her up beside him. “There is something that may help, though. Your aunt’s diary. You should read it. I’ll start on the house.”

  She eyed him guiltily. “I should help.”

  “Uh-uh. You should try and find out how to control yourself so neither one of us has to clean up a mess like this again. Unless it’s on purpose, of course.”

  He held lightly to her hand while they walked up the boardwalk. He kept himself slightly in front of her. She had a good view of his sliced-up back. “Let me do something to bandage your back and arm, then I’ll read,” she countered quietly, still not quite able to believe she had something so powerful buried inside her somewhere.

  Chapter Four: Annwyn