Born of Shadow (Shadow Walkers Book 1)

by Richard Murray

  Evie had been right. I should have just let it go, gone back inside to the party and had a drink. Maybe talked to someone new, made a friend, found a lover, actually had some fun and managed to get over the past decade of hell I had been living. But no. I’d needed to find out what had happened, to finally get the proof I’d been searching for that the monsters in the night were real.

  I’d found that truth and it was going to kill me.

  The creature stopped barely five feet from me. I could smell the rank odour of its fur, the foul breath as it exhaled made me gag. Its eyes narrowed, mouth opened just enough for me to see each of its razor sharp teeth, stained with the blood of the policeman.

  I desperately wanted to weep, to scream, anything but stand there like the sacrificial fool as I was doing. Terror held me fast, barely daring to breathe. I couldn’t take my eyes from it, couldn’t stop imagining what those teeth and claws would do to me.

  It crouched low, muscles tensing and a silent scream sounded in my mind as it leapt, front paws outstretched, claws extended.

  For a moment it seemed to hang in mid-air before it was thrown backwards, a shining length of silvery metal embedded in its breast.

  “Move,” a rough voice snarled as I was shoved backwards.

  The beast scrambled to its feet, a whine sounding low in its throat as smoke rose from the wound. It swiped at the silvery metal with one paw and growled with pain, wisps of smoke rising from its paw whenever it connected.

  I stumbled back, away from the creature as a man stepped into view, a long bladed knife in one hand and an old wooden crossbow in the other.

  “Better run kid,” he said as he rushed forward.

  The creature tried to leap over the parked cars alongside the road as it saw the man approach but in its weakened state it crashed down on the bonnet of a red Vauxhall and dropped from view over the side as the man followed.

  He slashed down with the knife and it yelped in pain before lashing out with one paw and knocking him back several feet to land on the road. He rolled and was back on his feet in one swift movement. He dropped low as it rose up on its hind legs to swipe at him, his blade sinking into its side.

  More smoke flowed from the fresh wound along with blood and a yelp of pain from the creature. He pulled free the blade and raised it again as the beast turned and ran.

  “Damn,” was all he said as he set off to give chase.

  I had no idea what was happening or what to do. The proof I’d been seeking for so long was running for its life from a man with a knife and a bloody crossbow of all things. Moments before, it had been about to kill me.

  The police were likely on their way, they’d have heard the noise and lights were being turned on in the nearby houses. Curtains being pulled aside as anxious faces peered out, wondering what was happening. I did the only thing I could think of and that was set off running after the man and monster.

  You’re an idiot! You’re gonna die! Ran through my mind again and again as I ran. I couldn’t help it, though, something inside of me needed to know what was going on and the man with the knife had shown himself more than capable of looking after himself against whatever the hell that monster was.

  For several minutes I ran, turning down one street and then another, the man and beast staying an even distance ahead of me. The creature was struggling, that was clear, its pace slow as it stumbled against cars, weaving across the road and unable to keep moving in a straight line. The wounds made by that man had done a great deal of damage.

  The creature turned a corner and seconds later the man followed. I was not far behind and stopped as I realised it was a dead end. A large stone wall blocked off the end of the street and if the beast couldn’t jump a car, it wouldn’t make it over the wall.

  It seemed to understand that as it turned to face the man, bloody saliva dripped from its snarling maw and it stood, crouched, waiting for him.

  He moved slowly, laying down his crossbow and stalking forward with knife extended. “Come on then beast, let’s be done with this,” he said into the silence.

  With a snarl, it leapt and he swayed to the side, slashing with his knife as it went past. Blood sprayed and smoke burst from the creature as it howled. He didn’t give it chance to pause, as soon as it crashed down to the ground he was on it. His knife flashed once in the moonlight and then it was done.

  The man looked up from where he knelt on the body and his eyes met mine. A grunt came from him as he pushed himself to his feet and pulled free his knife, wiping it on the dead creature’s fur before sliding it into a sheath beneath his long brown coat.

  He picked up the crossbow and nodded once as he walked past me. I looked over at the dead creature and quickly pulled out my mobile phone. It wasn’t great, just a cheap model, but it had a camera with a flash. I took a few pictures of the dead creature and ran after the man.

  “Go away,” he said as he heard me come up behind him. Somewhere in the distance sirens could be heard moving closing.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked. “Who are you? I think you just saved my life.”

  “Werewolf, none of your business and you’re welcome. Now piss off.”

  “You’re joking! A werewolf?”

  He grunted and kept walking, the crossbow kept low and to his side, so that it was at least partially hidden from view.

  “Are you just going to leave it there? Won’t people ask questions?”

  “Coppers will clean it up. A few people might question but the papers will just say a dog attacked and savaged some folk.”

  “If it’s a werewolf won’t it turn back to a human?”

  “No,” the man said and a slight smile appeared on his wrinkled face as his eyes flicked towards me. He was considerably older than I’d expected after seeing how agile he was.

  A police car appeared at the end of the street and I glanced nervously at it but the man just kept walking, the crossbow held at his side to make it as unnoticeable as possible. As it sped past, the driver looked our way but didn’t slow down.

  “That was incredible,” I said. “You saved me. How did you kill it? It was so fast, why did it smoke when you hit it?”

  “You have a lot of questions kid, that’s understandable, but bugger off and leave me alone.”

  Admittedly I hadn’t expected… well, anything that had happened in the past hour or so but if you’d ever asked me what to expect after being rescued, it wasn’t such an unwilling rescuer.

  “I need to know,” I said.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Screw you. I’ve lived with this every night for the past thirteen years,” I said, voice rising. “No one believed me when I said what happened but this, this is proof.”

  He stopped and he turned to look at me fully for the first time. His eyes had an appraising look as though he were weighing me and finding me wanting.

  “Something happened?” he asked and I nodded. “Something bad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Welcome to the club,” he snapped. “Now get over it and forget it. Live your life kid, you don’t want to know.”

  He set off walking again at a brisk pace and my steps faltered. I could almost feel the anger behind his words and had the undeniable feeling that he had his own dark memories to live with.

  I couldn’t do it, though. Not now, when I was so close to finding out what had attacked my parents all those years ago. If a werewolf was real then maybe, just maybe, he could tell me what had killed them.

  “Something killed my family,” I said. “No one believes me when I tell them even though I have the scars to prove it.”

  The man stopped in his tracks and he turned back to me. A different, unrecognisable look on his face and one that scared me almost as much as that creature had.

  “Scars?” I nodded and he gestured once with the hand that held the crossbow as his other reached for the handle of his knife. “Show me.”

  I hesitated a mo
ment, a blush colouring my cheeks and he gestured impatiently as I said, “I’m not wearing anything under this.”

  “I’ve seen tit’s before girl,” he replied with a grunt. “Yours are not what I’m interested in.”

  With a silent curse I lifted my t-shirt and stared at him as defiantly as I was able, heat colouring my cheeks as I exposed myself. He barely glanced at my chest though. His eyes instead, drawn to the old scars that ran down my body, starting on my left side, just below my armpit and trailing down over my belly and hips, ending on my right thigh, just below my groin.

  He traced them with his gaze, staring intently at my ravaged skin and nodding slowly, thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps you should come with me,” he said. His voice had lost its rough edge and he appeared almost puzzled. His hand moved away from the handle of his knife though which was an improvement. “I think you need to tell me about what happened.“

  The sudden thought occurred to me that perhaps it might not be the best idea to wander off with a man I had just seen kill a werewolf with the long knife he carried, but his thoughtful stare seemed to promise answers… or at least the possibility of some answers, finally.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Chapter 3

  “I’m not getting in that,” I said as I turned to the man and shook my head.

  “Your choice,” he grunted. “Thought you wanted answers though.”

  I looked at the battered old transit van he’d indicated. The tyres were worn and probably illegal, while the windscreen had a large crack running down across the passenger side. Grey paint and rust were fighting a battle over the faded blue bodywork and the rust was winning.

  When parents told their children not to get into a van with strange men, it was undoubtedly that van that they were envisioning. All it needed was ‘free candy’ written on the side to be given the title of world’s most obvious trap. Anyone with any sense at all would take one look at it and run in the opposite direction.

  “Smells like ass,” I said as I climbed in the passenger side, pulling the door shut behind me.

  Inside was almost as bad as the outside of the van. The dashboard was dented and bore many gouges in the plastic. The fabric of the seats was torn as well as filthy and the ashtray was overflowing. Food wrappers and beer cans littered the footwell.

  “Is this where you live?” I asked as I glanced into the back of the van. Blankets and clothes had been thrown together into one big pile. Cardboard boxes had been pushed up against the rear door and a wooden case with a thick padlock was bolted to the floor behind the seats.

  “Suits my purposes,” the man grunted as he started the engine.

  “Where we going?”

  “Need somewhere quiet to talk. Away from the dead wolf and coppers asking questions.”

  For an hour he drove in silence, refusing to answer any more of my queries and I couldn’t help but question how stupid I’d been. I mean, I’d just seen him kill something straight out of my nightmares and I knew he had a knife tucked away beneath his coat.

  No one knew where I was or who I was with or even where I was going. Hell, I didn’t know where I was going and for all I knew, it could be to some out of the way place where he’d abuse and kill me.

  My hand ran through my hair, tugging at the short strands as I wished I could grip it firmly and pull as I’d used to do.

  “We’re here,” he said as he brought the van to a halt and turned off the engine.

  A ramshackle house that had obviously been abandoned for years was the only building in sight. It had thick boards over the windows, wild growing weeds and shrubbery and several grey slate tiles were missing from the moss covered roof that sagged in the middle. There were no signs of life or that anyone actually lived nearby, just lots of trees.

  “Where is here?” I asked and he just grunted as he opened his door and got out.

  With little option, I pushed open the passenger side door and jumped down to the ground. I slammed it shut as the man walked up to the house and pulled open the front door.

  My hand found my battered old mobile and I considered sending a text to Evie or even calling her, but there was little point. I had no idea where I was and my crappy old phone couldn’t even connect to the internet, let alone send my location.

  “Damn,” I said quietly to myself as I looked around.

  Nothing but trees and bushes. I didn’t even know what type of trees they were, just that they towered over me with thick branches reaching up to the sky. Leaf mulch covered the ground and the man had driven up what could barely be called a dirt track to get there.

  A light appeared inside the house, shining brightly around the half open door and creating menacing looking shadows that didn’t make the idea of entering the house any saner.

  I hesitated by the door and bent down to grab a fist-sized stone from the thick grass beside the single step. It wasn’t much and I very much doubted it would be that effective against a guy who would go toe to toe with a werewolf the size of a pony, but it made me feel a little better.

  Inside the house, I was more than a little surprised to find it fairly neat and tidy, though not that clean. Dust covered the furniture. An old TV sat on a stand at the far side of the room, one of those really old ones that were almost as wide as they were long.

  Pictures hung on the walls and were set in frames on the mantle over the fireplace. I picked one up and wiped away the dust to reveal a smiling family. A younger version of the man, an extraordinarily pretty woman and two children of indeterminate age.

  “Put that down,” the man said. He was standing in a doorway that led to a sizeable kitchen and had removed his coat. He wore jeans and flannel shirt with a leather harness that had a number of sharp implements hanging from it.

  “This is your house?” I asked as I put the frame back down carefully.

  “Come in here,” he said, ignoring my question.

  I followed him into the kitchen and he gestured at a sturdy table that was set in the centre. It was made of a light wood, perhaps maple, and had obviously been the place where a family gathered to eat their meals in the warmth of the kitchen.

  “Get on it.”

  “What?”

  “I need to see your scars,” he said without looking at me. He was searching through a large cardboard box on the counter. “Lay down on the table.”

  “This is weird, you know that right?” I asked as I did as he bid. All the while a little voice in the back of my head was screaming how incredibly stupid I was being. Another voice though, more insistent, seemed to be telling me that to finally have some answers was worth the risk.

  The man finally selected a few items from the box and brought them over to the table where I lay with just my lower legs hanging over the edge. He placed a thick candle down beside me and lit it with a match.

  He lifted some dried plants and crushed them over the candle, letting them fall into the flame where they flared briefly, releasing a pungent smoke. He muttered a few words, too low for me to hear and gestured for me to lift my t-shirt.

  I did as he bid, all the while watching the sheathed knife that hung from the harness he wore. The feeling that I was about to be sacrificed wouldn’t leave and my heart was hammering so hard in my chest that I thought it would burst through.

  With one hand he lifted a talisman and held it above my scar. He seemed uninterested in staring at my breasts which was at once a relief and at the same time almost insulting. I’d spent so many years where all men wanted from me was to stare or paw at me. For one to not do so was decidedly weird and threw me off.

  The talisman was a circle what looked to be wood with black markings running across it. He held it above the long scar that crossed my body for what seemed an eternity though was likely just minutes. All the while, he muttered to himself and his hand trembled.

  Finally, he let it drop and shook his head wearily. He ran one hand down his face, scratching at the grey stubb
le that covered his chin and looked me in the eye before he spoke. “What are you?”

  “Huh?”

  “There’s a darkness in you kid and you’re not fully human,” he said as he reached for the knife, sliding it out of its sheath and pointing it at me. “This will hurt.”

  Before I could protest or even move, he had the knife pressed flat against the flesh of my stomach and he blinked when I just stared at him with my mouth open. He looked from me to the knife and back again.

  “That should have hurt,” he muttered.

  “Are you nuts?” I snapped as I pushed his hand away and sat up. “What’re you doing?”

  “Almost all the supernatural races suffer when presented with silver,” was his only reply. “You don’t.”

  “Maybe because I’m not a bloody supernatural anything,” I said.

  “Perhaps…” he said as he reached out and lifted my t-shirt then pressed the silver blade directly against my scar.

  Pain shot through me like a jolt of electricity and my back hit the table top as I threw out my hands. The man yelled as I lay there, gasping, muscles tensing and whole body tingling.

  “What the hell!” I yelled as I rolled to my side and almost fell from the table, barely managing to get my feet beneath me.

  When no response came I looked up to see the man was in the living room, sat on the carpeted floor with his back against the side of an armchair and eyes wide in shock. “What’re you doing over there?”

  “You’re definitely not fully human,” he said and shook his head slowly. “Definitely not.”

  “What?”

  “When the knife touched your scars, what happened?”

  “It felt like I’d been hit in the stomach by a cattle prod,” I said.

  “What else?” he asked as he pulled himself to his feet and slid the knife back into its sheath. I watched him warily as he held up both hands before him to show he was unarmed as he slowly approached.

  “I don’t know. Pain, confusion, that’s about it.”