Burning in a Memory

by Constance Sharper

  “I’m not scared.” She was terrified.

  “What did they tell you?” he asked of her.

  “Just things. Things about the monsters outside. About you being hurt. About...”

  “Being dangerous?” His voice sounded sad, not hesitant.

  She nodded slowly. She should have run when she had the chance but something kept her there. Against a backdrop of fear, she felt a bit of curiosity to hear what Leon actually wanted to talk about. It was a bad idea, she knew, but then she was never the best when it came to the self-control department.

  “I’m not a danger here and now. If I was, you wouldn’t be alive, right?”

  His response left her wanting though. Decided, she stayed. When Leon shifted in the doorframe, she made a vague gesture to the farthest chair in the room. He accepted it.

  “I can’t believe that they shoved you in this room. This used to be a study,” he said. He bounced in the firm chair a few times, apparently struggling to find a remotely comfortable spot before settling. She felt awkward standing but felt more awkward perching on the edge of the bed. Arms around her stomach, she focused on small talk.

  “I wasn’t going to comment since they were generous enough to allow me to stay here anyway.”

  “You don’t need to be shy, you can be honest and I won’t be offended.”

  “Being honest doesn’t mean I inherently have to be rude,” she countered.

  “Maybe. But I couldn’t have been nice earlier when trying to be honest with the twins,” he said.

  She took a moment to realize what he referred to but her face flushed when she did.

  “You heard that?” she asked him. Granted the girls hadn’t exactly been whispering when they’d confronted her in the hall, the volume of the conversation carried farther than she expected.

  “Their shrill voices could reach every corner of the house. I never knew what Tony saw in Priya,” he added with a shake of his head. “I would have told them off, though.”

  She genuinely smirked. “I’ll keep it in mind next time.”

  “You seem like a pistol,” he added out of left field. As her head tilted, he specified, “your personality, I mean. I thought after the first time we met, you would’ve run. Hell, after the first time you met Adam you should have run. You’re unusual.”

  “Adam says the same thing.” Unusual isn’t the term she’d use, but his use of it did make her think. Leon threatened to be as perceptive as Adam sometimes. Though Adam’s politeness never nailed her ulterior motive on the head, she now considered if Leon might. She fought to keep her face placid. So far as anyone is this house was ever to be concerned, she was just a human girl from Denver with a crush on a mage. She was not an agent for the Hawthorns. She was not deadly at all.

  “You’re not afraid of the shades? Of the mages or the magic?” Leon asked.

  “No. I mean, I’m afraid but there will always be evil in this world. I can’t run from it forever.”

  “Do you like my brother?” he asked. Leon spoke to her without hesitation. He spoke to her without fear and suspicion. And she talked with the most powerful mage on the east coast so easily. The irony of the situation didn’t escape her so she gave some leniency when it came to his out-of-line inquiries.

  “I like him enough that I want to stay and see where it goes.”

  “That’s good. He needs someone to help him for once. He needs a tough girl to tough it out with.”

  “Thanks. I’ll try to be that girl,” she said, uncertain what about this situation was stranger. Her inability to make Adam give in, the fact that she desperately wanted him to give in, or that Leon gave it his blessing.

  “I heard things were going better though. Well, I mean, I assume. Are what the twins saying true?”

  “I wouldn’t believe everything they’re saying,” Adelaide defended herself more quickly this time.

  “I won’t then,” he said suddenly, plainly. Shadows flashed over his face and his smile vanished. She felt the shift in the air and the tension that followed. “What are they saying?” he asked.

  She realized that he was asking what the twins really said about him. When she formulated an acceptable answer, she indulged him.

  “I heard that you were turned into a shade, but the transformation never took. You went to town looking for those who did it to you. And you get loopy when you use your magic, as if your mind was affected. But that last one was something I pieced together,” she admitted.

  She hadn’t even seen when Mistel was transformed into a shade—the event hadn’t happened in her presence. Despite her overwhelming lack of knowledge on the subject, she pictured it always as the same darkened, damp, and cold place with the scent of rotting flesh permeating the walls. She pictured the shadow being brought out in a box, the transformation going down like a vampire attack with the tormented screams bouncing off the walls. Little of that was probably accurate, but the nightmares always played out that way.

  Despite the depth of their conversation now, Leon only looked more and more distant. His fingers drummed on his knee erratically. He kept his chin down.

  “That’s not the worst version of it I’ve heard,” he commented in a broken voice.

  Leaning forward, she perched at the edge while still keeping the gap between them.

  “What’s the worst?” How could it get worse, she wanted to ask. How could it possibly get worse than barely escaping being possessed by a shade? He seemed reluctant to answer so she dared to force the issue.

  “I don’t understand, what happened?” she prompted for a second time.

  “I don’t remember,” he said with plain honesty in his voice. “A bunch of them got the better of me. They took me to this place without killing me and I remember being pinned there. But I don’t remember anything about the transformation. When it happened, I only thought of being home. I thought about my girlfriend, my coven, my parents even. It was like a daydream while I sleep walked. I don’t remember much of that.”

  She took a deep breath that burned all the way down to her lungs.

  “You might not have been taken at all. If you don’t remember, maybe you perceived something else. Mages don’t come back from being shades. They never do,” she whispered.

  His head shot up. She could never forget the raw look he gave her at that moment.

  “I did. And I know… because I killed people as a shade. And because after I kicked it out, I still have its memories. It feels like it never really left my head all of the way. It feels like the shade is still there sometimes.”

  Eighteen

  The door slammed, reverberating through the walls of the house. The sharp sound snapped her out of her daze and she remembered where she sat. The closed door locked her in a small bedroom with Leon sitting only a few feet away. She’d never felt so claustrophobic.

  “Your face is white,” Leon commented. She already knew that, as she felt paralyzed and numb.

  “You’re insane.” The words slipped from her before she thought them over. They had little effect. Leon actually grinned at her.

  “See, this is the honesty I like hearing from you,” he commented.

  She soured quickly, her shock turning to hot fear in her veins.

  “That’s not a laughing matter,” she hissed. Leon just confessed that he believed the shade was still in his head.

  “I didn’t come talk to you to be called insane,” he said.

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because I think you’re coming in with a fresh slate, an unbiased mind on the subject, and it would be a nice break from being under Tony’s influence…”

  “Shit,” she cursed violently. The door slam couldn’t have been any louder. How Tony had slipped to the back of her mind, she had no idea. She sprung to her feet and made for the door. Her hand snatched the knob the same time her ear touched to the wood. She couldn’t hear anything in the hall.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Is Tony still outside? Tony’s going
to kill me for being up here talking to you,” she explained. The door she heard suddenly made more sense and if he was inside, it wouldn’t be long until he figured it out.

  “Tony isn’t in charge of the coven—he can’t tell people what to do,” Leon snorted, sounding much like his brother. But certainly no one regarded Leon as the leader in his current condition.

  Leon stood and she whirled from the door to face him.

  “Don’t worry, he’s going in and out of the basement,” Leon added, as if he could see through walls. He approached and paused only an inch from her. From here, she could smell the musk and aftershave that lingered on him. From here, she couldn’t smell a bit of smoke.

  “Just pause for a moment,” he asked of her. Her hand lingered on the knob but she felt bolted to the floor.

  “Do I look like I’m insane to you? Do I seem like a shade to you?”

  She stuttered through her answer. Adam once asked her the same thing but she had new information now.

  “I-I don’t think I’m qualified…”

  “From what you’ve seen of shades, how evil you perceive them to be, do I look like one? Do I act like one? Am I one?”

  His questions hung in the air.

  “No,” she finally admitted. “But then I don’t know what to make of you.”

  “Unique is not a monster and it’s not a shade. At least you should understand that,” he said. “Now feel free to go downstairs for food. I’ll be down later.”

  She opened the door and slipped out. Every few steps, she tried to listen for Tony. His aura wasn’t active so she didn’t bother feeling for the weak hint of it. At least if he was anywhere in the house, he wasn’t interested in coming up the stairs. By the time she reached the bottom landing, she finished sizing the place up. A potent scent of greasy hash browns and eggs met her from the kitchen.

  “Adam?” she called out when at first she saw no one. His voice responded from the dining room, not the kitchen, and she headed over.

  “I was just about to grab you,” he said as he put out dishes.

  She wondered for a fleeting second if this was the only thing he could cook, but it didn’t matter. Her stomach churned.

  “Can I help with anything?” she cued the generic question. Adam shook his head and gestured to the table. He’d set out only two place mats which meant they wouldn’t be having any company. He urged her to sit and disappeared into the kitchen. She settled in her chair and in another few moments, he returned with glasses of orange juice. She sipped hers greedily until her throat no longer felt dry.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked after a minute.

  “The girls are in their rooms and Tony’s in the basement.”

  Adam never mentioned his brother, she noticed.

  “I’m glad we got a chance to be alone. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about everything,” he said.

  Her stomach churned again, but she shoved the first bite of eggs into her mouth before she lost her appetite. She sized him up in the meantime but made little more out of his appearance than what she’d seen earlier. He was a wild mop of damp hair, a clean-shaven face showing his small dimples, and a light in his smile. He wore clothing, too, and that made his appearance much less distracting.

  “I heard Priya on your case about us,” he said with carefully calculated wording.

  “Apparently everyone did,” she muttered through her food. She shut her mouth, swallowed, and started over. “I mean, I feel like I’m getting a ton of stuff dumped on me for the fact that we haven’t actually slept together.”

  It was his turn to choke on his food. Adam recovered more quickly than her though, and masked his face with a napkin.

  “That’s not actually the part I was thinking about. It was about you staying here for a while, or about if we can try to date.”

  “What about the twins harassing me brought you to this point?” she suddenly asked.

  “Okay, just forget the twins. It’s nothing to do with the twins or gossip. I want to focus on what has actually happened between you and me. I like you but you don’t know the half of it. You haven’t been here long enough to see the worst of my life. I still think you are going to run and that you should run, if you were smart. But I’m running out of will power to stay away from you.”

  He looked so embarrassed while he spoke and it appeared he only reluctantly made eye contact. The table felt huge, like a massive barrier between them, when she increasingly wanted to close the distance. Her food went ignored, growing cold.

  “I’m not sure where you’re going with this,” she said. His hand snaked across the table and caught hers in a tight grip.

  “I’m just not going to try to stop it anymore.”

  She didn’t ask at first, certain he’d continue with the statement, but after a minute he said nothing more.

  “How romantic,” she quipped, but would have been lying to say her blood pressure didn’t surge a bit. She suddenly realized Adam had chosen a moment where she couldn’t be close to him or lose the conversation in physical contact. Across the long length of the wooden table, they could only hold hands. That was far from the frat boy or slick club-goer guy she typically dealt with. Her chest tightened and it felt harder to breathe. Making eye contact with him was difficult without the flush racing through her cheeks.

  Another door slamming drew her from the moment, but this time even Adam flinched. Tony slid into the room from the hall and presumably from the basement. His face red, aura glowing, Tony was clearly livid again.

  “Damn it, Adam, where’s your bloody brother?” he hissed.

  Adam was up from his seat in seconds and crossed to the end of the table. He held two open palms in the air but tension still laced his voice.

  “What’s wrong? What has the shade told you?” he asked.

  Tony made a violent backward gesture with his hand.

  “Told me? He’s told me nothing. But he’s asking me about what’s wrong with Leon. He’s telling me that shades everywhere are interested in his condition.”

  Adam’s face blanked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  While both men kept their voices down, she shamelessly listened. At their close proximity, whispering wouldn’t mask their conversation. Tony formed fists.

  “It doesn’t matter so long as it doesn’t leave here and tell anyone our secrets. But its friends will come looking for it. Half of them might already be on the way here. We don’t need that! If he escapes, we’re screwed. We need to get rid of him,” Tony snapped.

  Unable to sit anymore, Adelaide rose from her seat and made it back to the hall.

  “Tony, let me deal with it. There may still be more answers,” Adam said.

  “I’m done. I’m done letting you deal with things! You’ve been trying to thus far and look where it’s gotten us,” Tony said but Adam spoke at the same time. Their voices merged and rose into jumbled shouts. A loud bang came from the stairs and Leon joined them at the bottom floor.

  “Tony, back off,” Leon said.

  In that second, Adelaide backed farther into the hall and away from the center of the action. The tension between the two mages rose rapidly, and her skin prickled with foreboding. Months of spats threatened to come to a hilt right now. Adam got her attention.

  “Go to my room, now,” he whispered.

  Leon’s aura flailed. The maddening pulse of energy swept through the room in nauseating bursts, overpowering Tony’s easily. She saw her opening, a gap between the two, and took it. She reached the hall, grabbed the doorknob, and paused.

  “If you won’t kill it, then I will,” Tony snapped and moved for the hall.

  Leon lunged from the stairs and immediately blocked Tony’s path. Tony made a sudden movement and Leon reacted. The exchange virtually invisible, it happened quickly. Shouting sounded above it all but it was the wave of magic that knocked Adelaide from her feet. Whoever took the first blow retaliated quickly. A burst of magic shook the house to its core. The chaos explod
ed. Leon was screaming for the shade. Adam was hollering for his brother. Adelaide clawed for the wall to stand. She got to her feet, but the aftershock made her stumble back into the basement door. It gave way under her weight.

  Adelaide screamed as she fell. Her hands flailed but she didn’t catch the banister in time. She plummeted down the short flight of stairs and nailed the bottom step. Her vision flashed black and pain reverberated up her spine. She found her feet after a moment, but by the time she looked up, the basement door was shut. A halo of light outlined the doorframe and provided the only illumination in the dark basement.

  A cold fear suddenly seized her in the next second. The shade was in here. Disorientation from the fall lingered but she still felt his presence. She heard the wheezing breath and smelled the bitter smoke that clung to his being. She could only see a hint of his figure in the dark, but refused to stay long enough to see more.

  “Adelaide,” it cooed. The sound of his catlike voice made her misstep and stumble. She winced but forced herself to stay calm and find the stairs. The monstrous shade was tied and bound, she told herself. He could not get free.

  Wood creaked. The wheezing grew louder. The smell of smoke thickened in the air.

  She carefully hurried to the top of the staircase and reached the door. She raced her hand along the wood until she found the knob and twisted, but the lock wouldn’t give. Twisting with all of her might, her muscles burned before she let go. The door was still pressurized in its exact position and that barred her only escape route. Leon’s aura filled the hall outside and the pressure wouldn’t let up until he did.

  “Adam! Adam!” she called. Adelaide beat on the door with her fists, ready to splinter the wood if necessary.

  “Come down here, Adelaide. I’ve been waiting so long to talk to you,” he hissed.

  She stopped her futile assault, her fists hovering in the air. The sound of his voice unnerved her and he refused to shut up.

  “Why won’t you look at me? What are you afraid of seeing?” he asked.

  Adelaide would have scoffed at the question if fear didn’t keep her so quiet. After a second of collecting her nerves, she turned to face it. His figure was barely visible, but she saw him tug against his bindings. The wooden chair he was bound to creaked again.