by Amir Lane
“Lin,” Dieter croaked, trying to get her attention.
Lindy looked up and all but threw her tablet on the bedside table.
“Hey! Hey, how’re you feeling? God, you look like shit,” she said.
There was a smile on her lips, and her eyes were full of relief. Even in his morphine-addled state of mind, he could see it.
“I feel like shit. The fuck happened to me?” Dieter asked.
His mouth felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton balls. How was he even talking through them?
“No-one really knows. All we know is you were dancing, someone gave you a drink, and your body just freaked the fuck out. When they brought you in…”
Lindy trailed off and swallowed. A vacant expression crossed her face. It was almost the one she had when having one of her ‘visions’, but not quite. More like she was remembering something.
Dieter realised, too slowly, with a pang of guilt that she was remembering what he had looked like.
“I was pretty messed up, wasn’t I?” he murmured.
“Understatement.”
Dieter reached for her hand. There were bandages around the ends of two of his fingers. He had a vague memory of clawing at a door. He shuddered, pushing down thoughts of what lie beneath the brown fabric stuck to his skin.
Lindy took his hand and pushed his hair out of his face.
“You’re rocking a pretty wicked mullet there,” she said.
“‘m gonna get it cut.” The itch in his throat returned. “Water?”
“Uhm—”
A plastic bottle was pushed into his free hand.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Except I didn’t– I don’t–” Lindy shook her head and took a deep breath. “Please tell me you picked up telekinesis.”
“No. Telekinesis isn’t a thing. Just in movies.”
Right?
“Well, I did not hand you that water.”
Dieter looked over at the bottle. She was right. It had been on the table on the other side of the bed. There was no way she could have given it to him without getting up and walking around the bed. Even with how out of it he was, that was something he probably would have noticed.
“Shadows,” Dieter murmured.
Now that he looked around the much larger room, he could see them. Maybe three, maybe four. He still couldn’t quite tell. They watched him, unmoving. They could have been statues until one lifted its head. For what felt like the hundred-thousandth time, he was glad they didn’t have faces. He didn’t want to see the grin he felt would be there.
“Wait, the Shadow gave it to you?”
To say that Lindy looked alarmed would be an understatement.
“Must have. You didn’t,” Dieter said.
“That is true.”
“No-one else is here.”
“That is also true.”
Dieter paused and dropped his voice to a hushed whisper.
“They’re watching me. I think they want to hurt me.”
Lindy’s expression hardened, her jaw clenching and nostrils flaring. She bared her teeth, bringing Aldo to mind. Dieter thought he might almost prefer his temper to hers. At least he knew Aldo would rip his organs out if he got pissed enough. Lindy wasn’t nearly as predictable.
“Like hell they are,” she hissed.
Dieter swallowed, gauging the Shadows’ reactions. They tensed up, like cats trying to make themselves look more dangerous.
“Don’t hurt her,” he said with as much authority as he could muster.
He didn’t expect them to respond or to so much as acknowledge that he’d spoken. But they did. They looked over at him. He was sure they would be baring their teeth the way Lindy was if they had them. But then, instead of attacking or lashing out or even just shrieking, they shrank back, folding in on themselves.
Dieter was sure that he was hallucinating. He must have been. There was no other possible explanation. The Shadows never backed down.
“What are they doing?” Lindy asked.
“Nothing,” Dieter said. “They’re just… looking, I think.”
Lindy nodded slowly. She looked around the room, but Dieter knew she wouldn’t see them.
“You should get some more rest,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”
Dieter snorted but closed his eyes anyway. The half-empty water bottle was taken from his hand; by Lindy or by a Shadow, he couldn’t tell. He knew she couldn’t watch them, but he could appreciate the sentiment.
IT WAS over another week before Dieter could leave the hospital. He and Ekkehardt had barely spoken to each other. There had been a painfully awkward conversation during which Ekkehardt said all of five words and that was it.
The Health Agency had ruled out anything contagious, or any known biological or chemical toxin. With no apparent risk of his stomach bleeding again and no apparent risk of seizures, there was no reason for them to keep him there. They needed the space and there was nothing more they could do for him but give him a list of generic advice and send him on his way. Dieter didn’t complain.
The relief of leaving the hospital came instantaneously. He felt a thousand times better as soon as he stepped out of the cold, sterile building. The Shadows that still hadn’t left his side seemed to appreciate the breathing room, too. Dieter had thought—or maybe he’d just hoped—that they would leave him alone once he left the hospital.
They didn’t.
Instead, they followed him like dogs. Except Dieter liked dogs. He would have far preferred being followed by four dogs. Dogs didn’t hiss and wail and scream, they didn’t scratch and pinch and bite (as much), they didn’t pull things from his hands. Shadows did all that on a good day, especially these ones. Dieter had never seen Shadows with so much power, aside from maybe Abaddon and Abigail. He knew he could have easily called Alistair, who was only twenty minutes out of town. Dieter was sure he wouldn’t mind driving back to see him and his new companions. But he was afraid of what Alistair would say about them.
He was afraid that not even Alistair could make them go away.
THE SHADOWS darted around the room and around Dieter’s head. Even with his face buried in his arms, he could see them behind his eyelids. That was the worst part about it; he could always see them, even when his eyes were closed. He’d always imagined Lindy’s ‘visions’ this way, like a constant stream of input at the back of his mind. It made his head feel like someone was trying to pry it open with a crowbar.
Dieter whimpered, pushing his forehead against his knees. He pulled his hood up over his head and covered it with his arms before it could be yanked down again. He could hear footsteps, the sound of someone walking into the living room, over the sound of the TV and the ringing in his ears.
“Seer,” the Shadows hissed, “Seer.”
“I know. I fucking get it, she’s a Seer. You don’t have say to that every fucking time she walks in!” Dieter snapped, lifting his head.
“What are they doing?” Lindy asked, holding out a mug of tea.
Dieter hadn’t even heard the water boiling. He took the mug and held it firmly, glaring at the Shadow that ventured too close to his hands. It shrank back with a pained sound.
“They’re just being annoying,” he said, scowling at another Shadow.
They seemed to get the idea.
“They aren’t trying to hurt you?”
‘Or me,’ he expected her to add.
Lindy had always had a ‘Let them try’ attitude when it came to fights. It was hard to catch a Seer off guard.
At least, it was hard for people. Shadows were a different matter entirely.
But they didn’t seem to have any intention of hurting her. They seemed weary of her. Maybe they sensed that she was more powerful than most Seers. Maybe Shadows just didn’t like them.
Lindy sat down next to him, occupying the space that a Shadow had been in only moments before. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in against her. The chains around her n
eck dug into Dieter’s skin, but it didn’t bother him.
“Have you talked to your necromancer buddy about them? Maybe he can help,” she said.
“Not yet. I just keep thinking… What if he can’t do anything?”
“It costs you all of zero dollars to ask.”
Dieter shrugged. She wasn’t wrong. But asking wasn’t the problem. The problem was the long list of answers he didn’t want to hear.
“Look, I don’t like this guy. I get a bad feeling from him,” she continued.
“That’s just because you don’t get anything off him. Psychic black hole or whatever you called it.”
“True,” Lindy admitted. “Plus, his eyes kind of freak me out. They’re just so…”
She paused, frowning, as she searched for the right word to describe them.
“Wide? Yeah, I know. That’s just the way his face is. You get used to it, though,” Dieter said.
“You do, maybe,” Lindy said, snorting. “Anyway, he’s the only person who gets Shadows. I’ve been doing some reading, but all I could find is… Point is, he’d know best. I hate to admit it, but I’m out of my element here.”
Lindy scrunched her nose up. It was rare for her to be out of her element in anything. Between the amounts of reading she did—her room had always been a miniature library—and her Second Sight, there wasn’t much that was out of her comfort zone. But the Shadows had always been just outside that zone. All the reading in the world couldn’t make up for the fact that she didn’t see them.
The Shadows buzzed in sudden frantic agitation. It was as easy to tune out as a thousand wasps might have been.
“Witch,” they hissed over their own buzzing, signalling Lenna’s arrival.
Dieter groaned, setting his mug down and covering his ears again. A Shadow knocked it over. Whether it was on purpose or by accident, Dieter didn’t know and Dieter didn’t care. Hot tea landed on his sweats, seeping through the fabric and onto his skin. He jerked to his feet with a pained cry and knocked his leg on the coffee table.
“That’s it!” he shouted. “All of you, get the fuck out! Now!”
His hands tingled as a familiar energy moved beneath his skin. It wasn’t quite the same, though. The power came from somewhere else, somewhere even deeper; somewhere he wasn’t sure he should be reaching into.
The Shadows wailed like injured animals or broken instruments. Dieter couldn’t hear anything over their rising pitch and volume. It got worse and worse until he found himself doubled over the coffee table with his hands over his ears.
Blood dripped from his nose in a steady stream. Hands, solid and warm and human, were pressing into his shoulders but whether they belonged to Lenna or Lindy, he couldn’t focus enough to tell. The blood was starting to pool on the table. Dieter didn’t think. His hand moved without any conscious thought, dragging his finger through the blood to draw a sigil like the one on his window.
Dieter’s fingertips sparked as he traced the pattern. It was small but accurate. He’d never thought about what burning blood smelled like until now. It was definitely not something he ever wanted to smell again.
The ringing in his ears made it impossible to tell when the wailing stopped. But when he lifted his head, the Shadows were gone.
It took what felt like forever for his breathing to return to normal and for the ringing to subside. He scanned the room for any sign of the Shadows but they were all gone.
Both Lindy and Lenna were exchanging worried looks.
“Dieter?” Lindy said. “Can you hear me?”
He nodded, wiping his nose. Lenna handed him a tissue, which he took with a small, “Thanks.”
“What the fuck was all that?” Lenna she.
It was a very good question that Dieter didn’t have a very good answer for. He sat back down on the couch before his legs gave out. His toes brushed the broken glass.
“They just freaked out. I don’t… I think something is wrong with me.”
Energy still sizzled beneath his skin. There was no elation or adrenaline like there were all the other times he’d used magic. He couldn’t describe it, but he felt wrong.
Dieter hunched forward, hanging his head between his knees to stop his vision from swimming. Squeezing his eyes shut helped, but not as much as he would have liked. He felt Lindy press her hand to his forehead.
“You’re warm,” she said. “Len, can you grab him some water or something?”
She sat down next to him and rubbed his back while Lenna moved to the kitchen.
They were worried about him. Anyone could see it, and Dieter hated it. He hated being fussed over, even though he couldn’t stand again just yet and he was still recovering from his attempted poisoning or whatever. It didn’t make it any easier, and it didn’t quell the guilt in his still-raw stomach when Lenna handed him a plastic cup full of water.
“You need to call Mister the Necromancer,” Lenna said. “This shit’s not normal, honey. It’s really making you sick.”
“Yeah, I know. And his name is Alistair. Why is that so hard for you guys to remember?”
“‘Cause we don’t like him. But we don’t like you all fucked up like this, either.”
And as much as Dieter wanted to insist that he wasn’t fucked up, it was impossible to deny. His nose had stopped bleeding, but his head was still pounding hard enough to hurt even his eyes. He made a note to invest in some painkillers alongside his sleeping pills. He sipped at the water, wishing it was something stronger.
“I’ll call him,” he promised. “Just not now. They’re gone right now. I don’t want to think about them anymore…”
“I’m gonna’ make some dinner. You still on soup?”
Dieter nodded.
“Yeah. Could you take it easy on the spices? They said I shouldn’t eat anything spicy. Stomach bleeding and all.”
Lenna snorted.
“Honey, I already take it easy for you. I take it any easier, you might as well be eating paper and water. I don’t do that no spices thing white people do. But I’m gonna’ make one”—she held up a finger—”exception because I love you.”
“Love you too, Len.”
She leant in and kissed his forehead before making her way back to the kitchen. Aldo lingered on the couch, resting his head in Dieter’s lap and staring out at the wall. It was comforting, having him there.
Dieter still didn’t know if Aldo could see Shadows. He didn’t know if Aldo would see them if they came back. He didn’t even know if Aldo would be able to do anything. But jaguars were one of the most powerful predators on the planet. Between him and Lindy and Lenna, Dieter thought that he could almost stop worrying.
DAYS PASSED and even as other Shadows came and went, those four stayed.
Dieter hadn’t slept in what felt like ages, even with the combination of sleeping pills and alcohol. A bad combination, he knew, but he was just so fucking tired.
“They won’t go away,” he whimpered, pressing his face into Alistair’s lap.
Even now, the Shadows hissed for his attention. He could still see them at the back of his mind. Not even sleeping provided a viable option for escaping them anymore. But they were mostly quiet now, having finally become accustomed to being in such close proximity to another Necromancer and settled down.
Alistair stroked Dieter’s hair, his other hand settled between his shoulder blades.
“I know,” he said.
“Why won’t they just fuck off?”
“Dieter, they’re attached to you. Attached spirits don’t leave you. That’s why they’re called attached.”
Dieter sat up, frowning, keeping his back pressed to Alistair’s hand and turned away from the Shadows.
“I never attached any fucking spirits to me. I told you I don’t want to do Necromancy,” he said.
Alistair’s hands swept through Dieter’s hair again. It was still long, falling all over his face. He’d get that haircut eventually.
“This isn’t a bad thing. You can make th
em do whatever you want, you just have to learn how to command them.”
“I don’t want to command them. I want them to leave me alone!”
Dieter could hear himself sounding like a child. It made him want to clench his teeth together and stop speaking. But at the same time, he didn’t care. He didn’t care how annoying or whiny or childish he sounded. All he cared about was getting rid of the Shadows that were determined to stay.
“And you can make them. For a while at a time.”
“I don’t even know how they attached to me. I didn’t do anything!”
Alistair licked his lips. With his permanent deer-in-headlights look, it was impossible to read his expression. Lindy was right; it was unsettling, even though Dieter was used to it by now.
“Someone must have done something, because they’re here. They have your energy,” Alistair said.
“There has to be something I can do to get rid of them. You can’t tell me that no-one in the history of Necromancy has ever unattached spirits, or whatever.”
“They call it unbinding. And it’s been done.”
Dieter’s eyes lit up, but Alistair kept talking.
“Best case, it’ll kill you. Worst case… Worst case, you lose your fucking mind.”
“I’m already losing my mind! Don’t you get it? I can’t deal with them!” Dieter shouted.
He hadn’t noticed himself standing until he was stomping his foot on the carpeted bedroom floor with a muffled thud. It did little to quell his rising frustration. A louder sound might have been more satisfying.
The Shadows reacted more than Alistair did. They moved like startled birds at the spike in energy in the air. The rustling that had become regular background noise in Dieter’s life was replaced with loud hisses, which quickly turned into crackling sounds.
“Do you see what I mean? You only have to put up with two of these things. I have four! And they never stop!”
Dieter didn’t mean to start crying. It wasn’t something he often let himself do in front of anyone. But exhaustion overruled self-preservation, and the tears flowed of their own accord. He was just so tired. He’d only had these Shadows following him for a few weeks, and he was already at his limit. How was he supposed to handle a lifetime of this?