by May, W. J.
SHADOW OF DOUBT
Part 2
By
W.J. May
Copyright W.J May
Smashwords Edition
Shadow of Doubt
Copyright © 2013 by W. J. May
Smashwords Edition
Cover Art and Cover Layout by Book Covers by Design
Printed in the United States of America
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First Edition
First Printing: Sept 2013 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Chapter 1
Obscurity
They walked in silence, Aurora a few steps in front of Janus. When she finally stopped, she stood staring at the water in front of her before finally turning around to face him. Lips pressed into a thin line, she stared at Erebus’ shoes for a moment. When she raised her head, he read the accusation clearly on her face. “What’s going on with you? Is something wrong?”
“There’s nothing wrong.” Oh crap, how am I going to explain this? A strange frantic feeling filled him. Did he risk everything to keep her?
“Aaron, I’m not stupid. I’ll admit I feel pretty dumb trying to figure you out, but I do have a brain that’s quite functional.” She set her hands on her hips and seemed to grow a few inches taller.
He had to say something. “This is way over your head.” He wrung his hands together.
“Try me. You might be surprised.”
What had Coty said he’d used – a vitamin problem? “I, uh, I have this deficiency.”
“A deficiency that won’t let you see me in the daylight? Bullshit!” She crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her chin.
“Yes. No. Crap!” Erebus brushed his fingers though his hair, which he knew slipped perfectly back into place. His top teeth pressed against his lower lip as he looked into Aurora’s blue-green eyes. He stood silent, but inside he was pleading with her to understand.
A grey cloud covering the moon shifted, making everything bright in the cold, crisp air. He hadn’t noticed they had walked to the waterfall before she started firing her questions at him. Falls Creek continued to fall, its flow never pausing or stopping. Ironic everything inside of him now seemed unmoving like frozen water.
His cheeks puffed as he forced a quick breath out, shrugging at the same time. “It’s dangerous for you to know.”
“In what way?” she shot back. “Is the FBI going to arrest me? Or is it one of those: If I tell you, then I’ll have to kill you secrets?”
He shook his head. He would never hurt her but he couldn’t say the same for the Night Council. “It’s complicated.” He paused. What could he tell her? “Let me try to explain the best I can, and then you decide what you think.” He watched her shiver, but she made no move to button her jacket up. Erebus began to pace along the creek’s edge. What if he just told her the truth? The tightness around his chest released its deadly grasp. Most likely she wouldn’t believe it and just dump him. The Night Council would never know. What if… he didn’t dare let his mind finish the train of thought. He had never experienced the true feeling of hope and suddenly he was terrified. He almost scoffed out loud. This moment, right here right now, scarier than the wrath of the Night Council?
Aurora interrupted his thoughts. “You’re not on America’s most wanted list, are you?” She didn’t move, but her pupils followed him.
“What? No! Nothing like that. I’m not in trouble with the law for any kind of crime. No FBI. I’m not being hunted. Well, not that I know of.” He looked her directly in the eye. “I don’t have a secret girlfriend, wife, or any of that crap.” He stopped pacing; his fingers reached for his temple before he rubbed his face with his palms. This was going to be harder than anything he’d ever done.
Aurora said nothing. She simply stood, arms crossed, foot tapping.
“I’m not like you. I’m made different.” Nice start, idiot! Erebus shook his head in disgust, staring at the ground in front of him. His voice barely audible over the water, he wished he could disappear. “I’m like an obstruction. An Occlusion. A Shade.” He couldn’t admit that one word aloud.
“What are you trying to say? You think you’re some kind of ghost?” She spoke, but she looked almost comatose, her face now the same color as the moon.
“No, but it kinda might seem that way to you.” His shoulders slumped, all hope circling the drain.
“So, you’re not a ghost. Some kind of vampire?” Her eyes narrowed as she tilted her head, her arms uncrossing as she rested her hands on her hips again.
“No!” I hope I find the idiots who started the folklore on vampires. I’m going to beat the shit out of them. He blinked in surprise. She wasn’t teasing him, she was trying to figure him out. She might actually believe him.
“So…You’re some kind of obstruction or an occlusion, but you don’t come out during the day?” She started tapping her foot again as she processed his words. “That doesn’t make sense. The only thing I can think of is a shadow. That’s an occlusion or another word for a shade. Except you can only see shadows during the day, not in the dark. That’s the complete opposite to you. It’s impossible.”
Erebus froze when she said the word. The noise between his ears was as if Falls Creek had changed its course and was now running through his head. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He closed it, running his tongue over his lips. He tried clearing his throat.
Aurora stopped tapping and assessing. She looked up into his eyes, confusion written across her face.
He stared at her with desperation. Did she get it? Instinctively he stepped closer to her. What if Shadows suddenly appeared to kill her and take him away? He had no idea what would happen.
“I don’t know why, but inside I know it’s true,” she whispered. “Tell me…Everything.”
The dam broke inside of him. He wanted to tell her. He needed to tell her. “You’re right and you’re wrong. Well, where you’re wrong is just misguided.” He reached out, needing to touch her, grabbing the belt on her coat to keep her close instead. “I am,” he exhaled an exhausting breath, “a Shadow. I know it seems impossible to grasp. I don’t blame you if you can’t believe it.”
“But…but…shadows are around in the day. I see them everywhere.”
“I can come out at night because the sun is gone. I exist when it’s not around. During the day, I’m the shadow of the object I possess – the part where light cannot directly reach.” He waited for her to pull away and leave. To run from him as fast as she could. If she did he wouldn’t chase her.
“You’re a shadow?” She raised an eyebrow but, surprisingly, didn’t move away.
“Yes.” He stared into those gorgeous eyes. She wasn’t shocked or scared. She seemed calm, a little perplexed, but he knew she wasn’t about to run off screaming into the night.
“How long have you been a Shadow?”
Did she think he had some psychiatric disease? “Are you serious?” The look on her face told him she was. He shrugged. “For as long as I can remember. And then, for as long as I can be.” Forever.
“Any shadow?”
“No.”
“A specific shadow?” Her head cocked to one side.
“Yes.” They were seriously having this conversation.
“How?” She shook her head. “What shadow?” She raised both hands up and then brought them towards her che
eks. He watched her make a conscious effort to swallow and press her lips tight together.
“A phone booth.” Okay, now the laughter will start.
“A phone booth?” Her forehead wrinkled. “Were you normal before that? Did some wacko doctor mix some formula and turn you into one?”
“No. I was nothing before that.” Didn’t exist.
“Were you some other shadow before?”
“Nothing. I’ve only been a phone booth.”
“Since when?”
Really? She wanted to know how old he was? “Around the turn of the century.” He hoped no one else could hear them. He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. He wondered what she thought.
“So how do you do it? Do you just turn into a phone booth when the sun touches you?”
He chuckled at her simple, human analogy. “No. Not quite like that. I’m me from when the sun sets until it rises. When it ascends, I need to be at a phone booth before sunrise is official. Then I become the booth’s shadow.” He wrapped her coat belt around his fingers, winding and unwinding it.
“What do you do then? You know, while you wait for the sun to set.”
“I don’t know. I don’t do anything.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m just the area where direct light from the sun can’t reach due to the obstruction of the pay phone.” How could he explain the inner terror he went through at sunrise and sunset every day? Or the confusion he felt before remembering what he was? That he’d hated his life until he met her? He kept all this inside of him, suddenly more scared of losing her than never finding a phone booth again.
“You’re just the obstruction? An occlusion?” Suddenly, she began shaking, her teeth chattering above the noise of the falls. Wrapping her jacket tightly around her, she began rubbing her arms. There was a long pause. “I need to think, but I can’t do that out here. It’s freezing. Can we go get some coffee?”
“Sure.” He shoved both his hands deep into his pockets, waiting for her to walk, and he’d follow. At this moment, there was no warmth he could offer her.
They walked in silence. He didn’t question why they didn’t take her car. He just followed her to S’Moes Diner, just around the corner from the park. The door chimed as they entered. Aurora went straight to a red leather booth at the back of the diner, where it was quiet. She dropped into the middle of the bench, rubbing her hands and blowing on them.
Erebus settled onto the bench across from her. He faced the counter, so he motioned to a waitress.
She walked over, chewing gum with an open mouth, painted in very pink lipstick. She jingled change in her apron before she balanced a hand with bright red fingernails on the table and poured coffee into two cups. Her faded name tag said GAIL. She blew a pink bubble then stuck the gum into the side of her cheek. “Anythin’ else?”
Erebus glanced at Aurora, her color pale grey. As she looked up at the waitress and smiled, he noticed her smile didn’t reach her eyes and her lips trembled.
“I’d love to have some of that famous hot apple pie, please,” he said.
“Sure thing, sweetie.” Gail turned to Aurora. “Anything for you, darlin’?”
Aurora shook her head slightly.
Erebus waited until Gail walked away before he turned to search Aurora’s eyes. Her pupils were large, hiding the blue-green he loved about them. He exhaled slowly as he rested his hands on top of the table. He waited, afraid to think.
“You’re not lying about this, are you?” She stared into his eyes. It felt like she was staring directly into his soul.
He gulped and whispered, “No.”
This was new territory for him. He had no idea what more she was going to ask or how he’d answer. The truth. Just tell her the truth. Don’t hide anything.
“Did you, like, grow up? You know, like superman, start as a kid and grow into an adult?”
“We don’t age. We are whatever age we are when the object is created.”
“You don’t get older?” She shook her head. “Then how old are you?”
“How old do I look?”
“Around early twenties.”
“Then that’s how old I am. I’ve been around for longer, of course.”
“If you don’t grow older, can you die?”
“No. Well, maybe.” This was going to get complicated trying to put into human terms. Erebus stared at his fingers as he drew a pattern on the linoleum tabletop. “I never get sick, I don’t feel physical pain, and I can’t die from some disease.” He was tempted to add that fatal injuries couldn’t kill him. Coty had once tried jumping in front of a car but hadn’t been hurt. Aurora had enough on her plate at the moment.
“So, you’re…immortal?” She spoke calmly but kept double-blinking. Blink. Blink-blink. Blink-blink. Erebus hoped she wouldn’t faint.
“In a sense. I’ll live as long as there are phone booths. With cell phones, blackberries, and Internet, there isn’t much need for communication via a pay phone. I guess you could say I might become extinct.” He tried to laugh, but it came out as a bark. He thought about the phone now in his studio apartment.
“What happens if you can’t find a pay phone?”
“If my shadow disappears, so do I.” It was the simplest way he knew how to explain it. That was his instinct for survival. The thought crossed his mind every morning, just before sunrise.
“Is every object a shadow?”
“No. I mean, every object has a shadow, but a Shadow, like me, is limited. There are only a few of us. We can’t be human shadows, only physical objects. I don’t know if new ones are still made. Maybe it’s just something of olden days. I just know we exist and it’s the only way we know.” Why am I telling her all of this? Shut up! It’s too much information.
“Do you have some special sort of marking that shows you’re a Shadow to each other?”
He smiled at the picture she painted. “Not really. We just know, like a sixth sense.”
Aurora leaned back against the red leather, slipping out of her jacket, her blouse opening a bit as she moved. She looked at him from a slightly sideways glance, lovely long eyelashes partly covering her eyes. Erebus glanced from her now rosy face down to her chest. He could feel the heat in his loins. Stay focused, ‘Bus.
“Have you travelled a lot then? Where’ve you been? Where did you start?”
Curiosity had to be winning over reason. Erebus grinned when he realized Aurora wasn’t scared; she was fascinated.
He let his guard down a bit and relaxed. She was okay; no Night Council had appeared. This could work. “First time? Do you know the K-Six telephone boxes in Britain?”
“K-Six?” She raised her eyebrows, and small little lines appeared momentarily on her forehead. “Oh! You mean the red telephone booths they have in London and around England?”
“Yes, they’re also called K-Sixes. First time I stepped out, it was a K-One. The booths have evolved since the twenties.”
“Eighteen or nineteen twenties? Duh, it’s nineteen.” She seemed to be talking to herself for a moment. “So, you’re really from England? I could never exactly place your accent.”
“I guess you could say I’m from there. I’ve never really thought about it.” He remembered telling her the night they’d met that he was originally from England. No need to bring that up now.
“How’d you get here then? If you can’t travel by day…” She let the sentence trail off as the waitress set the apple pie down on the table. They watched silently as she refilled both mugs and sauntered away.
Erebus pushed the plate towards Aurora. “Eat.” He waited until she’d taken a bite.
“How did you get here?” she persisted.
“Actually, my coming here was kind of by accident. One minute I was in England, the next I was on a boat heading to America.”
Aurora stopped chewing and her eyes grew big. She swallowed a half-chewed bite, needing coffee to wash it down. “You just woke up on the boat?”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been to New York City, but there was a red K-Six pay phone setup on Fifth Avenue. That was me. Guess that morning I picked the booth being shipped out.”
“I guess you don’t need to have to have one of those K-Six phone booths now?”
“No. Any pay phone will do. It took me a while to learn that when I first arrived, but instinct filled in what I didn’t know.”
“Have you ever tried to be some other kind of shadow?”
“I can’t.”
“How do you know if you haven’t tried?”
“It’s impossible.” He shrugged, not sure how to explain. “I just know it’ll kill me.” He tried to explain it another way. “Have you ever tried to breathe under water?” When she shook her head, he said quietly, “You haven’t tried but you just know it won’t work.”
“I guess I can go with that.” She took a bite of ice cream, holding the spoon upside against her tongue as she thought. She pulled it out and pointed it at him. “Have I met any other Shadows?”
“Yes, Coty.” And Janus.
“Coty?” She took another bite of pie, scooping melted ice cream on the spoon. “Yeah, now that you say it, that makes sense.”
Erebus raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, if I had to picture someone who would be this ‘Shadow-thing,’ I’d have picked Coty. He’s flighty, a live-for-the-moment kind of guy.”
Erebus laughed. Definitely Coty.
Her head popped up, her eyes bright. “Is that why you asked me the meaning of Coty’s name that night I was working on my mythology paper?”
She didn’t forget anything. She’d definitely make a good lawyer. “Oh yeah, you asked me for some names, and I just said Shadow names. I had no idea what our names represented. Though I must say, I’m not entirely sold on the idea that mythology had any part in it.”
“Hmmm… I sort of got this thing about mythology. No one gets it, but I do.” She gave him a quirky, embarrassed smile. “Who named you?”