Chasing Shadows

by Jamel Cato

  I sat in the armchair in my office and set an alarm on my smartphone to ring in five minutes. The alarm would focus my consciousness back on the physical world, which was a safety precaution against becoming trapped elsewhere.

  I transmuted to the Astral Plane and focused on Margouix’s wooden coin.

  A translucent version of my consciousness was soon walking among strange trees with thick bark colored every shade of a rainbow. The sections of the sky I could glimpse through the geometric foliage was the wrong shade of blue and pregnant with tiny shining stars that seemed too close to the ground.

  I came upon a clearing dominated by artificial structures that melded with the ground and trees so seamlessly that it was impossible to tell where one started and the other ended. These buildings, some of which rose away into the mist of the sky, struck me as engineering marvels free of any obvious load bearing mechanisms.

  The clearing swarmed with unusual life. In addition to the Krykin wolves, Xantu warriors, Silgenath Seers and arachnid-like Wru I recognized, there were flying creatures that looked like a cross between birds and butterflies, furred mammals with six legs and ears as long as my arm and, strangest of all, globular crustaceans with no limbs or perturbances of any kind except two bulbous eye stalks that somehow stayed atop their bodies as they rolled about.

  I noticed that the Wru were the only creatures who entered or departed the buildings.

  “You should not have come here,” Naaru calmly said behind me.

  I turned around to find a translucent representation of Naaru’s consciousness, accompanied by translucent versions of his original servants.

  “I wanted to thank you for saving my life,” I said.

  “Kulara saved your life and you may thank her by doing the thing we hope will save many more lives.”

  “I am attempting to do that.”

  “Kulara’s strength to you.”

  “Margouix believes you may be in danger.” I glanced at his servants, none of whom had the threatening postures or expressions of the brutes who had been with him the last time I saw him. “She is worried your own kind may do you harm.”

  “One palp sees a hero, another a traitor. Time will judge.”

  “Your world is beautiful. There is so much harmony with nature.”

  “You should not be here to make such observations.”

  “That is why I sought you out on this plane.”

  “My hatch mates may not be able to see into the realm of non-breathers as we can, but they know where my mind dwells when I behave strangely, which amounts to the same risk of discovery. Please return to your world, Earth Eater.”

  “Where is the third gate?”

  My alarm went off, drawing my focus and consciousness back to my world.

  When I went to disable my phone’s alarm, I noticed I had a missed call and a voicemail.

  The message was from Xavier Hill. I played it.

  “It’s X. Go to a restaurant in DC named Patni tomorrow at noon. Come alone. She’ll meet you there. Holla back.”

  I drove out to the airport to pick up Vanessa, who used some vacation time to come visit me.

  I took her on a whirlwind culinary and cultural tour of my hometown that didn’t include a single cheesesteak or Liberty Bell. When we visited the house where Jazz legend John Coltrane grew up, we talked about my childhood and parents. While we relaxed in the tranquil beauty of the Japanese Tea Gardens in the world’s largest City park, she asked me about Darlene. When we rested in a marble concourse in King of Prussia, the world’s largest shopping center, she told me that she had dropped out of law school at Wake Forest when Etta Mae died and left her the only beneficiary of two six figure insurance policies.

  She said almost all the insurance money was still in the bank. When I asked her why, she said she was waiting to meet a man she trusted enough to share it with. I asked her how she would know when she met that man. She said he would be the one who refused to share in it.

  When we walked into my condo, her eyes popped. “O-M-G. You live here?”

  It was a clear night and the views were stunning.

  I freed her hands of the dozen shopping bags we had accumulated throughout the day. “C’mon, I want to show you something.” I led her into the bedroom. “Sit on the bed.”

  She cocked her head at me. “You want to show me something new or something I’ve already seen?”

  “Something new. Lie back before I tell Etta Mae you spent her money on a Nikki Minaj butt.”

  She laughed and reclined back. I crawled next to her. Then I hit a button on the nightstand that made all the windows become opaque except for the glass ceiling. She gazed up in wonder at the amplified view of the stars provided by the special telescopic panes above the bed.

  I pressed a different button. The ceiling and walls began projecting a live, three-dimensional feed from the SALT space observatory in South Africa. It gave the effect of floating within a dazzlingly vibrant space nebula.

  Vanessa gasped in astonishment.

  As the nebula softly undulated around us, I told her that I earned a doctorate in astrophysics because I had dreamed of being an astronaut. Then I explained how that dreamed had been dashed by the strong psychotropic effect that my supernatural sight produced whenever I came in proximity to material from space.

  This projection was the closest to space I would ever get.

  She reminded me that my ability to interact with other planes of existence allowed me to go places that no astronaut ever would.

  I told her I had no interest in sharing in the blessing that Etta Mae had left for her to enjoy.

  Then we did what lovers do.

  Chapter 21

  I walked into the lobby of a restaurant in Washington, DC and was greeted by a young Indian American hostess who was pretty enough to make supermodels get plastic surgery and models who weren’t super change careers.

  “Welcome to Patni, Dr. Tiptree.”

  I said, “I would faint from the shock of your beauty, but I don’t want you to think I’m not strong enough to carry you over the threshold on our wedding night.”

  She smiled. “That’s one I’ll remember.”

  “I almost couldn’t find this place. Google Maps says your street address is 3600, but the awning outside says 1410.”

  “Interesting. I’m glad you figured it out. Please, follow me.”

  I followed the hypnotic sway of her hips into a large and ornate dining room that was noticeably empty of any patrons besides me. “Am I early?”

  “You’re exactly on time,” the hostess said, setting a menu down on a table set for two.

  The woman who had been with Xavier in Roxborough came from the kitchen and filled my glass with water.

  “Look, it’s Womb-Seer,” she said sarcastically. “Are you following me?”

  “It’s Sajala right?”

  “It is.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “You’re not her type.”

  “Whose type?”

  “My sister, the hostess.”

  My lips formed a straight line. I was starting to think I should take a poker class because I had become too easy to read, which might be fatal in my line of work. “I was just going to ask her name.”

  “Her name is Chandra. Would you like to start with some Naan?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “I recommend you refrain from telling women who will and will not father their children. And the Tikka Masala. The herbs in it are shipped in from India.”

  “I’ll go with that.”

  “Excellent. Nice shirt, by the way. Don’t get your hopes up, but Chandra loves the open-collar-swiss-watch look.”

  “Hope,” a melodious female voice said from behind my chair, “is something that should always remain up.”

  I turned around to behold a lovely four-armed Hindu goddess in a white sari with golden stitching. Her body was ensconced in an amber glow like a celestial spotlight was trained on her
. She appeared to be about thirty, but I suspected her age should be counted in centuries not years.

  Unsure which honorific to use, I said, “I couldn’t agree more, Great One.”

  She came closer. “May I examine your chakras?”

  Like I could stop her. I removed my eyeglasses. “Be my guest.”

  She gently pressed her index finger to the skin between my eyes.

  I felt a tingle in that vicinity.

  She removed her finger. “Patni is a place of joy and neutrality. Please enjoy your time with us, Piercer of Shrouds.”

  I was reading the menu and envisioning the phrase Piercer of Shrouds on a black t-shirt when the other party arrived.

  Mother Nature gingerly limped into the dining room on two crutches. One of her legs was atrophied and twisted. Dark spots from leaking wounds stained her dress in eight places and a strip of white gauze with red splotches wrapped around her neck like a macabre necklace. She was hunched like her spine had been crafted to mimic the letter C.

  It was the woman who had admired Devarra’s artwork with me outside of Napoleon’s commune.

  She was being carefully assisted by a female humanoid whose body was made entirely of fire and a powerfully built male who seemed to be composed of rock formations.

  I stood with a grim expression.

  “Sit, mortal,” she said as her children guided her down into a chair.

  I sat.

  The Fire Spirit of Earth and the avatar of the Potomac Basin took up sentry positions ten strides away.

  I was wondering how the restaurant had not been set afire when Gaia said, “Have the Tiki Masala. It’s wonderful.”

  I stared.

  She looked up from the menu. “I hope I did not suffer the journey here merely for you to gawk like an adolescent mortal glimpsing his first exposed breast.”

  That shook me out of my trance. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Thank me by speaking what it is you seek instead of pleasantries.”

  “I…I ask that you close the gateways between your world and Kulara’s world.”

  “This is not my world,” she said, coughing.

  “But I thought you were—”

  “Dominion of the Earth belongs to humankind. I am beholden to your stewardship, or your lack thereof.”

  “We are killing you.”

  “As is your right.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorrow will not return the beasts who are no more or drain the poison from my veins.”

  “Maybe we would change if more of us could see what we are doing to you.”

  “Which of you have not seen the melting ice at my crown, or the sky clouded by gases never meant for the sky or the permanent gashes in my flesh you gouge out to power kitten videos? You profess sorrow, but your own flesh is adorned with sixteen bindings that will take centuries to return to me.”

  I looked myself over, realizing my clothing contained sixteen separate items made of plastic.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said apologetically.

  “The actions of your kind speak loudly enough. I weep for Kulara’s future.”

  “Help us stop that future.”

  “I may not interfere in the affairs of mortals, human or Wru. Those are the rules.”

  “But Kulara is helping the Wru.”

  “Kulara operates under different rules. And different stewards. Very different stewards. Yet she knows that she contracted an incurable disease when the ends of the Seshen connected and human eyes first gazed upon her flesh.”

  “Who made these rules?”

  “He who can.”

  “So you won’t do anything to help us?”

  She pounded a fist on the table. “Have I not done enough? Have I not prevented my tears from washing away your continents? Have I not blocked the volcanos from belching enough fire to steal your breath? Did I not restore the bees? Did I not lead you to the power of the wind, the energy in the light of the Sun? What more would you have me do?”

  A ring of fire suddenly encircled my seat and stone shards with clawed fingers burst from the floor of the restaurant to restrain me. These flames burned. I screamed as their heat scorched my skin.

  “Enough!” the Hindu goddess shouted.

  The flames and the stone receded from me. I collapsed to the carpet in a smoldering heap of agony.

  I heard Gaia and the four-armed goddess having a spirited discussion in a language I couldn’t have identified even if my head wasn’t filled with a cloud of pain.

  When that discussion ended, Gaia spoke in English again. “Be whole, mortal.”

  The carpet fibers beneath my body disintegrated into a colony of glowing insects that were very similar to those I had seen in the parking lot of The Flying Dutchman.

  An orgasmic cooling sensation coursed through my body, making the pain fade away. When the tingling subsided, a gentle wind lifted me from the ground and swirled about me. My scorched clothing expanded outward into a plume of cotton fibers and then snapped back toward my body in perfect, undamaged condition.

  Everything was restored except the sixteen pieces of plastic, which fell to the ground like hailstones of shame.

  Chapter 22

  Julia Minton walked into a conference room at Mitchell’s law firm accompanied by an entourage. There were two bodyguards, a personal assistant, an attorney, and her mother, Elizabeth Minton, the Chief Operating Officer and de facto head of the world’s largest social media company.

  I was impressed.

  “Looks like we’ll need a few more chairs,” Mitchell said, rising from his seat.

  “No, we won’t,” Elizabeth declared. “I’d like everyone to leave but you, Dr. Tiptree, Julia, Barbara and myself.”

  I perked up at the mention of my real name.

  Everyone not on that list began making their way toward the door.

  Elizabeth pointed at Mitchell’s transcriptionist. “Before you go, I would like you to note for the record that this meeting is being conducted under attorney-client privilege.”

  The transcriptionist looked to Mitchell, who nodded.

  The demure woman sat and typed something into a rolling transcription machine. “Will there be anything else?”

  “No,” Mitchell and Elizabeth said in unison.

  We all sat except for Barbara, the Minton family attorney, who I realized then had been ordered to stay only as long as it took to make the meeting legally privileged.

  “I’ll be down the hall if you need me, Liz,” she said on her way out.

  “I think it would be best if we set the tone of this meeting with some good old fashion honesty,” Elizabeth said. “One of the perks of my job is working with the smartest young people in the world. Last week, right after we scheduled this meeting, I gave a few of them a challenge. I informed them that our security team had developed what they thought was an unhackable firewall. I explained that I needed to find out if this were true before we went public with such a claim. I strongly implied that the first one of them to break through the firewall by discovering anything they could about the two of you would have exhibited exactly the kind of qualities I will be looking for in the new head of our video streaming service.”

  I groaned, knowing where this was heading.

  “As you can imagine,” Elizabeth went on, “I now know more about both of you than you know about yourselves. I know what kind of porn you watch, I know the chemical composition of your poop and I know what you did last summer.”

  She focused on me. “Dr. Tiptree, I know what you see when you take those glasses off.”

  Then she looked at Mitchell. “Mr. Westerfield, I know what happened at the office Christmas party of Ninety-Two, including the next morning. Gentleman, I say all this to let you know that if I hear a single word today that I believe questions my daughter’s integrity or threatens her future, I will become the witch that haunts the nightmares you’ll have every night while you toss and turn inside the piss-stained cardboard
box you’ll find yourself living in.”

  I was terrified, but Mitchell seemed to be turned on. “Preston,” he said to me while looking at Elizabeth, “why don’t you properly introduce yourself to Julia since we want to operate on nothing but honesty from here forward.”

  “Hello Julia,” I said. “My real name is Preston Tiptree and I’m a paranormal investigator. I’m here because I’m trying to help a family that is being terrorized by the same kind of creatures you saw at EnviroTech.”

  “Hello again,” Julia said politely.

  “We would have gladly come back out to California,” Mitchell said. “You didn’t need to fly here.”

  “The fact that you were willing to fly Julia here told me what I needed to know about the seriousness of this meeting.”

  “I think I might be outclassed here,” Mitchell said.

  “Hardly,” Elizabeth retorted. “Your reputation precedes you. But we didn’t come all this way for your convenience. While I’m in town, I’m going to stop by Wharton to visit some of my old B-School professors and show my daughter where her mother hung out when I was her age.”

  “Something tells me I would have enjoyed meeting you then,” the very married Mitchell said, openly flirting with the very married billionaire across the table.

  “You wouldn’t have,” she said flatly.

  “Why is that?”

  “I was too busy working twice as hard to get half as far to give you what you think you would have enjoyed.”

  “Mom!” Julia yelped in embarrassment.

  “What do you mean half as far? You’re one of the richest, most successful people in the world.”

  “In your whole career, Mr. Westerfield, have you ever spent an hour in the mirror before a big meeting trying to make your face and hair pretty enough to be attractive to the male decision makers above you but not so pretty that they wouldn’t take you seriously?”