Shadow's Messenger: An Aileen Travers Novel

by T. A. White

  “How likely is it that a draugr can do all of that?”

  The sorcerer bent over the book and flipped several pages before straightening. “It doesn’t give a clear answer. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s based on the level of power it has obtained and how long it’s been dead.”

  And Brax and I had already established it was getting more powerful with every victim it claimed.

  “It couldn’t be the draugr,” the sorcerer said, snapping the book closed in frustration.

  “What? You just said it sounded like one. All of the pieces fit.”

  “I know what I said.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Draugr don’t run through cities attacking people willy nilly. They’re bound to their graves and guard their treasure with an obsessive jealousy. No way would one leave its treasure to go on a rampage.”

  “What if its treasure had been stolen?” I asked, slowly.

  The sorcerer frowned. “What makes you say that?”

  “Every time I’ve encountered this thing, he’s accused me of stealing something. He seems convinced I have whatever it is.”

  “That could be it. It would explain why it’s not bound to its grave and is free to gallivant around the city. But it still doesn’t address how it’s picking its victims or how the item in question went missing in the first place.”

  That was true. Our theory only half made sense. Still it was more than I had before I barged in here.

  “We need more information,” the sorcerer said.

  I agreed.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I dug it out and groaned. My mother. Shit. Ignoring her would mean repercussions when she finally got ahold of me.

  I pushed answer as I stepped away from the sorcerer. “Hey, Mom. It’s a little late to be calling.”

  “Am I on a schedule now, Aileen?”

  I cringed at the arch question. No one on Earth could make me feel as stupid or guilty with a single sentence like my mother could.

  “No, of course not, Mom. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh?”

  There was a long pause that I refused to rush to fill.

  I loved my mother more than words could express, but I also found her to be one of the most frustrating individuals I’d ever met. She had ways of reducing me to that child I used to be who never felt good enough.

  When I was around my family, I tended to forget who I wanted to be and regress to a person I neither liked nor knew. Especially these days. As a result, I limited my interaction with them as much as possible. This would have been easier if I hadn’t come back to Columbus when I got out of the military. But this was home. And even if they frustrated the living daylights out of me, they were family.

  “Your sister told me of her visit.”

  Of course she did.

  “And?” The confrontational question was out before I could stop it.

  “You can’t keep doing this. You need help.”

  “I don’t need help. There is nothing wrong with me.”

  “Aileen,” she said in that soft way she had. It was the tone she used when she wanted me to know I was wrong, but she loved me anyway. “You know that’s not true.”

  I couldn’t do this now.

  “I’m at work. I can’t talk.”

  There was a frustrated sigh. We sat on the line in silence, anger crackling over the line between us.

  “Fine. You’re coming to dinner tomorrow night.”

  The refusal was already on my lips when she snapped, “I don’t want to hear your excuses. You will be there Aileen Travers.”

  There was no ‘or’. Mom was used to being obeyed.

  “I’ll try,” I finally said.

  “Don’t try, just do. Dinner will be at 6:30. I expect you to be on time.”

  She hung up. I stood there with the phone to my ear. My eyes closed, my head tilted back. Looked like I had dinner plans tomorrow. Just what I needed, another distraction. It was another ball to add to the ones I was already juggling.

  “This is why most of us cut ties when we join this world,” the boy said.

  I had forgotten him in the exchange with my mom.

  “I’m not disappearing from their lives.”

  “It’d be easier on everyone. It’s not like they’d accept you if they knew. They’d call you a monster and probably try to stake you.” He seemed sad as he delivered his advice.

  “Is that what happened to you? Your family freaked out when they found out what you could do?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You should leave while you still have pleasant memories.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “Your life.”

  That’s right. It was.

  “I’ve found your murderer. Guess that means my task for you is done.”

  “Not so fast,” he said.

  I didn’t think it would be that easy. But I had hoped.

  “You may have found ‘what’ has been committing these murders, but you haven’t found the ‘who’ or the ‘why’. The ‘what’ is only a faint possibility at this point. One that hasn’t been confirmed. I’m not entirely convinced you encountered a draugr. The thing you described sounds similar but doesn’t act in the typical fashion. Not to mention you still have to recover my items.”

  “About that. You never said what those items you wanted me to recover were.”

  He studied his nails. “That’s right. I didn’t.”

  I gave him a get on with it look. He failed to take the hint.

  “Okay, so, how about you do that now? I can’t get you this item if I don’t even know what it is.”

  “It’s what the draugr, if that’s what he turns out to be, is searching for.”

  My eyebrows snapped down. No. There was no way. He couldn’t be that dumb.

  “Are you crazy?” I asked. “Have you not heard about what it’s doing to people? If we’re correct and it’s hunting people down that it thinks has its treasure, what makes you think it won’t come after you next?”

  That was only half my worry, the half he would care about. The other part, the one that I was personally invested in was what the thing would do to me if I tried to get between it and whatever it was after. It’d turn me into an oil slick on the pavement.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  The way he said that made me pause. There was something else. Something he wasn’t telling me. He hadn’t known the killer was looking for something until I told him, and he seemed determined to make me believe that he could be wrong about what was killing people.

  It led me back to thinking he might have some hand in these events.

  And just when I’d decided he was just an interested bystander.

  Damn.

  “What’s so important about whatever it is?”

  “That’s for me to know.”

  And me not to.

  I really wanted to smack that smug look off his face.

  I had to play the game instead.

  “Do you have any idea what it’s after?” I asked.

  “Some.”

  Sigh. I wondered if all sorcerers were like this or if I’d just gotten lucky with this one.

  “Would you care to share?”

  I could tell by the stubborn look on his face that he didn’t. I needed to convince him. Flying blind was a good way to fail and if he frustrated me this much after only a few nights, I could only imagine what a hundred years of service would be like.

  “My chances of recovering the object would be much greater if I knew what to be on the lookout for.”

  “Very well,” he said, grudgingly. “I can do some research on the likely suspects. It will be something the draugr greatly valued in life. If we can find out who he was before he died, we can narrow the focus.”

  That wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t know how many people were buried in Columbus and the surrounding suburbs each year, but I didn’t imagine it was a small number. When you factored in all
of the deaths over the last few hundred years, you were left with a mind boggling amount of people to investigate.

  “That is going to be impossible,” I said.

  “Any additional information you can gather would help narrow the search.”

  “Guess I’m going back into the field then.”

  This task seemed impossible. I wasn’t a detective and it felt like I was bumbling around hoping to trip over a clue. It didn’t give me a good feeling as to my chances of remaining a free agent. That plus the vampires closing in combined to make everything seem that much more difficult.

  I caught a glimpse of the clock and groaned. Any more research would have to take place tomorrow after dinner with my family. It was too late to head out again tonight. I might not be at risk of going up in flames at my first exposure to sunlight but I still wasn’t able to stay awake or protect myself once dawn hit. Finding shelter took precedence. I’d continue the search tomorrow.

  “Any chance I can get this off?” the sorcerer said, holding his wrist up and giving me a hopeful smile.

  “Any chance you’ll take this thing off?” I held up my own arm.

  “Can’t. It’s on until the task is complete. I couldn’t remove it even if I wanted to.”

  “Then guess the answer to your question is no,” I said sweetly.

  He dropped his arm and grimaced. “I had a feeling that was going to be your response.”

  I probably wouldn’t have taken the cuff off just yet even if he had removed the mark. There was no guarantee that once the thing was off he wouldn’t use his power to incinerate me where I stood.

  “One last question. Why didn’t the charm you gave me summon you?”

  “What charm?”

  I gave him a look.

  “Ah, that charm. I felt it break, but I was in the middle of something and didn’t have time to drive all the way to that side of town to answer it.”

  “Drive? I thought it summoned you. As in you appeared right then and there.”

  He snorted. “What movies have you been watching? No, it simply acts like a flare, letting me know where you last were. Do you have any idea how much power would be needed to pull my corporeal body across time and space to your side? I wouldn’t waste that kind of power on a vampire and a weak one at that.”

  I inhaled. Then exhaled. Then repeated the breaths. Killing the sorcerer would probably land me in more trouble than the temporary satisfaction it would provide. It was tempting though. So tempting. I’m sure I could turn his face into a lovely shade of red if I could just get my hands around his neck.

  “That would have been useful information to know before I used the charm,” I said.

  “I thought it was obvious.”

  It was not.

  “Right. Give me your phone number.”

  “What? Why?”

  Because I said so was probably not an appropriate answer.

  “I’ll call you when I find relevant information so I don’t have to come back here.”

  “Fine, fine,” he grumbled. He waved his hand. When nothing happened, he spat out a curse then stalked over to a cabinet and pulled out a drawer, slammed it shut and pulled open another one. His goal achieved, he pulled out a pad of paper and pen and scribbled the number on a sheet before tearing it out and handing it to me. “Just make sure you only use it to report back. I don’t want you eating into my minutes.”

  What was this? The early 2000’s? Who had a plan that relied on minutes anymore?

  “Yes, grandpa. I’ll make sure to limit my calls to only the necessary.”

  I came awake at sunset in my home away from home, a bolt hole in a closet of an abandoned shack in the less nice part of town. I picked up one of the two bags of blood I’d arranged next to me. When this was over I was going to start trying to stay awake past the sunrise and waking up before sunset.

  It seemed like an easy thing to work on. I might be weak in terms of power, but I’d take advantage of any tool I could put in my arsenal. Not being so tied to the movement of the sun gave me a flexibility I hadn’t even dreamed of a few nights ago. It might even make all this worth it in the end.

  I took a chance and went back to my apartment, stopping for Cherry on the way. It got dark early now so I had a few hours to kill before I had to be at the family dinner. I circled the block a couple of times before parking several streets away. Clinging to every shadow I could find, I made my way towards my building, skulking a block away as I observed the front.

  It looked deserted. But who knew with these people? They might be lurking on a roof a mile away and able to appear seconds after I made my move.

  It probably wasn’t a good idea to go back to the apartment, but I needed a shower and clothes if I was going to visit my family. If I showed up as I was now, unwashed and wearing clothes from last night, my mom would try to have me committed to a short term care facility. The odor coming off me would scream ‘problem’ faster than any hysterical outburst from me. I didn’t think I could make it through another night stinking of that creature’s attack anyway.

  I walked nonchalantly up the stairs, using the spare set of keys I kept in my go bag to get inside. Sniffing experimentally, I moved through the tiny apartment with caution. Nothing smelled wrong. No decay or wet dog.

  I didn’t bother with the light as I walked through the dark rooms. If the vampires were watching and I’d somehow managed to evade their notice, I didn’t want to alert them as to their mistake by turning on the lights.

  I grabbed a shower, taking my time. I figured if the vampires knew I was here they would already be on me. When this was over, I would have to set up a few safe houses throughout the city in addition to the supply caches.

  Getting dressed took only a few minutes. I grabbed a pair of dark washed jeans, a black long sleeved top with a scooped neck and a pair of flat black boots that were scuffed and worn from years of use. The outfit was comfortable, flattering and wouldn’t make me stick out like a sore thumb in the dark. Perfect for meeting with the fam and then hunting a murderer afterwards.

  I checked the time. Since night fell much earlier these days, I had about forty five minutes until I had to be at their house. It wasn’t far by car.

  I grabbed my tablet and pulled up a search engine. I typed in ‘draugr.’ I wasn’t entirely sure of the spelling but figured if I got close enough, the search engine would do the rest.

  My search brought up 306,000 results.

  Hm.

  Seemed like the creature was pretty popular in several online games. I clicked on a few of those sites, reading up on the monster’s characteristics. Some of it jived with what the sorcerer said but most of it was pretty obviously fantasy.

  I went back to the search page, clicking on results that seemed interesting. The chances of my finding anything useful were slim, but I’d never even heard of this creature before. Anything would help at this point.

  From what I could tell, most of the sites agreed that the draugr was of Nordic descent. Think Vikings and Iceland. Seemed it could be created from anybody who died, though there was a lot of disagreement over what turned someone into an undead ‘again walker’.

  A theory I found interesting was that a strong will and an extreme jealousy of the living tied a soul to the body, giving rise to the draugr. No one agreed on how the damn thing could be killed. Some recommended fire, others said you needed a hero to wrestle it back into the grave, while still others said a draugr was one of the few true immortals. Even if it was torn apart, it would just reassemble itself over time.

  That was not reassuring.

  I clicked the tablet off and tossed it onto the couch next to me. The fishing expedition had been a waste of time. There was no agreement among the sources. I still had no new information that I could count on.

  Either way, it was time to go. I headed to my bedroom and knelt before my nightstand, opening the door and typing a four digit code into the safe inside. I tucked the gun and a holster into a backpack I’d grab
bed from my closet. My first preference would be to carry the gun in a holster at my hip, as the backpack would present a serious challenge to a timely draw, but I didn’t want to carry the gun visibly around my family. They’d accuse me of paranoia. I had legitimate reason to be paranoid, but they didn’t know that.

  The tablet went into the bag after the gun. I planned to use it for more research later, and I had no intention of coming back to my apartment until I’d settled things.

  I locked my front door and tucked the keys into my pocket, hoping this wasn’t the last time I would be here.

  My parent’s house was only fifteen minutes away but was in a much nicer part of town. Their historical four bedroom house was in the middle of Grandview, a small suburb of Columbus that had a certain small town charm. Everything was walkable and had those picture perfect neighborhoods seen on older TV shows. The streets were narrow and lined with trees that I knew from previous visits blossomed with beautiful white and pink flowers in spring and turned an amazing red and orange come fall.

  Today those trees cast strange shadows, their branches only containing about half their leaves, which had changed from the brilliant red of a few weeks ago to a lackluster brown. I parked the car on the street in front of their postage stamp yard.

  As pretty as Grandview houses were, they didn’t come with a lot of land. Mom’s love of gardening was present in every plant decorating the front, from the perfectly maintained bushes to the fall flowers still holding strong, despite the quickly plummeting temperatures. It wouldn’t be long before even those went dormant for the winter.

  The curtains were open, and I could see several figures moving inside. I took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be fun. I didn’t know what it was about my family, but even before I’d become a vampire, they had been able to strip me of common sense. They could make me lose control of myself faster than any other force on this planet. For this visit, I couldn’t lose touch with my normal, rational self. Not if I wanted to convince them their worry was misplaced.

  I knocked on the door and waited. It was odd feeling like a stranger in my family home. They’d changed the locks sometime after I joined the service and never gave me a replacement key. I knew Jenna had one, but it just seemed wrong to ask.