Where Shadows Lie

by J. E. Cammon

  “You normally carry around that much cash on you?” The elevator ride up was less silent than David hoped it would be.

  “I emptied my savings,” he replied, which seemed plausible enough. He opened his mouth and then closed it; that was enough, let her stew on that. David thought he could see the wheels working in her reflection.

  Victoria followed him down the hallway to his old apartment door. David thought briefly about everything that happened since she was there last. There was no tape.

  “Do you normally lie to your relatives when they come into town?” she fished.

  David began gathering specific items from various rooms. They adhered to a list he already had in mind. “You say that like you don’t,” he replied. That one he tossed over his shoulder.

  He decided to go into the bedroom just for some distance from her questioning. As it turned out, there were things in his bedroom that were also on the list. He just needed to transfer enough items over to the new place, which was two floors up, to make it look like he had a day or two of leisurely moving under his belt. Things of value had to go, along with a few pieces of furniture. From the doorway to his bathroom, he eyed his queen-sized bed and frame with slight disdain.

  “Your bedroom is cleaner than mine,” came Victoria’s voice.

  David paused, unsure how to respond to that. He thought maybe she crept down the hallway, but it was much more likely that the stress of the minutes ticking by was getting to him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He wasn’t sure what she meant to gain by pointing out the cleanliness of his bedroom, but he switched his response from evasive to ignorant.

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  David handed her a few of the items he gathered: a small tray for his pockets’ contents, his cell phone charger, and a DVD case. To these he added his alarm clock, which he bent to unplug.

  “Carry this, will you.” He made sure not to inflect. She agreed, after all.

  He grabbed the empty suitcase he used for traveling and carried it back out into the living room, scooping things into it.

  “You’re very deliberate,” she noted. David glanced at her over his shoulder. “With the things you’re taking. They’re random and non-precious, yet specific.”

  She kept making her comments but kept up, assisting with the first load up to the new apartment. There wasn’t a whole lot of life on the new floor. David anticipated it being difficult to get a new apartment at all, but it seemed like the top floor was almost half empty.

  “So what’s your father like?” Victoria asked on the way back down.

  David shrugged at her question. “He’s like a father. I don’t know how to answer that. What’s your dad like?”

  “He passed away, along with my mother.”

  David hid his face by stepping off the elevator first and moving up the hall quickly. Even better, his cell phone rang. His prayers were answered. Someone bungled his father’s rental order. He was just leaving the airport, so David had more than enough time for another trip, maybe two. He had so few possessions; he considered moving himself all the way in.

  “Dad running late?” David silently wondered how she knew that. She shrugged. “You need him to be late, and you smiled, not like you were happy to see him, but that you were glad things were working out in your favor.”

  He supposed one could be a dumb cop but not a dumb detective. For a moment he was wary, imagining her as much more perceptive than she likely was.

  “I need your help with my bed,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Why don’t you just carry it yourself?”

  David froze. A dreadful possibility occurred to him and he turned to face her slowly.

  She looked at him, a little confused, and made a gesture with her hands like she was moving a very large wall hanging. “You know, drag it.”

  David eased into laughter, breathing a sigh of relief as he turned back around. “Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “No.”

  They had to stop twice, during which she grumbled in Italian. However, when he got the phone call about his father being downstairs, half of his bedroom and the valuables from the den and essentials from the bathroom were neatly stored in the new apartment.

  “You’re not going to take your couch and love seat?” Victoria jabbed.

  David appreciated the sport, and easily deflected her attempt at a last minute interrogation before his father arrived. “Are you volunteering to help carry them?”

  She was sitting on the sill of an open window, flapping her shirt for air. She didn’t say anything.

  The knock came, followed by a voice calling out to him in Spanish. David opened the door and stepped into his father’s hug. It went on a bit longer than necessary; he was being patted for recent injury. Then his father held him at arm’s length, whispering questions in his thick accent. David turned a dismissive wave into a gesture directed at Victoria.

  “Dad, Detective Victoria Ferrara. Vic. Vic, Dad.” He didn’t have to lead the man to her, and she didn’t need any encouragement to walk over from the window.

  She almost pounced on him with her aggressive hand shaking and staring. “It is very nice to meet you. David does not speak much of you but I can see where he gets his strength.” It was an odd statement. She noticed the way the father glanced at the son.

  “She…” Mr. Cruz started.

  “Is a cop, yeah,” David interrupted, offering him the one chair that went with his computer desk. It was sitting in the bare den area, alone. “That isn’t how we met. She had a problem with a missing animal, came by, and now I’m helping her with it…you know, being a vet tech.”

  The look he received reminded him of junior high school and the time he tried to squeeze one of his worst planned lies past the man. David became a liar mostly out of necessity, but if he ever wanted to make a career of it, he most certainly had the genes. Mr. Cruz simply nodded, patting his son’s arm at his shoulder.

  “Your mother says hello,” he prompted.

  “Oh?” David could’ve hugged him again. “How is mom?”

  “The same, something is always wrong or broken. You should call more. It was a nice card that you sent for winter.”

  Lying with the truth. David could only nod at his father’s mastery. He glanced at Victoria.

  “I got it from this place in the mall, Hallmark.” He knelt in front of his father. “I’m sorry I haven’t finished moving in, but Vic was the only one around to help me. You’re welcome to the bed, but I have yet to screw the frame back together. I’ve been sleeping on the floor because I didn’t want to trouble my new neighbors. There aren’t many up here.”

  Mr. Cruz held up his palm. “No worries. They had a special deal, or they gave me one for losing my reservation. They gave me free stay at the airport hotel.” He smiled like when he used to beat his son at basketball or checkers.

  David knew that his father could talk anyone into almost anything. There were many legends about the Cruz men, and that was one of them. The men of David’s family had a charm, people used to say.

  He noticed that his father didn’t say specifically how long he was going to stay, but there was no point in asking. The man was going to leave when he was sure things were to his liking. David put his hands on his knees as he pushed himself up.

  “Well, welcome to Bay City. I wouldn’t go out at night, just to be safe, but there’s plenty to do around here during the day.”

  “I secured a brochure from the nice people at the airport. We will catch up. Maybe I can find a place around here and we can have mufungo,” Mr. Cruz said, standing up himself. “I would help you with your moving but I would probably get in the way.” He stepped towards the door, stopping to turn around slowly. “Something wrong with the other apartment?”

  “It faced a funny direction,�
�� David said. “Plus the neighbors were noisy, keeping up all kinds of racket into the early hours.” He decided to stop before he sounded any more ridiculous; that was his mistake back in middle school.

  Mr. Cruz smirked. “Well, chico, be careful about the contracts with these things.” He made the gesture for warding off evil spirits. “You could end up losing in the end. It’s a good place, though. Keep it clean, your mother would say.” He opened the door and shouted over the shoulder that he would call, and with that he was gone.

  David could not hide his visible relief. He knew the man was headed directly downstairs to the old apartment, but there was nothing he could do or say to stop him.

  “A nice man,” Victoria asserted. “Distinguished.” She squinted her eyes at the door as if she could still see him.

  David plopped down in the lone chair. Victoria went back to the window, not to sit in it, but to stare out. He watched her go, slowly starting to accept how complicated things were becoming. He wasn’t sure what would satisfy his father, and he wasn’t sure how to adjust things to give him that satisfaction. The only thing he knew was that Mr. Cruz was not going back to the island any time soon.

  “So,” Victoria said. “I’ve helped you out. Ready to help me?” She turned away from the window, her energy revived.

  David stood up, hesitantly. “Of course. You’re the police and I want to cooperate, but I can’t guarantee that I know much, or anything at all, about what you’re working on.”

  She walked past him to the door, a knowing look on her face. “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nick dropped David off on the corner and drove off at the man’s insistence about some plan he had brewing. He looked in the rearview mirror and watched David fidget and grow smaller and smaller in size. Driving by the familiar warehouse only increased Nick’s curiosity. The front was still strewn with yellow police tape, but the area at large seemed devoid of life.

  He felt the memories pushing their way forward in his mind as he slowed at a stop sign. Nick let them come, experimentally, and was satisfied that he could remember without flinching away from the sights and sounds in his mind. He could remember being terrified without being terrified. He saw more of everything, and with that more expansive view came greater clarity.

  The one unexpected vision among them all was that of the summoned creature itself, strange and bold in its otherness. Thinking back, it seemed completely contrary to any expectation or constraint; it looked different every time he looked over his shoulder running through that cold night. His perceptions almost contorted and shaped it to more than its true size. Regret at the creature’s demise was another surprise. Nick thought of it as if it had qualities like a person would. He thought of it as himself.

  He jumped at the blaring of a car horn behind him. His hands came away numb from his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, sweat pushing up between the hairs on his arms. He looked back into the rearview mirror. There was the other driver, making rude gestures, and there was the top of his own head with a line of sweat above his eyebrows. Nick released the brake and nudged the accelerator. The car eased at first then leapt forward. Numb all over, he pushed the worry into the rear of his mind and concentrated singularly on getting back to his apartment.

  Nick left the warehouse district and was headed west on a side street when his cell phone rang. The second ring never came. He patted the passenger seat blindly until his hand fell on the smooth plastic of the phone. Flipping it open, he wasn’t sure what he expected; he wasn’t surprised that he didn’t recognize the number of the missed call. Just a wrong number; someone realized they dialed the wrong number and then, sensibly, hung up.

  Nick turned right at a red light and continued on toward campus. The city stretched out in all directions in his mind, the places he knew best like tunnels that bore through the unknown. He thought about his thesis. The ideas likened to the omnipresent crack in his windshield. He was on one of the thin branches working his way backwards to the initial crack, the inciting moment. It was ludicrous to imagine himself making such a breakthrough as that, but that was the purpose of the discipline at large. At least, that was the way he thought about it. Each student, each scholar, was responsible for contributing an infinitesimal piece of road that when followed could lead to a more realized understanding.

  That would make a good introductory sentence, he thought, looking at himself in the mirror for encouragement. There he was, neutral expression and all, and behind him the mid-sized four door with the blue and red lights across the top. Nick stiffened, aware of his lack of seat belt…among other things he could not describe but feel.

  Suddenly he was keenly aware of not only the speed limit but also of the speed range he had to stay within to avoid suspicion. Nick turned left and then right, following his route. As the patrol car continued its casual pursuit, it seemed more and more inevitable that the lights would flash, but they never did. At an intersection, the police car turned left and Nick continued straight. He swallowed, pulling at the dryness in the back of his throat.

  When he finally pulled into the parking spot, he breathed happily for a bit, then chuckled at his ridiculousness. David, after all, was the one they were after. Nick envisioned a few dozen scenarios, all of which were exciting and dramatic, involving the lycanthrope and his evasions of notoriety. So long as there weren’t any dead bodies in Nick’s apartment, vampires included, he felt satisfied that today would be different from yesterday.

  Sliding his key into the lock made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Determined to force his life back into normalcy, he ignored the trepidation and pushed the door open, happy to see that the place looked like it did when he left. Then, as if the sight of the tipped-over chair still mostly covered in duct tape were a clue, his phone rang again, and again. Nick reached a hand in his pocket and flipped the phone open, closing the door blindly.

  “Hello?” He didn’t recognize this number either.

  “Nicholas.” The voice he did recognize. It was Dr. Gray. Nick was happy that things were starting to make sense again.

  “Oh, wow. Hey.” He felt himself brighten. “It’s funny, you write your number on all different forms but you never get a call, you know?” He chuckled.

  “Nicholas, something has happened,” Dr. Gray said. Then the door to his apartment locked itself. The noise that escaped Nick’s throat was like a curious groan. “The Dean has passed. Foul play is suspected.” Nick turned around slowly, hopeful. He wasn’t even sure what he was hoping for, and when he saw Scarlet he didn’t feel one iota better. “There’s something else. Actually, where are you now? We’re holding an emergency congress.” Nick frowned at her, and at Dr. Gray’s words. He cleared his throat. Scarlet looked in better sorts, draped in the same array of tools and weapons, her hands behind her back. She had a delicate power about her.

  “When?” Nick asked. “I mean, I’m at home.” He watched her flip a strand of hair out of her face with a jerk of her head. The gesture didn’t take, so she took more deliberate action and used the barrel of a small handgun to move the hair. With the same motion she exposed her other hand, also holding a firearm, only this one she pointed directly at him. “But, uh, I have to go.” Scarlet nodded.

  Dr. Gray said something as Nick was closing the phone that he couldn’t quite make out. At the behest of the gun barrel, he put his hands up.

  “So,” he said to her shoes, clearing his throat. “How’ve you been?” Nick had no illusions about who she was, what she was. Making small talk wasn’t a defensive gesture; blabbering apparently just came natural to him.

  “Your friend, the lycanthrope, seems to perpetrate no wrong save for his existence.” She moved as she spoke.

  Nick mirrored her movements, and they both stepped deeper into his apartment. He wondered how the police would find his body, if they’d find his body. He bumped int
o the island in his kitchen.

  “There have been developments of a different sort.” She circled to put the island between the two of them. “I have new quarry. Strip.”

  That made Nick lock eyes with her. Everything he found in her face told him that she was completely serious. Nick was temporarily distracted by the sadness at her being nice, more playful, curious, being an act. He watched her stow one of the guns in a holster and pull a small item from a pouch at her belt.

  She gestured with the other gun. “Now, Nick.”

  He frowned, but moved his hands to his shirt and began unbuttoning. It was an odd demand and he couldn’t see the sense of it. Nick slowly put the phone back into his pocket.

  “I can’t help but be confused about this.” Something in him made him resolute to know the information he would be shot over. He wasn’t afraid of anything right then except not knowing. “I’ve been nothing but cooperative in the past.” He wasn’t sure if he really meant that, his insinuation of her betrayal. Betrayal of what, he couldn’t say; maybe of the narrative he romantically constructed in his head.

  Her eyes considered him as he shrugged off the first shirt. “Things have changed,” she said simply.

  Nick concentrated on her words and posture, trying to uncover what she didn’t want to give away. He yanked at his undershirt so he could hide his expression for a moment. It was halfway off when he stopped. It was a theory of his that educated people were capable of being petty and childish in ways that other people weren’t. Truth was an ideal.

  Nick stared across the island at her. “I really liked you,” he said. His voice didn’t crack.

  Her response was to simply blink, unwavering. She opened her other hand to reveal a small charm at the end of a strip of raw hide. It looked like a mood stone, except with complicated facets and a thin line of silver casing. It was one of a myriad of trinkets and tools that belonged to a long list that at one point Nick considered memorizing. It was in one of those old books with the inked paragraphs and pictures in aged yellow and faded black.