Where Shadows Lie

by J. E. Cammon

  The color of this one was unique though, two-toned. Much of it was dark red on the side nearest Scarlet, but there was a thin strip, a darker one, nearest him. She leaned forward and slid it cautiously across the island. When it stopped, the colors began changing again as if the stone were filled with paint. It was a surreal moment as Nick glanced back from the tiny thing to Scarlet.

  There was the briefest of moments, before the stone settled again on its pigments, when Scarlet’s face wasn’t as set, wasn’t as resolved. Then it was finished, and Nick’s side of the stone was a foreign shade with striations of purple and streaks of blue. The side nearest Scarlet was the same viscid red from before. Nick was terrified, like he discovered something that he didn’t want to know.

  In the movies, they cock the weapon first. They turn off the safety. There is some extra threat, some extra notification to be commenced. It’s how the game is played, for the sake of the audience. Really, in those situations, Nick discovered, what happens next is someone gets shot. There’s no preamble in the mind of someone bent on killing.

  Scarlet pulled the trigger, a neat and quick motion which was not preceded by anything clever. There was so much Nick didn’t understand, and he was being robbed of that; it was terribly unfair. Click. That was the sound the gun made; Nick wasn’t dead. Click. Click. Click. Scarlet’s eyes grew wide into surprised circles.

  “What did you do?” she accused.

  “Me?” Nick almost yelled. His arms were still thrust into the sleeves of his shirt. What could he have possibly done, he wanted to ask.

  “You. You’re another one, like him.” She paused for a moment, as if making up her mind.

  Scarlet resolved to kill him, and something as random as her gun jamming wasn’t going to deter her. Nick saw her ridiculous armory before, and no random chance would save him from a knife thrust. He had another handful of moments to finish contemplating his existence. It was a short trip, to skip down his life from the beginning of memory to this end, dying at the hands of a woman he had romantic feelings for.

  Scarlet drew a curved blade about eight inches long and darted around the island. Nick did what anyone would do. He ran away, awkwardly, with his arms pasted to his sides. He didn’t get very far, either; she caught him and sent him flying into a wall. Then he screamed, wailed, and begged for his life. He prayed to every god he suspected might be real that he not die in that fashion on that day. He struggled with all the skill at his disposal.

  Then Nick did what only a few people could do. He made the decision that his life was worth more than any promise he ever made, any covenant he agreed to keep. He decided that although he was one very small man, he still deserved to live. Something inside him burst like a dam, and things would never be the same again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A wizard is called to court by his king. He’s preceded by all the typical fanfare, the gathering of all the stock characters that serve as scenery: knights, lords, ladies, and sycophants. Even the king, despite his power and reach, numbers among them. The stage is the sorcerer’s. He knows this. They know this. However, what he knows that they do not is the important part; and the big secret, really, isn’t so big. Because in truth, there is no hocus pocus, no abracadabra. He has specialized knowledge and expertise, but the fulcrum of the entire charade, what he knows that they don’t know, is exactly what he can and cannot do. What they think he can do only helps the fiction; they think he pulls doves from the air or breathes fire. The only impetus on him is a way to make it happen without disappointing their expectations.

  There Nick was, laying on the floor, having just toppled over the coffee table he bought and assembled himself. Scarlet still waved her knives, because if one of her guns misfired, then it meant Nick exercised some power over them somehow. For reasons also unknown, knives worked just fine. He must have been cut over a dozen times; his skin was on fire and the wetness from his bleeding cooled him none. His heart was beating up into his throat, and he probably hurt himself just as much with all the wild scrambling. He destroyed his entertainment system and overturned the couch, several lamps were broken, and wall hangings were either slashed in half or knocked from the wall. Most of the destruction Nick didn’t have time to notice. It all took a handful of seconds.

  Scarlet adjusted her grip on one of her weapons and aimed before throwing. Nick kicked madly, trying to crab-walk backwards. His foot shoved at the coffee table and it slammed into her knee. It was enough to offset the weapon’s deadly trajectory; at least, the blade did not strike him after she threw it. Enraged, Scarlet jumped over the table, the other naked blade pointed down like a tooth.

  Nick had little else to do but throw his hands up and scream, the latter of which he was already doing. There was a sickening, wet squelch. The pain brought him close enough to unconsciousness that he went completely silent. The knife passed through his hand and came within a centimeter of his eye, biting a bit into his left cheek. The back of his ruined hand pressed against his mouth. His eyes bulged. He was in so much pain, and yet did not black out.

  Nick yelled at Scarlet. He coughed at her; no, he spat, because when he opened his mouth to scream again some of the blood and viscera from his destroyed hand fell into his mouth.

  As close as she was, eyes and mouth wide open, what exited his mouth flew straight into her face. She flung herself backwards as if struck, shielding her eyes. Almost crazed, Nick crawled away on his elbows and knees—sometimes he rolled—towards the door. He put a sweaty hand on the handle and threw the door open.

  The situation and circumstances were grim, but always present in Scarlet’s mind was that Nick was some sort of demon-consorting mage and it was only a matter of time before he could evoke his magic. Her last attack was verbal. Screams, shouts, even questions that later he would recall in only snippets. Presently, they only spurred him on, further and faster. Outside, he only saw two people at the far end of the floor—or rather, they saw him. They closed their doors quickly as he came, a shirtless, bloody mess hustling by in complete silence, with bloodshot eyes and the howls of a woman scorned in his wake.

  It was his ignorance of where the health office on campus was that pushed him in the direction of his car, with the city hospital in mind. Halfway to the parking lot, he began to wonder just how much blood a human body contained. The thought itself weighed him down and his feet began to drag. An almost constant trail of blood flowed out of his hand, which comically still had the knife stuck through it. Nick stopped suddenly, teetering.

  What did Scarlet say? The Dean was dead. They found things in his home, forbidden things. “All debts come due,” she shouted. If he knew what the end would be before he started on his path, would he still have chosen it? There was little debate. Of course, Nick would avoid every step he took to evade bleeding out half naked in a parking lot, but that wasn’t how things worked.

  Nick fell to his knees. The jolt made him open his eyes, which he only realized then were closed. Night fell, and walking up to him quickly in the darkness was a man. Nothing about him made sense, but Nick was still happy he was there. It took some effort, but he managed to tilt his head up to look into the blurry face.

  Nick frowned. “David?” He might have slurred.

  Then the night swooped in and smothered him.

  * * * *

  There were images and scenes that he could not precisely recall. They weren’t accompanied by any feeling or any elation at being alive, nor by any conclusive realization that he was finally dead. They were just there and then they were gone. Mostly, he remembered the sparkly sort of sunlight that comes through narrowly spaced leaves moving overhead. It was pleasant, which was directly offset by the sensations that came next. There was an ache—actually there were several—and jumbled memories; altogether, they told him that he was awake, and alive.

  Something cold and hard was shoving against his back, and moving sh
ifted it like a rolling pin forced flush against his ribs and head. He was lying on a very hard floor. Rolling to either side was like being gnawed at, so Nick tried his eyes, rubbing at them with the hand he could feel.

  He groaned, a low, hoarse noise that made him aware of other sounds nearby. People were walking and talking, shouting even. The room seemed big enough that one end could be lit and the other dark. Nick could make out light reaching across the ceiling, but obscuring his vision was a dark box. No, it was a stack of something. He tried sitting up, but made very little progress. He grunted. One pair of footsteps became foremost among the others and a head poked around the corner. Then a figure spryly stepped up to him.

  “You’re awake. Good,” the person said. It was a male voice, low, a little gruff, and accented just so.

  Nick tried responding vocally and nothing intelligible came out. He tested his jaw, opening his mouth and closing it.

  The man removed something from a pocket and worked it in his hands. “Here, drink this,” he offered.

  Metal touched Nick’s lips. He swallowed the moisture and almost immediately reeled at the fiery taste. It didn’t quite sit him up, but it rolled him over nicely. Nick coughed and his body jerked, though not so much that it hurt. Thankfully, he didn’t vomit either. On his elbow, facing away from the man, he could make out the rest of the lit portion of the room and the labels on the stack of things next to him. Potatoes.

  “Good, eh?” The man patted his shoulder. The stranger genuinely thought the drink would help.

  Nick didn’t bother trying to speak but reached up with his right hand toward the stack of potato sacks. Gripping with his right hand made him cry out, but before he could topple backwards strong hands gripped at his arm and hefted him up.

  “Easy, easy,” the man whispered.

  Nick steadied himself with his left hand as the pain subsided. Standing up, he realized that the stack of potatoes was only three feet, maybe four off the ground, and that he was almost a head taller than the man who was helping him. Nick looked down at his right hand, but the stranger stepped into the path of the light coming from the other end of a storage room. He took Nick’s right hand as if to shake it, but didn’t squeeze. He also didn’t let go. Though Nick was taller, he could feel that the man’s hand engulfed his own.

  “How do you know my son?” the stranger asked, his face still a bit obscured by the angle of the light.

  Nick paused, taking a moment to swallow. The power of the grip was only emphasized by the fact that he could almost detect a power waiting to be used at a moment’s notice. Of course, he thought. His son. “Your son?”

  The shorter man nodded. “David. You called out his name. No, you thought I was him. He favors me a bit.” The grip tightened just a hair.

  Nick went from somewhat panicked to significantly so. He blinked. “We’re friends,” he said. “We met…uh…he helped me out in the past, saved my life, even.” He was talking faster than normal.

  “Is he in some kind of danger?”

  Nick swam through his murky recollections of the past however many days. “Uh, not that I know of. He was a bit worried you were coming into town. Maybe he was worried you would berate him or something, because he couldn’t take care of himself,” Nick blurted out honestly. The man wasn’t actually hurting him, but Nick found his stance extremely persuasive. David’s father paused, as if thinking. “I guess I owe you both, now,” Nick added.

  “You are welcome. Tell me, what is your name?”

  “Nick. Nicholas,” he replied. The man bent his elbow a fraction, lifting their grip once and letting it go, releasing Nick’s hand.

  “We have been introduced, then,” David’s father replied, turning on his heels, much the way David did. He began walking, pausing to pat at his pockets. “Oh, and I did not save your life, that you will have to settle with the owner here.” With that, satisfied that he still had whatever it was he looked for, he was gone.

  Nick reached a hand up as if to physically deter the man; he watched through a thumb and forefinger as he slipped through the door. Finally, he could see the damage done to his writing hand. The wound was on both sides; it started between the ring and middle fingers and went to the center of the palm. It was a gory wound, though it was stitched. Looking down, he found he was similarly attended to on his chest and stomach.

  A flash of memory brought Scarlet’s face to the forefront of his mind. Nick began walking in the direction he saw David’s father leave. He wasn’t looking forward to discover whom it was that he owed. It was also up for contention what kind of life he still possessed, or for how long he’d have it.

  “All debts come due,” Scarlet yelled. “I’m going to find you. Your ilk is visible to all, even the blind.”

  The room contained several other stacks of goods like the potatoes. In another corner was a door to some type of freezer, and in all the places in between there was alcohol of many varied types.

  The last part of Nick to liven was his ferocious curiosity. That, for the time being, would force him to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He wasn’t dead, yet.

  Chapter Seventeen

  David and Nick were gone for some time. Jarvis could not say how long, as slippery as time was becoming, but he was imposing order on the bags and suitcases of money when he found the small radio. He turned it over in his hands, remembering a time when it used to play music and so many voices. The vampire could not recall why it stopped. At one point it was there, functioning, and then it was gone, likely removed because it died. Now here it was again.

  He moved his fingers around the exterior until he found the small knob that used to make the noises stop and start. Jarvis changed its position, and nothing happened. He switched its position again, and it remained silent. He remembered then. One day the voices became sluggish and the sound shrank. The light on the front dimmed and then it died, as if the radio were alive.

  Over time, Jarvis repeated the ritual several times, and each time he put the device away, then rediscovered it, and then remembered all over again. He put it back in its place and closed the bag.

  Near sundown, a trio of children from the neighborhood ran up to the front stoop and then sprinted away. It was a game for them, daring each other to knock, to see how close they could get before becoming frightened. From the small filmy window in the basement, he watched the light outside finally die.

  Jarvis waited a bit more after sunset and then departed. When he opened the door, he found something the children left. It was a toy, a doll, and it looked broken. Jarvis inspected it carefully. No, it was broken, but now it was fixed. It was made up of different pieces of different dolls, sewn together with thick black string.

  The vampire closed the door and walked in the direction of the clothing store. Things were changing, and he had no way to determine how or why. Focusing, he reevaluated the situation, and came up with the same ignorance and the same strangeness.

  The streets on the route were empty. People lived in clumps in the neighborhood, huddling together in one home with many empty ones between, their windows and doors boarded over. It was a short walk to the part of the city where the clothing store was. David said once that Jarvis’ sense of fashion was nonexistent. He said the vampire looked like…a paramilitary thug. Jarvis shrugged, not understanding completely. The material he preferred was rarely worn among the people he saw and interacted with, but it was fire resistant and dark—two things he found useful.

  The building was two stories high, with big letters on the side and very few windows. Jarvis never saw it during the day, but when closed, it had steel bars over the glass panes and a large metal door which rolled up and down. He usually went in through the roof; he discovered all entrances had the same protections and trying to enter through those resulted in the same police car driving by, shining lights through the windows. The locks did ch
ange occasionally. They changed in substance, size and, Jarvis could imagine, complexity. He didn’t know because he had no knowledge of the intricacies of locks; ingress for him required only removing the door from its hinges, which he could easily accomplish.

  He left the doll on the roof next to the ruined door and dropped down inside. It didn’t take long; it never did. By the time he was out again, the single police car arrived, squeaking to a stop, the constables inside opening their doors and continuing their conversation. Jarvis listened from the roof as they walked past the scarce windows, staring inside.

  “You see anything?” one of them said.

  The other sighed. “Nope. This guy needs a new alarm system or something.”

  The first grunted as he examined the large metal door that went up and down. “Feels secure to me. Check the back?”

  “You check the back, I’m gonna finish my burger,” his partner retorted. He turned his flashlight off and walked back to the car, speaking into the radio at his shoulder. The report was that they answered the call and were checking it presently. Under his breath, his partner called him something disparaging and walked around the back.

  Jarvis walked to the ledge. He caught sight of movement from the roof across the street. It was an old man staring from the far edge of his rooftop. The vampire focused on the features of the man’s face, the set of his jaw. He glanced at the stitched doll leaned up against the roof’s opening, and then back at the old man, but the stranger was gone. Jarvis considered looking for him, but he chose his vantage point to be as far away as possible—and yet he wanted to be seen.

  Below, the officer’s radio fizzled to life. It was calling the men away with numbers the vampire did not recognize, nor did he recognize the street. The officer responded affirmative and gave up checking the back entrance. He sprinted to the car.

  “Choke that crap down, we got a code in the barrow.”