Where Shadows Lie

by J. E. Cammon

  Setting off again, he soon found a bus stop peopled with a handful of workday types, two men and a woman, all of them silently awaiting the bus. He couldn’t begin to imagine what he looked like, cold and sweaty in his faded blue jeans and designer button up, walking up speedily, checking directions like a fugitive. As time ebbed by, Nick strangely found himself caring none at all. The next vehicle that followed a rumbling station wagon and a rusty one-eyed sedan was the city bus and he could have danced.

  He embarked and slumped into the nearest empty seat. He closed his eyes, grateful. His heart rate slowed, and as everything else began to slow down, he could pick at his thoughts, turning them upside down and shaking out the contents. Mentally, he examined the last handful of hours and the weird intermission whose duration he had no way of approximating. To the musician and his gathering place, he committed much thought. The things Nick saw there were amazing, and sparked a career’s worth of curiosity. There came flashes of old illustrations he saw in hundreds of books. In those references, the pictures always showed a place just off the road, lit by traveling lanterns in a protective copse of trees, that a person could never find unless they were looking. People bartered, slept, and drank, each pictured individual as different from the next as they were from them all; and in the center, always taller or higher or brighter than anyone else, was a figure with arms outstretched in a gesture of welcome.

  Nick leaned his head back and couldn’t help but enjoy the possibility of repose again. Almost as if in disagreement, the vector of resolution pulled at him again. Experimentally, Nick poked at the impulse, wondering if it would respond fully.

  “Say what?” the bus driver said.

  Nick jerked his head forward, his eyes flapping open. The driver’s eyes were on the road, his weathered hands on the wide wheel as he tried to expertly dodge the oncoming field of pot holes. Nick realized his mouth was dry and his joints were sore from stiffness.

  “Excuse me?” Nick said, confused.

  The driver wanted to turn his head to glance backwards, but decided not to. Nor did he reply. Nick looked around. Some of the other passengers replied with stares. Others already fixed him in their sight, and then averted their gazes. Nick slowly adjusted himself in his seat, taking a view of the nearest street sign as they eased into their next stopping situation. More people got on, and no one got off. Nick thought of a riddle he heard when he was young.

  Thinking of his life growing up also made him think of his mentor, and that disappointed way of sighing he had. Nick fished into his pocket for his phone and pulled it out. Through it all, the tough little device still worked. David called. Nick stared at the number, curious at the hour of the call. The battery was on its last blood-red bar. As if it thought it would be dramatic, the battery light decided to start flashing. If anything, he had one call left without the charger. He couldn’t even use a payphone; his change was devoured by the needy mechanism at the front of the bus.

  Nick thought about the people he could dial; he thought about the last call death row inmates get. He thought about the last meal. Nick’s stomach rumbled, perturbed. The little bell signaled someone on board wished off. Nick stuffed the phone back into his pocket, looking around again. They were almost near campus, he reasoned, seeing distant landmarks. He squinted, trying to recall if he ever bought that phone charger for the car that he meant to. So many things to do, and all evidence pointed to his rapidly running out of time to do any of them.

  The nearest bus stop to his car turned out to be a few blocks away, and by the time he disembarked onto the sidewalk, Nick got his second wind. He didn’t feel cavalier enough to walk, or too confident in the second-wind concept to run, so he settled for jogging again. The first thing he saw wasn’t his car, but the glass around it. Nick crunched to a stop, looking at his driver’s seat; the glass that would normally serve as a barrier was under his feet. Strangely, it took him a second to think about who would do such a thing. Nick looked around quickly as if he could feel crosshairs marking his confused face. He gingerly unlocked and opened the door. There was even more glass on the inside of the car. Bent over as he was, Nick could see that all four windows were broken out. He stood up again, a question in mind; the tires were indeed flat. He conjured a mental image of Scarlet smashing his windows in a rage then thoughtfully puncturing the tires. Nick closed the door again, facing his apartment. No doubt, it would be similarly wrecked. Nick tried not to imagine his mentor’s exasperated exhalations.

  That left only one place to go, realistically. He found David at the diner. Headed in the direction of the man’s apartment building, he was fortunate enough to spot him through one of the semi-clean windows. Nick went hurriedly inside. David made a point out of sitting in the same spot, facing the door. Nick slowed when he saw the condition of the man’s clothes. It looked like he was on the losing end of a terrible knife fight, whole strips of cloth missing. In some cases, his skin was visible. On closer examination, the clothes looked burned. Nick crept up slowly, though he knew it didn’t make any difference.

  “Nick,” David said, hollowly. Normally the other man would call him Elminster or Gandalf; that he didn’t meant that something was wrong. Nick eased into the booth. When David’s eyes found him, they redirected to his shirt, then to the scar on his face, then back to his shirt. “Nice shirt,” he said, more lightly.

  Nick brought his hands into view, out of habit more than anything, and he saw the other man’s eyes trace the scar on his hand.

  Nick pointed at David’s clothes with his left hand. “Uh.”

  “What happened to you?” David asked.

  “The honeymoon’s over.” Nick tried his hand at joking. It was in poor taste, he realized, but David actually chuckled tiredly. Nick noticed the droopy expression on his face. “Have you slept?” he asked.

  David shook his head. “Just got back from the hospital,” he replied. Nick frowned. “Vic is hurt. Burned.”

  The last statement Nick recognized as the origin of the hole in David’s voice. Nick took a moment to try and recover who Vic was, and how their being injured could visibly shake David. He wouldn’t call his father by his first name, would he?

  “And your dad?” Nick tried changing the subject. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure why he thought that would brighten things.

  He watched the thought wash over David’s face, straightening his features and posture. The man jerked, tearing at his pocket to produce what was probably a phone at some point. The outside was charred and peeled, and it made a strange cracking sound when it was flipped open. David didn’t curse; he just stared at the ruined device like it told a bad joke.

  Nick held the silent moment reverently, before he realized he still had his phone. He produced it and David snatched it out of his hand as he slid out of the booth and headed for the door. Nick followed, and this time he had to run a bit to keep up.

  Out in the street, David put the phone to his ear after dialing. He looked up the intersection, and down, and left and right, undecided about something. Then he did curse. He pushed the phone back at Nick without looking.

  “His phone is off,” David said. He looked around, wheeling on Nick. “Where’s your car?”

  Nick’s mouth dropped open. “Uh…Scarlet…my tires…”

  David interrupted him by turning around again, scanning the street and whistling at a taxi, which slowed to a stop. Nick followed him into the cab.

  “Wait, David. What’s wrong?”

  David slid across the bench seat in the back, looking from the back of the driver’s head to Nick. “I think he’s going after Jarvis.”

  Nick closed the door, thoughts escaping him as they were blown away into the storm of possible scenarios.

  David made a frustrated noise. “I don’t know where he is.” He sounded sad, and defeated, but it didn’t affected him physically, yet. He dangled over the precipice, and i
n that moment, at his lowest, he turned his head back to Nick.

  Nick could do nothing but accept the stare. He could think of little else, right then, besides wanting to help David find his father. Nick couldn’t say what happened, who Vic was, or how exactly David’s father ran afoul of Jarvis or vice versa. He couldn’t say how David’s horrible evening compared to his own. He thought of that moment of resolution he felt on the bus and in the alley, and Nick surrendered to a semblance of hope, that is to say a lie, before he admitted, again, to being of no useful help at all. In one defining motion, Nick accepted it.

  He turned to the driver, internalizing confidence he never before imagined. “Just drive east, I’ll tell you where to go.”

  He didn’t look at David again, but he decided he wanted to believe that David trusted him implicitly and that he wasn’t going to screw up. Nick committed, adjusting himself in his seat. Not only did he bite off more than he could chew, he bit into something completely alien without even reading the ingredient label.

  Nick looked down at his phone, the sliver of a red bar looking up at him. Evidently, there was yet more to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They worked well into the night, on into the gray haze of an uncomfortable morning. Jarvis could feel the sun’s life-giving warmth looming behind the wall of thick clouds, just like he could feel the inclination to retch growing in his inert chest. What Tomohiro wanted was simple and Jarvis supposed in retrospect it couldn’t have been anything else: the corpse of the summoned.

  The city’s palace of the dead was appropriately like a mausoleum, all cold edifice and tombs. Jarvis was instructed to remove wires from the occasional wall or tear down some sort of electronic recording device. Other than that, they were not troubled on their quest. Jarvis thought they looked comical, “ridiculous” was the word David would have likely used. A long time ago, the vampire understood that the wheeled baskets were used for going to the market, for shopping. Tomohiro sought only one item, and it would have been an issue fitting into the tiny cart.

  Even as his insides were dying, Tomohiro’s excitement grew. Jarvis suspected there was some great ceremony to go along with all the excitement and reverence, but the man simply did not have enough time. Taking the body was cumbersome work, and their escape was slow and awkward. Tomohiro’s instructions came in between long pauses when his eyes rolled around in his head and most of him went limp.

  They ended up picking more or less the first warehouse that seemed safe, found a flat surface, and the vampire stood back and watched the spectacle of a ritual, helping where he was asked to.

  Tomohiro was strong in a way that could not be described. Jarvis could smash a man easily enough, rend stone and tear metal, but the puppet man was different. He had no pride. One arm dragging him sluggishly about the corpse of the summoned, his lazy eyes searching, he worked methodically against an hourglass only he could see. He was rushed, like he could hear each grain of sand tumble individually, but still composed himself not to work any faster than was strictly necessary. He looked pathetic, and Jarvis suspected he knew it, but there were no curses, no anger, no shame at what he became. Tomohiro simply worked, and that working state, combined with his composure, made him seem fierce.

  So many times Jarvis saw men cut down for saying the wrong words, or for simply letting their thoughts creep up into their faces. Sticking their chests out, being daring…all of it encouraged the dark rot which destroyed lives. Jarvis experienced moments of awe watching Tomohiro work, even as the man slowed, reaching and searching and repairing and reinforcing. His tools were always in hand, the clock always in mind. Occasionally a flicker of scouring light would shoot through a crack in the building’s exterior and then the clouds would smother it just as quickly.

  The last item Tomohiro removed from his bag, which was then left empty, was a delicate chain littered with charms of varying size. It didn’t look like a tool at all, but as one of the man’s eyes fought for life, his quivering hand held onto it like it was more precious than his soul.

  “My sir.” He seemed momentarily overwhelmed by how much energy talking required. “This task is for you. Please, help me.” He smiled that same smile; it was innocent like a child’s. He lay forward, with a final nod to acknowledge approaching death, and had Jarvis chain together one of his wrists with one of the summoned’s.

  With the two wound and tied so, it looked like a marriage ceremony the vampire saw before. The union knot was said to unite bodies and souls. Jarvis did his part with care, suddenly obligated to this thing, this man, who had no vicious humanity in him, just a staunch desire to live.

  Jarvis took his focus away from Tomohiro’s failing body and touched that part within himself that was more aware of the passage of time. Hours passed, and still no light. The vampire could hear the wind blowing debris in the street. He could also hear something else.

  Jarvis stalked skyward. He skulked into a position behind his target. Watching the old man, he became aware that he was not that old, or was more spry than he appeared. The intruder was creeping slowly on the top floor of the empty building space, creeping along old dusty boards and around long unused machines, peering through the holes he could find in the brick surrounding the much larger central area where Tomohiro and the summoned were.

  Something in Jarvis encouraged the quick kill, maybe a shove or a strangle; he never wanted to know the man’s name or his story. After all, he had Tomohiro, and the strange man would tell Jarvis everything he wanted to know about himself, or anything else; and he had David, who would teach him everything he needed to know. Still, Jarvis was embracing a new experience, and that part of him was intrigued by the mystery of the vanishing man who reappeared before him now. The vampire chose a comfortable distance and ground a boot against the floor to announce himself.

  He expected the old man to jump back, startled. He did jump back, but anger was more visible in his features than dismay. When his eyes took on a deep shade of black, Jarvis realized there would be no talking. The wild man lunged at the vampire, slow like he was unaccustomed to quarry with speed. Jarvis understood the man could command only the lesser mien; there was no maw or fur or claws, just two strange eyes grown to large ovals and stuck in a strained visage.

  Jarvis stood in the unfamiliar position of the defender while he pondered. With no formal training in hand-to-hand combat, there was no way to avoid the attacks except for grabbing hold of the man’s wrists, which Jarvis realized were more slippery when he wasn’t trying to break them.

  The man circled him twice, kicking and flailing, yelling the kind of things his kind were prone to shout. Jarvis realized he enjoyed a rarity in the peaceful time he knew David. It was to be expected that another lycanthrope would show up at some point, calling him unnatural, unclean, shadow kith.

  Jarvis took a quick step backwards, turning as he did, and then reversed the motion to backhand the old man and send him flying across the attic space. He didn’t swing fast enough or hard enough to snap his neck or break his jaw; Jarvis was trying to create distance. Appropriately, the wild man launched into the air, flipping backwards into a pile of wood stock.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Jarvis asked, trying to be direct, but not hostile.

  The old man rose a bit sluggishly; he was cut in a variety of places. He was also breathing hard, but his face remained the same. There was no pause, no relent. The rage swept him up, and would carry him to his death. To Jarvis. He did manage to bark the once.

  “Por mi familia!”

  That didn’t make any sense to Jarvis, but the growled undertone was plain enough. The old man didn’t run, he lunged, and the exertion of his legs pointed him arrow straight at the vampire. He covered the intervening distance faster this time. On the first pass, Jarvis didn’t see the knife at all, but even sidestepping as he was, the blade caught him across the chest, a blow that sliced thr
ough the clothing and created a burning line across the vampire’s skin. It had been a great long while since he felt the hissing kiss of silver.

  Jarvis did a bit more backing up then, as the old lycanthrope flailed and cut at him. In a moment of creativity, he realized he had sharp steel too, and Jarvis used his superior speed against his opponent. The old man stabbed and swung and sliced, and on his next lunge, the slicing blade Jarvis carried came free and the hand clutching the knife went flying into the darkness. The man didn’t scream so much as howled, but even that didn’t stop him from continuing to surge forward. He grabbed at Jarvis’ throat with his one remaining hand, scratching at the tissue, but to no avail. The vampire was tougher than any he encountered before, or at least stronger than he anticipated.

  Jarvis reached for the man’s throat also, pushing him backwards, leaving him like so many before, their legs kicking in mid air and fingers clawing at the hand closing off their breathing. Jarvis tried to see him, really see him, like Tomohiro suggested he was capable of.

  In this other place, the puppet man said, the world was simply a dark room filled with endless candle tops, a field of many, many wicks. The living came in different sizes and colors and brilliances, but no one could hide from standing out against that darkness. Squirming in Jarvis’ hand was a vivid fire, bright and golden, though diminishing. Jarvis squeezed, experimentally, watching the fire die just a bit. The vampire wasn’t sure what he was feeding on, but it was there.

  Focusing away from his quarry, Jarvis could see a fire growing on the bottom floor of the building. It ranged in severity from that of weak kindling to violent and ever growing sparks. It looked to Jarvis like a distant battle reaching its climax, and much like in a forge the violence would yield some constructed creation.

  Jarvis became idly aware of the old man kicking at him in his death throes. However, his voice broke the vampire’s concentration. “You,” he began, hoarse. Jarvis was standing in a pool of the man’s blood. His face went ashen. “You may kill me, but you cannot have my son.” He was beating against the vampire’s arm with a clenched fist and his stump, spurts of blood spraying against Jarvis’ front. The vampire could feel flecks of it seep into his skin, filling wounds. “I curse you.” A spattering of blood. “I curse you again.”