Where Shadows Lie

by J. E. Cammon

David wasn’t hallucinating; the recipe was his mother’s. He accepted the food, scooping a sizable amount of it into his face and leaving Nick with the glass.

  Nick watched David, who chewed quickly but with a kind of renewed satisfaction.

  “Evening?” David asked, taking a quick breath before engulfing more of the food.

  Nick shrugged, taking a step back, moving idly. “You’ve been out for hours.”

  David processed that thought more slowly than he did his food. He swallowed a second time, sighing, and then leaned forward and snaked at the cup. After he was done with that, he burped loudly.

  “How are you feeling?” Nick asked.

  Taking him in with a bit more concentration, David noticed that he was a lot better composed than he was in the taxi. He was still wearing that ridiculously nice shirt. His scarred hand was hidden in the pocket of his pants, but the scar under his eye was obvious. The stitches looked like they were about ready to come out. David frowned; maybe he was out for more than just a day.

  “I’m fine,” David said, clearing his throat. “Seems like your messes come in twos, eh?” he quipped. It was like taking a shirt out of a drawer and suddenly realizing it no longer fit. David looked down at himself. He was purple with bruises, but on the mend.

  “Yeah.” Nick waited to respond until a moment after it was appropriate. They both felt it. They tried on an old mood and sadly folded it up and put it away.

  David ate some more, just to have something to do.

  Nick glanced back up the hall and sighed. “Jarvis is gone,” he said, a bit quietly.

  David looked up into Nick’s face and he could tell the man didn’t mean the vampire was dead. Jarvis left like he said he would.

  “He say anything?” David asked, and felt stupid. Of course he didn’t say anything. David knew that Jarvis didn’t really have the capacity to understand something like sadness. He thought David would be angry about his father. David was, sort of. He was jumbled up on the inside and it must have shown on his face.

  “Realistically, he couldn’t have stayed,” Nick volunteered.

  David was surprised that he wasn’t upset at Nick. He always figured the man would hang around until he would be the one to bite his nose off. “Yeah,” was all he said.

  “You guys were friends, I think, in your strange way. It makes sense to be sad.” Nick was pushing again.

  That brought back a bit of the old frustration. Looking at him, David remembered when he could have said that Nick couldn’t understand what it was like to be like them, but now the words caught in his throat and easily receded.

  He stood up, leaving the last of the food on his plate. “I’m not sad he’s gone,” he said, pushing the plate at Nick. “I’m sad his being gone makes me feel better. Different circumstances, and we would’ve been friends.”

  David stepped around Nick and left the room. Someone put a t-shirt and shorts on him. Piecing things together, he came across a mental image that made his guts twist around. The reality was worse.

  Next to a window in David’s still-incomplete den, seated in his computer chair, was his father. He had his plate of food balanced dangerously on the sill and he was clumsily using his left hand to push the food around on the plate, his right arm ending uselessly in nothing. He gave his son a few moments to think or speak, while he took a few bites, placidly. Then he turned his head toward David, and he looked woefully aged.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you befriended the Sevren?”

  The question was accusatory, and David couldn’t rebuff it at all. He supposed that from his father’s perspective, that was the crux of the entire matter. “I thought you’d be disappointed in me.” The son tried honesty. It hurt like the stuff was made from tiny razors.

  “I am,” the father replied.

  There was nothing David could say to that. He couldn’t say that he wasn’t warned. The only thing his father didn’t do was to lead him away by the hand.

  That was all there was to say on the matter. His father now knew what he needed to know; David answered honestly, and now they were free to deal with the aftermath. Nick crept past him at some point, and he could hear him washing dishes in the kitchen. His father turned away from him and was eating again, staring out at the dark city.

  David walked to the kitchen, getting Nick’s attention with his presence. A new kind of night fell. “You got some place to be?” he said, more harshly than he intended.

  Nick didn’t react immediately. His shoulders slumped a bit. He finished washing a dirty plate but turned the water up higher instead of off. “Your dad’s flight leaves in a couple hours,” he said, looking over at David. “He asked me to drive him, and I agreed.” He had more to say, David could tell, which seemed inconceivable right then.

  David couldn’t say he was sorry. Rather, he could say it, and he could mean it, but it wouldn’t help at all. He turned his head to the silhouette of his father eating quietly at the window. There had to be more to say, he thought. David saved Nick’s life, but Nick also saved David’s, technically.

  Nick turned the water off. David grabbed him by his shirt. “What happened?” he asked. “Afterwards.”

  Nick dried his hands on a towel without wiggling out of the urgent grip. “I helped him get you into his rental. I knew where your old place was, he knew where your new place was.”

  “But, the building.” David didn’t know why he even cared. He guessed he just needed a bit more time; it was slipping through his hands like sand.

  “There was a fire,” Nick said.

  David’s hands went a little slack and he let go of the shirt. The garment looked like his hands never touched it. Nick had a look in his face that David never saw before. It was only there for a moment, but it hung in his memory like a painting. Nick moved around him and left him standing there. Everything about the man was different, and still there was something else he couldn’t quite figure.

  David went back to his room. He busied himself there for a handful of moments and then left the apartment alone to get a few things from his previous one, downstairs. The physical activity helped a little, and on about the third trip up, he re-centered himself. This was how things were going to be. Things behind the mask changed; he could accept that.

  When he got around to being ready, he learned from Nick that he had about fifteen minutes to say goodbye, to both of them. With that, the final tumbler fell into place.

  To his credit, his father hugged him as firmly as before, with genuine caring and love. David was, after all, his son. “You should visit more often,” he said, putting the one hand on his son’s face, drying his cheeks. “...And bring something for your mother.” He patted his shoulder and went to wait in the hallway. David still couldn’t look completely at the man, almost as if looking at any part of him would remind him of what his father lost.

  Nick shook his hand. “I’ll be back,” he said.

  “Right.” David stared into one of the button-shaped pearls of Nick’s shirt. “If you see…” He stopped in the middle of his statement as if struck.

  Nick nodded. “If I see him,” he said, which meant that he might know where Jarvis went, or he might not. David had known Jarvis for a while. He would find some place and hunker down. “Something’s happened,” Nick said. “To me. I don’t know where, what, or why. I have a suspicion of when and how, but…” He flashed a grin belonging to the old Nick, as if to prove that he was still in there somewhere. Just as quickly, though, it was gone. “I guess I’ll always be the question asking type, and the answers aren’t here.” He walked around David and out of the door.

  “Take care of yourself, Potter,” David said.

  Nick threw a sign of acceptance and affirmation over his shoulder but didn’t turn to show David his eyes. Nick and Mr. Cruz shuffled on in silence, and David left the door open for a
long while before he closed it.

  He stayed up awhile, and when he slept, he slept fitfully. Sometime during the night he made a few decisions, came to a couple conclusions. A person wasn’t necessarily the hero of their own story, just a protagonist. Things swept around and through them that they could engage in, but “good” or “bad” was something they got stamped on the ticket when all the chips were cashed in. They could start over so long as they didn’t care about age, and they could get up as many times as long as they could disregard the scuffs on their palms and cuts on their belly.

  When he woke up, David quit his job on the way to the hospital. The manager was upset that he wasn’t in to work and didn’t call, and quitting right then and there didn’t improve the man’s mood. David worked under the same man, for years, but right then, the man’s name escaped him. He could see in his reddening face that he was going to ruin David’s references column. David asked the receptionist out on a date in the middle of the manager’s tirade. He thought the man was going to punch him; he was sure he could have taken it with a smile.

  When David got to Vic’s room he could see that they cleaned her up. He did a poor job at the scene and as for the guys in the ambulance...well, how Vic looked was the least of their concern. She was still in a coma, and they had little to no idea when she would wake up. David decided then that he was going to make a point of being there every day. He got used to the smell of the place, and to all the sounds.

  A nurse came in to check Vic’s vitals. She looked over at him quizzically. “You sure are diligent, honey,” she said, smiling. “Are you from the department?”

  David grinned. “No,” he replied thoughtfully. Then he stood up, looking down on Vic. Victoria Ferrara. David left a little early that day, stopping once at the doorway. “We’ll see about tomorrow, though,” he said to the nurse, smiling suddenly.

  Sandra, the receptionist at the vet clinic, wrote her phone number on his final paycheck.

  Epilogue

  Looking through the window, Nick imagined how the room was appointed once. The huge fur of some terrifying predator would have been on the floor directly before the massive fireplace, over which would have hung some intimidating painting. The mantle place would have been filled with rare trinkets. Maybe there was a large, richly appointed chair seated in the center of the room. Now the space was empty like every other room on the first floor that had a window. In retrospect, Nick thought, if they found even one piece of contraband in the Dean’s residence, then they probably carted everything off just in case, leaving nothing to chance.

  The answers he sought were no longer there. Even the garage was empty. Did the man own a car? Something like a clever thought wiggled its way to the forefront of Nick’s mind and waved madly.

  Nick felt eyes on him. When the sound of a car broke his reverie, he didn’t duck or start; he simply left. He imagined red death being on his trail come morning, and she would be rested, too. Nick thought that the vampire had the right idea. This night was his last in Bay City, and it was rapidly disappearing as he slowly bussed across town. Part of him was hopeful that his next stops wouldn’t be so fruitless.

  When he finally arrived back at the gathering place morning was on his heels. It was a gamble to go there, but he reasoned Scarlet wouldn’t be present. She was cast from an intolerant mold; she would lower herself to showing up for information, but wouldn’t hang around. He searched for the door while sweeping the area. He sifted through his memories to piece together its location. Nothing helped; everything seemed different. An overturned barrel in front of a lewd spray painting over a rusted drain pipe seemed just as likely as a single rose growing among seasonable weeds beneath a burned out wall light.

  For a moment, he let the frightening urgency wash over him. Nick studied things, remembering what the joy of fed curiosity felt like. The strange multi-layered symbols stood out in his mind; it was as if they had texture. Nick reached his hand out, suddenly lost in the deciphering.

  “Those stitches look about ready to come out.” The Count’s voice was as melodic as before, and his step as silent.

  Nick spun around, suddenly afraid. He steeled himself, holding up the small silver suitcase he brought with him.

  The musician tilted his head slightly, eyeing the luggage. “A gift? For me?” His tone made Nick’s confidence in the plan taper to nothing.

  He swallowed to preface his bravery. “It’s money. Close to a million dollars.” He lifted the suitcase, then let his arm drop, feeling suddenly stupid. “For the debt.”

  The Count stared through Nick, as if judging the seriousness of his statement by inspecting his soul. Then he laughed. It was a sound that filled Nick’s ears, and all the space between he and the musician, and then all the spaces around them. It was a cutting, biting noise. As quickly as it started, it ended; the keeper of the gathering place was silent again, as if he could cackle but no mirth could touch him.

  “Nicholas. You can’t pay your debt with money.” He stepped forward quickly, covering Nick’s hand with his own. “This is a bar, you know. There is such a thing as a tab.” Nick couldn’t help but be spun around and pointed away from the building. He could almost feel the distance between him and the entrance increasing. “So, you’ve raided the dead’s coffers. That’s interesting.” Together, they rounded a corner in a direction Nick wasn’t aware of before. The quality of the sidewalk and the buildings it jutted up against changed, almost imperceptibly. “Find anything else in your delving?” the musician asked, a surprisingly powerful arm slung around Nick’s shoulders, pinning him as they walked. They moved in lock step, each stride matching. Sound whispered into the ear opposite Nick’s host, “Find the wisdom to your riddle, yet?”

  Nick felt a white hot pain under his left eye and jerked suddenly, wrestling away from the Count awkwardly. Putting a hand to his cheek, he could feel the burning flesh opened slightly, but he could not feel the rough threading of the stitches. Looking down at his hand, he could see those stitches were missing, too.

  The Count dexterously flexed open and closed one hand, his fingers a sudden blur. When they were done moving, he wove the stitch threading into a braided symbol. It looked like a small tree, or maybe a stooped man. He was also holding the briefcase.

  “Just more breadcrumbs,” Nick responded after a moment, putting a hand to his face every now and then. He felt safe in the knowledge that The Count spoke what he spoke and did what he did, but wasn’t much beyond a trickster.

  The man smiled like a cat, closing the hand, making the stitching disappear. The Count opened his palm again into a gesture of greeting, stepping forward past Nick into a small open garage space. It was empty mostly, but seemed impossibly long if not very deep. Parked on the end nearest he and his host was an old motorcycle. It was rusted. It was pitted and caked with dry mud and what looked to be rotten leaves. There was an old misused machine; the front headlight was a clouded wreck.

  Nick blinked, reading the company name and model number. Somehow, he knew it was an ancient model, though he had no real knowledge of bikes. “I don’t understand,” he said cautiously.

  The Count stood a healthy distance from the machine, but possessed admiration for it. “It’s a bike,” he said, a smile cutting into his face. “Surely you don’t think walking will get you anywhere on the road you’re on?” He pointed to the back wall. “Those are the keys.” With that, the musician stepped back out of the space, swinging the briefcase as he went.

  Nick stepped backwards with him, keeping an eye on the grim two-wheeler. He watched his host walk back up the street. “How do you know it runs?” he asked, somewhat loudly.

  “I know the man who built it,” the musician replied without turning around. The Count’s use of the word “man” seemed impromptu and a little makeshift. Nick glanced at the bike, with both eyes this time, as if that answer and his new focus would make it shiny
and new. It remained on the verge of falling apart, sitting still. When he looked over again, the keeper was gone.

  The rest of the money he took from Jarvis’ otherwise empty house seemed that much more pronounced, situated in places all over his person. He also took an old backpack he found there. It was mostly empty, but had within a most precious cargo tucked deep inside. Nick was suddenly unsure what he would do if the musician discovered he found Dean Janis’ personal journal in the wreckage of his exploded car. Nick put his thumbs under the straps of his pack and eyed the bike again.

  On closer examination, he found that draped over the seat was a terribly misused leather jacket. It fell to pieces when Nick touched it, sloughing off and becoming something similar to dust when it hit the ground. Nick hoped the bike wouldn’t do that; he would have paid a small fortune for it, after all. Retrieving the key and finding where it went was easy enough. It slid into its housing as if the intervening years didn’t pass, and when he turned the ignition, it rolled over smoothly. The engine looked simple enough, small even, but it sounded like it was made for racing or scaring small children. Nick never heard a machine sound like that, and he settled into thinking that maybe that sentiment would be repeated fairly often, soon enough.

  The bike, monstrous as it sounded, turned out to be simple enough to operate—a couple pedals, brakes, and a throttle. It didn’t have a gas gauge, the machine’s invincible rumblings dissipated Nick’s worry.

  “It wants to run, my sir.” The voice came from a direction he couldn’t perceive, and he didn’t feel surprised that he heard it even though he was alone in the odd garage.

  Nick guessed he was done jumping at things. He looked down at the rusted monster and nodded in agreement, conscious of the road in front of him and the burned pages he set to using as a map.

  He bolted from Bay City on a hunt of his own, resolute to have his answers. He figured someone owed him, and knew that eventually all debts came due.

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