The Shadows Trilogy

by Cege Smith

  “What?” he said.

  She wasn’t sure she should say anything, but she knew her face had already given her away. “Are you hungry? Because if we need to be acclimated I was thinking that you’d be going through the same thing I am.”

  It was David’s turn to frown. “Well, I grew up here, so it’s not that strange. My body would already be used to being here.”

  It wasn’t the answer she wanted. She was hoping for some confirmed clue that David was still alive the same way she was.

  David gestured toward the front hall where the group had disappeared. “You can catch me up on their story, but I think to avoid confusion moving forward, you need to make sure you’ve got my name right.”

  All thoughts of discrepancies and food flew out of Ellie’s mind. “Pardon?”

  David leaned forward on the kitchen island. “I know it’s going to be an adjustment for you too, because of course you’ve always called me David. But that’s actually my middle name. Now that I’m home, I’d like to be called by my first name. I’m sure you understand.”

  The tendrils of dread started in Ellie’s toes and grew like a plant up through her legs until it filled her entire body. “And that is?” She knew the answer before he said it, but she wanted to hear him say it out loud.

  He shook his head at her mockingly. “Ellie, you know my name is Jack. Jackson David Bradford.”

  There it was. Ellie remembered the night of the final confrontation with Lillian and Joseph. Emma showed Ellie in her dream that right after Emma gave birth to him, her sister Lillian stole the baby practically out of her arms. Emma had intended to name him after his father, Henry Jr. But Lillian, who had so desperately wanted a child that she had given herself over to the dark side, had always wanted a boy named Jack. To fulfill her wish, she sacrificed her own sister and brother-in-law and bound herself, Joseph, and David to the waypoint. Up until the night that Ellie made her deal with Mikel, Lillian had always found a way to get what she wanted, no matter what the cost.

  It was clear to Ellie that something had gone terribly wrong with David’s transition back to the waypoint, and she thought that it had to do with wherever he had been kept while they were separated. He appeared to be under some kind of mind control, and she wondered if that was the reason she couldn’t see his aura anymore and the reason he wasn’t experiencing the same transition pains that she was. But worse than that, Ellie realized she had lost her one and only ally in the waypoint; at least, she had until she figured out what was wrong with him.

  Now David was looking concerned and she thought that she probably looked like a dunce with her mouth hanging open. “Sorry. I had a memory lapse there for a minute. I just didn’t put your two names together, of course. A lot happened that night.”

  David nodded. “Like I was telling your earlier, Ellie, I am so glad that you convinced me to stay. I know that you’ve probably been worried that I’d be upset with you about it. I had a lapse too. But the great thing is that with my memories coming back, I can help you. I used to live here, remember? I’ll be able to help you with whatever you want to know.”

  Her mind was racing now. If David truly was remembering things about his childhood and growing up in the waypoint, then he had first-hand knowledge about the inner workings that Max Turner wouldn’t have known and only suspected. She needed to understand everything if she was going to find a way out.

  “I think that would be great, Dav...I mean, Jack.” Ellie forced a smile onto her face. “Things have been so strange here. I didn’t have anyone to trust.”

  Immediately, David was at her side giving her a hug. “I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here for you, Ellie. You’re right. It is strange here, and let me tell you, it’s easy for someone to lose their way. There are a lot of rules that need to be followed to the letter so that you don’t catch the wrath of you know who.”

  David’s embrace felt wonderful and awkward all at the same time. Ellie had no idea how much of the man she had fallen in love with remained intact inside him, and until she figured that out, she couldn’t let on that that would affect her feelings for him. Plus he still seemed genuinely concerned about her and as long as that didn’t change, she didn’t think she had to do much other than keep him from suspecting that she had another agenda. But as he whispered the words you know who, he sounded like a kid.

  Ellie pushed away from him and looked up at his serious eyes. “You mean, Mikel aka the Third.”

  David nodded and looked around as if he expected the man to appear.

  “Jeffrey said that I was just supposed to call him Mikel,” she continued. “When I met him earlier he looked and acted no differently than you or me. He was completely different than I remembered.”

  He backed up a few steps and craned his neck to look into the hallway. “I don’t know much about him, Ellie. He pretty much dealt with Lillian and honestly, she never said a bad thing about him. As long as I stayed out of the way and out of trouble, he left me alone.”

  Ellie was frustrated. And hungry. The conversation had taken a completely unexpected turn, and not for the better. “Well, I don’t think I have the option to stay out of his way. It feels like Jeffrey is keeping an eye on me and making sure that I’m learning everything I’m supposed to, but I got the sense that Mikel is never far away.”

  David stepped forward and put his finger on her lips. “I wouldn’t go around saying his name too often. It might give him the idea that you are looking for him to pay a visit.”

  She started to say something else but David shushed her. “Ellie, I want to keep you safe and I’m going to do everything I can to keep that promise, but you have to promise me that you’ll trust what I tell you. It’s because I didn’t remember before that I didn’t understand why you’d be so important here. Why he’d want you. However I get it now, and I can help you. I can help you be the best Ripher this side of the Afterlife has ever seen.”

  David’s words sunk in. He knew. He knew about Riphers and he knew much more than she suspected about the place where they existed now. He also wasn’t looking to get her out of there. He was ensuring that she’d stay.

  At that moment, her stomach growled again and David laughed. He pulled the frying pan off the eye and set it on the countertop. Looking in the pan, he shook his head. “That’s no good, Ellie. You have to keep up your strength. You burned off all the nutrients.”

  “It’s fine, really.” She caught herself this time before she called him David. That wouldn’t do. Her mind was reeling as she made herself go to the cupboard where she had stacked plates when she lived in the house as a normal person. Luckily, that hadn’t changed, and she pulled a plate off the top of the stack. She dumped the contents of the pan on the plate, still refusing to look at it. “You don’t happen to know where Jeffrey keeps the silverware, do you?”

  David pointed at the table that the ski trio had recently vacated. “Sit. I’ll get it for you.” Ellie grudgingly went to the table and sat down. Moments later, David fell into the chair across from her and handed her a fork and knife.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He watched her as she quickly cut the meat into small pieces. She had no idea what it was, but now it was all gray and leathery. She had overcooked it by a lot, but Ellie hadn’t cooked red meat in years. Focusing instead on David’s face, she started to eat. “So since your memories are coming back, then you know why those kids are here?” she said, trying to start a conversation. The more David talked, the less she had to and the more information she could gather.

  “Yes,” he said. He crossed his arms and stared at her with the corner of his mouth turned up. “Anyone who ends up here is straddling the line between life and death. A waypoint is a place of transition.”

  “I wish someone could have given me a heads-up that this place was a ‘waypoint’ a long time ago. Anyway, when I touched the one, Will, I saw what happened in my head. They were on their way back from a ski trip when their car went off the road and into a ravi
ne,” Ellie said as matter-of-factly as she could. She could still hear the screams of terror reverberating through the car when they realized that they were about to collide with the trees below. It was mind-numbingly horrible. She wondered if they had ever considered the idea of their own mortality before. “So are they going to die?”

  David shrugged. “That’s really hard to say. And since it’s not up to you or me to decide, it’s probably better not to think about it too much. It’s a bit depressing to focus on that, don’t you think?”

  “Depressing doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Ellie said. The meat was tough and chewing each bite was taking longer than her appetite was willing to give her. Unlike the meat that Jeffrey had prepared for her before, the taste was bland and unappealing. She hated that David had been right. She hated that she was being forced to sustain herself on something so unappetizing to her mind, but so savory to her body. “Jeffrey has been pretty vague on this whole Ripher concept, by the way. Maybe you can clarify what that means. He said that he had taken care of ‘my kind’ before.”

  Leaning forward, David rested his forearms on his knees. He grabbed a piece of meat off her plate and tossed it into his mouth and then frowned as he chewed it. She was annoyed at how forward this new David was around her because she didn’t know how to react to him yet.

  “Riphers are pretty big deals on this side. I wonder if Lillian had any idea how special you actually were when he put her on your trail. I would guess not,” David said with a dramatic swallow. “No way Lillian would have put her own position in jeopardy, plus she’s always had a mean jealous streak.”

  “So Lillian and Joseph weren’t Riphers?” Ellie said. She had reached the last piece of meat, and even though overall the meal was thoroughly unenjoyable, she still found herself wishing she had the piece of meat that David had snatched off her plate.

  “Nope,” David said. “Ambitious, sure. Conniving? Well, you met Lillian.” He smiled. “She was the brains behind the whole thing; Joseph always played along to keep her happy. Lillian was more than willing to make herself useful in exchange for what she wanted. First it was me. Then it was eternal youth, wealth, power, the whole nine yards. I’m not sure if Jeffrey told you this, but it was Lillian who figured out how to open the waypoint once they built the house here, so I guess he was pretty grateful about that. At least, until he found someone more to his liking. From what you said, he seemed pretty eager to banish them when the time came.”

  “So when he told me that they weren’t cutting it anymore, there was more than one reason,” Ellie said slowly. “I mean, Lillian said that the reason they set that whole plan in motion was so that we would fall in love and give the house energy, which now I get she meant the waypoint. But why did they kill Jenny and her baby?” She was trying to fit all of the pieces together.

  “Eternal youth doesn’t come without a price. Mikel pretty much let them do whatever they wanted as long as they took care of the waypoint. Obviously, he has much bigger plans for you. It’s true that the waypoint feeds off of all kinds of different energies. Psychic energy is powerful, as is love. Combine the two, and it’s like you’ve got a megawatt battery.”

  She was a bit chagrined that she had just been compared to a battery. “Is this place alive?” She remembered the way that the meat juices had been sucked into the floor.

  “You could think of it that way,” David said. He tapped his finger on the table. “It’s an active place, that’s for sure. I’m guessing it’s going to get a whole lot busier now.”

  “Why?”

  David rolled his eyes. “Haven’t you been listening, Ellie? Lillian refused to admit it, but the waypoint was hobbling along because the people in charge of taking care of it were bad at it. Mikel created an elaborate game to get what he wanted and get rid of Lillian and Joseph in the process. You being here changes the game. With a Ripher in residence, I wouldn’t be surprised if this became one of the most active waypoints in the Afterlife.”

  Ellie didn’t like the sound of that at all. She set her fork down and crossed her arms. “Enough of the vagueness and the niceties. What is a Ripher? What does a Ripher do that’s so different than what Lillian was able to do?”

  David’s smile fell. “Riphers collect things, Ellie, from souls that are special. Ones that have gifts and abilities like yours. What did you think they did?” He must have recognized the look of horror on her face. “What you do is so important but there are those around that don’t think too highly of Riphers. That’s one secret to keep under your hat for now. Just do what Jeffrey tells you to do when there are souls here and you’ll be fine. Mikel will protect you and so will I.”

  Ellie felt faint. She pushed her chair back from the table. “I think I need to rest before dinner, Dav—Jack. I feel exhausted.”

  “I think that is a good idea, Ellie. You need to be well rested for your guests,” Jeffrey said, reappearing in the doorway to the kitchen. “I’m sure you remember the way to your room?”

  As she nodded, David stood up as well. She gestured for him to sit back down. “I’ll be back down soon. Thanks, Jack. You’ve been really helpful.” She knew that she should have phrased her exit message better, but she was beyond caring at the moment. It was all too much to process. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  CHAPTER TEN

  He watched it all unfold in front of his eyes, but there was nothing that he could do because he was nothing but a passenger tucked away in his own mind. Seeing that Ellie was safe, at least for the moment, had been a relief, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that could change at any moment. While the memories were still fragments, he knew that Mikel would stop at nothing to take what he wanted. Lillian wasn’t the only one who had hoodwinked young David with the idea that what they did was nothing more than an elaborate game. Mikel made him think that they were friends, but he saw now that was a lie. He was nothing but a pawn to be used in Mikel’s scheming. It made him angry to recall how often he had been used like this in the past, and as Mikel exited his body, the burning sensation of Mikel’s consciousness ripping away from his was all too familiar.

  “Bastard,” he managed to cough out as he doubled over in pain, falling forward onto the floor.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He heard the deep chuckle above his head.

  David could see his reflection in the perfectly shined black tips of Mikel’s shoes. “She’ll figure it out that you aren’t me,” he spat.

  “You think so? I think I’m rather convincing,” Mikel said. “After all, I’ve played the part of Jack more in your lifetime than you ever have. I don’t think you strayed too far from it on the Other Side, whatever you’d like to believe. Actually, when you think about it, David, you are more like me than you may care to realize.”

  David’s head hurt as he considered the implications of what Mikel said. Mikel had hidden right in front of Lillian and Joseph for years, observing their plotting and manipulating them from behind his eyes. David had no idea how they had never suspected that there was much more to their adopted son than met the eye. Mikel had maneuvered them and played with them like a child would play with a pair of dolls. But then, as now, David was helpless to fight back. When Mikel wanted to control him, he did. There was nothing he could do to resist.

  “You are going to do nothing but make her despise me, and then what good’ll that do you?” David said. He put an arm up on the table and hoisted himself back into the chair. That small action alone took almost all the energy he could muster. Mikel freely availed himself of David’s life force when he sat within David’s body, and he remembered that it took time for it to regenerate.

  “As long as she’s convinced that you’re just confused from your transition and that you are still on her side, her affections won’t change, no matter what I do. That’s the wonderful thing about using love to manipulate. Once you love someone, it’s very hard to stop,” Mikel said smugly.

  David raised his head so that he cou
ld meet Mikel’s amused stare. He glared at him, but that was the extent of his ability to be defiant. He noticed that Mikel was wearing a pinstripe three-piece suit. “What are you so dressed up for? Got a date with the devil?”

  “Oh, David. You are so droll. You were much wittier before spending time on the Other Side. By the way, did you like my name drop swap? That one got her for sure. But I can’t have my Ripher distracted by romance. I need her focused on the job at hand, and that is finding me some souls with some abilities that I can take for my own. I’ve been looking for her for a long time, David, and you will help me accomplish my goals whether you want to or not.”

  “I’ll pick or not,” David said through gritted teeth. “I’ve been your puppet for far too long, Mikel. Kill me. I don’t care.”

  Mikel bent over and put his hands on either side of David’s chair. “You do care because you care about Ellie. And as long as my little Ripher cares about you, you are useful to me and to my waypoint. Besides, as long as I need Ellie alive, I am certain I can think of other ways to torture her short of actually killing her.”

  David grabbed the front of Mikel’s shirt. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  Rock-hard hands gripped David’s fingers and he cried out in pain as he let go of Mikel’s shirt. Mikel stood up and carefully rearranged his shirt and tie. But Jeffrey still did not let go of David’s fingers. David had forgotten the old man was even in the room. He bit his lip, refusing to ask to be let go.

  Mikel’s face twisted and for just a moment David saw Mikel’s inhuman visage hidden behind his handsome exterior. Mikel was really good at playing human, but David could never allow himself to forget that the thing that actually lived underneath was not even close. Mikel was a creature with no morals, no values, and no humanity to speak of. He existed only to further his own ambitions and expand his power within Hell. And with the little bits of information he had skimmed from Mikel’s mind while Mikel was inside his body, having Ellie in his grasp meant Mikel was poised to do it.