by J. S. Morin
“I’m hanging onto the grand you put up for the Harvard break-in. I think from here on out, anything we need, we just take.”
I stopped, and it took Kelly another few steps down the sidewalk before she stopped and turned to see why I’d quit following her. “You’re… OK with that?”
She took two steps back and hunched forward conspiratorially. “I helped you dump a body a couple nights ago, remember?”
“That was different.”
She bobbed her head. “Yeah. That was murder.”
“Self-defense.”
Kelly just shrugged and started walking. I hurried to fall into step. “Whatever. Cops want us either way. I won’t kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it, but who gives a shit about taking things? We’re doing a public service. Embrace your dark side and have a little fun with it.”
Fun. Was that what we were having?
For weeks I’d been progressively spiraling into delusion, only to come out the far side realizing the world was suffering the same hallucination. Since then, I’d been chased by police, attacked by a lighthouse keeper, stalked by a redneck in a pickup truck, assaulted by a prison inmate the size of a gorilla, chased out of my life, and gotten a friend killed.
Somewhere in all that I’d killed one guy and beaten another unconscious. And although one of them was heat of the moment and the other I didn’t remember, I’d still done it. Plus, I had a mafia-style body disposal on my resume.
Yeah, fun.
“Matt?” Kelly waved a hand in front of my face. “You kinda spaced out there. You with me?”
I shook my head to clear it. We still had prep to do before confronting Black-Hat. “Yeah. Where to?”
Chapter Sixty
Kelly and I grabbed dinner and talked strategy. We stopped back at the hideout to pick up the invisible thumb drive from Judy, which presumably was now expertly doctored. Then on our way to the rendezvous, Kelly convinced me to sneak into a police station and steal us each a tactical vest and body armor.
“I feel like such a criminal…” I muttered as I pulled an oversized sweatshirt on to cover my stolen armor.
“You are really hung up on this theft thing,” Kelly said, chuckling. “You’re a shadowblood now. Rules are for people who can see you.”
Kelly’s armor made her look like a dog trainer in a bite suit, at least around the middle. I must have looked equally awkward, but mirrors were tough to see in the dark.
When we arrived at our destination, Kelly and I did a sweep of the building’s exterior. Neither of us was a trained commando, so we probably botched it up, not to mention the fact that the people we were looking for were as invisible in the darkness as the two of us. But it felt like we were being thorough. With the moon high in the night sky, we slipped from beneath its gaze as I shadow-jumped us through the front doors.
I’d been to the Boston Museum of Science just once before, with Tim, Judy, and an actual Darcy that I was dating at the time. I’d still been going to Harvard back then, and Tim and Judy had just started seeing one another.
This visit felt different.
At night, the museum took on a sinister demeanor. The ticket counters were vacant. Replicas of early model aircraft and skeletal leviathans hung from the ceiling. Surrounded by the chatter of patrons and gawking children it all would have looked educational. Now it seemed like a mad scientist’s trophy case—a big game hunter with a time machine, murdering history.
I took Kelly by the hand, but she immediately pulled it away. “This isn’t a date,” she snapped in a whisper.
“Fine,” I whispered back. “If someone jumps us, I’ll shadow-jump, and you can stay and fight.”
She took my hand. Her palm was sweaty. Maybe it was from the heat of being bundled in layers of body armor and outerwear, but my bet was on nerves. I sure as hell had ‘em.
“Wish we were meeting in the Omni theater,” Kelly said, taking in the scenery as we passed exhibits about gears, mathematics, and light. “There’s nothing like that enveloping feeling. It’s like surround sound for the eyes. Wanna catch a movie after? I bet we could figure out how to crank up the system.”
“Thought you said this wasn’t a date.”
Kelly sighed. “That’s the joke. Get it together, Matt. You still got the drive?”
I fished in the pocket of my jeans with my free hand, struggling around the bulk of the body armor. Pulling it out to look at it was pointless. My head still had troubles grasping the concept of invisibility. Easier just to feel for it.
I let a look of panic spread on my face, as if I’d lost the drive. “Oh, shit!”
Kelly yanked me by the hand so that I turned to face her. “Don’t tell me you—you fucking bastard!” The mask couldn’t disguise my grin. She punched me in the chest, putting her weight behind it. With the body armor on, I barely felt a thing.
“Careful. You’ll break your knuckles.”
Kelly held up her fist. She had fashioned an impromptu set of shadowy brass knuckles—though technically there was nothing brass about them. “Not likely.”
“You’re getting pretty good at that.” It was hard to hide my admiration—and my envy. My own shadows were entirely insubstantial.
A bass growl halted us both in our footsteps.
Kelly’s hand tightened painfully around mine.
The growl grew louder; it sounded like it was coming from the T. Rex exhibit. The dinosaurs were on the level below us, but we were on a mezzanine level with a bird’s eye view. The head of the massive predator came within a few feet of our floor.
Suddenly Kelly let go my hand and pulled away. “Someone’s fucking with us. They must have put a speaker in the exhibit.”
“Look closer,” I whispered. Something was stalking us, and a predator didn’t alert its prey until it was too late for them to run. Whatever was lurking behind the life-size dinosaur was thankfully much smaller, but that reassurance only went so far.
Kelly backed behind me and retook my hand. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’? There’s a fucking alien monster from the shadow world back there. Shadow-jump, or so help me I’m putting a dagger in your neck.”
“Great plan. But the Theater of Electricity is just up ahead. If we run away, we blow off the meeting. If we run inside, we look like douchebags. They’ll never respect us, and worse, they’ll never be afraid of us.”
Kelly tried to drag me backward. “Well, their plan is working fan-fucking-tastically.”
The creature climbed atop the T. Rex’s back, its hooked claws gouging into the model for grip. It looked at me, eyes burning a pale violet that cut through the blackness. But that glow was for shadowblood eyes alone. It was a nythantos, a vicious reptilian predator whose camouflage abilities shamed the chameleons of Earth. But its deception relied on color, pattern, and most importantly: light.
“This is one of the things Judy let loose with her leaked chapter. I’m going to get rid of it.”
“Get rid of that? Are you fucking nuts?”
“Just back away slowly. Keep me between you and it. I’ll handle this.”
“Think about this, Matt. We can break back into the police station, maybe hit up animal control for some tranq guns. Hell, get into the SWAT team gear again and grab a couple machine guns. Just get me out of here!”
I had a vision.
Nothing about it was supernatural, but I could piece together a scenario. Same as Michelangelo could see the statue of David from within a block of granite or Frank Lloyd Wright could look an empty lot and picture a building, I saw how a hero should handle this monstrosity. For once, this was a problem Keith Damon could relate to.
As Kelly retreated from the beast, she backed into an exhibit on microrobotics. An interactive display kiosk blocked her path, and, not watching her step, the newbie shadowblood backed into it.
The nythantos perked up in an instant, nostrils flaring. It wiggled its hips and leapt. With felin
e balance, the creature cleared the low glass wall and the wooden railing inset with informational plaques.
I fell over myself backing out of its way. My impact on the carpet drew its full attention. The nythantos loomed over me, its breath reeking of carrion.
“Back off!” I shouted at it.
To my shock, the creature straightened its posture and retreated a step. From this close, I could see the slit pupil amid the violet glow from its cornea.
The nythantos was confused searching but unable to see me. Its nostrils twitched as it sniffed to locate me.
“Back up.”
My second command was met with reluctant obedience.
The creature retreated until its tail bumped into the glass barrier overlooking the lower level dinosaur exhibit. It turned its attention, and I made my move.
I didn’t care if I could get it to roll over and play tricks. There was no taking it home, and leaving it to run amok in the city—or even just the museum—was out of the question.
Shadow-jumping the short distance between us, I came up on its blind side.
The second my hand touched the creature’s front shoulder, its head snapped around, faster than I could dodge away. But not faster than I could jump back into the shadows.
Through the nearest window and across the museum parking lot, I dragged the nythantos.
It could writhe and thrash all it liked. Incorporeal as we both were, the creature could neither harm me nor escape my clutches.
Into the depths of the Charles River we plunged, shadowed by the river’s own banks. When we reached the Zakim Bridge’s silhouette, we climbed, shooting straight to the top of the support tower.
What was I doing? Looking down, the expressway was a ribbon of asphalt, and the cars mere Hot Wheels replicas of actual vehicles.
I should have felt the vertigo that even a modest height brought on. But I was a mere wisp of insubstantial darkness. There was no sensation of weightlessness, no stomach rising into my gullet, no dizziness.
For a moment I was almost able to forget the otherworldly creature in my grasp and appreciate the grandeur of my vantage point. But the moment passed, and I had a monster to dispose of.
I emerged in mid-air and shoved the nythantos away from me. It lashed out with claws and nipped with teeth as we parted. But the shadows enveloped me again before it could catch hold of any part of my flesh.
Faster than freefall, I ended my jump in the southbound breakdown lane of I-93 and watched the creature plummet.
Traffic was light, but even a state of emergency and National Guard patrols couldn’t freeze Boston entirely.
The driver of a minivan was heading straight for the point of impact, showing no signs of spotting the falling reptile.
Why should he? Who looks up into the night sky for obstacles?
Without hesitation, I shadow-jumped into the minivan’s middle row of seats.
The driver was an elderly black man wearing a flat cap. The woman in the seat beside him was probably his wife. They had time for a startled gasp as I laid a hand on a shoulder of each of them.
The next instant, they were safely seated in the breakdown lane, just in time to watch a half-ton chameleon crash through the roof of their vehicle.
The old woman screamed.
Her husband cried out. “Sweet Jesus! What just happened? Where are we? Gina, you hurt, baby? You all right?”
“Who in the Lord’s name is that?” Gina asked, pointing me out to her husband. “Where he come from?”
For a brief moment, I felt like a superhero. “I’m a friend. In the chaos plaguing this city, the people have allies, protectors. I’m one of them.”
I made sure both were watching as I vanished into the shadows. Beneath my mask, I grinned like a kid on Christmas.
Chapter Sixty-One
Kelly slugged me in the shoulder the instant I reappeared beside her. Lucky for me, she had created no shadowy weapon to do real damage, despite the lack of coverage from my body armor. “You asshole! That thing could have killed you!” She let out a long breath. “Where’s the nythantos?”
I smiled. She had identified it, too. “Dead on the southbound expressway.”
“You weren’t gone long. Did you check the body?”
“No. But I dropped it from about 200 feet, and it hit a minivan doing 65.”
Kelly looked to the heavens. I wasn’t certain the heavens could even see us anymore.
“You must be a shit writer if you expect a monster to die from the first thing you hit it with.”
“It’s an animal. It got splattered. I just hope I never find out what it was before the shadow world transformed, because I’d feel bad if it used to be something cute and playful.”
Kelly tugged at the front of my sweatshirt, hooking her finger through a giant gash I hadn’t noticed. “If it ever was, it wasn’t cute or playful anymore. What’d you say to that thing, anyway? Was that Chinese?”
“Was it? I don’t usually yell at things in Chinese when I get scared, and I’ve had ample opportunity lately to find out.”
Kelly shrugged as far as her ill-fit tactical gear allowed. “Sure as hell wasn’t English.”
Suspicion crept up from deep within me. “What did it sound like?”
The sounds Kelly parroted back to me weren’t any kind of Chinese I knew, even accounting for an untrained ear and possibly mishearing exactly what I’d said. I knew for certain, because I could understand them. She was telling me to stop my attack and to step backward.
“That’s not Chinese.”
“Then what was it?”
Kelly knew about my slip in the Red Line tunnels. She would put together the pieces—the same pieces I held in my hand, refusing to watch them fit together. But I couldn’t hide this. If I was losing control, I owed her a fair warning.
“That was the language I’ve been translating from Martinez’s files: the language of the shadow lands.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
The Theater of Electricity was my most vivid recollection of the museum. Two giant metal spheres atop towers that loomed over the operator’s cage. Unlike many of the exhibits, it was no replica or simulation. The crackling bolts of lightning that shot across the stage carried millions of volts of electricity. Ozone had scented the air. I’d tuned out the lecture that went along with the show and just absorbed the spectacular display of power.
Now it was dark and quiet but not empty.
Kelly’s presence kept on my heels as I pushed through the doors. Tactical sense would have had us spread out, but she knew she couldn’t shadow-jump without me to carry her.
We weren’t the only ones inside.
I tried to take stock. Two… make that three among the spectator seats. A pair loitered near the far exit, and another lone shadowblood near an emergency door whose EXIT sign had been extinguished.
The one I was looking for was inside the human-sized birdcage at the center of the show. With the thunk of a heavy switch being thrown, the towers began to hum.
“Didn’t think you’d show,” the Black-Hatted Stranger called out from the Faraday cage.
“Didn’t think I’d make it past your guard dog?” I called back, stepping into the room so as not to look hesitant. I stuck a hand into the torn fabric at my belly. “You owe me a new shirt.”
There were a few laughs scattered around the theater.
“Figured it would keep the janitors away,” Black-Hat joked at a shout, as much for his crew as for our benefit. “It was a bitch to lure in here. To be honest, I thought you’d jump past it. We had a bet as to whether you’d piss yourself.” He gave me a look. “Guess I lost.”
I strolled forward. Kelly kept close by.
“Excellent,” my shadow cheered at whisper volume. “Meet your end with dignity.”
“Shut up,” Kelly murmured. From this close, she was the only one liable to overhear my shadow’s commentary.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I called out. “I got what you’re looking for.
Why you up in that cage? You think I’m such a bad man. You’re the murderer here.”
Kelly whispered in my ear. “I take it back. Listen to your shadow. There’s too many of them.”
She was right.
There was a problem, though. I’d had about my fill of this piece of shit.
Terms were simple enough: share the USB drive and we’d have a truce. But I wasn’t going to go in groveling.
The hum of the generators grew louder, and I only dared get as close as the edge of the audience section. The Black-Hatted Stranger’s buddies spread out behind us, blocking the door Kelly and I had come in by.
“You killed Sweeny,” the Black-Hatted Stranger said, posturing for his cronies. “And I killed that lackey friend of yours.”
“His name was Simon. Simon Elliston,” Kelly snapped.
The Black-Hatted Stranger shrugged. “I read the papers. And look at you now, all woken up. Look at that fresh little shadow of hers, all perky and busting to get loose. She get lucky, or did you get the Chinese to help you set her free?”
“I’m not dealing with the Chinese,” I replied quickly. The last thing I needed was to get lumped in with my father. “But if either one of us doesn’t come back, they’re getting copies of everything.”
The breath that tickled my ear was growing quicker. “Matt, they’re not going to let us out either way. We should surprise them. Attack now. Make a break for it.”
“Just let me handle them. You’re on the verge of controlling the power I lend you. I might even let you watch.”
My lack of reply was answer enough for both of them. This wasn’t turning into a bloodbath. That was the exact opposite of why I’d come.
A jolt of lightning leapt between the metal spheres and the cage. Even through my sunglasses, it stung my eyes.
The Black-Hatted Stranger chuckled. “Fine. Have it your way. Show us what you brought.”
I pulled out the invisible USB drive.