We Walk in Darkness

by Bill Hiatt

  “Not actually in Santa Brígida, but Mestre Ribeiro arranged for me to participate in some rodas in the Santa Barbara area. Come to think of it, one of the Santa Brígida guys was there, and he visited me up here. He does mixed martial arts, not capoeira, but he wanted to observe.”

  “What? You know someone from Santa Brígida?” asked Bisavó. She almost sounded accusing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t realize it was important.”

  “Oh, was that the nice Persian boy?” asked Mom. “The one you invited to dinner a couple years back?”

  “That’s the one,” I confirmed.

  “He was here? In this very house?” asked Bisavó in mounting excitement.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but so what? He’s not a healer, is he?”

  “The Ladies of the Lake have techniques for linking with others. I think one of their healers can get here if she can link with this boy. What’s his name?”

  “Shar something. Oh, Shar Sassani I think.” I said, hoping I had the name right.

  Bisavó was on the phone almost instantly repeating the name to whoever was on the other end. Then she turned to me again.

  “He wants to know if this location is secure.”

  I thought about our situation. The shadow assassin could rearm and come back, but if I understood the situation, nowhere with any shadow at all would be secure in that sense. I was more worried about Sullivan coming back than anything else. The screaming had subsided, so I assumed Bisavó had used it to lead him somewhere else, but, at some point, he was bound to pop up again, and I had no idea how long this would take.

  “If we don’t want to be interrupted, the back parking lot of the high school would be better. It’s lit all night, so we don’t have to worry about assassins, but it’s not visible from the street. Shar’s been at the school too. He was a guest speaker in Ms. Carson’s world history class. People who know Persian history well are in pretty short supply in Madisonville.”

  Bisavó repeated everything I said, hung up, and turned to us with the biggest smile I had seen on her face. “It will take a few minutes, but they’re sending us two of their best healers. This Shar will come along as well, and he and someone else they’re sending will serve as bodyguards.”

  “Bodyguards?” asked Mom worriedly.

  “The only reason we haven’t had another visit from the sombras must be that they assume Lucas is as good as dead,” replied Bisavó. “They could be watching though, and if Lucas is cured, it’s possible he could be attacked, as could our guests if they get in the way.”

  “In that case, Mom, you should stay here,” I said.

  She started to protest, but Bisavó cut her off. “The boy is right. You should be safe here, but if you are at the school with Lucas and there is an attack, you would be the only one among us who couldn’t defend yourself well. The assassin won’t try to kill you, but things could get out of control—”

  “I’m going!” Mom insisted.

  “Yes…to sleep!” said Bisavó, waving her hand in Mom’s general direction.

  I felt something, a power I guessed, surge from Bisavó and strike Mom hard. She staggered and would have fallen if I hadn’t grabbed her.

  “What—” I started.

  “We have no time to argue with her. She will sleep peacefully, just like your father, until I wake her.”

  “The street’s pretty dark.” I pointed out. “What if a robber decides now’s a good time to break in?”

  “There are police all over the place,” Bisavó reminded me. “This isn’t a night that would be especially attractive to robbers—at least on this block. Put your mother on the couch, and let’s go,” she finished, using what I imagined was her strongest don’t-argue-with-me tone.

  Bisavó had her work cut out for her to get us out though, as the disembodied screaming had worked a little too well. Police were herding anyone who popped out to see what was going on back into their houses. She could—and did—use her mastery of illusion to make us invisible and inaudible, but getting the car out of the garage was a whole other problem.

  Preventing everyone from seeing a deep-impact metallic-blue Ford Explorer was apparently taxing to begin with, even in the dark, partly because of the headlights. Keeping people (who didn’t see the vehicle) out of the way added an extra layer of complication. It took ten minutes to edge our way out of that block. Once we were back in an area that didn’t look under siege, we became visible again and made normal progress, reaching the school in just a few minutes.

  James Madison High School had the virtue of newness, though its design was uninspired and boxy; anyway, so said my dad, whose firm hadn’t gotten the contract for it. I kind of had to agree, though. If you wanted a generic, institutional-looking environment, you could hardly have done better.

  I drove up the back driveway, expecting to stop at the gate for the student parking lot—except it wasn’t locked. The chain dangled from one side of the open gate, the unlocked padlock tucked neatly into the last link.

  “Our guests?” asked Bisavó.

  “Either that, or it’s the tidiest break-in ever,” I said.

  Once we pulled around the curve in the driveway and into the lot itself, I could tell our suspicions were accurate. Our guests were already here…and they were not at all what I expected.

  I had anticipated two women in long flowing white robes, Shar, and some thug. The term “bodyguard” was somehow linked in my head to hired muscle, and not necessarily muscle employed for entirely moral purposes.

  Instead, what we got was one woman who was youngish, blond, and built like a Playboy model. (Yeah, I’ve taken my share of peeks at my dad’s.) She was decidedly not in a long, flowing robe, but I managed to pry my eyes away from her to look more closely at the three guys with her.

  Shar was only a year older than I was, and the other two looked about the same. Shar might not have been hired muscle, but he was definitely muscle, far more ripped even than the average high-school athlete. He looked as if he had worked out constantly since the last time I saw him—and he hadn’t exactly been scrawny then.

  I shouldn’t have been able to tell so much about his physique, because he wore a loose-fitting outfit probably designed to allow as much freedom of movement as possible, sort of like capoeira clothing. The long-sleeved shirt looked almost like leather armor and matched his pants. Despite being loose, though, his clothing did show off his muscles, almost like…well, magic. I couldn’t shake the feeling someone had designed the outfit for combat, leaving Shar free to move but showing his enemies exactly how much he had to work with.

  That was crazy though…or was it?

  The other two, one a little taller than Shar, were slightly less muscled but clearly athletic, and, like Shar, they wore leather-like outfits. All three had scabbards that hung from their belts with formidable-looking swords in them. I hadn’t expected them to be armed. I was used to capoeira, which didn’t involve weapons, but none of them were capoeiristas, so I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

  “Lucas!” said Shar happily when I got out of the car. “We were beginning to worry.”

  “It took a while to get out of our neighborhood,” I explained. “The police got called in when our friendly neighborhood assassin started breaking things like streetlights.”

  “From what I’ve read of them, that sounds a little desperate.” The woman stepped forward to shake hands. “I’m Viviane Florence, Order of the Ladies of the Lake.”

  “Ah, one of the healers!” said Bisavó, joining us. “You seem very young.” Implicit in the last statement was the question, “Do you have enough experience to get the job done?”

  “As an Encantado such as yourself would know quite well, looks can be deceiving,” said Viviane, bowing slightly.

  Bisavó, seemingly charmed, bowed back.

  “But where is the other healer? I understood there would be two,” said Bisavó, suspiciously.

  “Allow me to introduce Taliesin Weav
er, who is many things, healer among them,” said Viviane. One of the guys stepped forward and extended a hand.

  He had an elaborate design on the chest of his leather shirt, something with fire and musical instruments. He was about my height, with brown hair and eyes and was clearly about my age as well.

  Bisavó was not impressed. “He’s a boy!”

  Embarrassed, I muttered, “He’s my age, Bisavó, and you’ve been calling me a man all night.”

  “Well, he’s certainly no Lady of the Lake!” Bisavó shot back.

  “He was joined to the Lake by Coventina herself, after which he had to save a young man whose body was horribly mutilated,” said Viviane quietly. “That was the very first time Tal ever used his healing powers, but he successfully reconstructed the poor kid’s body, a task that would have daunted many experienced healers.”

  “Tell her about the resurrection,” suggested the tall guy.

  “We don’t know what caused that,” said Taliesin, looking embarrassed by the whole thing.

  “Bisavó, you were the one who insisted on urgency,” I pointed out, trying to avoid having her humiliate me completely in front of people who had, after all, come at a moment’s notice to help us out. “Is this really the time to ask for everyone’s résumé?”

  “You speak the truth,” she said, though with obvious reluctance. It seemed as if no one except Coventina herself would have satisfied her.

  “Let me introduce the rest of our party, then, and we’ll get started,” said Viviane smoothly. “Shahriyar Sassani Lucas already knows; he was our ride here, so to speak. He and Gordy Hayes will keep watch in the event that Tal and I are too preoccupied with the healing to defend ourselves.”

  Both Shar and Gordy nodded in acknowledgment. I noticed they, too, had designs on their chests; Shar had an ancient battle scene, and Gordy a lion. The whole thing seemed almost…I don’t know…like superheroes, and it made me want to snicker, but I suppressed that impulse.

  “More children,” muttered Bisavó, but I was relieved to see that our guests seemed able to practice selective deafness and pretended they hadn’t heard her.

  “OK, let’s see what we have here,” said Taliesin in an almost medical way. Past the awkwardness created by Bisavó, he now seemed far more mature than his years. “Right arm?”

  I nodded, and he put one hand on each side of the clotted little scratch.

  “I think you guys probably came out for nothing,” I said apologetically. “I’m fine.” I felt the oddest sensation in my arm as he examined it. I assumed he was using magic of some kind, and I could feel him doing it.

  “Well, buddy, we didn’t come out for nothing.” Taliesin frowned. “You’ve got some pretty major evil magic in your arm. I’m just as surprised as your great- grandmother that it didn’t do anything right away. It looks as if it should have killed you in minutes. Nurse Florence?”

  Viviane stepped over and did the same thing—and, again, my arm felt weird, as if I could sense her looking around in it.

  She cringed visibly. “Terribly strong magic. Shadow assassin for sure, though I’ve only seen it once before.”

  “And you saved the victim?” asked Bisavó.

  “No,” said Viviane sadly. “By the time I reached him, he was already dead.”

  Taliesin touched my arm again. This time, I felt the presence of his magic more strongly. Either I was becoming more sensitive, or he was using much stronger magic.

  “For lack of a better way to describe what’s happening, the poison is thinking,” he said at last. “It was expecting a human, and now it’s trying to adapt.”

  “I am human!” I protested, realizing as soon as I said it that I really wasn’t—not completely anyway.

  “You are human, of course,” agreed Taliesin, “but also more, right?”

  Before I could answer, a little boy’s voice asked, “Like me?”

  “Khalid!” exclaimed Taliesin, not angry exactly, but definitely not happy either. “What are you doing here? Shar, didn’t you check for him?”

  Shar looked embarrassed. “We were in such a hurry, I forgot. It never does us any good anyway; he sneaks along somehow, no matter what.”

  “Khalid! Show yourself!” Taliesin ordered sternly.

  A little boy, obviously Khalid, appeared out of nowhere. He also wore a leather-like outfit, and just like the others, it had an image across the chest, in this case of an ancient Middle Eastern city with a small figure flying over it. He carried what looked like a real long bow, except it was sized for him, and there was a quiver of arrows on his back. Something about him made me think of Cupid, Middle Eastern style.

  “You weren’t supposed to come,” said Taliesin reprovingly.

  “You might need my arrows,” Khalid said quickly, “and we’ve been in way more dangerous places than this.” Then, looking at me, he smiled and asked, “Are you part djinn too?”

  “What, like a genie?” I asked, not sure what he had said.

  “More or less,” said Shar. “Khalid is a half djinn.”

  I couldn’t help but gawk a little.

  Taliesin leaned close to me and said quietly, “Did you think you were the only one? The only one with part supernatural ancestry, I mean.”

  “Until tonight I didn’t know I had supernatural ancestry,” I said. “I’m still trying to get used to the idea.”

  Taliesin studied my face for about half a minute. “Thought you were a freak, right?” he asked, even more quietly.

  Though I had just met him, something made me want to trust him, and I nodded.

  “I’ve been there,” said Taliesin reassuringly. “But guess what? Neither one of us is a freak. Khalid isn’t either.”

  Khalid had moved closer to join the conversation. “I’m fireproof, I can move pretty fast, and I can jump pretty high. What can you do?”

  God! This really is like a superhero comic book!

  “I can move fast too,” I said, smiling at Khalid. “Sometimes I see things before they happen.”

  “Which is how you avoided the assassin, I imagine,” suggested Taliesin. “I was told you were part Encantado, though, and neither one of those are Encantado characteristics.”

  “Are you going to cure him, or do his family tree?” Bisavó interrupted loudly.

  “Bisavó!” I said, embarrassed again.

  “It’s a legitimate question,” said Taliesin smoothly. “Actually, knowing more about him may tell us what approach to take to cure him.”

  “In that case, I will tell you what I can,” said Bisavó grudgingly. “I was permitted to have a long-term relationship with his great-grandfather because the man had xana blood.”

  “Ah!” said Viviane. “Yes, the xanas are the faeries in Galicia and Asturias. A fair number of their descendants traveled to the New World.”

  Suddenly, my right arm felt like an icicle was being jabbed into it.

  Taliesin, who still had a hand on it, jumped. “The poison is on the move! Nurse Florence, now!”

  Viviane moved back to me and put her hands on my arm. I felt her magic surge around the poison, walling it in.

  “Everybody else, keep watch,” Taliesin cautioned the guys. Then he focused on my arm, and I felt magic from both of them trying to enclose the poison. The poison fought back, and I felt as if the icicle was splintering into my bloodstream.

  For the first time since the shadow had fled, I was afraid.

  Chapter 7: Another Interlude (Umbra)

  I could feel the Praeceptor’s cold rage.

  “You told me you could kill this one! You swore it!”

  “He was wounded!” I protested. “I know he was!”

  “Aye,” admitted the Praeceptor, still angry. “Yet he is not dead. A dominus will never accept a mere wound as completion of the task, nor will we.”

  My cheeks were wet, though I did not understand why. “Am I without purpose now?”

  “Nearly,” said the Praeceptor, “but I have prevailed upon my colleagues to
give you one more chance. It will not count as a completed trial, for they are insistent you be sent with help, but it will not count as a failure, either—at least if you succeed this time.”

  “More than one assassin?” I asked, puzzled. “How many?”

  “As many as we can raise,” replied the Praeceptor vaguely. “The imperator of the Populus Umbrae himself is determined that the target shall not escape, no matter what. The reputation of our whole society is at stake now.”

  “He is with others,” said the Praeceptor, “and some of them are powerful. To atone for your earlier failure, you and those we send with you will ensure that not a one survives.”

  “You mean—” I began, though I do not know why that made me nervous.

  “I mean take care of the original target first, but then kill anyone, human or otherwise, that you find with him. All must die!”

  Chapter 8: Shadows of Armageddon (Lucas)

  I heard a crash, and I knew without looking. One of the lights in the parking lot had been shattered.

  “Shar!” yelled Taliesin, still keeping both hands firmly on my arm.

  “On it!” said Shar. “Incoming…multiple incoming.”

  Another crash.

  Now my whole arm was cold and numb. Taliesin and Viviane worked on it feverishly—I felt their power surging in my arm—but they were not doing enough. I felt weaker than I had been just a minute ago.

  “I’ve never heard of shadow assassins working in groups,” muttered Viviane.

  “Our boy here gave the one such a hard time they had to send reinforcements,” said Taliesin, giving me a pat on the shoulder.

  Khalid jumped off the ground and hovered above us, like he was flying. I wondered if I were hallucinating.

  “His armor helps him do it,” said Taliesin, as if he could read my mind. Hell, for all I knew, maybe he was reading my mind.

  Khalid fired an arrow. There was a bright explosion somewhere, followed by several wordless screams. I couldn’t hear a thing, but I felt the seething emotions from the shadows.

  Khalid fired a couple more, with equally satisfying results. Then I heard another crash.