The Shadow Stealer

by Melissa Giorgio

  Mom made a face, and I wondered if that was in response to my lame attempt at changing the subject, or the mere mention of Charles’s name. She sighed and shifted in her chair before meeting my gaze. “I’d feel more comfortable sharing this story with just you and Philip,” she started.

  Rafe shook his head. “Yesterday, I sat to the side while she had to hear that you were dead from Charles. I’m not leaving her alone again when you talk to her. No matter what.”

  Under the table, I squeezed his hand, thankful that he always had my back, no matter what. “Besides, we’re just going to tell them everything anyway,” I said.

  Mom gave me a wry grin. “I figured as much.” She poured herself a cup of soda and took a long drink as she gathered her thoughts. I found myself holding my breath, my heart thumping loudly as I wondered what she was going to tell us.

  Could it be any worse than what she just told us about Collins?

  “I came from a family of hunters,” Mom began. She was speaking to all of us, but she was only looking at me. “And despite what I told your dad, Chloe, and you, they are very much alive. I lied about them because, to them, I was the one who was dead. I refused to become a hunter, refused to join Silver Moon, and I left when I was fifteen and it became apparent they were never going to accept and respect my decisions.”

  Mom had left home when she was Chloe’s age. I could barely picture myself going away to college in less than two years, and she’d managed to pack everything up and leave the only life she’d ever known like it was nothing.

  “I moved to Iowa, to live with my aunt Kate. She was an exile, just like me.” Mom’s eyes were wistful as she spoke. “I stayed there for three years, and she taught me everything she knew about magic. Magic, I found, was much better than hunting and slaying. Rather than destroying life, I was creating wonderful things.”

  “How come I never knew about this aunt?” I asked.

  Mom smiled sadly. “She passed away when I was eighteen. I say aunt, but she was actually a great-aunt. An older lady, whip-smart with a no-nonsense attitude. You would have liked her. And maybe I would have taken you to visit her someday, if I could have.

  “But she was gone all too soon, and I was on my own again. Aunt Kate left me everything, which wasn’t much, but enough for me to buy a one-way ticket to New York.”

  “Why New York?” I wanted to know.

  Mom shrugged. “I guess after three years of living on a farm, I wanted to see the city. I wanted to see what it felt like to get lost in a huge crowd. Florida was always crowded, but with tourists. They came and went with the seasons. I wanted something more stable. So I picked New York. It could just as easily have been Chicago or St. Louis or San Francisco, but for some reason, I felt a pull toward New York.”

  Now she turned to address Philip, who sat next to me, nervously ripping his sandwich to shreds. When he noticed her watching him, his fingers stilled. “The next part, I’m sure you’ve heard from your father.”

  He shook his head. “Dad didn’t tell me anything, except that you died shortly after giving birth to me.”

  Mom’s face paled. “What?”

  “I’m not trying to make excuses for him, because he’s an asshole for lying to me all these years, but I can kind of see why he did it.” Philip leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Who wants to tell their kid, ‘Oh, your mom left you because she didn’t care about you or me’?”

  “That’s not true,” Mom said fiercely. “I did—do care, Philip. I do.”

  “Then why did you leave?” Philip’s voice rose in volume. “You don’t just have a kid and leave! I know I’m supposed to be thankful that you saved Kain’s life—and I am—but you can’t just expect me to forgive you for what you did. Yeah, Dad lied to me, but you were the one who disappeared. For nineteen years, you never once approached me! How can you expect me to believe that you care for me?”

  Mom sighed, her face now strained with weariness. “I’m not going to sit here and make excuses. You’re right, Philip. I never should have left. But I was young—only nineteen—when I became pregnant, and scared out of my mind. I liked your father, enjoyed his company, but I never meant to have a baby. And neither did he. He proposed the moment I told him, and asked me again and again to marry him, but I always refused. I couldn’t help but wonder: Would he be asking me this if I weren’t pregnant? Was I just forcing his hand? I didn’t want to do that to him, to us. I didn’t want a life built on lies.”

  Little did Mom know, Charles had loved her. I could tell from the way he’d spoken about her yesterday. He would have married her in a heartbeat. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because he really had wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But because she hadn’t seen this, she’d managed to hurt everyone in the process. Would she have stayed, if she’d known? I watched her carefully as she spoke about Charles, but I couldn’t tell if she cared about him or not. Because of that, I had to wonder if she had felt the same way about my dad. Under the table, I squeezed my free hand into a fist. There was absolutely no way I would remain calm if I heard her say things like she “enjoyed his company.” Just—no. You don’t marry someone and have children with them and not love them at all. I refused to believe it was possible. I looked at my brother, at the way his jaw trembled as he fought to control his emotions, and I knew he felt the same way I did.

  “So you left,” Philip said.

  Mom’s eyes were shining with unshed tears. “Yes. I ran away.”

  “You’re good at that, aren’t you?” he asked bluntly.

  She recoiled, like Philip had struck her in the face. He pushed a hand through his short hair, exhaling loudly. Kain watched him carefully, his face neutral, but his body tense. Our eyes met briefly, and Kain gave me the barest shake of his head. I knew what he meant. We both wanted to comfort Philip, but it wasn’t our place.

  It was Mom’s.

  “I left,” she said, her voice trembling slightly, “and I started over. With Gabi’s father. It was nearly three years later, and I felt… I felt like I could do it that time. Have a family. Be a mother. But that didn’t mean that I stopped thinking about you, Philip. That I ever stopped regretting leaving you.” She leaned across the chair to touch his hand, and he yanked it away, out of reach. “Phil, I never stopped watching you.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked in a ragged whisper.

  She tapped a spot on her left shoulder. “I mean, I knew what happened to you seven years ago, when you were nearly killed by a demon. When they told your father to start preparing for a funeral because there was no way you could survive.”

  He swallowed hard. “Why are you telling me this? You knew I was dying, and you never once came to see me! Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I didn’t see you,” Mom said, “because I was too busy saving your life.”

  Silence descended on the room. It was as if we were teetering on the edge of a cliff, inches away from discovering the truth. Once Mom told the next part of the story, there would be no coming back. Steeling myself, I reached for Philip’s hand with my free one under the table. He gripped it tightly while the fingers on his other hand entwined with Kain’s.

  “What did you do?” I asked Mom.

  “It would be easier if I showed you.” Before anyone could react, Mom raised her hand and the room went dark. I stiffened in surprise, no longer able to feel the chair I was sitting on or Philip’s or Rafe’s hands in mine. I cried out for both of them, but no one answered.

  I was alone.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The darkness engulfed me, no matter how wide I opened my eyes. Panicking, I fell to my knees and wrapped my arms around my stomach, stifling a sob. What happened? What did she do to me?

  “Open your eyes, Gabi.”

  When had I shut them? Blinking them open, my jaw dropped when I took in my familiar surroundings. Home—I was home, in the shed at the edge of our garden. Dad had built it for Mo
m before I was even born, and after Mom left, I was the only one who ventured inside. When we were little, Chloe and I used to pretend that the shed, with its blue-gray siding and pitched roof, was actually home to a witch. Of course instead of a bubbling cauldron and magical creatures flitting about, there were rows of empty pots neatly stacked against one wall, and gardening tools hanging on the opposite side.

  I was standing near the front of the shed, next to one of the two windows that flanked the partly opened door. Moonlight filtered through the narrow glass panes, providing enough light for me to see a younger-looking Mom standing in the middle of the shed, her hands curled into fists as she stared at the opposite wall.

  “Mom?” I asked tentatively. When she didn’t respond, I walked over, repeating her name until I realized she couldn’t hear—or see—me. I was like a ghost, an invisible observer to this scene from the past. But where were the others? Shouldn’t Philip, Rafe, and everyone else be here, too? Or was I the only one seeing this?

  Mom reached into the pocket of her jacket and removed a stick of chalk and a pair of candles. Kneeling, she placed the candles on the ground and lit them with a quick snap of her fingers before she drew a wide circle with the chalk, muttering words under her breath as she did so. The air in the room shimmered, much like it did before a summer thunderstorm. Next, she drew symbols inside the circle, reminding me of what Evan had done the night Davenport had taken my sister. I peered at them. These symbols were different, though. They were more detailed and… crueler, almost.

  When Mom began chanting in a dark and guttural language, I startled. I’d never heard words like that before, but I knew they were very old, and very evil.

  Oh my god, I thought. She was showing me the moment she summoned a demon. In our shed.

  But what about the why? Why did she bring a demon here?

  “I didn’t see you,” Mom said, “because I was too busy saving your life.”

  I covered my mouth in horror as Philip’s voice from the day in HQ’s library echoed in my mind:

  “I remember it hurting—worse than anything I’d ever felt before, and then everything sort of got hazy… It was bad. Really, really bad. I wasn’t conscious for any of it, but afterwards I was told the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding, no matter what they did or tried. Eventually, everyone told my dad to start preparing for a funeral, because it was only a matter of hours, not days, before I died, but he refused. And then, when he was about to give up…” Philip shook his head. “That’s when I started getting better.”

  Kain frowned. “How?”

  “No idea,” Philip said. “The wound stopped bleeding, and a few days later, I woke up. I was weak, of course, but each day I grew a little bit stronger until I was back to normal again.”

  The area inside the circle grew dark. It started off as a small, black spot, but it grew larger as Mom’s voice increased in volume. I was backed against the wall, my mind screaming as a long, bony arm with sharp talons emerged from the shadowy spot first. There was no flesh on the arm, just brown, brittle bones that looked ready to snap at a moment’s notice. The arm was quickly followed by its head, its other arm, a pair of legs and a long, slender tail with spiky barbs on the end as it finally pulled itself out of the hole in the ground. (I assumed it was a portal, but I was too busy being scared of out my mind to worry about that technicality at the moment.) The demon’s head was small and round, with two jagged, pointy antlers protruding from its forehead. Its body was entirely devoid of flesh, and even though it wasn’t facing me, I could tell it was the scariest demon I’d ever seen (even scarier than Charlotte, the phlegm-spitting spider-demon!).

  And Mom had brought that thing here, with our house fifty feet away. Was this the first time she’d done something like this, or had this been going on all the while? And what about Dad, Chloe, and myself? Were we inside, sleeping and completely oblivious to the unholy terror Mom had just summoned?

  Mom rose to her feet, her eyes never straying from the demon. She’d stopped chanting but kept her hands up where it could see them. “Demon,” she said in a low voice, “you will do my bidding.”

  I inched closer, regretting it immediately when I saw the glittering coal-black eyes that rested in the thing’s skull. They were locked on Mom’s face, full of hatred and promises of dark, terrible things. How was Mom just standing there without freaking out?

  Mom is either completely out of her mind, or way more badass than I ever realized.

  My mom, the scary demon summoner. I shook my head. Could this get any crazier?

  Then the demon bowed its head and said in a whisper-soft voice, “What is your command, my master?”

  And that’s when I realized we’d taken things to a whole new level of crazy.

  She did it so easily, too. I shuddered. What had her great-aunt Kate taught her, out on the farm in Iowa? No, wait, scratch that. I didn’t want to know.

  Mom took a deep breath before answering the demon’s question. “My son has been gravely injured by one of your kind. They say he won’t last the week.”

  The demon lifted its head slightly, its bones creaking with the movement. “Then I express my condolences for your…loss.”

  “No.” The single word was as sharp as the crack of a whip, and the demon actually flinched away from Mom. Holy crap, I was right. She is badass! “My son will not die, because you will help me save him.”

  At that, the demon raised its head fully so it could stare at Mom eye-to-eye. Her brows furrowed, unhappy at his blatant disrespect, but she held her tongue. “What makes you believe I will help you?” it asked.

  It was so weird, hearing her have an actual conversation with a demon. The ones I’d met did a lot of hissing and growling. Boneless had managed to form a few words, but nothing like this. (And Davenport didn’t count, since he’d been human at one point.) I didn’t like the idea that these things were smart. As if they weren’t bad enough already… I wondered if being smart meant it was also powerful. It must have been, if Mom was going to use it to save Philip.

  Philip. My heart squeezed at the thought of my brother. Was he seeing this like I was? I couldn’t even imagine what he was thinking; it was obvious the demon helped, and that’s how Philip made his miraculous recovery. And the demon must have taken Philip’s magic as its price.

  Instead of answering the demon’s question, Mom snapped her fingers, and the thing fell to the ground, shrieking in pain. It was a horrible noise, like a dying cat crossed with fingernails scraping a chalkboard, one that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I barely resisted the urge to curl up in the fetal position and cover my ears. As brutal as the noise was, though, I didn’t want to miss what was said next.

  Mom loomed over the demon, her left hand held in the air while her eyes flashed. The air around her shimmered again, and the demon skittered as far back as it could go without touching the chalk line. It shouted something incoherent as its body shook from whatever it was Mom was doing to it. Her face was expressionless as she watched the demon writhe against the ground.

  “S-Stop!” it choked out.

  “Will you help me?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  Mom’s fingers snapped again, and the demon fell over, panting loudly. “My son is in a hospital in New York City. You will go to him, now, and heal the wound in his shoulder. You will stop the bleeding, and you will save his life. Do you understand me?”

  The demon started laughing hoarsely. “He will be surrounded by Silver Moon hunters. You are sending me to my death.”

  Mom shook her head. “Don’t lie to me, demon. I know who you are, and I know your tricks. You’ll stick to the shadows, and no one will see you.” The demon actually managed to look surprised, and Mom smiled and put her hands on her hips, a gesture I had unconsciously mimicked my entire life. It made my heart hurt just to see it. “Come on. Did you think I called you here without knowing what you can do? That’s a rookie mistake, and I assure you, I’m not a rookie. I know what I’m d
oing. And I know you can save him, because besides the shadows, I know you have certain… powers. Of the healing kind.”

  Warning bells went off in my head as my body turned ice-cold.

  “Help my son, and I will send you home to your realm. Fail and…” Mom’s voice changed, growing dark. “You will not live.” She raised her hand again, and the demon followed the movement with wary eyes.

  “You leave me no choice… Master.”

  “Mommy, what’s going on?”

  Everyone in the room froze at the sound of a child’s voice.

  But it wasn’t just any child’s voice.

  I turned slowly to see nine-year-old me hovering at the edge of the chalk circle, a terrified expression on my face. My younger self’s hair was done up in a messy ponytail, and she was wearing hot-pink pajamas with little sparkly hearts on the pants. I’d been so engrossed in the conversation between Mom and the demon that I hadn’t even noticed little me enter the shed. And neither had Mom, apparently. As my younger self took another step forward, Mom shouted, “Gabi, no!”

  But it was too late. Little Gabi crossed over the chalk circle and the demon, who had gone as still as a statue the moment it heard the child speak, pounced.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Somehow little Gabi stepping across the line broke whatever hold it had over the demon. Moving fast, it snatched little Gabi’s arm and yanked her away from Mom and the summoning circle. One bony finger rested against little Gabi’s throat, the sharp talon cutting into her skin. As a thin line of blood appeared, trickling down the demon’s talon, my younger self started wailing in both pain and fear.

  “No!” Mom shouted, one hand stretched toward the demon. She didn’t attack, however. I could tell from the frantic look on her face that she didn’t know what to do. If she attacked, my younger self would die. And if she killed the demon, Philip would die.