Seeing Shadows (Shadow Series #1)

by S. H. Kolee

  Simon's tone was pleading, as if he was begging me to tell him it was all untrue, that it had just been part of a bad dream. I so badly wanted to clasp his hands, tell him everything, and then let him make his own decision. But that was selfish of me. Simon didn't deserve to be dragged into the dark side with me.

  I rubbed my forehead with my hand tiredly. "Simon, what are you doing in here anyways?" I glanced at the bedside clock and saw that it was almost two in the morning.

  "After I helped my parents say goodbye to the last guests, I came in here after getting ready for bed. I was worried you were going to have a nightmare and...it was just nice sleeping together before. That's all I wanted. So I came in to see if you were asleep yet."

  I frowned at his explanation but let him continue.

  "When I came in, you were moaning. It sounded like you were in pain so I tried to wake you up but you wouldn't. I turned on the light but you still wouldn't wake up. That is, until you opened your eyes and said those things. But then you closed your eyes and started moaning again so I knew you were still asleep."

  "Simon," I said with a sigh. "You can't just sneak into my room while I'm sleeping. I know you weren't trying anything, but still..."

  Simon had been sitting on the bed beside me, the side of his hip pressing against mine, but he pulled back at my words. I saw anger flare in his eyes. "You say it like I'm some pervert creeping into your room. I was worried about you. And you still haven't answered my question."

  "What question?" I was growing impatient as well. Sleep was when I was the most vulnerable and I didn't need Simon coming in, trying to comfort me without me knowing. I knew the real reason I was angry was because I didn't want Simon to become a crutch that I depended on, someone I needed beside me to sleep peacefully. Because that wasn't in my future.

  "Why did you say the things that you did?"

  "How do I know?! I was asleep!"

  Simon took a deep steadying breath, and I could see him trying to calm himself down. "I think we're making this into more than it is. I'm sorry I came in here without your permission. Like I said, I was worried. And I know you didn't mean the things you said. Even though you won't tell me what your nightmare was about, I think on some level you're just scared of the depth of feeling we have for each other, and this was your way of trying to protect yourself, even on a subconscious level."

  Great, Simon was becoming Freud, psychoanalyzing my dreams. The fact that he didn't let my words deter him showed just how committed he was. Even though those things were said while I was asleep, the ugliness of the sentiments stung. It killed me that I had said those things to Simon. It didn't matter if it was technically the vardoger. Those words had still come out of my mouth. Simon's willingness to make excuses for me scared me. How could I let him go when he wasn't willing to let me go?

  How could I make myself let him go?

  It was too late to try and figure this out. Tomorrow I would meet Aunt Brenda and get the answers I needed. It would all be clearer tomorrow.

  "Simon, I'm sorry I said those things." Despite knowing we had no future, I still didn't want him to think I really meant the things I said to him. "I'm exhausted. I just need to go back to sleep."

  "Okay." Simon looked down at the bedcover and then looked up, his blue eyes hopeful. "Do you want me to stay with you?"

  I shook my head but gentled the refusal with my words. "That's okay. And I didn't mean to imply earlier that you were some pervert. I know you were just worried."

  Simon nodded, looking glum as he stood up. "Okay. Well, I'll be down the hall in my room if you need anything."

  He looked so forlorn that I couldn't help reaching out, grasping his hand. "Thanks Simon. I appreciate your concern. Really."

  Simon smiled, looking relieved. "It seems like I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about you. It's a good thing I'm okay with it."

  He leaned down and gave me a kiss on the forehead and left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.

  I scrambled out of bed as soon as the door closed and ran to my suitcase, where I had stowed my iridium necklace. I immediately felt reassured when my hands closed around the cool metal. I couldn't risk taking it off again. I quickly clasped it around my neck and crawled back into bed, leaving the light on. There was no way I was going back to sleep tonight so I just stared at the ceiling, reliving the vision over and over again. Wondering what the change in the vision meant.

  **********

  It took a long time for morning to come, but I didn't want to go downstairs for breakfast and face everyone. Sarah knocked on my door around nine o'clock and popped her head in but I pretended to still be asleep. It was a cowardly move, but I didn't think I could face even her.

  Simon didn't come to my door. I wondered if he was hesitant after what happened last night, especially since I had berated him for coming into my room without an invitation.

  I finally dragged myself out of bed at ten-thirty and took a shower, throwing on a t-shirt and jeans and running a brush through my wet hair. I had a momentary thought that I should put more effort into my appearance since I would be meeting my aunt for the first time. At least the first time that I could remember. But I figured that was the least of my worries.

  I headed down the stairs and Simon popped into the foyer, as if he had been listening for my footsteps. He gave me a tentative smile when he saw me.

  "Good morning, sleepyhead. I was starting to think you would never wake up."

  I gave Simon a small smile. "Yeah, I was really knocked out. Sorry."

  "It's okay. Sarah said that you were still asleep when she checked on you. I didn't want to wake you since you...probably didn't get too much sleep last night."

  Simon met me at the foot of the stairs and gave me a soft kiss. I felt the familiar stirrings of desire but pushed them aside. "Should we head out?"

  Simon studied me for a moment and then nodded. "Sure. But don't you want something to eat first? There's still plenty of food in the kitchen."

  I shook my head. The thought of eating right now made my stomach roil. I was too tense and anxious about what had happened between Simon and I last night. About meeting my aunt and finding out more about vardogers. Who could eat when you were about to find out whether you were going to spend the rest of your life chasing shadows?

  "I'm not hungry. Let's just get going."

  "Sure. We can just grab lunch afterwards."

  I hesitated, wondering if I should check on Sarah first. "How did Sarah seem? Is she okay?"

  "She seemed fine. She's with my sister right now in the theater room watching some man-bashing movie. Last time I checked they were laughing at some poor guy trying to learn how to pick up girls and discussing which ice cream flavor to eat first."

  I laughed despite everything going on. It sounded like Sarah was right on track for post-breakup wallowing.

  The drive to Aunt Brenda's took only fifteen minutes and for some reason it unnerved me that Simon lived so close to her. The drive was silent as we were lost in our own thoughts.

  Simon pulled up to a ranch style house. It was small but tidy and well kept with shrubs in the front.

  "526 Guardian Way," he said, double checking the piece of paper where I had scribbled the address. "This is it."

  I took a deep breath, trying to gather the courage to open the car door and walk up to the house. I had been so eager to meet Aunt Brenda and get some answers but now I was scared. Scared that those answers would irrevocably change my life. And not for the better.

  "Are you okay? Are you sure you don't want me to go in with you? I can just stay quiet. Maybe that will make your aunt more comfortable."

  I looked at Simon's concerned face and I felt a rush of love for him. It gave me the courage I needed to go through with this. I would be able to get answers from my aunt on how to help Simon get rid of his vardoger.

  "I'm okay. Just a little nervous." I remembered my excuse about my aunt being wary of strangers. "It's probably bes
t if I just go in. I don't want my aunt to feel any more awkward than this probably is going to be."

  Simon leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. He smiled at me tenderly. "She'd be crazy not to love you. I'll be out here waiting."

  I nodded and opened the car door, stepping out into the cold. The walk to the front door seemed to last forever, and when I rang the doorbell, the door immediately swung open as if my aunt had been watching my approach.

  A tall angular woman stood in front of me. Her light brown hair was long and wavy, streaked with grey. Her brown eyes were alert and focused as she looked back at me. I could see the strong resemblance to my father, but Aunt Brenda's face was more open while my father's face always looked closed and disapproving.

  "Hi," I said, not knowing what else to say.

  Aunt Brenda smiled. "Hi. I'm so glad that you were able to come." She looked behind me at the car sitting in the driveway. "Is that the friend you're staying with?"

  I had told my aunt that I was in Connecticut staying with a friend for the weekend, but I hadn't told her much beyond that. I could tell by her expression that she was reassessing my label of friend. Even from far away, you could tell that Simon wasn't the type of guy any girl wanted to merely call her friend.

  "Yes, that's him."

  "Well, come in, it's cold out there." Aunt Brenda ushered me in and paused before closing the door. "Does your friend want to come in?"

  I shook my head. "I don't think that's a very good idea. He doesn't know what's going on."

  Aunt Brenda accepted my explanation and led me into the living room. Just like the outside of her house, the inside was small but neat and tidy. It looked comfortable and well lived in.

  She guided me to a well worn couch and sat down next to me. "I know these aren't the best circumstances, but I'm so happy to finally be able to see you again. You were so little the last time I saw you. Now you look so much like your mother that it's a shock." She gave a rueful smile. "Of course, I see plenty of George in you too."

  A part of me wanted to forget all the vardoger stuff and just ask Aunt Brenda about my mother. I knew so little about her, and here was the woman who had apparently been her best friend. But I knew I had to get my priorities in order. I had already spent way too much time thinking about Simon. I couldn't continue to be distracted.

  "I'm happy to meet you too. I hate to just get right down to why I'm here but..." I faltered, not wanting to be rude.

  "I understand. It's not every day that you learn that there are things out there trying to exterminate people, and you're one of the few people gifted with the sight and power to stop them."

  There was that word again. Gift. It was a euphemism for curse.

  "I've been processing everything that you've told me but I still have a lot of questions."

  "Of course. I've only given you the tip of the iceberg." Great, there was more? "What are your questions?"

  "Well, how do you know when a vardoger is going to overtake their person? That the connection is strong enough for them to try? I mean, you have to know when they're going to attack to stop them, right?"

  Aunt Brenda nodded. "It's different for a lot of seers. The longer you do this, the easier it is to tell. But for me it's the day after I have a vision of the person being killed and their spirit leaving their body." She looked at me closely. "Have you had those type of visions? Not every seer has them. Only the more powerful ones do. Others just get a sense of foreboding that tells them an attack is imminent. It's not an exact science."

  I felt a rushing in my ears as blood pounded into my head. I had seen Claudia's spirit leaving her body, rushing out of her mouth.

  "I had one the other day," I whispered. "Friday night. Of a girl I go to school with." I looked up at my aunt, not really seeing her, as images of Claudia's spirit leaving her body crowded my vision. "Does that mean she was killed yesterday?"

  Aunt Brenda sighed, looking at me sadly. "Most likely. How seers sense things...they seem to be hereditary. So it's no surprise that your warnings are similar to mine."

  I felt as if I had been struck physically. Yesterday, when I had been so happy with Simon, laughing and kissing, Claudia had been killed. I had been so wrapped up in my own happiness that I had neglected what was most important. People's lives. After that horrific vision, I could have picked up the phone and called my aunt. I could have tried to save Claudia. It would have been a long shot to make it back to Rochester to try, but an effort was more than nothing. Maybe I could have tried to call Claudia, to warn her.

  I felt sick and, at that moment, I hated myself. Aunt Brenda was studying me and she broke into my thoughts. "There's no use feeling guilty about it, Caitlin. You can only do so much. You're still learning. And not all seers are meant to fight vardogers. Some are afflicted with the visions but don't have the strength to actually eliminate vardogers."

  "But you fight vardogers, right?"

  "I do."

  "And you said this stuff was mostly hereditary."

  My aunt nodded slowly. "Yes, but that's not always the case."

  "I let her die." My words hung in the air.

  "Caitlin-"

  "I did nothing and let her die."

  Aunt Brenda reached out to touch me but I shook my head. I didn't think I could take any kindness at the moment. It would shatter the thin control I had on my sanity.

  "Caitlin, I know this is hard but you can't let this affect you so much. You can't dwell on the losses. Because not everyone is a win. For every vardoger you eliminate, there are three others that succeed in killing and overtaking their person."

  "How do you do it? How do you watch people die?"

  Aunt Brenda looked at me fiercely. "Because I remember the ones that lived. The ones we saved. That's what keeps me going."

  I took a long shuddering breath, forcing myself to push my guilt to the side. I didn't have the luxury in indulging in that emotion right now. "So once you have the vision of their spirit leaving their body, what do you do? Just follow them around the next day?"

  "Pretty much. You try to stay close to them."

  "How do you know when it's happening? Do you actually see the vardoger killing them?"

  Aunt Brenda nodded grimly. "The stronger of a seer you are, the more easily you can see the vardoger. It's also like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes. The vardoger will have their person take the steps to kill themselves. They'll guide them to a bridge to jump off of. They'll have them buy a gun and bullets. They'll have them start a fire. Their connection to their person is so strong at that moment that they can influence their actions. And then the vardoger finishes the act and kills their person. As a seer, you can see the vardoger step out of the shadow."

  "You said if we pull them into us while we're touching a piece of iridium, they're destroyed. How exactly do we pull them into us?"

  Aunt Brenda tapped her head. "It's all in the power of the mind. You basically have to will the vardoger into you when you see it step out of the shadows. Remember, vardogers are at their weakest when their connection with their person is the strongest. The best way to explain it is to imagine them being pulled into your body, and then will it to happen."

  I blinked. That was it? You just willed it to happen? "That sounds awfully simple and hard at the same time."

  "That's exactly the right way to put it," she said grimly. "It's ludicrously easy in concept but incredibly hard in reality. A lot of seers have to practice for a long time before they're able to succeed."

  "So while they're practicing, the people that they're practicing on are dying?"

  She nodded.

  "Well, that pretty much sucks."

  Aunt Brenda gave a hollow laugh. "It does indeed suck. The only way to endure it is to remember that for every person you lose, you get stronger to save the next person."

  "What happens when a vardoger tries to kill a seer during a vision? Do you actually die if they succeed?"

  Aunt Brenda furrowed her brows. "
What do you mean?"

  "In the vision I had of the girl being killed and her spirit leaving her. After the vardoger had taken over her body, she...it tried to kill me. And then gave me a warning."

  My aunt sat up straight, focusing on me so intensely I squirmed. "Do you mean to tell me that the vardoger saw you? Talked to you?"

  I was scared by her questions. Wasn't this what all seers experienced? "Yes. After the vardoger took over the girl's body, it tried to choke me. But my iridium charm fell against her...its hand, and it seemed to hurt the vardoger so it pulled away."

  "So you're actually present in the vision? In a body? It's not like you're just watching from the outside?" Aunt Brenda said this slowly, scaring me even more by her careful enunciation.

  "Y-yes. It said that they were evolving. Like iridium wouldn't always protect us from them."

  My aunt took a sharp intake of breath at my words. "This is unprecedented. No other seer has been an active participant in their visions. Not that I know of. For seers, it's like watching a horrible scene from a movie. But to actually be present..." She shook her head. "I don't know what to make of it."

  The more she talked the more scared I got. It was bad enough that I was a so-called seer. But now I was even set apart from other seers. I was tired of being "special."

  "What about before the vardoger kills their person?" I asked. "Have you talked to a person before their vardoger overtakes them in a vision?"

  "You talked to their person too? Not just the vardoger?"

  "Only recently. Before it used to be like how you explained it. Like I was watching a horror movie. But with the vision of Claudia, the girl from my school, she's been able to see me and talk to me. She asked me for help." I shuddered at the last statement. Claudia was now most likely dead.

  "I don't know what to make of this. I need to talk to my inner circle, see if anyone has heard of this before."

  "Inner circle?"

  "It's a group of seers that I work with," Aunt Brenda explained. "This isn't something you want to do alone. You need a support system. Vardogers are constantly changing. Evolving, like the one in your vision said. We need to feed each other information of what we've experienced. A seer can only eradicate the vardoger of a person that they've had a vision of. It has to do with the connecting lines that become open once a seer has a vision. But sharing our experiences not only helps us become more effective in destroying vardogers, but it also aids in trying to predict what the vardogers' next steps will be."