Luminous Spirits (Shadow Eyes Series Book 2)

by Dusty Crabtree

  Josh’s eyes grew wide. “What are you doing here?” He grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the crowd.

  “Um...you know...just hanging out.” Lame excuse. I never hung out at parties, and he knew that. Where was Kyra when I needed a good cover up?

  “Well, that’s awesome. I’m so glad you’re here!” Apparently, he didn’t care how lame my excuse was.

  His hand caressed my arm all the way down to my hand. One more smooth motion and he’d interlocked his fingers with mine. His familiar touch sent shivers through my body and awakened dormant feelings that shouldn’t have been allowed to be released. I took a closer look at him and peered into his glazed eyes...which reminded me I’d just killed his enormous drunk shadow.

  I withdrew my hand.

  “Do you know if Nicole and Tyler are here?” I swept my bangs away from my eyes casually, as though that was why I’d dropped his hand.

  “Uh...” Instead of answering me, he sucked in air through his teeth. His eyes darted to the back door for a moment and then flitted back at me. He seemed anxious like a boy whose parents were about to discover his girlfriend hiding in the closet.

  I narrowed my eyes to a penetrating stare.

  “Iris, I wouldn’t—”

  I didn’t stay long enough to let him finish. I was already marching to the door. What I would find and what I would do once I found it were questions that didn’t register in my mind. All that was driving me forward was the knowledge that they were out there and that something bad was happening. And that I needed to stop it.

  Once I shuffled out onto the porch, dimly lit by only one lone light bulb, there was no one in immediate sight. But there was a smell. A smokiness unlike any smoke I was familiar with. The strong, earthy scent was so unique and strange I knew I’d never forget it. I also instantly knew what it was.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I caught a faint cloud of smoke ahead of me. I followed it to the side of the house. With each cautious step the smoke grew thicker, I grew colder, and my anxiety grew stronger. I silently hoped Josh was wrong.

  Once I cut the corner, nothing was visible but a slowly-churning black fog that surrounded a tight circle of about eight people. I could almost detect individual shadows within the hazy mass, but they seemed to act as one organism. The giant, bubbling, mesmerizing dance hypnotized the sedate puppets below, moving them to the rhythms of the shadows.

  I shook my head and directed my attention to the people. A girl with short, dark hair, tight jeans, and a loose top hanging off her shoulders blew a huge cloud of smoke from her pursed lips. As the girl twisted to the guy on her right to hand him a joint, I could see Nicole’s face.

  My jaw fell slack. Something in the back of my mind told me to reach for my prism and let loose on the domineering mob overhead. Cut the puppet strings and free my friend, if only for a little while. But I was numb. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know if I could even turn to go back inside. I was grounded in place, trapped in my indecisive weakness.

  The sound of feet shuffling behind me woke me out of my daze. I’d been stealthy enough to go undetected by the group until then, but the sound of this new intruder caused everyone to glance our way. Nicole was no exception. Her eyes met mine and grew so wide I could focus on nothing but the whites around her dilated pupils. I barely noticed Tyler beside her. Nicole blinked and looked behind me.

  I tried to follow her gaze but was blinded by a flash of white light. A glowing Kyra rushed by me with her arm outstretched above her head like she was leading a charge in an epic battle.

  Instead of a battle cry, though, shouts of revelry and lighthearted whoops erupted from her mouth as she began to run around the circle. With her long pointy glass prism in hand, which the stunned people were too high to notice, Kyra sliced through whatever attached them to their puppet masters above.

  Only seconds after she began this odd ritual, everyone in the group, save Nicole, bent over howling in laughter. Kyra’s energetic sprint around them must have come across as some absurd shenanigan or lively prank. Tyler, in particular, thought she was so hilarious he accidentally dropped the joint. It fizzled out in the damp grass at his feet.

  After making it around the group twice and killing the massive swarm of shadows, Kyra ran toward me, back the way she came. She was still hollering like a drunken college frat boy streaking at a party. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity and ingenuity of it all.

  Grabbing my arm, she yanked me along with her to the house. We paused only long enough to catch a brief glimpse of the semi-laughing, semi-stunned crew before rounding the corner. The bewildered look on their faces was priceless.

  When we were safely inside, the realization of what had happened hit me. I was no longer laughing. “I’m sorry, I don’t know... I just froze. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “It’s okay, Iris.” Kyra stuffed her prism back in her purse and put her hand on my arm.

  I slumped my shoulders but didn’t get to pout for long. The sound of heavy feet pounding down the stairs made me whip my head up just in time to see Patrick enter the room. His face was even harder and more vicious than it had been before he’d gone after Mike.

  “Let’s go,” he snarled as he stormed off ahead of us.

  I didn’t want to stay any more than he did, but his sharp command and malicious tone, took me by surprise. He almost scared me. Nevertheless, I followed him and Kyra to the front door, maneuvering past my classmates and their shadows.

  The outside air somehow felt colder than it had a few minutes ago. Most of the guests on the front porch had gone inside, so the only sounds out there were muffled music and piercing wind. Nobody said anything all the way to the car and back to Kyra’s house.

  I wanted to ask Patrick how confrontation with Mike went but was afraid to ask. The negative tension practically radiated off his rigid body. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and worked his jaw back and forth, grinding his teeth together. I was torn, though, on whether his behavior was out of aggression or something more personal.

  Apparently Kyra had a better guess as to what was going on than I did. Like always. After Patrick stopped at her house, she opened her door but hesitated in the back seat. “Patrick. You’re a good person, and she knows that. You need to tell her.”

  With that, she stepped out onto the street, shut the door, and walked to her house. Patrick’s body immediately slackened. His head fell to his hands on the steering wheel.

  What was he hiding from me? Was this the past he’d been so desperately trying to keep hidden in the dark? Whatever it was, Kyra was right. I couldn’t think less of him. I already knew he’d been a dark warrior and had done some awful things. Things I’d been begging him to talk about. If he was on the verge of sharing now, I’d better encourage him.

  “She’s right, Patrick. I won’t think any less of you. No matter what you have to say. You know you can trust me.” I stretched my arm behind him and lightly ran my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

  After about a minute of this, he leaned up and faced me with sad, hesitant eyes. “It’s so hard for me to believe that.” There was both doubt and hope evident in his voice. His tone reminded me of when I’d forgiven him for what he’d almost done to me at his party. If I could forgive him then, surely I could forgive him now for something that didn’t involve me.

  “Just know that it’s true.” I placed my hand on his and rubbed my thumb over his skin.

  He let me for a few moments but ultimately withdrew his hand and lay them both in his lap...which is where he stared as he finally disclosed his story.

  “The reason I was so upset at Mike tonight was the same reason I got upset last night at the rapist. You know we had to do a lot of horrible things as dark servants, right? Anything to corrupt people and turn them to the darkness?”

  I nodded.

  “One thing Donovan asked me to do, since I was so good at it, was to seduce girls. I was supposed to seduce them int
o sleeping with me. He said, once a girl loses her virginity, she often doesn’t feel worthy enough to try to be pure anymore. She just continues down that path. I was supposed to be the one to break them.”

  He sighed, and the silent pause felt like forever. I didn’t know what to think yet.

  “Eventually one night, he wanted me to seduce this drunk girl at a party.” He hung his head low. “So I did. Granted, she was lucid enough to say stop, and she didn’t. Actually, even the next morning she didn’t seem to mind. But I knew what I’d done was wrong. I knew I was taking advantage of her, and I hated myself for it. The next morning I realized what I’d become, and I told myself I would never do anything like that again.”

  Tears formed in his eyes, but he shook them away. “After that, I just stuck to throwing parties. Not that that’s a whole lot better.” He lowered his head again and fidgeted with his hands.

  His contrition and remorse were so strong and so genuine that it was almost impossible to be upset at him. I was even having a hard time being mad at him for not telling me earlier. I could see why he’d want to keep something so shameful from me.

  But I was still upset. No. Upset was the wrong word. I was agitated, unsettled, disturbed. The thought of him doing something like that was, at best, disconcerting. At worst, appalling.

  I cleared my throat, attempting to sound nonchalant and unaffected. “How many girls were there before her?”

  He sighed heavily. “Two others. But they weren’t drunk and didn’t take much prodding. In fact, I barely had to smile in their general direction.” He smiled weakly at me, but the look quickly faded. Joking came naturally to him, almost an instinct. But he knew now wasn’t the time for humor.

  After a long, meditative silence on my part, he eventually became impatient. “Well, say something. Do you hate me or what?”

  I surprised myself by laughing. “Hate you? No.” I shook my head. I still didn’t know what I felt, but it wasn’t hate. I’d always known he’d been a dark servant. Because of the job description, he’d done some awful things. He was completely different now, and that’s what mattered.

  Still. I couldn’t ignore the anxious turmoil in my gut. The most bothersome question still remained: how did I feel about him being so desirable that girls basically threw themselves at his feet? Jealousy, perhaps? I hated to admit to jealousy, but where else did my sudden, insane protectiveness over him and dip in self-esteem come from?

  “It’s just hard for me to think of you sleeping with someone. It makes me... It makes me feel like a nobody.”

  He looked stupefied. “Like a nobody? Why would you feel like that?”

  “I don’t know.” Tears welled up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “It’s just that girls are so eager to be with you that they’ll do anything, even sleep with you. You could have any girl you wanted. How can I compare?”

  Patrick leaned over to me, almost forcefully, and grabbed my hand. “Iris, you are the somebody I want to be with. You are worth ten times more than those other girls. You’ve got to believe that. I don’t want to go back to that. I never will. You, Gregory, being a light warrior—it’s so much better. None of that old stuff matters to me anymore.”

  He fell back in his chair with a loud sigh. “Wow. I can’t believe that’s what’s bothering you about all of this. I thought you were going to think I was a male whore or something.” He chuckled a little in relief, and I attempted a smile.

  “Of course I don’t think that.” I closed my eyes and shook my head, doing my best to brush off the thought. “I’ll be fine. It’ll just take some getting used to.”

  His hand brushed my cheek and he leaned in for a kiss. “Thank you. I always knew I was lucky to have you, but I could never have hoped for this in my wildest dreams.” With one last kiss, he shoved the gear into drive and pulled out onto the street to take me home.

  He looked as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. I was happy for him and thrilled that he finally shared his past with me. But I couldn’t ignore the strangeness when we kissed. And I couldn’t shake my feeling of insignificance. It was like he’d been used to swimming in the deep end, and I was forcing him to hang out in the shallow end with kid floaties.

  On top of that, of course, was the nagging question that, no matter how ridiculous, wouldn’t leave me alone. Since he’s already gone that far, would he end up leaving me if I didn’t?

  Chapter 13

  I nearly gagged. Pained feminine screams…inappropriate, exposed flesh no human should ever be forced to witness… It was simply too much for me. Why did we have to watch this revolting birth video? Oh, right. Because Gregory made us take Child Development and Parenting, even though we didn’t need the reminder not to make babies this young.

  Patrick’s disclosure from Saturday night sprang back into my mind like the contents of an overstuffed suitcase stubbornly refusing to be contained. Okay. Maybe Patrick needed the class. But not me.

  I shook my head to rid my mind of both the TV images and the thought of Patrick’s formerly sexually-active self. That conversation had happened days ago. But it was still hard to not think about his past. To not wonder who he’d been back then. Who he’d been with. I just had to remember that he was different now. People could be forgiven for all sorts of things. I could forgive him for this. I had forgiven him.

  Forgetting was the hard part.

  The TV’s screams penetrated my ears no matter how hard I tried to tune them out. I sunk in my chair, closed my eyes, and groaned. Maybe I was worn out and irritable from a tough week. A bullied girl had needed an “aura talk.” A cheater’s shadow had needed to be sliced in half. A lunchroom thief had needed his foggy leech ripped off and flung away. I was tired.

  To make matters worse, Lila, the darkness’s minion, kept showing up to stick her nose in all of the chaos. She was on the shadows’ side, so I guess her presence made sense. But it was weird. She didn’t seem that upset when I killed her cohorts. It was almost like she was there to grade us on how we were doing. Me in particular. I did feel I was improving and growing as a light warrior. But impressing Lila was the last thing I cared about doing.

  As if that wasn’t enough, I had the lovely reminder of my failure every morning in first hour seeing Lexi’s hazy attachment. I’d been trying to put more effort into spending time with her, but the time I had to give must not have been enough. To be honest, though, our problem wasn’t just the lack of time anymore. It was the secrets. That had to be the real issue. I felt awful, but her safety was the most important thing. Her safety was worth all of this, wasn’t it?

  A faint lustful whisper curled its way into my ears. I flicked open my eyes to find the intruder. A few boys near the front, known for their immaturity, had telltale swirling clouds over their heads.

  Seriously? Who could still manage to think about sex while seeing a woman’s vagina split open with a giant baby’s head coming out?

  Lately, practically any nebulous being I came close to, I also heard. The intrusions were starting to get old. It seemed like the more I purposefully opened up a sound tunnel to listen to the shadows, the more their voices found a path to my ears on their own. Apparently, I’d paved a road for them, and although I thought I had set up barricades, they easily plowed through them.

  Patrick must have noticed the varying layers of disgust on my face. He leaned closer to me and squeezed my hand. “Hearing more shadows?”

  I nodded, staring straight ahead but slightly underneath the TV so I appeared to be watching.

  “By your intense grimace and the swirling shadows you just threw daggers at with your eyes, I’m guessing the creeps up front are having stupidly inappropriate and childish reactions to this fine video we’re watching. Am I right?”

  As much as I fought it, the edge of my lips curled into a smirk.

  “You know we have faith in you to figure out how to control the flow of voices, right? With practice you’ll learn. You’ve already been getting better.”
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  After he spoke, the voice was gone. “Well, you seemed to help that time,” I replied cynically. “It just feels like the more I listen, the more they find me.”

  “Just don’t give up, okay? You’ll get it eventually.” He let go of my hand and wrapped his arm around me. I closed my eyes and breathed in his cologne, grateful for his comfort.

  A few seconds later, a strange, unnerving sensation as if I were being watched gave me goose bumps. Naturally, my first instinct was to seek out Lila. Sure enough, she was staring me down with hate seeping out her eyeballs. Big surprise.

  Instead of aggravating me, though, seeing her staring at us actually prompted a smug grin to take up residence on my face. I checked to make sure Mrs. Bauder wasn’t watching and then indulged in a bit of PDA with a small kiss. Although seemingly sweet, my message was clear. He’s mine. Not yours. He likes me. Not you. I’m the one he wants. You, he will never want. So back off.

  * * * *

  Patrick and I had decided to take it easy and hang out at my house that evening. We were watching TV, but I barely caught any of the show. Between my attempt at tuning out the voice of my mother’s shadow and my worrying about my mother’s next question to Patrick, I had no brain power left.

  “What does your dad do for a living, Patrick?”

  “He works with computers. I guess you’d say he’s a software developer.”

  I was surprised she was being friendly to him for a change. Maybe she’d come around and was actually liking Patrick now.

  “So, is it only you two living together? No mother?”

  I gulped. Or maybe she had ulterior motives.

  Patrick stifled a smile. “Nope. They got divorced several years ago. She still lives in Indianapolis with my sister.”

  My mother attempted a genuine frown. “That’s so sad. Just you two, all by your lonesome. With you being out and over here so much, I’ll bet he gets lonely sometimes.”

  Her fake concern made me cringe with embarrassment. I could not believe she was fishing for a date with my boyfriend’s dad. Well, okay, I could believe it. But that didn’t make the situation any less horrifying. Maybe I actually should’ve listened to her shadow. I could’ve seen this one coming.