Shadow Child

by Graeme Smith

  The cane tapped as the man walked out of the room and up the corridor – a sound not yet the terror of Whitechapel. He turned into a small side room. “It is done.” His voice was surprisingly deferential, even scared, for someone speaking to a young boy not yet past puberty.

  “Excellent, Jack. Lil... My Lady will be pleased.” The man with the cane raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. “Ah. Of course. Your... payment.” The boy took a wrapped package from a shelf and opened it. In the box, red gems shone with dull glows. He handed the man with the cane a small notebook. “This will tell you how to use them. You understand, it will hurt a great deal?”

  The man with the cane smiled. “There is a price for everything.” He turned to leave. His cane tapped a song the streets of Whitechapel would learn soon enough.

  * * *

  Dealey Plaza – November 22nd, 1963

  Just in, a bullet, and out. Another day at the office. The buzz of Dealey Plaza filled Jack's ears. He made his way up Elm Street, heading into the Plaza. Whoever was there would never see him coming. People never did – or never noticed. He heard the sound of the motorcade coming into the plaza – and he saw the figure on the Knoll. The figure nobody was looking at – the figure nobody was noticing. He took his gun from his pocket, and walked towards the man on the Knoll, a bead on the side of the man's head. The figure turned – and Jack froze. He looked at himself, as he smiled, and put a finger to his lips. He looked at himself as he raised his gun – and fired at the oncoming motorcade. He watched himself, as he took a flask from his pocket – and the smell of Unicorn Horn filled the air. Then the him he knew he'd never been – at least not yet - was gone.

  * * *

  “Only target I ever missed, P. Well, I wasn't going to kill me. So anyway, whoever it was, they'd set Oswald up to take the fall. Hell, he might even have believed he did it. There's ways. Not that it mattered. Two days later, a guy called Jack Ruby put a thirty eight slug in Oswald. Sure stopped anyone asking him any questions.”

  “So you killed Kennedy – but it wasn't you?”

  “Could be, P. Or it might be – but I didn't do it yet.”

  “So that's why they killed her. To cover their tracks. Like Ruby, when he shot Oswald.”

  “Could be. That's one reason, anyway.”

  “What's the other, Jack?”

  “Well, P. It's like this. See, it's like, there was this farmer once. And he had a load of sheep...”

  “Flock.”

  “Hey, P. Language! Anyway, you never swear. What's wrong?”

  “I did so not swear! I said... Oh. Right. You're teasing. So tell me about the flocking sheep, Jack.” P smiled.

  “Flocking sheep. Riiight.” Jack smiled. Then he stopped. “So this farmer, he has these sheep. Which is great, because he can take them to market, and sell them and get rich, right? But there's this tiger. And this tiger, it likes sheep. So it keeps killing them and eating them. Now the farmer, he doesn't like that. He can see his getting rich getting real unlikely to happen. So he goes to the market and he talks to this other guy, and this other guy, he has him a trained bear. And this bear, it's been trained not to like eating sheep. So the farmer buys the bear, and he keeps it hungry, and then one night, he lets it out near the sheep. And the tiger comes by to get him some sheep, but the bear's there, and the bear might not like sheep, but nobody told him, or maybe it's a girl bear, not to like tigers. So she, the bear I mean, she kills the tiger and eats it.”

  “Oh. Right. Is that it then? So this girl, she's like...”

  “No. That's not quite it, P. See, the farmer, he hears the girl – I mean the bear – and the tiger fighting. And he comes by and he sees the dead tiger, and the bear's eating it. But that bear, it's real hungry. And there's all these sheep, but it's been trained not to like sheep. So it kills the farmer, and it eats him too.”

  “Oh. So...”

  “So if you get a bear to kill a tiger, you'd better think about what you're going to do with the bear afterwards. Before it does it to you.”

  “So you're the tiger, Jack?”

  Jack grinned. It wasn't a warm grin. “Me? No.” His hand ran over a lump in his leather duster. “No. I'm a dragon.”

  “So... so what are you going to do about it, Jack?”

  The man in the black leather duster unloaded his gun. Then he reloaded it. Then he grinned again. “What I do best, P. I'm gonna fix it.” His grin disappeared. “But there's someone I need to talk to first.”

  “Talk, Jack? That's not like you. You don’t say much, and even when you say something, you still don’t say much, right?”

  Jack grinned. Or maybe he didn't, and it was just a ghost of the grin that had just died. “Nope. Or yup. Take your pick, P. Or maybe I should say Lee....” As Jack said the word, the name, Prowess froze. Jack nodded to himself.

  “That's not nice, Jack.” Shadows don't talk. So the shadow on the wall, where no shadow should be, clearly didn't say anything. Which didn't stop Jack hearing it. “You were going to use her old name, weren't you? That hurts her, Jack.”

  Jack shrugged. “You didn't make me nice, lady.”

  “Me, Jack? I didn't make you. None of me did.”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. He shook his head. “I think I'm starting to figure it out. The old guy, he tells the truth in a hundred lies. You, you let someone hear a lie in a hundred truths.” He shrugged. “Whatever you say, lady. So who's Lee-Ann?”

  “She's someone you knew once. Or someone else knew once, perhaps. One of those. It doesn't matter. Even if it does. So why bring me here, Jack?”

  “Answers. Like, I need some.”

  “Answers, Jack? Don't you have people for those? A Fallen Angel and – well. And.”

  Jack shrugged again. “Haures would remember I'd asked. I don't think that would be a very good idea. The old guy? He ain't easy to get hold of. Anyway, I didn't have anyone around I could shoot. You spend so much time here, I figured maybe it was time to collect some rent.”

  “Rent.” Shadows don't sigh. So the shadow didn't. The air shivered with the sigh it didn't sigh. “So what do you want, Jack? You know I can't interfere.”

  Jack didn't grin. The grin he didn't grin would have been a gold medal at the grinning Olympics. “I do? When did I find that out?”

  If a shadow could wince, the shadow would have winced. “Damn you, Jack. You really are a bastard. There's only so many times the Universe can be rebuilt, you know.”

  “I do?” Jack didn't grin. Again. The shadow didn't wince – again. “Amazing, the things I know. Seems like you know what I know before I do. Like it was, maybe, Fa...”

  “Don't say it, Jack. Don't be a smart-ass. It doesn't suit you.” Jack raised an eyebrow. “OK, so it does. So what was it you wanted to know if you knew, Jack?”

  “Souls.”

  “Souls, Jack? I thought you were more of a jazz man?” It was the shadow's turn not to grin. It did it very well.

  “Riiiight.” Jack shook his head. “So if Dad...”

  “Dad?”

  “The old guy. Red and white, and a bad case of 'why me'. I figure Dad's as good a name as any. Whatever I am, he made me. And I'm damned if I'm calling him Boss, Moms.”

  “Moms?”

  Jack grinned. “Well, there's three of you, right? And if I drive you crazy, you're supposed to get that from your kids, right?” He grinned some more.

  “Moms?”

  Jack grinned some more. “Dad told me I can Nudge Time because I don't have a soul. So I could probably figure out, that means if someone else can do it, they can't have one either.”

  “Ah. Logic. I swear, I could bloody murder Apollo sometimes.”

  “So if Dad made another me...”

  “He didn't, Jack.” Outside the walls of the room, something very, very large creaked ominously. And loudly. The shadow flinched. “Bugger. Now look what you made me do, Jack. Er – I mean YOU'D PROBABLY...” Outside the walls, the creaking got louder “... ER, I MEAN, YES, YOU'D DEFINI
TELY KNOW THAT, JACK.” The creaking stopped. The shadow sighed. “Did I mention you're a bastard, Jack?”

  “... or someone else did.”

  “Of course, you'd know that's impossible, Jack.” The voice the shadow didn't have was flat.

  “Right.” So was Jack's. “I figured I'd know that. So if I knew that, that it was impossible but it had to happen anyway, that would make it a...?”

  “Yes, Jack. It would.” The shadow's voice was part sad, part wistful. “Would it be so bad?”

  Jack shrugged. “Guess I'll find out.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “So I'll need to...”

  “Yes, you will. And I'm damned if I'm telling you how.” Shadows can't blush. So the shadow didn't. It was good at it - an egg would have fried on the blush the shadow didn't have.

  “And then...” Jack's hand brushed over a lump in his leather duster.

  “Yes.”

  “So I need a dragon.”

  The eyes the shadow couldn't have were sad. “Not this time, Jack. You could probably guess...” Outside, the Universe creaked. Loudly. “I MEAN...” The Universe creaked louder. The shadow stamped a foot, and a shadow rod thumped the wall of the room. “SHUT UP! DON'T YOU MAKE ME COME OUT THERE!” The creaking stopped. The shadow sighed. “Sorry, Jack. It's a union thing. Where was I? I mean, where were you?”

  Jack's hand brushed over a lump in his leather.

  “Oh. Right. I can't tell you.” Jack raised an eyebrow. “No, Jack. I really can't. I mean...” the shadow paused. “How did he put it? Er, will put it? Oh, yes. We don’t want to get into any trans-temporal-quantum-irregularity universe fucked up and ending paradox stuff, like might happen if the Fates tried to make sure things didn’t screw up beyond all recognition rather than just watching, now do we? Something like that, anyway.”

  “So how do I...?”

  Shadows don't have eyebrows. So the shadow didn't raise the ones it didn't have. “I guess you'd better make sure someone who can tell you, tells you Jack. After they find out, of course.”

  Jack sighed. “Crap. Oh, well. And then there's the kid.”

  “Yes, Jack. There's the kid.”

  “That's one of her names isn't it? Thief?”

  “Stealer? Yes.”

  “So that's where he came from. I guess I'm going to have to fix that. But that means he's got a soul. So if he can... well, if he can, I'd know he'd have to...”

  The shadow rod tapped the wall. The shadow waited. Nothing creaked. “Yes. Er, I mean, yes you would, Jack.”

  “And that would really, really hurt. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Jack's voice was cold. “And he'd have to have something to put it...”

  “Yes.”

  “And I bet they wouldn't...”

  “No. They didn't. Right up to their last breaths.”

  Jack's eyes got colder. “Right.” The shadow that had never been there faded. Jack slipped the last round into his gun. He waited. After a while, the door opened. The two men in leather dusters looked at each other. Both men grinned, and lowered their guns. The man in the doorway raised an eyebrow. “I thought you'd be taller.” Jack raised his own brow. “Me too.” The man in the doorway reached slowly into the pocket of his duster, and pulled out a small notebook. He dropped it on the floor. “Let's not do this again, huh Jack?” He pulled a flask from his pocket, and the smell of Unicorn Horn filled the air.

  Jack picked up the notebook, and began to read. Eyes that were never warm turned slowly to ice. Prowess looked up. “So... so what are you going to do about it, Jack?”

  The man in the black leather duster unloaded his gun. Then he reloaded it. His eyes were ice. “What I do best, P. I'm gonna kill someone.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Xanadu

  “You want a what?” Most times Mom asked me to do something for her, it meant giving someone a headache. A permanent one, lead lined. This time, it looked like the head was gonna be mine.

  “I said, I want a poem, dear.”

  “You want me to write you a poem? I didn't get a perfect score on a field test, so you want me to write you a fucking poem?”

  “No, dear. I don't want you to write me a poem. I want you to get me a poem. And since we're in the office dear, the correct response is not to whine like a spoiled brat. The correct response is 'Yes of course, Boss.'” Mom raised an eyebrow. She waited.

  I sighed. “Yes, Boss. Of course, Boss. What fuc... er, what poem would you like, Boss? There's this thing called the Internet. You might have heard of it. I'll just...”

  Mom smiled. It was her shark-screaming smile. With extra teeth. “Oh. Of course, dear. I'm sure you know best. But remember. I want all of it. Now let's see. How did it go? 'In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, A stately pleasure-dome decree...'”

  I winced. Mom grinned wider. Somewhere, sharks began committing suicide en-mass, which was kind of clever since they couldn't know French. A bad day was turning out worse - and the Internet wasn't going to help.

  Sonata

  Sviluppo - Quinto Movimento

  Some-Where. Some-When. A biker bar on the edge of town.

  The girl on the motorcycle she thought she'd stolen from the brother she thought she had smashed through the window of the biker bar. In mid-air, she hauled the bike upright as it fell to the floor. She twisted the throttle just enough to put kick into the rear wheel as it touched down, and the bike slid neatly up to the bar. She reached out, the cycle still growling, and grabbed a beer bottle from the guy leaning on the bar next to her. She lifted it, drained it, and smashed the bottle on the edge of the bar. She licked a spike of glass sticking out from the bottle neck in her fist, and winked at the guy she'd taken it from. “I hear you're recruiting.”

  Muscles rolled under the tattered leather vest on the guy's back. The patch with a picture of a dragon head in flames was worn, but well cared for. He didn't look at the girl. “Nice riding. But the bike's more use than you are. Take it, boys.” The bikers in the bar stood up. Knives and guns filled hands under eyes that looked like they were used to using both.

  The man in the leather duster stepped out of Shadow. He raised his gun, and a single shot rang out. A biker near the girl fell to the ground. The man in the leather duster raised an eyebrow, and waited. A whisper ran round the room as bikers with suddenly blanched faces dropped whatever weapon they were holding. Shadow. Shadow. Shadowshadowshadow...

  The lone biker at the bar looked at the girl. He looked at the man in the leather duster. “Ri... er, right.” he looked at the dead biker on the floor of the bar. “I guess you're right. We're recruiting.” He looked behind him, at the scared bikers. “Someone get the bitch...” He stopped, the spike of the smashed bottle in the girl's hand slowly pressing into the pulsing carotid artery in the side of his neck. He gulped.

  The girl smiled – and the room chilled. “I may be a bitch – but I ain't your bitch. It's Rosie.” she pushed the bottle spike a little harder, red blood seeping round the tip.

  The pack leader looked past the girl at the man in the leather duster. The man in leather smiled. The pack leader winced. “Someone get sister Rosie a fucking patch!”

  The man in the leather duster stepped over to the girl. He leaned close to her ear. “Now you owe me.”

  The girl shrugged. “So what's the price?” She wrinkled her nose as a strange smell filled the air “Hey, what's that...?” But the man in the duster was gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Xana-didn't

  Fucking Coleridge. Well, not fucking Coleridge. Not really. Fucking Porlock.

  See, school and me - we don't get along so good. It's not that I hate knowing stuff. You want to know where to find C4 in Cleveland, I'm your girl. You want to know why you don't hold a gun sideways like they do in the movies, sure. I can tell you. On the other hand, you want, like, the capital of Nicaragua, unless Mom's got a job for me there I could care less.

  But I got an A in English last year. T
op of the class. Which was kind of cool, since English was about the only class I went to without a gun to my head.

  What happened was, Mom had a job, and she couldn't do it herself. Well, that's what she told me. Now, I wondered if it was, like, try outs for the swim club. Not that I ever tried out for anything. But maybe like Mom giving me the one-last-time to see if I'd fit in the Organisation. Anyway, she said she had this job, and it needed to be done clean. So she asked me if I could do it, and I said sure, and she sent me to... well. Never mind. If I told you on where, I'd have to kill you as well. But the hit was clean, 'cause that's what I do. So Mom got me a little sugar. Like, the English paper I had coming and hadn't studied for because I was putting a 357 headache on - on someone who's none of your business, but who'll never need an aspirin again. I mean, I wasn't gonna study for the damn thing anyway, but Mom got me the English paper, and the answers too.

  That's when I met Sammy.

  OK. So I didn't actually, like, meet him. Not then, anyway. But it sort of felt like it. See, the paper was all about Kubla Khan. Or I guess It wasn't. Not Kubla Khan the guy in history. It was Kubla Khan, the poem. How this Kubla guy built this shit-hot palace called Xanadu, and – well, and not so 'and'. Because it wasn't so much Xanadu, as Xana-didn't. See, Sammy, that's Sammy Coleridge, he was a junky. Like, they didn't have much to ride on back in the day, but Sammy didn't let that stop him. He liked his poppy, and one night he decided to get on the horse, even if it wasn't, like, horse. And he'd had a wild dream, all about the Kubla guy and Xanadu. So he woke up and he started writing it all down in a poem, because that's how he dreamed it. And it was a really cool poem, like, amazing. Until somebody knocked on the door. I mean, he's writing this, like, mad-cool poem, and some fuck-wit from Porlock, which was just down the road from where Sammy was living, knocks on the fucking door. Probably trying to sell him insurance, or a lifetime subscription to 'Why I never finished writing the best poem of all time'. Because he didn't. Sammy, I mean. He didn't finish it. By the time he got rid of Porlock, he'd forgotten his dream. So all he had was, like, these fifty-four lines, and it should have been hundreds. But I liked it, and I hadn't minded boning on it for the paper. But that was the thing. It was never bloody finished. And now Mom was telling me that was what I had to bring her. The whole damn thing. Which really only meant one thing. And what it meant was, someone from Porlock was about to have a really bad day. And I was going to get to give it to him. Or her – Sammy never really said. Now I was going to be the one who made sure he never had to.