Secondhand Shadow

by Elizabeth Belyeu

  “All Lilith’s children, their blood bound to hers, were doomed to share her fate, until the surviving children of Eve spilled their own blood to save their brothers and sisters, and became the first Lumii.” He took the blue-and-yellow egg from the dye and set it in the egg carton to dry. “Like their mother, Lilith’s children have no immortal souls of their own. We share our Lumi’s soul, and if we don’t die when they do… then we’ve missed the boat.” He looked up for the first time, with a mock-casual shrug, and any reply I might have been formulating evaporated in the face of the quiet, bitter despair in his eyes.

  “Horse puckey,” I said at last.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Look at you. You breathe, move, think, feel. How is that not a soul?” I plucked a spoon from one of the cups of dye. “A spoon doesn’t have a soul. I’ll buy that. It’s not alive. It has no will, no mind, no feelings. It never will. God never breathed life into this spoon. It’s just a thing.” I held the spoon up next to Paris’s face. “Hm. Yeah. I definitely see the resemblance.”

  He slapped the spoon away, snarling, and lunged — toward the dark figure coalescing from the shadow of the television set.

  “Easy, Paris! It’s me.” The shadow solidified into a tall, muscular black man in a suit, who dodged Paris’s lunge with an impressive lack of effort.

  I was still gasping from that moment of conviction that Paris was about to object to my theological ideas with his teeth, but after a moment my voice came back. “Who in the world is ‘me’ and why are you dropping in unannounced?”

  Paris’s expression had mellowed from Attack Mode to Sour Resignation. “This is Lincoln Kirby,” he sneered, tossing his hair out of his face as he got to his feet. “He’s Formyndari. They save the world from the big, bad vampires.”

  “Oh. You were at the DiNovis’ the other day.”

  Lincoln Kirby raised his eyebrows. “Were you the new Lumi on the other side of the door?”

  “Yes,” I admitted cautiously. “Why?”

  “Are you Naomi Winters?”

  “Again, yes. Again, why?”

  “What’s your Shadow’s name?”

  I crossed my arms. “Pregnant lady says squat until she gets some answers. Other rude people in my life have at least knocked on the door before asking personal questions. How did you even get in here? You’ve never seen this place before.”

  He gave an embarrassed smile, scrubbing his fingers through a dense quarter-inch of hair. “I looked through the window. I suppose I could have knocked, but Formyndari learn to take the advantage whenever they can.”

  “Congratulations. You have the advantage. Now tell me what you want so I can refuse it and we can both return to our regularly scheduled programming.”

  “I want you to come with me—”

  “Forget it.”

  “ — to where we’re holding Damon.”

  “What? Where is he? Is he okay? What did you do to him?”

  “We didn’t do anything. But he’s a little banged up — we didn’t do it — and you’re the only one that can heal him. At least that’s what he says.” He was watching me carefully, with eyes very green for his dark skin. Me and Priscilla shared some tastes, it seemed.

  “I don’t know whether to believe you,” I said, slowly, because I was trying to think at the same time. I don’t always multi-task very well.

  He sighed. “Paris, you want to help me out here? Have I ever lied to you?”

  Paris raised his eyebrows. “You want the list?”

  Lincoln rolled his eyes. “Allow me to rephrase. Have I ever harmed someone after promising not to?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Paris said reluctantly.

  “Naomi, I promise I mean you no harm. I don’t even particularly mean Damon any harm. We just want to get to the bottom of this. Please come with me.”

  “I’m supposed to guard her,” Paris said, crossing his arms. “I’m pretty sure that doesn’t include letting her run off with a Hunter.”

  “Do you want to come along? To Formyndari Headquarters? Because everyone who enters that building gets checked, you know. If there’s a warrant somewhere—”

  “It’s okay, Paris,” I said. “I’ll go.” The idea of seeing Damon again was terrifying, not least because of how badly I wanted to.

  Paris narrowed his eyes at Lincoln. “If we don’t hear from one of them by tonight, Frank DiNovi’s going to separate someone from his head.”

  “Fair enough.” Lincoln held out a hand to me; I swallowed and took it, holding my shoulders tense and bony as he wrapped his arms around them. I couldn’t help overhearing a few last lines of dialogue from the movie, still playing as the world darkened, flattened, and faded away.

  Princess Buttercup’s impassioned plea, “If we surrender, and I return with you, will you promise not to hurt this man?”

  And the evil Prince Humperdinck’s vow, “May I live a thousand years and never hunt again.”

  .

  Shading with Lincoln was as unpleasant as it had been in the early days with Damon. I staggered, dizzy and disoriented, and flinched away from Lincoln’s steadying hand.

  “Where are we, exactly?” I asked, looking around. “Other than in a remarkably boring waiting room? Wow, look at that. Even the paintings are beige.”

  “Formyndari Headquarters. Birka, Sweden.”

  “I’m in Sweden? I don’t feel like I’m in Sweden. I feel like I’m in… need of a bathroom. Oy. Shading makes Junior kick.”

  “This way.”

  The bathroom was just as dull and colorless as the waiting room had been. It had to be on purpose. Maybe the Formyndari method of vampire execution was to bore them to death.

  Execution. I started shaking the moment the door closed behind me; by the time I was done washing my hands, I could hardly fumble the faucet off. I leaned with one hand on the sink, the other rubbing the Wonder Tummy in slow, calming circles. Settle down, baby. No need to be upset. We’re in another country, with people who kill folks like Damon for a living, but that’s no reason to be upset. He needs our help and is more likely to tell us to jump off a pier than accept that help, but that’s no reason to be upset. Silly baby.

  “Naomi? Are you all right in there?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say all right. Maybe about fifty percent right.” I dried my hands on my jeans, then glanced at myself in the mirror. Another baggy sweater, pink this time, which clashed with my hair. Why had I even bought this sweater? I wasn’t wearing a dab of make-up, hadn’t done a thing with my hair. I was pretty sure I had remembered deodorant, but at the moment I couldn’t swear to it. Stop it. At this point it wouldn’t matter if you were Cleopatra in a rug. He still wouldn’t want to see you. I was abruptly angry at myself for even caring. Why was I trying so hard to please him? I hadn’t done anything wrong. I had nothing to make up for. It was the same thing I had done in every argument with Tyler. Every argument with anyone, really. Unable to stand the tension and anger, I went submissive-wolf, belly up and whimpering, anything to end the argument. Apologize for living. Well, I wasn’t apologizing for this. Even if I had done the wrong thing, it was for the right reasons, and I refused to apologize for that. I saved your life. Deal with it.

  If he needed to lash out at me, I understood that. I could take it. I could stand like a lighthouse against the crashing waves.

  I could fold like an undercooked quiche.

  Positivity. Come on. I think I can I think I can.

  “Naomi?” Lincoln called at the door.

  I straightened my spine, tucked my hair behind my ears, and opened the door. “I’m ready.”

  .

  Damon was in another bland room, made blander by the dim, directionless light that turned the room into an overcast day. The room held a TV on a wheeled stand, and two chairs. Lincoln’s Lumi — Priscilla, was that her name? — sat in one. Damon was tied to the other. He looked like he’d been run over by a herd of cheese graters.

  He also looked like he
wanted to kill me. Every drop of the grim, hot, lacerating anger he had slowly shed over the last few days was back in full force. Looking at him was like holding my hand to a stove burner.

  I felt some of my apprehension lift. Homicidal rage I could deal with. If he could scream and shout and throw things at me, maybe we’d be okay. It was silence, cold empty barren silence, that I feared most. I might have conflict avoidance issues, but Tyler had taught me that it was worse when there was nothing left to fight about.

  Priscilla looked me up and down, pausing a moment at the Wonder Tummy, then extended a hand. “Naomi Winters, I presume? I’m Priscilla Kirby.”

  “Hi.” I shook her hand, for lack of anything better to do. “Is — is he okay?”

  “More or less.”

  “Is he in trouble?”

  “That remains to be seen.” She glanced at Damon, and seemed to be expecting him to speak. He didn’t. She cleared her throat. “Can you tell me where you were at about one o’clock yesterday afternoon?”

  Liberty. Of course this was about Liberty. I tried not to glance at Damon, as if asking him what to say. This is a most inconvenient time to have “guilty” as my default expression… “I got off work at twelve-thirty. I work at Movie Barn. In Ilium, Alabama,” I added, since distance didn’t seem to mean a lot to these folks. “I rolled the belly home, put some peanut butter in it, then walked to campus and—” nearly became an involuntary blood donor and — “played Scrabble with Damon outside the food court.”

  “Did anything unusual happen that afternoon?”

  This time I did glance at Damon. He gave me a tiny nod.

  “A vampire attacked us at the food court. Damon k-killed it. Then Dove — one of the orphans — came and told us Audrey was in trouble. Her Lumi was dead.” I glanced at Damon again — how much was I supposed to say? Surely it was better to come clean. “We went to the… scene. Where Audrey’s Lumi was killed. We tried not to touch anything. Damon was looking for a way to find the killer, but we didn’t find anything.”

  “You were at the scene?”

  “Yes.” Please don’t put me in jail.

  “Was Martin Iverson alive when you arrived?”

  “No.” I swallowed nausea. “No. He wasn’t merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.”

  “Was Damon outside your supervision at any time that day?”

  “Well, I… I didn’t see him until after work, but I knew he was there. He doesn’t leave me alone. I’m a new Lumi, you know. Two vamp attacks and counting.” I remembered suddenly that he had left, yesterday, after he almost bit me. Left me for, what, twenty minutes? Was that long enough to have made confetti out of Martin Iverson? Not and have time to clean up and buy — or even steal — the Scrabble board, surely. But the Formyndari might disagree. Better to keep my mouth shut.

  Priscilla was eyeing me very narrowly. “How long have you been befasted?”

  “About, um…” I glanced at my watch. “Fourteen hours.”

  Her brows rose. “Oh. So this is new for you.”

  “Extremely,” I sighed.

  “Oh boy.” She glanced at Damon, and back to me. “Well, I can give you the courtesy of leaving the room. The cameras have to stay on, though.”

  “Um… okay?”

  Priscilla took the cuffs off Damon’s hands, then she and Lincoln left.

  Damon stood, rubbing his wrists, and began pacing the room.

  “What’s going on, Damon? Why am I here?”

  “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “They think I’m Liberty. Nothing new there. But this time you’re my alibi. And they don’t believe me because they don’t believe you could be my Lumi.” He was still pacing, never looking in my direction. “Hardly surprising. It’s like telling them I grew another head. There is a way to prove it, though. A befasted Shadow can only be healed by his Lumi’s blood. Priscilla’s didn’t work. Now I just need to prove that yours does, and they can’t argue.”

  “How does proving you’re my Shadow prove you’re not Liberty?”

  “It doesn’t. But it gives Priscilla an alternate reason for her Hinky Alert to be going off around me.”

  “So when my blood heals you, they’ll let us go?”

  “Maybe. It’ll derail the summary execution, at least.”

  “Oh.” I swallowed. “Well… better get started, then, I guess.”

  He looked at me then, and his anger seemed to tilt toward frustration, as if some internal certainty had wavered. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “It can’t be that bad, if Lumii do it all the time.” I thought of Peter and his sharp teeth, and swallowed again. When Damon didn’t answer, I ventured, “Does it hurt?”

  “No. Not for more than a second or two, anyway. There’s a chemical — we call it somna — that’s released into our saliva when our teeth pop. It’s a narcotic, essentially. Dulls pain, clouds thought, muddles memory. Very handy for a vampire.”

  “Oh.” I thought a minute. “I don’t know if that actually makes me feel any better.”

  “It’s not addictive, if that’s what you’re worried about. Not to adults, anyway.”

  “What about the baby?”

  “It would take repeated doses, close together. The baby will be fine. My mother’s a midwife, remember? She taught me all about this.”

  “Very reassuring. But I don’t like the idea of my head going mushy.”

  “It doesn’t last long. Fifteen, twenty minutes.” He continued to pace, staying well out of my reach.

  I watched him for a minute. “Damon, I know you’re upset with me—”

  He snarled — actually snarled, like a tiger or a wolf — and turned toward me with such force that I stepped back. “Upset doesn’t quite cover it.”

  Be a lighthouse, Naomi. Not a quiche. A lighthouse. I straightened my spine and crossed my arms. “You have good reason to be… unhappy with me. And if you want to scream and shout and throw things when we get home, that’s dandy. Probably good for your arteries, too. But I’m thinking we should get you off the Formyndari’s Most Wanted list first.”

  “I don’t want your blood. It comes with… hitchhikers.”

  “Hitchhikers?”

  “Memories. Your memories.”

  “It… what? I… will it… amnesia? Are we talking amnesia?”

  “No. Your brain will be unaffected. Mine, on the other hand, gets front row tickets to the last three months of Naomi Winters’s life.”

  “That’s… that’s a whole semester.” I fumbled over to the chair he’d been cuffed to. “That’s… that’s…” I flipped through the last three months, my mind stuttering at all the things I didn’t want Damon invited to. All my weird dreams. All my late-night pity-party sobfests. That stomach virus in February. Every flashback to Tyler. Not to mention every thought and feeling since I’d met Damon… “Okay,” I said faintly. “You win. Call Priscilla and tell her she can kill you now. I don’t mind.”

  He stopped, looked at me, and to my surprise, began, gradually, to laugh, until he had to lean against the wall to remain standing. I watched him, uncertain whether to laugh along or run — waddle — for my life, until he began to run down.

  “I hadn’t,” he said at last, “actually thought of it from your point of view. I guess it would be… disconcerting.”

  “You think?”

  “So that settles it. I don’t want to do this, you don’t want to do this. We’re not doing this. The Formyndari can go suck an egg.”

  “Tempting, but impractical. Damon, if nothing else, you can’t spend the rest of your life looking like you lost a fight with a salad shooter. You’re still bleeding, for Pete’s sake. You’ll exsanguinate.”

  “It would take a good long time, at this rate.”

  “But eventually. And then we’d be right back where we started. Assuming the Formyndari let you live that long. We might as well do it now, when it’ll do you some good.”

  His p
acing had picked up speed, and an agonized, panicky look was leaching the anger from his expression. He really, really, really didn’t want to do this. And knew he was going to have to anyway.

  I wasn’t crazy about it myself. In fact, I was so not crazy about it that my hands had gone half-numb and clammy, and I was afraid my pounding heart might take off into orbit. But we didn’t have any choice.

  “I think I could make you do it, Damon,” I said, almost too softly to hear myself. He stopped cold, his back to me. “I won’t. I shouldn’t have to. You’re smart. You already know you have to do this.” I stood and began walking toward him, slowly, as I might approach a fawn in the woods. “If you don’t, the Formyndari will think you lied to them, and they’ll probably kill you. If we’re really lucky, they might just do something to force you to bite me, and I don’t imagine that’ll be anything pleasant. For either of us. Please, just do it now.” I stepped in front of him and, fighting to keep breathing evenly, put my arms around his neck.

  Every muscle in his back and shoulders went tight. I could feel his heartbeat against my own chest, getting rapidly faster and heavier. I closed my eyes, shivering, and waited.

  And waited.

  By the time he made up his mind, I’d stopped expecting it, and the sudden pressure of his arms around me made me gasp. He tilted my head with an angry jerk, and a half-dozen sharp points of pain pierced my neck.

  The pain dulled immediately, washed on a tide of limp, dreamy warmth. My knees gave way, but he was supporting most of my weight already. My galloping pulse slowed to a crawl, each throbbing beat seeming to take minutes to swell and fade. I was hypersensitive and half-asleep, nerve endings intensely, blissfully half-aware of each breath, each movement, and most of all the wonderful, warm, solid form that seemed to be encompassing me entirely…