The Beckoning of Broken Things (The Beckoning Series)

by Calinda B

  Lina whimpers. She tries to scoot away from me, but her small cat legs can’t push the weight of her head. Instead, she ends up scraping the dirt with her claws. Her small, furry body flops to the side in defeat.

  “What is it, Light Rebel? I’m all ears.”

  “Let’s give their keeper a message of our own, shall we?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Watch.” I erase the sorcerer’s initials. Extending light to the end of the Naked Truth, I wield it like a laser-filled fine-point sable paintbrush, painting my initials on the cheeks of each woman. No blood. No mess. Just a little bit burnt skin. And voila! It looks more like a tattoo than an ugly scar. I add a tiny butterfly on each. “What do you think?”

  “You were right! So pretty! I like the way you made the M’s all have tiny spirals. Very nice!”

  I smile, turning my head back and forth. “It was so simple, too! Armando thinks he’s such a badass. Who’s the badass, now?” I reach down and tickle their furry bellies. Somewhere inside I can’t believe I’m scratching the belly of a cat with a human head. The women start to purr in spite of their predicament. Kitties can be so easy. I chuckle. I always did have a way with animals. “Now you two head back to your master, you hear? If you don’t, I’ll know. I know what you smell like. I know what he smells like. I’ll know when your trails have collided because the smell will be potent.” I curl my lips as if it will be the foulest smell known to humanity. “If you don’t show up at his doorstep, I’m going to find you. Don’t even think to escape. Go back to him, tell him you found us, and we restored you to your human selves in a gesture of kindness. I'm sure he'll be pleased to see you again looking so…so…." I eye their fake beauty. “Looking so Frederick’s of Hollywood.” I turn to Rafe. "Rafe? Will you open the door to Earth?"

  Rafe creates a small tear between the Shadow Lands and Earth. We toss the cats and their huge heads gently through the opening.

  “Hey! You said you’d restore us!”

  “And we shall,” I say as the opening disappears from view. I give a few swipes with my hand and see their bodies manifest through the haze. “Oops.”

  “What?”

  “No clothes.”

  Rafe lets out a belly laugh. “They’ll get more offers that way. Let’s go. Excellent work with that sword tip, by the way.”

  “Thank you. I’m getting the hang of all this Light Rebel stuff.”

  “I’ll say.” Rafe tips his head back and sniffs the air. “You tell me which way to go.”

  I close my eyes. Sniff, smell, sense. Daniel’s trail is intoxicating. It evokes longing. It stirs our soul bound connection. The twirls and tendrils that marked our binding make it as clear to follow as if he’d drawn a map with a giant pen through the Shadow Lands. It whips my guilt and unresolved dilemma. Wait to worry. All things will resolve. You’ll know when the time is right. “Where did that come from?” I mutter. Since when did I become so wise?

  As we’re hiking along, I ask, “Do you think the women will remember where this is? Where we are, I mean?”

  “Not a chance.” He hops over a tiny serpentine creek. It flows one way. It flows back the other way. It seems to blur in and out, and the sound it makes is like water flowing through a sci-fi flick - it’s an odd, otherworldly sound.

  “Are there any other life forms in here?”

  “Sure. A few. They’re just shadowy and strange in this realm. Their forms don’t make sense to human eyes. You, however, will do just fine down here.” He smirks.

  “And why is that?” I shake my head.

  “Warped mind, Light Rebel.” He taps the side of his head. “Creative thinker.”

  I give him a worldly smile. “Why do we appear normal?”

  He scoffs. “Because you’re with me, and I live here most of the time. You’re sure full of questions.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not really. It’s just different. I seldom talk when I’m on the job.” He leaps across a small, warped crevice and holds out his hand for me.

  “I’ll stop soon enough.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

  “You didn’t say you did, either. I’m just trying to get my bearings here.” I duck under some wavy branch-like things sticking out of a distorted tree. “Okay, so they won’t remember how to get here, but Armando must have implanted some sort of tracking device in them. Otherwise, why send them after us?”

  “I thought of that.” He peers down a huge chasm. “Hold on.”

  “Why? I’m not jumping into that.” It looks like an endless fall.

  “Want to bet?” He sweeps me into his arms and takes a leap. “Picture a parachute, darlin’. I’d do it fast if I were you.”

  My mind is reeling as we plummet. Come on, no time to think here, Engles. I quickly paint a huge, colorful paraglider. The sail catches our fall and we glide through the canyon.

  “Nice work, Light Rebel. I could get used to having you around.”

  “Thank you,” I say, beaming at him again. He makes me feel good about my accomplishments. He’s a good man. “So back to Armando…”

  “Yeah,” he says. “As you can see, it won’t do him much good to track us as far as Kitty one and Kitty two got. We’re miles from there.”

  I twist my head around to look behind us. He’s right. We’re far, far away. I can’t even see where we leapt from.

  “Still, we’d best be mindful. Here comes our landing.”

  I gaze down to see some sort of solid something moving towards us, fast. I rapidly paint a fat memory foam mattress to soften our fall.

  “Endless surprises, Light Rebel,” Rafe says, clearly pleased as he runs across the mattress, still clutching me, as we land. “And perfect for what I’ve got in mind. It’s time for a rest.” His eyes dance with mischief.

  I erase the parasail and give him a saucy grin. “And just what is that?”

  “Come here, and let me show you.”

  Just like that, I heat up like a race car engine roaring to life.

  Rafe takes my face in his hands. He regards me with openness and love before locking his succulent lips with mine. His tongue swirls and tangles with my tongue.

  I’m ready to take this in a new direction. I’m ready to try out a few ideas that have been percolating in my head. I’m ready to…

  “Well, well, well, what have we here?”

  Rafe stiffens and releases me. “Kaine. What rock did you crawl out from under?”

  I eye Rafe’s face. He doesn’t look pleased to see the intruder.

  Our interrupter is a tall, muscular man, probably in his twenties or early thirties, with wavy, brown, unkempt hair. His jaw is covered in stubble. His chocolate-colored eyes are anything but smooth, creamy, and delicious. They’re hard as broken glass, intense and focused on me and Rafe. He’s got an ordinary enough looking face, with a jagged scar from his forehead, along his temple, and streaking down his cheek. That must have been some wicked fight, I think. I look down to his feet and see numerous shadows springing from every direction. I blink. Blink again. Blink some more. Still there. There must be hundreds of shadows beneath him - tall, short, fat, skinny - none of them match his visage.

  “Are you going to tell me that you have a girlfriend?”

  “Are you going to tell me that you’re still standing here talking to us?” Rafe crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m not in the mood for chit chat.”

  I mimic Rafe’s posture, crossing my arms over my chest. “Care to introduce me?”

  Keeping his eyes pinned to the intruder’s, Rafe says, “Meet Kaine. The Shadow Numen.”

  “Kaine,” I say, nodding politely.

  A wicked grin colors Kaine’s face. “Do you have a name?”

  “No,” Rafe quickly interjects. “She doesn’t.”

  Kaine steps toward me. “I’ll bet you do.” He leans toward me and sniffs. “Mmm, you smell mighty fine. Tell me your name, sweet thing.”

  “It’s the Naked T
ruth,” I say, withdrawing my gleaming dagger.

  Kaine’s hands go up. He backs away from me. “Easy. I meant you no harm.” He turns to Rafe and squints. “You’re not fucking who I think you’re fucking, are you?”

  “I don’t recall being BFFs with the likes of you. Whom I’m fucking is none of your business.”

  Kaine shakes his head. “I just wanted to give you fair warning, that’s all. What you do is none of my business, you’re right. But I’ve gotta say, fucking the Night Numen’s woman? That takes some balls, bro.”

  “What’s your warning? Tell me and be gone with you.”

  “Old man Navid’s been sniffing around a lot.”

  “In here? I know. He sent a couple whores after us.”

  “It’s worse than that. He’s got spies everywhere.”

  Rafe’s face creases. “What kinds of spies? You can’t exactly just waltz in here, you know.”

  “I know that. He’s employing some new magic drones. They look like insects. They have no regard for Earth rules, Shadow Land rules, anywhere rules. They go where they’re programmed to go. The whores were probably his fallback plan. Did he disguise them?”

  “Yeah. As cats. You know how cats can get into just about anything. But how can you program a drone for a world like this?” Rafe waves his hand around the distorted landscape. “There are no rules here. If there are, they change the second they’re known.”

  “Yeah,” Kaine says. His hand flicks up and snags a small winged insect. He opens his palm, and we all peer down at the minuscule robot parts. “Tell that to this guy. It was listening to us. Probably sending a signal straight to the old man.”

  Cold dread coiled up my backbone. “This is creepy. How can we fight the insect world? They’re all around us. How will we know which are drones and which are real insects?” I bite my fingernails, chewing them down to the quick in a jiffy. “This is a problem.”

  “Enhanced awareness, cutie,” Kaine says to me.

  “The name’s Marissa,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Not cutie, not sweet thing…Marissa. Or, Ms. Engles to you.”

  “Yeah, I already guessed your name, toots. Anyway, I’ve gotta jet. I’m working a job. I just caught your essence and thought to give you a heads up.”

  “Thanks, man, I appreciate it.” Rafe exchanges a one-armed man hug with the guy and Kaine disappears. Like that. Into thin air.

  Why am I surprised? “I thought you didn’t like him?”

  “Who said I do?”

  “Well, you hugged him.”

  “He’s a work associate, that’s all. He gave us some useful info. What should I have done? Punched his lights out?” He stares at me, perplexed.

  “No.” I shake my head. “I just wondered. So what’s a Shadow Numen?”

  “You saw all those shadows around his feet, yeah?”

  “Yeah. Looked like hundreds, maybe thousands.”

  “Probably more. He eats shadows.”

  “Eats shadows? Is that supposed to be scary?” I scoff, hop across a wavy looking log and skid down a loose-earthed embankment.

  “I know, it doesn’t sound like much, but if he eats your shadow, you lose parts of your soul. You become less than whole. You change and not for the better.”

  I wrinkle up my nose. “Okay. It still doesn’t seem all that scary. Give me a for instance.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, I want to know how it changes someone.”

  Rafe stops me, and looks at me intently. “Dr. Bellows used to be a fairly nice guy.”

  “What? The Shadow Numen ate Dr. Bellows’ shadow?”

  “Did you ever see it?”

  “I don’t think so, but I was focused on other things. Like getting out of there.” I pause, thinking. “So what did you get out of fucking him?”

  Rafe’s face grows hard. “I was just doing my part for the team.”

  “What team?”

  “My team. I knew that Kaine had consumed his shadow. He told me about that job when it was over. Said the guy used to be known as a saint.”

  “So why did he do the job then?”

  Rafe rubs his fingers together. “Good money. Really good money.”

  “That’s all you guys think about?”

  “Sometimes. But I told you that Bellows used to be known as a saint. Known as a saint. Losing your shadow allows you to face your true self - core issues and things you haven’t been willing to face. I’ll bet if you lost your shadow, you’d be an angel.” He winks at me. “Bellows was doing things…little things, like skimming money from charities that he organized. Or…” His face contorts into disgust.

  “Go on…”

  “Or, having sex with young boys. That’s despicable. That’s vile. Beyond reproach. Things like that. He figured he could get away with it by balancing it with all the good work that he did.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like helping improve mental health facilities for kids, for instance. He did that, at least.”

  “Okay, so, his shadow was stolen, he started to change, and you got what, exactly, out of screwing him?”

  Rafe lowers his voice to a whisper. “I told you, the effects lasted longer. Bellows had a small measure of power. But I was mostly concerned with finishing what Kaine had started.”

  “Which was?” I whispered back.

  “When your shadow is gone, you get all leaky. If someone knows what they’re doing…” He hesitates and taps his chest. “They can finish the job and kill the person, very, very, very slowly. It’s a miserable way to die.”

  He’s speaking so softly I have to press up against him to hear.

  “The reason the effect of fucking him lasted so long was because he leaked. Each time I sucked him or fucked him, I gathered his life essence into mine. It was like an energy bank of sorts. Had I continued doing it, it would have kept me fed and the bastard would eventually die. God knows he deserved it - he harmed a lot of people in that mental hospital. He’d get some sort of disease that nothing could cure. His ‘immune system’ would be compromised.” He makes quote marks in the air and lets out a cold laugh. “I was really looking forward to looking into his face when he lay, miserable and suffering at the end, and letting him know that I killed him.”

  My face furrows. Disgust swirls in my stomach. “Ew! That’s gross, Rafe. What kind of man are you?” I shove him away from me.

  He leaps into the air, snatches a fly, and kills it. “The kind of guy who lives by different rules than you used to. The kind of guy who loves you. The kind of guy who increased his awareness, like Kaine said, to snag this.” He opens his palm to reveal the teensy, weensy, robotic parts. “You might do the same, darlin’. We can no longer afford to be foolish. Not here, not anywhere. This game is on.”

  Chapter 29

  “What’s the problem here?” Armando snarls to the geeky-looking guy before him. He stands in a tech-filled room of huge television monitors, computers, and robot parts.

  “There is no problem, Mr. Navid,” the guy says, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Except that those two keep smashing the drones.” He points to a still shot of Rafe and Marissa, captured moments ago.

  Armando flings his hand into the air. “That’s a problem, don’t you think? You need to make these things smarter…stealthier…I don’t know, do something! You’re the brainiac here.” He pounds the work bench with his fist. Tiny screws, metal, and plastic parts rise and land with a clatter. A few fall to the ground.

  The geeky guy bends over to retrieve them, a small frown on his face. “This doesn’t help, Mr. Navid. These components are very expensive. We’re employing our best techniques.” He gestures to the wall of monitors. Scenes from the Shadow Lands appear before them. “Pretty cutting edge, if you ask me.”

  “Your best isn’t good enough,” Armando says, raking his hair with his hand. “And I didn’t ask you. Tell me,” he continues. His face is sweating and beet red. The veins at his temple throb. “In any of those monitors, do you see a man a
nd a woman, moving in real time?”

  “No.”

  “Nor do I. Fix that. Or else I’ll fire you. And do something far worse to you.” He slams his hand into one of the monitors, causing it to explode into shards of its former function. The pain in his palm stabs him with a jolt of satisfying pleasure.

  The geeky guy winces. “These monitors are state of the art, Mr. Navid. They don’t come cheap.” He calmly retrieves a broom from the corner.

  “Get another one. If you do your job right, you’ll have enough money to retire. If you don’t…” He slashes at his neck with his hand, turns, and stalks outside.

  The door slams behind him. He pulls his pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, slides one from the carton, and lights up. His eyes catch the sight of two women hesitantly striding toward him wearing clothes they must have yanked from someone’s clothesline, by the looks of them. “Jesus fucking Christ. It’s Lips and Boobs. What else can go fucking wrong?” He draws deeply on the smoke and exhales. “What the hell happened?” he screams to the two prostitutes.

  “It was her. It was the witch. She turned us back,” Boobs whimpers. “She sent you a message.”

  “Oh? And what might that be?” He takes another drag of the tobacco. This day is just going to hell.

  The two women sidle up to him. They paw at him, stroking his shoulders, his neck, his face.

  He bats them away.

  “It wasn’t our fault, Mondo, don’t be mad,” Boobs whines.

  Her voice sounds like a baby. Armando’s lip curls. “You fucking whore. How can you botch a simple task?”

  “Look, Mondo, look what she did to us.” Boobs points at her cheek.

  Armando squints at the initials. He takes the hand holding the cigarette and stretches the skin with his thumb and index finger. The bluish smoke curls around the hooker’s eyes, making them water. “What the fucking fuck? Where did my fucking brand go?”

  “She…she used a magic sword to tattoo us. After she erased your initials,” the one he nicknamed Lips blubbers. “It was awful!”

  “What’s awful, Lips, is what’s going to happen to you in a moment,” Armando roars. His hands launch into the air like two missiles.