Darkness & Light

by Murray, Dean

  Darkness & Light

  A Short Story collection

  by Dean Murray

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 by Dean Murray

  Author's Note:

  First, I'd like to thank you for choosing to read Darkness and Light. If you'd asked me two years ago if I ever planned on writing any more short stories, I would have told you no. I'm incredibly glad that I was wrong. All but Absence tie back into a novel I've either already written, or one that's currently on the drawing board. I'm thrilled to have a chance to expose readers to three of the four worlds I've spent so much time in over the last few years. I've written a short forward to each story, explaining how it fits into the rest of my work, and some of the ways in which each is special to me.

  "Scent of Tears", the first presented in Darkness and Light, came into being almost by accident, and the credit goes entirely to my wife. At the time I was finishing up the rough draft of Torn, she was teaching an elementary class. Most Friday's she'd have a 'mystery reader' come into her classroom. It was always someone tangentially related to the class, a parent usually, and partway through the year her students started guessing that the mystery reader each week was 'Mr. Murray'.

  I finally managed to find a Friday where I could steal away to the school during my lunch and read a few pages of Despereaux to her class. It was quite enjoyable-the kids had all kinds of good questions about my job, and about my writing.

  They were pretty disappointed when I told them I couldn't read them any of my work because it was for older kids. When Katie and I both got home that night she told me they hadn't stopped talking about the visit and badgering her for some of my work to read.

  With a reception like that, I couldn't help but start playing with ideas that might work for a class of second graders. "Scent of Tears" was the evolution of those ideas, and I found, somewhat to my surprise, that Shawn stepped forward to take center stage. Back in those days, my few beta readers could have been excused for not even remembering Shawn. He makes only the briefest appearance in Torn, and as Splintered is currently written, doesn't really get decent face time there either. That being said, I'd pretty much decided that Shawn was going to be right in the thick of things for the climax of book three (I consider Broken and Torn more or less one book).

  I knew Shawn needed to play a pivotal role, but hadn't really figured out how he was going to do that. It wasn't until I really got buried in Scent of Tears that all of those little hooks that had always been meant to fit together started clicking into place.

  Ultimately, he went from being a minor placeholder that was only ever going to drop in when it was convenient, to someone that I can't wait to spend more time with. Not just in the Broken & Torn storyline either. Shawn really shines the most when you look at his life from the dual lenses of the 'regular world' and Dark Reflections. In some ways, Shawn and Alec are slightly distorted reflections of each other. I really hope that Shawn is well received, both in Scent of Tears, and in the full novels he'll appear in. For me, he and Alec are a bit of a package deal. I can't see writing one without eventually writing the other.

  If you enjoy this slice of Shawn's story, you'll love Broken and Torn. I currently expect to have both out sometime in 2011 either as separate novels, or as an omnibus edition.

  Scent of Tears

  Shawn shifted around restlessly in the SUV's passenger seat. The flight in from Chicago had landed early that morning and he and his nanny Sarah had been on the road ever since. It was bad enough for normal kids to sit for hours. For a shape shifter like Shawn, it was almost torture; especially in his person shape. He spent almost as much time as a wolf as he did on two legs, the form he was wearing now. In fact, if his dad hadn’t been so strict about his homework, he probably would've spent every hour he wasn't in school running around on four legs. Shawn checked the clock one last time before turning to Sarah.

  "Are we almost there? I waited thirty minutes like you told me to."

  Sarah slid a few strands of wispy gray hair back behind her ear and nodded. "You're right. I did say you could ask again. We're actually just about to turn into the lane."

  Shawn sat up straighter in his seat, straining to see the large gate signifying the start of the family's country estate. True to Sarah's word, a few moments later they were driving down the one mile lane to the house. As soon as the car rolled to a stop Shawn jumped out and raced around to help Sarah out of the car.

  It wasn't his favorite thing to do, but at her age if he didn't help it would take three times as long. The sooner she was settled in the house the sooner he could shift forms and go out exploring. They hadn't been out to the estate in nearly a year, and last time he hadn't been allowed out from under Sarah's watchful gaze. This year his father had agreed he could go out on his own for a couple hours at a time as long as he stayed on their property.

  Sarah seemed to take hours to get her small bag out of the back of the vehicle, and then days to walk up the stairs. Shawn raced back and forth between the car and the house several times before she finally unlocked the door.

  He shot up the stairs, put his toothbrush in the bathroom, his clothes in the dresser and then knelt so he could melt into his wolf form.

  He looked himself over as he padded past the mirror on the bathroom door.

  Black and brown fur, check. Sharp pointy teeth, check. Big ears that could hear Sarah's heartbeat all the way downstairs? Check. A wonderfully sensitive nose that was busy sampling a hundred times more smells than he'd been able to register just minutes before? Check.

  The nose was almost the best part of being a shape shifter. The only thing better was how strong and fast he was. Out in the forest he could run for hours and nothing but another shape shifter could catch him.

  Unfortunately, inside was a different matter. The hallway's slick hardwood was surprisingly hard to navigate as a wolf. He walked with exaggerated care, trying to avoid falling into the wall and then found himself at the top of the stairs. His dad and Sarah both climbed up and down stairs like pros, but he still fell down about as often as not.

  Sarah said it just took practice, that in a couple of years stairs would be easy in both forms, but for now it was harder than it looked. Shawn carefully started down the stairs, moving in a kind of sideways hop that'd more or less worked for him before.

  He actually made it two-thirds of the way down before a misstep sent him sprawling.

  Sarah shook her head at him as she came around the corner from the hall that led to her room.

  "If you'd just slow down, Shawn, things would go much easier."

  Shawn whined and nosed the door. That was the only part of being a wolf that was worse than being a human. Without words you had to rely entirely on other things to communicate what you wanted, and Sarah was a past master at pretending not to understand him.

  "Your father did say it would be ok for you to go out on your own, but you're to be back by nightfall. There's to be no hunting, and you're not to leave the estate."

  A quick tail wag and rolling over onto his back served to convince Sarah of his sincerity. She opened the door and Shawn shot out in a blur. He tore across the porch and jumped down to the lawn, completely ignoring the pesky stairs.

  It was heaven. The foliage flashed by in a blur his human eyes would've been hard-pressed to follow. Slowing down slightly, Shawn angled towards one edge of the estate as he tested the wind for rabbits.

  The boundary wasn't marked by a fence or any of the other things humans usually chose to define the edges of their territory. Instead their family had chosen to leave it open so that animals could come and go freely. It meant there was plenty of game around, but he had to rely on the irregular strop markings his dad'
s claws had left on the trees to tell him when he arrived.

  A few minutes later, the urge to run at least temporarily satisfied, Shawn slowed to a stop and put his nose to the ground. The smell of rabbit was incredibly strong.

  Shawn picked out the most recent scent trail and followed it along the forest floor. Under trees, around rocks, and through brambles so tight it felt like they were going to rip his coat right off. The rabbit had been careful. It never exposed itself for more than a brief second, bounding from one bit of cover to the next in a flash nearly as fast as Shawn could achieve.

  Shawn followed the sneaky rabbit for more than twenty minutes before the trail disappeared into a burrow. He nosed around and briefly considered trying to widen the hole enough to get more than just his muzzle in, but it was hard work and he was pretty sure the warren was too deep to dig up.

  After he finally abandoned the effort, Shawn continued along the edge of the estate. His stomach starting to growl, he'd nearly decided to turn around and head back for something to eat when his nose caught the barest glimmer of a new scent.

  It was like nothing he'd ever smelled before. Not sweet necessarily, but flowery-delicious and somehow it made the other scents sharper. He was already at the edge of the estate but couldn't bring himself to leave without investigating something so amazing.

  A quick search turned up a stream just close enough to the border of their property for Shawn to claim he hadn't realized it was forbidden. Halfway between the stream and his current location was a muddy slope that would serve quite nicely.

  Shawn ran towards the slope and then let his legs slip out from under him as he started downhill. He slid and rolled down the last half of the muddy hill, ending up at the bottom in a muddy heap exactly as planned. Sarah wouldn't be able to blame him for wanting to go wash up.

  The stream was colder than expected, but it washed the mud off just fine. He splashed around for a couple of minutes and then started swimming upstream, confident there'd be no scent trail to tip Sarah off to his having left. As long as he came back onto their land at exactly the same point where he'd jumped into the stream she'd think he really had just washed off and then gone back home.

  A brisk fifteen minute swim did the trick to hide his scent and then Shawn found a spot where the bank wasn't too steep and raced off looking for the scent.

  He soon discovered a large, natural rock wall. The smell seemed to be coming from somewhere further ahead, so rather than trying to figure out a way to climb it, he ran along it.

  The wind was sometimes deceptive. Half an hour later he realized he'd gone much further off their land than he'd meant to. His conscience finally kicked in, but just before he decided to turn back he heard them.

  Hunting dogs. Judging by the howling there were at least four, and they were definitely behind him. He was stronger and faster than even most full-grown dogs, but he'd never been in a fight before, not in either form.

  His heart racing, Shawn continued running, only now he started curving around away from the rock wall. It was dangerous; the wind would be carrying his scent back to them, so rather than having to track him, they could just head straight to him. Still, he had to get far enough away from the wall to use his superior speed and endurance.

  The run was a nightmare. Undergrowth that had seemed to slide out of his way before, now tore at his fur, trying to slow him down. He'd expected the dogs to gain on him, but not this rapidly. Every time he slowed down to catch his breath he could feel them getting closer.

  A single misstep was all it took to tilt things further against him. He was jumping over a rosebush and landed on a thorn. The needle-sharp point pierced the pad on his right foreleg, and then he was limping.

  Each step was agony, the dogs getting closer by the minute. He was now headed directly away from the outcropping though, so the wind was no longer in their favor.

  Shawn jumped a tiny trickle of water, likely a tributary of the stream he'd used earlier, and ducked under a pair of fallen trees. He was halfway through to the other side when he heard the hunter.

  A stray breeze brought the scent of gun oil and cleaner. A person by themselves wasn't a threat to a shape shifter, but a rifle made all the difference. Nobody could outrun a bullet.

  He's waiting for me. He doesn't know what the pack found, but he knew I'd be trying to get further away from the steep rock wall.

  The dogs were getting closer. They had their noses down so they could track his scent but, every so often one would look up and howl.

  Shawn felt his muscles trembling. He was caught between two unbeatable opponents with only minutes before one or the other would find him.

  He’d nearly given up hope when the hunter slapped the arm holding the rifle. Shawn took advantage of the momentary distraction provided by the mosquito to slip away.

  Running was harder now. He was starting to get tired and his paw still hurt. The blood trail he was leaving made it even easier than normal for the dogs to track him. His only hope now was to make it back to the stream.

  He was shaking and cold by the time he finally heard the low gurgle of flowing water. He jumped between a couple of tall ferns and landed with all four legs paddling furiously. The dogs were only a minute or two behind and he needed to be out of sight before they arrived.

  The current wasn't very strong but he made good time, he was several curves away by the time the dogs came to the end of the trail, yelping as they slid down the bank and fell into the stream. Fifteen minutes later the barking had faded into the distance.

  Shawn finally worked his way back over to the bank and collapsed, wet and tired on the muddy ground. He wanted so badly to close his eyes and sleep but there was still a chance the dogs would work their way downstream looking for him.

  He pulled himself back onto his paws, freezing as a new scent registered in his sensitive nose.

  Another person. Maybe my age, and traces of something else, something bigger that I've never run into before.

  Shawn nearly turned and ran away, but something about the smells pulled him forward, limping on his hurt paw. He finally found her down at the bottom of a sinkhole at the edge of the stream. She'd smelled hurt even from a distance, and now he could see why.

  She'd somehow managed to fall and knock herself unconscious. Her lips were turning blue, but even more alarming was the way and the sinkhole was slowly filling with water, threatening to swallow her.

  A low whine escaped his throat. The sinkhole was too deep for him to jump out in his wolf form even unencumbered. He briefly considered jumping down and then changing back to a person, but he wasn't nearly as strong in that form. Trying to climb up the walls one handed wasn't likely to work.

  Shawn's mind whirled as he tried to come up with a plan. Sarah would be strong enough to help but there wasn't time to go back, explain why he'd been outside of the estate, and bring her all the way back. He was fast, but the water was rising too quickly.

  The distant sound of the hunter's dogs finally helped a plan form inside his mind. It was risky. He spent a couple of seconds trying to come up with something better and then turned and headed back towards the hunter.

  Every step hurt and the smell of dogs and gunpowder ahead filled him with dread, but he kept on, creeping closer and closer until he was only a few feet from the nearest panting canine.

  Shawn took a deep breath and then charged out into the clearing. He bowled over the hunting dog and then turned so he could sprint back towards the injured girl. He nearly wasn't fast enough. He'd never expected the hunter to react so quickly.

  A shot rang out before he made it back to cover, ripping through the air a few feet from his head. The dogs were close on his heels, and with the way he was limping he wasn't sure he was still fast enough.

  The question was answered a few seconds later when a big German Shepherd got close enough to lunge at him. The barest whisper of sound alerted Shawn to the attack and he dodged to the right just in time. The dog missed him by a couple of in
ches.

  The hunter apparently decided against taking another shot at him with the dogs so close, but Shawn could hear the man panting as he gave chase several yards back.

  The yards between him and the unconscious girl rolled by with alarming speed and after dodging another couple of attacks Shawn found himself within sight of the sinkhole. Another of the dogs was within a few feet of him now.

  Shawn suddenly spun around, grabbing the larger dog by the back of its neck and flipping it towards the sinkhole.

  The dog yelped in surprise as it sailed through the air. For a second it looked like Shawn's plan wouldn't work. The other dog righted himself midair, but landed with too much momentum and slid into the sinkhole, disappearing with another yelp of astonishment.

  Shawn couldn't wait around, he sprang into the water again, and swam downstream as the other dogs came barreling into view. Two of the pack stopped to investigate their barking comrade, the last jumped into the stream to follow.

  The pursuing dog seemed to be a better swimmer and was steadily gaining. They'd made it a hundred yards downstream before a shrill whistle from the hunter called the dog off.

  Shawn wanted to lie down and give into his exhaustion, but he had to make sure the hunter was going to help the girl. He waited until the dog was out of sight and then swam over to dry land and started back upstream.

  He'd only thought he’d been quiet before. Now he moved incredibly slowly, taking care not to disturb even the smallest twig. It seemed like hours passed, but finally after a few minutes he'd advanced far enough to see the sinkhole.

  He almost let out an audible sigh of relief when he saw all four dogs huddled around the hunter who'd just finished carrying the girl up to ground level.

  "Hush you," scolded the hunter. "We've got to get her to a hospital and I don't need the four of you jumping up on me the whole way back to the truck."