Warrior in the Shadows

by Marcus Wynne

  "From Cape Town," she said. "Where my family is from."

  It took only a few minutes of stilted conversation before they set aside their nervous babble and reached for each other. She took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom and the big bed that filled the room.

  The first time was frantic and urgent.

  "That one was for me," Charley said. The next time he went slower and concentrated only on pleasing her. After, she lay curled in the crook of his arm, her arm thrown across his chest, her hair in a pretty disarray across his arm and the pillow.

  "So much for not poaching my friend's boyfriend," she said.

  Charley shifted uncomfortably. "Mara never claimed exclusive rights. Let's not talk about that."

  "As you like," Kativa said lightly. "Would you like another glass of the Zinfandel?"

  "Yes," Charley said. "I would."

  She slipped out from beneath his arm and pulled on a silk robe that clung to the curves of her body and went out of the bedroom. She returned with the wine bottle and both glasses. She filled one glass and handed it to him.

  "Here we are," she said.

  "Thank you."

  "The pleasure is all mine," she said, smiling.

  She let the robe fall and then slipped back into bed, holding her wineglass with two fingers. They drank the icy Zinfandel in silence.

  "Have you thought of anything else about those pictures?" he said.

  Kativa looked startled. "That's a funny question for now," she said. "Or are you just using my body to see if you get better answers?"

  "Yes, and yes," Charley said, grinning into his wineglass.

  Kativa laughed. "Oh, you are a hateful man. No, I haven't thought much about it."

  "I can't get it out of my mind. Even when I close my eyes, I see that image. I even dream about it."

  "You're not thinking of it now, are you?"

  Charley shifted again. "Yes, I was. Some."

  Kativa untangled herself and sat with her back up against the headboard. "That could be a source of worry for you," she said.

  "Why?"

  "When I was in Quinkin country I asked a lot of questions about the magic. It's hard to get answers, but I did get some good stories. One of the signs that a sorcerer is working on you is obsessive thoughts and dreams. You see, the sorcerer doesn't want you to know you're being spelled until it's too late to do anything about it. But it's always a symptom, having the same images and recurrent thoughts in your dreams."

  Charley looked at her with amazement. "You mean to tell me you think I'm the target of a spell?"

  "Not necessarily you in particular," Kativa said seriously. "But anytime you look at those images, you could be inviting Anurra into the place of your spirit. That's what Aboriginal magic is about: putting influence from one powerful person into another person."

  "I don't think that's it," Charley said. "I'm just puzzling out what would make a man act in such a fashion."

  "That's your civilized mind, Charley. There's a part of your brain that's not so civilized that doesn't agree."

  Charley shifted to one side to look at her.

  "That's an unusual thing to say," he said.

  "Why?" she said. "You know that it's true."

  "I do wonder about it…"

  Kativa settled back and toyed with her wineglass.

  "Tell me what your dreams are like," she said.

  "There's one in particular I've had," he said. "I'm in the dark, it's night, and I'm in a hilly country with thick shrub brush. I'm climbing a hill, and there are big slabs of stone fallen all around making crevices and caves. I'm chasing Anurra, but somehow he gets behind me and then he's chasing me… I'm alone, but sometimes there are shadows around me, and some of them are speaking to me, and others are talking about me, and most of them are trying to help me but some are trying to trick me into listening to them. I always get the sense that there are many, many others just watching to see what happens.

  "I'm in this rock depression, so deep it's like a big bowl or the Coliseum in Rome. The seats are filled with dark spirits watching me and Anurra fight with each other, and some of the spirits are cheering for him and some of them are cheering for me and some are just cheering because they love to watch the fight."

  Kativa's eyes were large and round, liquid in the dim light. "How do your dreams end?"

  Charley shrugged. "I always wake up," he said. "It feels like I miss the ending. Each time it seems that the figure of Anurra gets bigger and stronger… but so do I."

  "A bush doctor would say that both of you are going to meet someday."

  "Maybe."

  "Is that why you're wearing a gun? You said you weren't a police officer…"

  "I'm not," Charley said. "I don't know why I put it on tonight… I just felt as though I should be prepared."

  "Do you have to go?"

  "Yes."

  "Where are you going?"

  "I need to talk to my friend, he's the lead investigator. I told him I'd come by. I wasn't counting on this."

  She laughed. "On this? Either was I. But I won't keep you. Will your friend still be up?"

  Charley glanced at the clock. It was after midnight.

  "I'll drive by and see if the lights are on," he said. "I was supposed to be there earlier and visit with his wife, she stays up late. Bobby Lee is probably still up."

  "Do you want to call?"

  "No, his son will be asleep and I don't want to wake him. I'll just drive by."

  Charley slipped out of bed and picked up his clothes from the floor. He quickly dressed, taking a few extra moments to properly seat and position his holster before dropping his shirttails over it and shrugging into his bomber jacket.

  "The well-dressed gunman," Kativa said. "I must say the ensemble suits you."

  "I'll call you tomorrow," Charley said.

  "Please do," she said. She slipped on her robe and walked him to the front door. They lingered in a good-bye kiss, and then she said, "Be careful."

  Charley left the building and stood outside for a moment. He stared up at the night sky and listened to the hum of traffic, the chirp of crickets, the single solitary slam of a car door somewhere down the street.

  He felt as though he needed to hurry.

  * * *

  Alfie stood over the two downed men. The big older one was done for, but the other still struggled for breath and stretched out one hand to claw for the big stainless-steel automatic he'd dropped. A tough fighter, this one, still able to draw after taking two rounds to the chest. Someone to respect.

  Alfie looked at the wall clock and calculated time and distance to the airport. He didn't have time for the ritual. At least not the full ceremony.

  "Well, what do you think, mate?" Alfie said to the dying man on the floor. "Should I take a little time with you?"

  * * *

  Charley got into his car, backed out of the parking spot carefully, then drove down Forty-third Street to the parkway and followed it around toward his apartment. He'd meant to stop and pick up his folder of notes, but instead he drove right past. It wasn't a long drive to Bobby Lee's, but Charley felt as though there was an elastic band stretched between him and Bobby Lee, and that the band was stretched to its limit and was just now rebounding and pulling him forward with ever-increasing speed. At each stoplight and stop sign, he weighed the chance of getting caught against just running the light. He couldn't calm himself down.

  Something was wrong.

  * * *

  Alfie dragged Bobby Lee by his heels a short distance away from the body of Simon Oberstar.

  "Just a little bit," Alfie said. "You deserve that."

  Bobby Lee spat up blood as he struggled to speak. He flailed feebly with one hand.

  "Take it easy, mate," Alfie said. "It'll be all over in just a tick."

  * * *

  Charley turned down Hilow Road. Bobby Lee's house sat in the end cul-de-sac of Hilow Court. He saw Bobby Lee's squad in the driveway. The porch and front
room lights were on.

  Why was he rushing?

  He turned off his headlights and eased his car to the curb one house short of Bobby Lee's, even though there was plenty of space in the driveway. He squeezed out of the car quickly to minimize the momentary flare from the interior light, then stood in the street and tasted the night air, sniffing for trouble.

  Something compelled him forward, the Glock in his hand without even thinking about it, not even pausing to call for help because he knew and felt the urgency of need, right now, and the door was there and he didn't try the handle he just kicked hard and came to a bone-jarring stop at the heavy reinforced door, so he turned the handle and entered violently, button hooking through the doorway and around the open door, quick scanning over the sights of his pistol as he had done so many times in the killing house at Harvey's Point, so strange to be doing it in his friend's front room, and he saw Simon Oberstar lying on his back, two holes in his chest, and Bobby Lee struggling under the foot of a dark-skinned man in biker leathers and Charley put his sights on the black leather and pressed the trigger twice quickly, throwing two rounds at the figure who wasn't there anymore…

  Where?

  "Oi, mate!" the dark man shouted. Charley was already rolling forward, catching himself as he tripped over Bobby Lee, turning his fall into a forward shoulder roll that took him across the floor and the minimal cover of the heavy oak dining-room table. He kicked hard and knocked the table over, taking momentary cover behind it.

  Crack!

  The table split as heavy caliber bullets bit into it. Then there was the pause Charley was waiting for as his opponent stopped to reload his pistol. Charley inched out from behind the table and saw one knee and booted foot protruding from the edge of the dining-room doorway, just beyond where Bobby Lee lay. Charley aligned his sights with all the speed he could muster and fired two quick shots and was rewarded with a loud "Fuck!" and the sound of scrambling and falling.

  That was his cue.

  He speedloaded the Glock, letting the nearly empty magazine fall to the floor while he slapped another ten rounds in, then he stood up and ran toward the dining-room doorway, every step a shot in cadence, chewing up the edge of the doorwell as he shot through the wall at his opponent. He moved cautiously around the corner, exposing only his pistol muzzle and his eye as he worked around the corner and saw a blood trail that led farther back into the house.

  "Maxine! Nicky! It's Charley!" he shouted.

  There was only the ringing in his ears.

  He knelt beside the still figure of Bobby Lee. Blood pooled beneath him. Charley touched his neck and felt a faint and thready beat. Charley picked up Bobby's pistol and stuck it in the back of his pants as a spare and reloaded the Glock again.

  "Hang on, bud," he said softly.

  He inched down the hallway toward the back of the house. His every sense was carefully attuned to the nuance of movement in the house: faint breezes, the hum of the furnace, the smell of blood and gunsmoke, the tears welling in his eyes as he fought back the urge to run back to his friend's side, his jaw tense as he bit down the urge to run madly through the house and find the dark man.

  To kill the dark man.

  That's what was important and he needed to move slowly to do that.

  Charley paused beside the half-opened door to the room that doubled as a study and a media room, a haven for Bobby Lee's big-screen television and little Nicky's Nintendo system. Never leave an uncleared room behind you; that rule was cast in stone. Charley nudged the door open farther with his foot and inched around, his weapon extended, staying well back from the open door as he slowly cleared the dimly lit room. The door opened another foot and then stopped. Charley looked down and saw the slim, delicate fingers of Maxine's hand curled limply, as though she were cupping something that had flown away.

  Charley fought harder than he had ever fought before to control the feelings that roared up in him. He compressed them all into a tight little ball and then put the ball in a box and put the box on a shelf in his head. He entered the room violently, button hooking again, and clearing the room.

  Maxine must have been sitting in the big armchair, now tipped over on its back. The television was still on, with the sound off. She had fought; Charley saw the bloody streaks on one hand. Little Nicky was half under her, boneless and limp, almost as if he were sleeping, and thankfully Charley couldn't see the boy's face, pressed up against his dead mother's body.

  "Oh, no," Charley keened. "Oh, no."

  He put it away, and forced himself to kneel and touch each of the thin necks even though he knew what he would find. Nothing, not even a stirring, though they were both still warm.

  He stood up and stepped away from them, something dead inside him and something else springing to life, something he had never felt before, a pure clean surge of hot hatred, a dark brightness at his center focused on one thing and one thing only: killing the man who'd done this.

  Where was he?

  Charley went back into the hallway and listened carefully. His hearing was returning after the crash and bang of shots from earlier. His vision seemed even more acute than usual. Everything he looked at was recorded like a snapshot, framed in the viewfinder of his mind, never to be forgotten. At the end of the hallway was a door that led to the garage and then the last door, which opened into the backyard. The blood trail went that way.

  Charley felt a sudden foreboding and he ran forward recklessly, his pistol extended, to the door that opened out into the yard. He quick peeked out the door, exited violently, and took cover behind the old unused propane tank beside the back steps.

  Nothing.

  He came out in the hunt, his pistol extended, its muzzle tracking wherever his eyes went.

  Nothing beside the garage.

  Nothing beside the big tree.

  From a few houses away, he heard a motorcycle kick into life. And over it, a loud sound: "Wonk! Wonk!" and then the sound of the motorcycle revving into the distance.

  Charley ran back into the house, picked up the phone.

  Dead.

  He ran back to the front room, knelt beside Bobby Lee.

  Dead.

  His pistol dangling limp in his hand, he heard the sound of sirens far off and growing, and he went outside to meet them.

  Part 3

  3.1

  Charley sat slumped on the rear bumper of a squad car and watched the bodies being carried out now that the Forensics Unit had completed the crime scene survey. Tears welled in his eyes when he saw the final gurney come out, the one with a small body hidden by the big black bag, so tiny a shape. He spent more hours being interviewed by the other detectives, their intensity masking the rage they all felt at having two of their own go down. He had to give up his Glock and spare magazines to the investigators. But finally they let him go, and he got into his car.

  He drove carefully, just under the speed limit, all the way to his apartment. It was almost dawn, and the light was glimmering in the east and thinning the dark that hung over the city. There was a faint fog in Linden Hills, and the streetlamps seemed to flicker and glow like candles in the damp haze. It reminded him of stories he'd read about old London, with the lamplighters and the foggy streets barely lit by the candle lamps.

  He parked in the lot behind the building and slowly made his way up the stairs, the sound of his footsteps an indictment, and he was careful not to let any of the night's images come up from where he had carefully put them away. He didn't want to see those images anymore.

  Charley let himself quietly into his apartment and locked the door behind him, then went into the kitchen and took down a bottle of Bushmill's Irish whiskey that Bobby Lee had bought him as a birthday present a few months back. They'd barely tapped it, and it became a joke between them as they laughed, remembering the time in their youth when they'd gone through a bottle of Bush a night.

  They'd only shared a few drinks out of it that night, and none since then.

  Charley took a tum
bler and filled it with ice, blinking in the sudden harsh light of the refrigerator as he filled the tumbler to the brim with whiskey. He sat in his armchair, the bottle close at hand, and took a long hard swallow that burned its way into his gut. He concentrated on that feeling and nothing else, as though the fire of the whiskey would wash something clean inside him.

  But he'd need more than whiskey for that. Charley took careful stock of himself, noting his huge anger, carefully banked, and just touched on the terrible sense of loss and sadness that lurked behind the anger. Anger was best put to use, and he'd have to think clearly how to put his to use. The dark man had gotten away for now.

  But only for now.

  Charley sat in his chair and drank himself to sleep as the early morning light burned away the lingering fog outside and cast long shadows in the street.

  Deep in a whiskey sleep, Charley dreamed:

  … walking, walking, in hilly country where the hills were the color of tan, marked out with dark barked trees whose branches reached like thin fingers toward the blue expanse of sky… the tan of the ground knife-edged dry grasses, the bark of the trees, close up, gnarled and worn like the skin of an old woman's breast and the trees evenly spaced like the ranks of a hidden army.

  Charley walking, looking, but not alone… Kativa is with him, magnificent in her nakedness, her full breasts bouncing with each stride and Charley seized by a sudden pang of lust and an embarrassing erection that poked the front of his loincloth. He's carrying a spear in one hand, and they are hunting…

  Hunting…

  They are walking toward the hills where sandstone escarpments have tumbled like children's blocks and lay jumbled like small sticks after a storm. The crevices and caves between the rocks look small from a distance but they steadily grow larger as the two of them travel toward it, the silence between them seems natural, as though they are connected in some silent way.

  There is a clearing where the trees don't go, and there are many chest-high pillars of mud, the nests of termites caulked and grown almost to the height of a man. One of them is directly in front of Charley and he is drawn toward it, stands before it. Slowly, bits of baked clay flake from the top of the termite's hill. Charley raised his spear, but not in fear— in recognition.