Shadow Summoner: Choronzon Chronicles Book One

by Tess Adair

  “Well, fuck,” Logan muttered as it skittered off. How was she supposed to track the damn thing and keep her fearful clients safe at the same time?

  She turned to look at them. Adelaide stood near the wall, gazing at the now-empty doorway, while Richard whimpered in his chair.

  “That’s not a little girl,” Adelaide managed, her voice small and quiet.

  “Observant, aren’t you?” Logan slid the dagger back into the sheath attached to her belt.

  Between them, Richard gurgled.

  “Why did it run away?”

  “Out of shock, I think. It’s probably a little disoriented from its trip through the veil.”

  Adelaide cocked her head to the side, not entirely dissimilar to what the beast had done as it sized Logan up. “You make it sound like a lost animal,” she said.

  Logan shrugged. “That’s what it is, in a way.”

  “Hmph. It’s not like any animal I’ve ever seen.”

  “Of all animals that have ever walked or crawled, you’ve only seen a tiny fraction.” Logan turned back to the chair she’d abandoned earlier and used it to jump down off the table. “When you deal with other dimensions, it’s best not to assume your past experience means anything.”

  She surveyed them again, wondering how best to proceed. Despite what she told her clients, the truth was that past experience was her primary guide. That experience told her that the beast would hide to nurse its wounds before returning to the hunt—before returning to them. But how long would it take?

  “So what do we do now?” Adelaide asked her.

  “That depends on you,” Logan replied. “And how you feel about taking a little risk.”

  Logan was full of terrible ideas, and this was one. She hunched in a linen closet at the end of a long hallway, catatonic Richard shivering in a crouch behind her. They had allowed the door to open the tiniest crack, giving her a view of the moonlight spreading slim pools on the dark carpet, the rain still beating against the tall windows.

  As she watched, Adelaide walked into her field of vision, pacing slowly. Logan could only hope she remembered her whole part; it would be a shame to lose a client just as she’d started to like her.

  Adelaide paused near the window and glanced around her, looking for a sign of the monster. She’d been pacing for a few minutes already, but the beast hadn’t yet shown. It was time for step two. With a sigh that was audible all the way from the closet, she put her arm out in front of her and dragged a blade across the skin, drawing blood.

  They were hoping the smell would draw it in. Logan’s nose crinkled automatically as it wafted over to her, notes of copper stinging sweetly. For a few moments, everything was quiet but the rain. Then a long low scratching noise came from the end of the hall, and Adelaide froze.

  Logan still couldn’t see it, but she knew the beast had arrived. She listened to it stalking slowly closer, narrowing in on Adelaide. Then it broke into a run. As soon as its gray form flashed into her narrow view, Logan launched herself out toward it, knocking it to the ground before it reached its intended prey. To her relief, Adelaide immediately ran back to the closet with Richard and closed them both in.

  The beast extricated itself from her grasp and started toward the door, likely still following the smell. Logan took easy advantage of its distraction and tackled it again, this time driving the dagger deep into its back. She’d hoped to hit its heart, or at least something vital, but even after the blade was in up to the hilt, the creature only roared and reared back, throwing her off.

  It was perfectly possible, even likely, that her wild guess at the location of its cardiac muscle was wrong. It was also possible, even likely, that hitting its heart wouldn’t kill it at all.

  There were a lot of things the beast might be able to survive. But in Logan’s experience, precious few creatures could live without a head. Again, she cursed her past self for leaving all her broadswords and axes at home.

  As she scrambled back to her feet, the beast came for her. This time, it knocked her to the ground, pinning her underneath its unexpected weight. She managed to wedge her left arm under its chin, holding its gnashing jaws away from her neck, while her right hand groped frantically over its back, searching for the hilt of her dagger. Finally, her fingers made contact and closed firmly around it before pulling upwards, hard.

  The beast roared and reared, and with a show of power, lunged down at her, burying its teeth in her shoulder.

  Her body’s response was automatic. Without any conscious bidding from her, four spiked ridges shot out from under her skin along the bottoms of both forearms. As the pain of their appearance spread through her body, she felt an accompanying burst of strength surge through her like a wildfire.

  When the spikes came out, her left arm had still been trapped beneath the beast’s collarbone, so her ridges had ripped right through its skin and wedged into something hard, like bone. Its teeth lost their grip in the process, giving her a new edge. She bent her knees and planted her feet on the ground, then used the leverage to push, rolling the writhing beast onto its back. Gritting through the pain of it, she forced her left arm down toward its chest, her ridges tearing flesh in their wake.

  While the animal gasped and swiped weakly at her, she brought her right hand up to its neck and forced the almost inadequate blade down, sawing at skin and sinew. It was rough, slow work. She felt the monster grow weaker with every ragged breath, but it didn’t give up the fight completely until her dagger cut through the final inch, and its head rolled slowly off to the side.

  Before she checked for any other damage, she tugged her left arm forcibly free and closed her eyes. Taking a breath, she gave both arms a small shake, retracting the spikes back into her body. She chanced a look up at the closet door and saw that it was still closed tight. So, fortunately for her, Richard and Adelaide hadn’t seen a thing.

  She allowed herself to fall back on her heels, surveying the corpse before her in a crouch. It was hard to predict how paranormal bodies would decompose, and even harder if she couldn’t be sure of their origin. Maybe the beast would disappear. Or maybe it wouldn’t.

  “You can come out now,” she called toward the closet. “It’s safe.”

  For a moment, the door in front of her remained perfectly still. Then, ever so slowly, the handle turned, and it swung forward. Adelaide stepped gingerly from her hiding space, though Richard remained huddled behind her in shadow.

  “Well,” she said, stopping short of the disconnected head and gazing down at it, disgust wrinkling her nose. “It’s really dead, isn’t it? It’s not going to grow a new head or something?”

  Logan glanced down at the oozing blue wounds. “Unlikely. Not entirely impossible, but unlikely.”

  “How can we tell for sure?”

  In truth, they couldn’t. But Adelaide probably didn’t want to hear that.

  “We can burn it.”

  They had to get Richard situated first. Adelaide took him by the hand and led him to their sitting room, where she had him sit in an overstuffed chair with an antique look to it, and threw a heavy blanket around him. She handed him a glass of Scotch, presumably aged and expensive, and pressed a few buttons in a clear-screened panel near the door until Chopin flooded the room. Richard slowly closed his eyes, apparently mollified.

  That task complete, they headed back to the corpse. Logan took hold of the torso while Adelaide took the feet, and they marched it downstairs and through a door leading to the back of the house. Fortunately for them, the rain had let up.

  “It’s heavier than I would have thought,” Adelaide commented as they descended a short staircase to the lawn.

  Logan said nothing. Adelaide didn’t need to know that she had taken on most of the weight herself, nor that she could have carried it without Adelaide’s help at all. For as long as she could remember, her impulse had been to withhold any information about herself that wasn’t strictly necessary to disclose. So she did. She rarely lied, of course; she merely s
elf-censored.

  They dropped the body near a stone fire pit. While Adelaide went to pull firewood from their porch, Logan ran back inside to get the head. She saw that blue ooze had settled into the carpet and shrugged. Her contract, which both clients had already signed, stated she wasn’t liable for property damage.

  Adelaide already had a small fire started by the time Logan came back to her. Once it was big enough, she put the head on first.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got an axe anywhere, do you?”

  Her client surveyed the body once more before meeting Logan’s gaze.

  “So you can chop it up?”

  “Yeah. Easier that way.”

  Adelaide nodded and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. The shallow wound on her palm left a streak of drying blood in her straw-colored strands.

  “I’ll get it for you.”

  As she walked back to the house, Logan couldn’t help but smile admiringly after her. For a spoiled rich kid, maybe Adelaide wasn’t so bad.

  Logan remained with her clients through the night, primarily for the sake of their peace of mind. She was sure they would experience no more paranormal phenomena—or at least, not unless one of them attempted and botched a summoning at some point—but she also knew they were bound to be a little shaken up. It never hurt to ease a client’s frazzled nerves by standing guard, even after the danger had passed.

  Once the sun had risen, she decided to take her leave. Abandoning Richard, now asleep, in his overstuffed chair, Adelaide walked her to the door.

  “I’ve already wired our payment to your partner. I, uh…I added a little bonus. You know, for the overtime.”

  “Ah.” Logan smiled, finding herself pleasantly surprised by the gesture. “Uh, thank you. Well, I’m sure everything will be fine now, but you know how to reach us if you run into any more trouble.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Something passed over Adelaide’s face. Logan couldn’t quite tell what it was. With one foot hovering over the last stair, she paused and held her gaze.

  “Is everything all right?”

  At first, Adelaide nodded, her expression still distant and strange. Then, slowly, her nod turned into a shake.

  “It’s just…it’s just…it’s all so alien. Everything that happened last night—it was all so…so not normal. You know?”

  Logan reached up hesitantly to pat her on the arm, in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. Keeping her voice gentle and soft, she asked, “What exactly were you expecting?”

  Adelaide met her gaze and locked onto it, her eyes wide with uncertainty.

  “I don’t know.”

  To Adelaide’s obvious shock, Logan broke into a grin.

  “Good! That means you’re learning.”

  After a moment, Adelaide shook her head. Though her expression remained bewildered, she let out a short laugh.

  “All right,” said Logan as she let her hand drop away. “Well, it was nice meeting you. I’ll be off now.”

  She turned her sights on her Kawasaki once more. Her next order of business was to find herself a hotel room, so she could recharge for a while. After all, she had a date to keep.

  Chapter 2: Coming of Age for the Cursed

  He said he wanted to practice sword fighting. I should have known better, but I was so pleased that he asked me. He didn’t run off to find another boy to play with him—he asked me. Like I was worthy.

  And I wanted to do it. There were so many swords around the estate, but I was never supposed to play with them. Not that that stopped me—every time I was left alone there, I saw it as a chance to explore everything I’d been forbidden to touch. And I had a lot of chances.

  But with Damien, it was different. Damien got lessons. When Damien picked up a sword, it wasn’t playing. It was practicing.

  To this day, I don’t remember exactly why we were there. Charles Logan had business to do, and I was along for the ride. But Knatt hadn’t come with us. Knatt always came with us. Or was that later?

  We had to sneak into his practice room to take the swords, so I knew we weren’t supposed to be playing with them. We took them outside. I think we had an idea about plausible deniability.

  It went okay at first. I held my own for a few minutes, mostly by swinging wildly.

  Then I tripped over a rock, lost my balance and my edge. He pulled some fancy trick I didn’t understand and forced me backward, then swung his sword up high and brought it down.

  I threw my arm up, and something about the movement triggered a memory. Hadn’t I thrown my arm up before?

  With a jolt of shock, I felt a searing pain explode along my skin. Had he really struck me? But he hadn’t—I heard his sword hit the ground beside him, hard. He’d never hit me at all.

  So why did I hurt?

  I let my arm drop, twisting it around so I could see.

  Four spiked ridges that looked like bone poked out through my bare skin, angled back, threatening. Each one was red with blood.

  What was happening? What was wrong with me?

  Why hadn’t anyone ever told me?

  Logan ran a hand through freshly laundered hair, tucking one of the longer pieces behind her ear. She always kept her hair in a short straight bob, usually falling just short of her chin. It was easier that way. When you regularly wrestled with beasts and did at least half of your showering in hotel rooms, it helped to have a little less hair.

  Of course, that morning, she hadn’t had to use a hotel shower. Matthew had offered his willingly, on the condition that she notify him if she ever rumbled into town again. That was unlikely, of course, unless Adelaide and Richard had more going on than she knew about.

  She took another drink from her coffee, purchased at the same café she’d visited the day before. By her estimation, the primary downside to motorcycle riding, compared to other forms of transport, was the lack of a cup holder.

  Finally, she was down to the dregs. With one last sip, she tossed her empty in the receptacle by the door and went outside to her bike.

  In a perfect echo of the previous day, her phone rang just as she reached for her helmet. Knatt again. She answered.

  “Hi,” she said, this time with no attempt to inject cheerfulness into her tone.

  “Good morning.” Knatt, on the other hand, sounded considerably more upbeat than he had before. “You should be pleased to know that Miss Adelaide has posted a new review on our website, and it was quite favorable.”

  He paused to give her time for a response.

  “I’m chuffed,” she managed.

  “Congratulations on a job well done.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am.”

  Logan took a moment to soak up the insult.

  “Right,” she said.

  “Anyway,” Knatt bulldozed on, “the reason I called was to let you know we’ve got another job lined up. It’s nothing pressing, just more pest control. In fact, I’d say you’ve got a little bit of time on your hands, if you want to take it. Time you might use to, for instance, visit you father.”

  Logan didn’t respond immediately. She tried to remind herself that Knatt’s heart was in the right place. It wouldn’t be fair for her to hold him responsible for any of her father’s sins. In truth, when she was growing up, Knatt had filled in for her father in a million unnamable ways. He wasn’t the one who deserved her early-morning ire.

  “It’s also time I could use for just about anything else.” She was channeling the sun’s cheerfulness again, but with a different effect.

  “Miss Logan,” Knatt’s voice dropped into a serious tone. “You ought to make more of an effort to visit your father. You haven’t been to see him in months.” He paused, likely to imbue the importance of his message. “He’s all alone up there, you know.”

  Up there. A euphemism if ever she’d heard one.

  “I’ll think about it on the drive, okay?” She didn’t want to talk about her father anymore.

  “That’s all I as
k.”

  “I’m gonna hit the road now,” she said.

  “All right. Be safe.”

  She snapped off her phone and stowed it in her pocket before slipping her helmet on. Despite the fact that her time here had gone better than she would have expected, she was anxious to get going. Staying too long in small towns made her antsy, almost twitchy. She swung up onto her bike and thrilled at the roar of her engine as she kicked off.

  Select few things in life never lost their flavor. Riding a motorcycle was one. Within moments of picking up a little speed, she felt her irritation and her guilt start to slip away.

  The air was crisp and cool, but she could feel the spring, and the earliest signs of summer. Once the open road stretched before her, she pressed even faster. Much of the middle part of America looked the same as the rest, but she had to admit there was a certain charm to it. She felt at peace out here. She felt centered.

  She couldn’t say exactly how far she got before she was interrupted. Based on her own perception, she might have been riding for hours. Or maybe only minutes.

  The first warning sign was a sudden dizziness. Her head felt light and off-balance, and she briefly lost control of the bike, swerving suddenly to the side before she righted herself. Immediately, she understood what was about to happen, and she willed herself not to panic. Any time she’d had an episode in a precarious position, it hadn’t ended well.

  She’d never had one on the bike before. It wasn’t a milestone she’d particularly wanted to hit.

  With a quick glance behind her, she confirmed that the road around her was empty of other vehicles, and she forced the bike to drop speed as quickly as she could.

  Not a moment too soon—the first prickle of the burn started up in her back, right in the middle of her spine. Within seconds, her eyes started to blur. Pressing the brake ever harder, she tilted off to the right, forcing the bike into the grass.

  Then her back exploded in pain, and she tilted sideways, skidding hard in the dirt. Her right leg and torso collided with the ground, wrenching her from the bike, which kept on sliding away from her. Shock kept her from feeling the impact, and she forced herself onto her back to try and keep from breathing in too much dust.