Shadow Summoner: Choronzon Chronicles Book One

by Tess Adair

  “Come on in,” she announced warmly. “Take a seat.”

  Judith set herself down a little awkwardly on one of the small chairs in front of the desk while Logan closed the door behind her. Now that they were face-to-face, Logan could mark the rest of her physical descriptors. Asian, possibly 5’10. Logan suspected she might qualify as lanky, but it was difficult to say for sure beneath the clothes that swamped her.

  “Are you Judith?” she asked as she took the seat across from her.

  “Yeah,” Judith said, nervously tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

  “Excellent. You can call me Logan. Do you prefer female pronouns?”

  Judith’s hand froze, still holding onto that long chunk of hair. Her eyes whipped around the room before settling back on Logan.

  “Is that a joke?” she asked.

  “No, it’s not.” Logan paused, unsure how to continue. She couldn’t remember if the book had any advice for how to diffuse a defensive reaction. “I’m sorry. Have I said something offensive?”

  “N-no. I just…I don’t know, maybe you heard…whatever. Yeah, I’m female. I like female pronouns for me.”

  “Lovely.” Logan crossed one leg over the other, studying Judith and trying to gauge how best to proceed. “I’d like to ask you a question, but if you’d prefer not to answer it, please know that you are under absolutely no obligation to do so. I’d like to know…do other students give you a hard time about your gender presentation?”

  Slowly Judith’s hand detached from her hair and came to rest in her lap. Her face appeared serene and calm as she considered the question.

  “Gender presentation? Like, my clothes and stuff?”

  “Gender presentation can mean a lot of things.” The guidebook had covered this pretty thoroughly. “Clothes included, yes.”

  “Hm. Well, kind of,” she said with a shrug. She pulled a baseball hat out of one of her many pockets and started bending the brim back and forth. Another nervous habit, perhaps. “Some people aren’t very nice. I think they look for weakness, so I don’t give it to them if I can avoid it.”

  Weakness. There’s a choice word for you.

  “Are you saying you try not to be weak?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” More twisting.

  “What do you think weakness is?”

  Judith’s mouth pursed and pushed to the left. “I don’t know. It’s like…you can’t let it get to you. If someone starts messing with you, you can’t let ’em see you get upset. You gotta go stone cold and act like it’s just rolling off your back. Show them they don’t have power over you. That kind of thing.”

  Logan recalled the incident in Violet’s file. Judith, upon discovering that her clothes were gone, had marched to the front of the school in nothing but a towel in order to find them. Logan wondered how many times Judith Li had tried to turn herself to stone. “You sound like you’ve given this some thought.”

  “I guess. It’s just what you do. If they see they got to you, they’ll just keep coming until they rip you up.” Her eyes looked cold and absent, like a part of her was somewhere far away. Quite suddenly, her gaze locked back onto Logan. “They swarm. Kinda like what happens in a game. If you stay in the same place, they keep coming, and they pile up.”

  Logan wondered if she meant a video game or something else.

  “That sounds rather violent.”

  “A little bit,” Judith nodded. She tore her gaze from Logan again and made a small show of staring out the window before forcing a heavy sigh through her lips and resuming her uncomfortably cold eye contact. “I’m in here because I’m supposed to talk about Violet, right?”

  “If you like,” said Logan. “Whatever you want to talk about.”

  “I’m supposed to be sorry she’s dead.” Judith’s syllables were slow, her voice blank and hollow. “We’re supposed to be all sad and traumatized. Is that because we’re young, and young people aren’t supposed to die?”

  Young people aren’t supposed to die. That concept didn’t really track with Logan’s experience.

  “That’s one of the reasons.” Logan gestured around vaguely with her hand, roughly indicating the rest of the building. “Some people were friends with her, and they’re sad because of that. Perhaps you weren’t.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” said Judith. Something was missing from her voice. “I guess it’s weird. It’s weird that she’s dead. Like, I never really thought that could happen, you know?”

  “That someone in your class could die?”

  “That Violet could die. I mean, of all the bad shit I wanted to happen to her, I never thought about her dying. I guess it just didn’t occur to me. Am I supposed to feel guilty, now?”

  Logan wasn’t sure what to make of that. Somehow, Judith had managed a statement that seemed equal parts admission and denial. Bravo, kid. Logan took a stab at a clarifying question.

  “Why would you feel guilty, Judith? Did you do something?”

  Judith’s nose scrunched up as she considered this. “Not really. But I wanted bad things to happen to her.” She shrugged. “I’m not happy she’s dead, I just…I don’t care. I’m not gonna pretend I liked her. She was not a nice person.” Her gaze went cold again, her mouth a hard line. “Sometimes people do things that shouldn’t be forgiven.” When she met Logan’s eyes, her gaze almost seemed to dare her. What it dared her to do, she couldn’t say. “I can deal with it okay. But some people can’t, you know? Girls like Violet, they smell weakness. They’re like sharks. They get off on picking someone to go after and tear down, especially when they choose someone who can’t deal with it. And they just get away with it. Nobody cares, not really. They let you file a report, but they don’t stop it from happening again. Nobody even gets in trouble for it. Violet was a golden child, a winner, and the people she messed with were weird losers. Nobody listens to us. They think we brought it on ourselves. You know, by being weirdos.”

  For a moment, Logan was silent as she let Judith’s pronouncement sink in. That’s an awfully young age to think that way. But was she wrong? Violet had written in her own admission that everyone dismissed Li as that Asian dyke, made double the outsider by her race and her perceived sexual orientation. They hadn’t been kind to her friend Suzanne, either. And, really, what punishment had Violet received? By the time of her murder, her life had gotten back on track, almost as if it had never happened—as if she had never cruelly tormented and harassed her fellow students. There was barely a record to show for it. Suzanne, meanwhile, had felt compelled to change schools entirely.

  “Do you want to talk about what Violet did to you?”

  “No. Who cares what she did to me? It’s what she did to—uh, to other people, people who can’t deal with it. That’s what matters. That’s what’s messed up.”

  Interesting. It seemed Li was angrier on Suzanne’s behalf than her own. Or maybe, short stumble aside, that was the impression she wanted to give.

  “I see. Does it mean anything to you that she turned herself in?”

  “Why should it? She finally grew a conscience, a million years too late? She finally did something so bad, even she thought it was too far? I don’t know. Maybe she just got cold feet at the last minute, maybe she thought someone else would turn her in and she’d actually get in trouble for once. I have no idea why she did any of it, but I’m not gonna pretend she was doing me a favor or something. Suzanne and I might be weirdos, but it’s not like everyone just hates us. There were at least fifty people who saw what was happening. You can’t get that many people to lie for you. Someone was gonna tell the truth eventually. She was probably just scared she wouldn’t get into law school or something.” Judith leaned back and crossed her arms. “Violet Buchanan is a vicious bitch who only cares about herself. I will never care what happens to her.”

  “Nothing else will ever happen to her again,” said Logan dispassionately. “She’s dead.”

  For only a moment, Judith seemed to pause. Then she shrugged. “That’s no
t my fault. I shouldn’t have to pretend I liked her now.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Logan nodded. “You’re free to feel however you feel. You don’t have to grieve for Violet just because she’s dead. That being said, it’s also true that sometimes when someone dies unexpectedly, even if we didn’t like them, it can be jarring.” She gazed at Judith, acknowledging that she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the girl before her. Maybe she was a killer, but she didn’t feel like one. Not that Logan ever let something as vague as that determine a case for her. “For some of us, it makes us think about death more generally, possibly about our own deaths or those of the ones we love. Do you ever think about anything like that?”

  Judith fell quiet. She went back to twisting the hat in her hands, but her expression was inscrutable. She might have been about to cry, or about to fly into a rage, or neither. Finally she spoke. “I don’t know who I love. I don’t know who I have that loves me.”

  A pang of recognition shot through Logan like a sharp spike. A petty voice in the back of her mind urged her to dismiss the sentiment as indulgent teenage angst, but she knew she couldn’t. The pain was too familiar to her. She knew what it was like to wonder if you were loved at all. She could remember Knatt speaking to her in soft tones, trying to reassure her that despite everything, her father really did love her. He just doesn’t know how to show it. The words rang as hollow now as they ever had.

  But then Judith shrugged. “I guess I think about death sometimes. I don’t know. It’s sort of hard to…imagine it, I think. I don’t know.” Her gaze drifted away. “Sometimes you think about things. It’s weird, that Violet died. I didn’t think it could happen. It’s…yeah.”

  Logan followed her gaze out the window, toward the far trees on the other side of the field. Beyond the trees lay plains and mountains, an endless expanse of empty terrain—so many miles to go before you’d encounter any kind of city, any kind of different life from this. Logan couldn’t help her sense of desperation at the thought of it.

  She imagined that Judith couldn’t, either.

  Logan had a number of other counseling sessions after that, but she couldn’t stop herself from coming back to Judith. She kept seeing an image of her face as she talked about sharks tearing her apart. Or making herself cold. Or not feeling sorry.

  I’m supposed to be sorry she’s dead.

  She hadn’t spent a lot of time in high schools. The one she remembered most was the last one, but it had been private and stodgy, like an Ivy League university in miniature. She remembered the look and feel of the grounds better than any individual class she took—although at this point, it was difficult to be sure if even that memory was true, or if it was merely a conglomeration of media images pasted on top of remnants of the original.

  Perhaps the reason she couldn’t shake her interview with Judith was because she liked her; she reminded her of herself. Yes, she sounded angry, but understandably so. Even Logan couldn’t argue for sure that Violet had learned any particular lesson from what she did to her. It was perfectly possible that she’d only been afraid of worse punishment if she didn’t turn herself in. There was no way Logan could ever know with absolute certainty.

  Don’t expect me to feel sorry.

  Unbidden, a long ignored memory swam to the surface. She remembered sitting in the dining hall at the private school, at a table by herself. Since she rarely stayed in school long enough to make friends, she usually ended up sitting by herself. It had never bothered her before, and she didn’t stay in school long enough for it to bother her after this.

  But that day, as she sat, a group of her peers walked close behind her on their way to another table. One of them whispered right as he passed.

  “Fucking freak’s got no friends.” She could hear the laugh in his voice.

  She’d kept perfectly still until they were a few paces away, but then she zeroed her gaze in on them, picking out exactly who had spoken. Perhaps in a way they were all culpable, but he was the one who had done it.

  So he was the one who had to pay.

  Don’t expect me to feel sorry. Her words, played back to her over the broad expanse of time. How much had she really changed since then?

  She liked Judith, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what she thought of Violet, either. Whoever killed her was wrong, and they needed to be prevented from doing it again. Letha summoning could be rough and unpredictable. There was no guarantee the killer would keep control of their beast forever, nor any guarantee that Violet had been their only target.

  Everything else aside, Logan had to find the beast and put it down. And she had to make sure that whoever brought it here would never be able to do it again.

  Still, she couldn’t help but wonder—what had that locker slam been about? Maybe nothing. Maybe something.

  Logan started to roll her head in frustration, but then she remembered that she was supposed to be counseling the pretty white blonde girl in the chair in front of her. The girl was speaking. What was her name? Kelly maybe?

  With an internal sigh, Logan forced her own thoughts out of her head and tried her best to focus on the task at hand.

  The last kid on her schedule was someone she couldn’t place from the files. His name was Kurt Redmond. By the time she got to him, she was already eager for the day to end, so she hoped he’d turn out as low maintenance as possible.

  He knocked at the door frame right on time. With her wearied smile pasted back onto her face, she waved him in as she went to close the door tight behind him. White, average height, oily hair.

  “Kurt?” she asked as she seated herself across from him. “Preferred pronouns?”

  “Yes. Uh, what?” His dark eyes stared up at her in confusion. She was a little surprised to see that she was taller than him sitting down.

  “Do you prefer male or female pronouns?”

  “Oh. Uh. Male.”

  She nodded politely, smiling inwardly. Every time she’d done it, the act of asking teenagers what pronouns they preferred had been instructive in unexpected ways. She doubted the guidebook writers were fully aware of what their advice had done for her.

  “How are you feeling today, Kurt?” she asked, leaning back in her seat, settling in.

  Something passed over his face, like a split-second frown, but it was gone too fast for her to say for sure what it was.

  “I feel pretty good today, all things considered,” his voice was cool and crisp. It sounded practiced, much like her own this week.

  “Did you know Violet very well?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, smiling at her a little strangely—like they were already familiar somehow. Like he was letting her in on an inside joke. “I don’t know if I would say that.”

  “Then what would you say?”

  “Well, I would say that I admired her,” he answered, his smile broadening. He reminded her of a politician who wouldn’t quite acknowledge the attempt to pander to his audience. The comparison unsettled her. “She certainly was admirable.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  His pander smile froze as he processed the question.

  “Well, you know, she was so involved. You could really tell how much she cared about everything. She was an inspiration to the other students, I think. A role model, you could say. Everyone looked up to her.” He nodded solemnly. “It’s a shame, really, what happened to her. I think it’s a loss for all of us.”

  Is this what kids sound like when they’re trying to sound like adults?

  Logan let her head tilt to the side. “Do you think it affects all of you? Equally?”

  “Not equally, no. It’s a loss, but certainly more for some than others. Like I said, I didn’t really know her very well, though I will certainly miss her presence here.”

  As a point of fact, he hadn’t said outright that he didn’t know her very well. He’d avoided confirmation one way or another. She had a sudden thought.

  “Hm. I’m curious, Kurt—were you i
nvolved in any extracurricular activities with Violet?”

  “As a matter a fact, I was, though only recently. I joined the debate team last quarter, you see.”

  “Indeed. Do you do anything else outside of that?”

  “I’m on Student Council as well.”

  Logan nodded, unsurprised. He had such an odd way about him—just a little bit more particular and a little less off-the-cuff than any other student she’d seen. Somehow it made perfect sense to her that he’d been involved in the closest thing to politics this small school had to offer. She guessed he’d made it into whatever position he now held despite technically losing out to the ever-popular write-in candidate Giant Joint.

  “So did you primarily know Violet because you were both on the debate team?”

  “We’ve been in a number of classes together as well,” he answered with a nod, straightening his jacket with a twist of his wrists. It was at that moment that she clocked his entire outfit—he wore an ever-so-slightly ill-fitting sports coat over a collared shirt with no tie. The shirt must have fit him pretty badly, too—she noticed a lump along the buttons down the front, almost like he had some sort of protrusion in the middle of his chest. And the high-waisted khakis, of course. She felt an overpowering urge to tell him to buy some darker pants, but she resisted it. And she chastised herself for failing to observe this more quickly. Clearly time with teenagers had eroded her investigative abilities.

  “So you had a fair amount of contact with her,” Logan said.

  He nodded again. “You could say that. In a way, I’ve known her for years now, since we’ve been in school together so long. She always was special, you know. I don’t think you could know her without noticing that.”

  Tell that to Judith Li, Logan thought to herself. She weighed her thoughts a moment before answering.