Shadow Summoner: Choronzon Chronicles Book One

by Tess Adair

  She remembered clearly the voice she’d heard in her vision, then again in her dream. I worship the wolf. And here she was, staring at a wolf’s head.

  It was starting to feel like someone was trying to tell her something.

  Chapter 6: Full of Surprises

  She dreamed of a carnival again. First she saw ball gowns, but when they started to twirl, they expanded. They grew all the way out until they were fifteen feet wide, and little rider-less horses started to take shapes out of the cloth.

  She knew she was dreaming. When she rounded an unexpected corner, she got the sense that something was watching her. She tried to look out into the dark, hoping she could make out something new—maybe now, maybe now that she knew she was dreaming, she could find out what information the dream had to give her.

  Was it the wolf? Was the wolf watching her?

  But the edges of her dream faded and blurred, too uncertain for her to tell. She pushed forward, forcing her dream-legs to move even though they felt like lead dragging her down. Someone was near; she could feel it. Her gaze covered everything, everywhere it could. Who was watching her? Who was following her?

  Something shifted. She heard a sudden crack and felt her real-world body jolt.

  No—who was—she had to stay—

  But she couldn’t. Before she could even turn around, her body woke up completely, dragging her from the dream.

  As she sat up in bed, she looked toward her open window and the rain streaming down it. Another crack of lightning flashed through her room; the sounds of the storm must have been what had woken her. Perhaps if she’d managed to shutter the glass before drifting off, she’d still be exploring that carnival…but it had been so hot in the room….

  She turned over and let herself slip away again. As her thoughts turned to mush, she knew she probably wouldn’t fall back into the carnival. If it held any lessons for her, she’d have to find them out some other way. Maybe it was nothing; maybe she was imagining it all.

  When Logan arrived at school the next morning, she had a very particular task in mind: locating Suzanne Grubb. Nothing guaranteed that Suzanne could lead her anywhere, but in lieu of any other ideas—even vague and unfounded ones—she figured Suzanne was as good a place as any to start searching for Judith Li. Besides, there existed the outside possibility that Suzanne might even be Li’s accomplice—if Li was indeed the summoner after all.

  So, before making her usual stop in the staff room for coffee, Logan headed toward the front office. Inside, a young woman in her early 20s glanced up at her from behind a monitor that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the late 1990s. The girl’s gaze was equal parts contempt and disinterest.

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Wendell,” said Logan. Just like she’d been doing with the students, she kept her tone carefully neutral.

  The girl didn’t say anything. Instead she slowly raised her left hand and pointed over to the office behind her.

  “Thanks,” said Logan as she pushed past her, searching out Wendell’s blunt bangs and overlarge square glasses.

  She found her easily, peering out the window of the inner office, watching all the students trundle in to start their day. Logan knocked on the door frame as she entered.

  “Miss Logan!” Wendell exclaimed as she turned around to face her. “What a pleasant surprise! How might I help you this lovely morning?”

  “I have a slightly unusual request,” answered Logan as she took another step into the office. “It’s perfectly all right if you can’t tell me. I was just wondering what happened to that girl who changed schools—Suzanne Grubb. Do you remember her? Do you think you can find out?”

  “Of course I remember her,” said Mrs. Wendell with a dismissive wave of her hand. Logan would have been amused but unsurprised if the next words out her mouth were I remember everyone, but no such luck. “Let me see what we’ve got in her file.”

  She strode out past Logan into the hallway connecting all the inner offices, then pushed into the next room over. This room fell somewhere between an office and a broom closet in size, making it difficult for more than one person to navigate it at a time. So Logan hovered awkwardly just before the threshold while her counterpart entered. Wendell dug through a few file drawers with vigor, before pulling out an open folder and flipping through the first few pages.

  “Oh dear,” she sighed finally. She closed the folder as she met Logan’s waiting stare. “This is unfortunate. It looks like we don’t have any record of where Miss Grubb moved to. If memory serves, it was somewhere in Montgomery County, but I don’t have an exact address to give you. Sorry I couldn’t be more useful.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Logan answered with a shrug. “It’s not important, anyway. Thanks for the effort.”

  She turned to go again, already anticipating the injection of caffeine that awaited her in the staff room, but Wendell called her back again.

  “Miss Logan?” Logan turned to face her. “I wasn’t sure if you were aware, but there’s a home baseball game tonight, over in the field with the bleachers. It’s a small post-season game, but a lot of the students usually go. Just thought I’d let you know, in case you wanted to go.” She allowed herself a little smirk. “Or in case you wanted to avoid it, either way.”

  Logan let her eyebrow drag upward as she appraised the older woman.

  “Will you be avoiding it, Mrs. Wendell?”

  “I didn’t say that, did I?” Wendell answered, but she had an unmistakable sparkle in her eye.

  “Well, thank you for the heads up. I appreciate it.”

  She turned away again, making her way down the thin inner hallway and back out into the main thoroughfare that was the entryway.

  Inwardly, she sighed. While Mrs. Wendell was free to avoid the baseball game, Logan knew where her own duty lay. She had to go.

  The game would be a large social gathering, and at least part of it would happen at night. If that wasn’t the perfect recipe for an attack from the beast, she didn’t know what was. So she was going.

  She headed in the direction of coffee. She was going to need a lot of it.

  After her last appointment ended but before the game began, Logan managed to sneak back into town to pick up another sandwich from the diner. She brought it with her out to the field, where she chose to seat herself in a high, far corner of the bleachers, apart from where most of the crowd was sitting. She kept her motorcycle jacket on as she perched on the cold metal, scanning the area around her to check if she had any blind spots from this vantage point, and to assess where she might want to train her attention.

  As she sat there surveying the field, the stands around her began to fill up. Almost unconsciously, she inched further to her left, away from the people. She didn’t expect to find much in the way of entertainment that evening, so she tried to hold off on eating her sandwich for as long as she could. Though she had her book shoved into one of the jacket’s inner pockets, she’d need to stay aware and alert once the sun started to go down. Of course, for now, the sun barely skimmed the rooftops, so she could bury her nose in it for a little while.

  At some point, the noises ahead of her told her that the game had begun. She kept going with her book for a few more minutes, until she noticed the temperature start to drop. She glanced around and silently cursed herself; the sun had indeed started to fall, but her eyes had adjusted so well, she hadn’t noticed. With a sigh, she put the book away.

  Based on decorations she had seen around the school, she guessed that the school colors were red and white, which meant that the team currently up to bat surely belonged to the school. Her school, for the moment. She watched a student she didn’t know walk up to the plate and bend his body into an awkward batting stance. The allure of baseball was lost on her. She honestly couldn’t fathom why so many students had gathered to observe this pointless and uninteresting performance, except for the sheer lack of other possible activities available in town. As she adjusted her position to allow a small
shoulder stretch, she observed the students nearest to her. They still sat just far enough away to allow her a bubble of semi-privacy, which she attributed to the uninviting nature of her straight-backed posture and unwavering scowl.

  The kids near her were laughing and chatting away with abandon. She continued to observe them surreptitiously, and after a few minutes, she saw the quick flash of a metal flask as it passed between two of them. Her mouth threatened to quirk into a partial smile, but she repressed it. The flask told her exactly why so many students would come to this blasé attempt at a diversion: the game provided them cover.

  Satisfied for the moment, Logan decided it might be time to make sure she had enough fuel to get through the night and, accordingly, opened her takeout bag from the diner. She felt her eyes close of their own accord as the taste of slow-roasted eggplant and three types of cheese hit her senses. Far too soon, she had devoured the thing in its entirety. She still couldn’t wait to get out of this town, but she had a feeling that she would miss that damn diner for the rest of her days.

  Her gaze returned to the field. During her brief meal, the teams had switched places. She gazed around at the members of the red-shirt team, wondering if she might recognize any of them. Sure enough, she noticed Jason Reed almost immediately. He had abandoned his left field post and walked in, up to another boy on the field. It looked like he had grabbed one of the spare bats and dragged it out onto the field with him. As she watched, he took hold of his bat and positioned it in front of his lower torso. He leaned his shoulders back and thrust his pelvis forward, positioning the bat above his genitals, allowing it to jut forward. She watched his head fall back in laughter, beset by the force of his own hilarity.

  A moment later, she was startled to realize that the boy he had walked up to was Derek James, Violet’s boyfriend—and probably the most likable of the boys she had interviewed so far. Jason, in all his unappealing swagger, had briefly overwhelmed her field of vision.

  Jason waved the bat in his face, and Derek forcibly pushed it away. Jason laughed again, and again came aggressively toward his counterpart. Derek pushed it away a second time, and for a moment, it seemed Jason might finally leave off. But no. He waved the bat a third time, this time nearly letting it collide with Derek’s face. Pushed obviously past the limit, Derek swooped his arms and shoulders in a tight backwards loop, a clear gesture of exasperation, before darting forward and snatching the bat out of Jason’s hands. Without a moment’s hesitation, he ran infield and flagged one of the coaches to hand it right over to them. They took it and put it out of sight while he ran back over to his post. From Jason’s own arm circles, thrown violently wide, she guessed that he was yelling angrily at his teammate, but Derek’s neutral posture betrayed no reaction to it of any kind. Eventually Jason walked away.

  Logan let out a small sigh of relief when he finally relented. For the life of her, she still couldn’t understand why anyone ever willingly brought themselves to a baseball game. This town was a mystery.

  The game ended without incident. As the crowd started to stand and walk away, Logan didn’t know whether to feel worried or relieved. She was sure the beast was still in town, and she was sure it would attack again. When it killed Violet, it chose to come for her during a social gathering, a party with her friends. Wouldn’t it be likely to follow the same pattern? How long would she have to stay in this town before it made its move?

  As two students passed closer to her on their way down the stairs, she got a hint at her answer.

  “Hey, are you going to the after-party?”

  “Hell yeah, I am! Beaker’s Grove, right?”

  “You got it!”

  Damn. Logan had no idea where that was. As surreptitiously as she could, she stood up when the girls passed her and began to follow them. She’d need to follow one of them to wherever they were going. Of course, she could only hope no one else noticed what she was doing. After all, a grown woman choosing to follow teenagers without their knowledge probably wouldn’t look too good to anyone.

  She trailed the girls as they made their way around the school and out to the parking lot. When they split up, she followed the one who turned to walk toward the back of the parking lot, closer to where her Kawasaki was sitting. She kept one eye on her target as she peeled away from her and made her way to the bike. She swung onto it and turned it on, then waited as the girl disappeared inside an SUV and it roared to life. When it drove past her, she pulled forward to follow it out.

  Her motorcycle wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, but somehow she doubted this particular teenager had the wherewithal to take note. She followed about thirty feet back as the SUV drove off down a long, empty road headed out of town. When she finally saw the girl come to a stop in the gravel parking lot that denoted the start of a hiking trail, she drove past on the off-chance that the girl had noticed her. Finally she parked her bike a quarter mile away, partially hidden in the trees.

  Once she’d swung successfully off the bike once more, she popped open the hidden storage compartment underneath her seat. She had a small knife already tied to her ankle, but if the beast really did attack, she’d need more than that to fight it off. She strapped a longer dagger, sheathed, to her upper thigh, and pulled out a battleax and holster that fastened to her back.

  Off she went, back toward the parking lot where the girl had left her vehicle. She hoped the girl’s path would be obvious, but if it wasn’t, she figured the smells would key her in. As she approached the lot, she slowed, alert to any possible movement. Though a few other cars had come to rest by the first girl’s SUV, it seemed their passengers had already moved along. Logan slipped across the gravel, quiet as a mouse, and entered the woods by the only visible trail.

  She could already hear the telltale sounds of a party in full swing. Assured that she would find them with ease, she slipped off the path again and traveled parallel to it instead. She didn’t want to let anyone know she was there if she could avoid it.

  Sure enough, within moments she was in sight of them. They had chosen to gather in a wide clearing less than half a mile in. She guessed there must have been a second, larger path that led to it, as some of the kids had actually driven their vehicles right into the clearing and now appeared to be using them as mobile amplifiers for their terribly bland, aggressively catchy music. As she peered out from behind an old, thick trunk to scan the scene, a teenage boy in a baseball jersey passed right before her, so close she could have touched him. If he’d only looked to his right, he would have seen her. She pulled herself in, pushing her body completely behind the tree.

  Fuck, she thought as she let out a metered breath. It was bad enough that she had to attend a high school party in secret just to make sure none of the students were brutally killed by some hell beast. But if she got caught sneaking around? She imagined she’d be lucky to make it out of town without fending off a lawsuit from an overbearing parent. Well, that wasn’t entirely true—Knatt would probably find a way out of it for her, magically or otherwise. Of course, that would provide him with enough material to nag her for the next six months—which was almost worse than a lawsuit.

  She didn’t have any meditation candles with her, but she knew she needed to concentrate. Leaning back against the tree, she closed her eyes and imagined a calm ocean, full of gently rolling waves and invisible fish. She allowed herself to smell the salty air, to feel the breeze and the ocean spray on her face. Then she conjured up an image of a cave, full of shadows and dark depths, only a few feet down the beach from her. She moved toward it, knowing that it held within it her release. All she had to do was step inside…so she did.

  As she imagined stepping forward into the cave and letting its recesses envelop her, she could feel the shadows gather around her, enshrouding her body. The restful ease of the eira summon clicked into place, and as it did, she allowed her other senses to open. A sudden rush of sounds and smells hit her, disorienting her momentarily. Once she adjusted, she took a deep breath, taking in all th
e sensory information she could from the clearing beyond. She had shadow cover now as well, so she peaked out again, hoping to get as full a picture as she could. There were over thirty students scattered throughout the clearing, and the smell of alcohol was strong. She made a mental note of the general layout of the scene, then she slipped further back into the trees once more.

  It was too hard to say exactly where the beast might come from, if it came at all, so she decided to keep watch by marking a wide circle around the clearing and pacing along it, her senses all on alert for any signs of disturbance.

  With a sigh of resignation, she started walking and began her watch.

  An hour passed. She wanted to go home. Since her book would have been too distracting, she’d left it with the bike. This meant she had nothing to occupy herself with except the overheard conversations of teenagers. They’d grown infuriatingly boring within 10 minutes.

  Another half hour passed. The woods had long since gone dark, the clearing lit by headlights and a pit fire. She made another lap around, feeling her spirit drag along the ground behind her, wondering when she might be able to go home.

  At long last, some of the kids decided to pack it in. She watched a few of them pack themselves into cars before taking off down the wider path. She would be a little surprised if the beast never showed itself at all, but by now, all she could really think about was her waiting motel bed. Another 20 minutes passed.

  The sound, when she heard it, came from out of nowhere. She was farther away from it than she would have liked.

  As she climbed over a low bush, she heard a blood-curdling scream somewhere south of her. Immediately she whirled around and ran as fast as she could in that direction. Branches caught her legs and dragged across her skin, but she pushed on. First she followed the pre-beaten path she’d made on her rounds, but the source of the scream was further than that, so she jumped forward into unknown terrain.