The Shadow City

by Dan Jolley

  The gore trembled, convulsed, and to Lily’s utter horror, heaved a great sigh. It pulled together, rising up off the floor, a tower of ravaged skin and bone and sinew, and as she watched, unable to look away, it took the shape of a man.

  From behind her, Lily heard Primus speak. “Now rejoice in our Founder’s return!” she shouted to the other cultists, her voice ringing with pure joy. “Welcome, my lord Thorne,” she said, turning to the creature that looked like a man.

  “Welcome.”

  13

  Pain lanced through Gabe’s back. At first he couldn’t even tell what kind of pain it was—burning? Piercing?

  “We will always be a family . . .”

  The words skittered through his brain.

  Mom?

  When Gabe finally opened his eyes, he was on his knees, panting, his ears ringing from something. Had there been an explosion?

  He looked down and saw the Emerald Tablet clutched in his hands. Lily! I saw her, and Primus, and . . . Brett . . . there was something wrong with Brett. . . .

  Before the thought could even fully form in his mind, the Tablet crumbled.

  He tried to hold the book together, but it did no good. He remembered suddenly that Primus had said the Tablet would be destroyed. But seeing it—this book that they had all risked their lives for time and time again, now turned to a pile of pale golden ash—still felt like a punch to the gut.

  Then he noticed the golden ash mingling with some kind of dark liquid on the floor. What was it?

  Where am I?

  All at once he realized that the liquid the ash had mingled with was blood, and memories of the horrible red cocoon came flooding back. Gabe twisted one arm behind him to explore the place where he remembered the silver knife plunging into his back . . . but felt nothing. No wound at all. That spot’s not even sore.

  Gabe got to his feet. Despite not being able to detect any one source of light, he could see a little. What’s wrong with the air? Its thin yellow tint reminded him of the light just before dawn, but instead of coming from a sun beneath the eastern horizon, here it seemed to come from everywhere. He glanced around, trying to pinpoint the weirdness, and finally realized he was standing in a huge room with a floor and ceiling made of gigantic stone slabs—enormous, rectangular blocks of stone that had to weigh several tons each.

  The walls were too far away to see as the yellow-tinged air gradually shifted into gray mist.

  No, not yellow. More like . . . gold.

  Gabe’s stomach dropped out the bottoms of his feet and sank through the flagstones. His disorientation evaporated.

  I know where I am.

  He crouched and examined the floor more closely. The blood left over from the cocoon, the stone, even his hands—the color was wrong. Not wrong, but definitely different . . . deeper, richer. And everything sort of faded around the edges into a faint golden haze.

  Arcadia.

  The floor gave a violent shake, almost knocking him down. Something cracked directly above him, and stone dust fell onto his head. Gabe dived out of the way as an enormous chunk of stone collapsed onto the place where he’d just been standing. The impact set off another tremor, and as more stone dust sifted over him, Gabe knew he had to get out of there. Turning in place, he finally spotted a tiny, dim dot of brightness over to his left. An exit? He took off running.

  A few long seconds later, Gabe passed through a gigantic arched doorway and into a broad corridor. He seemed to be inside some unfathomably huge building. There were no windows; the light he had spotted came from a translucent globe mounted on the wall above head height, swirling golden energy dancing inside it. It took Gabe a moment to realize where he’d seen something like that before.

  The theater where Primus sacrificed Uncle Steve. This is just like the “show globe” the Dawn used to transform stray dogs into hunters.

  Another tremor shook the floor. He couldn’t just stay put, or he’d risk being crushed if the whole place came down on top of him.

  Gabe crept along the corridor, hugging the wall. More translucent globes were spaced out along hallway’s length. They lent just enough illumination for him to see clearly. The farther Gabe walked, the more recognizable his surroundings became. The hallway opened up onto a balcony, and in the same instant that a familiar scent reached his nose—a scent of salt water and mildew and peeling paint—he got a glimpse of barred cell doors, and it clicked.

  This is the Arcadian version of Alcatraz!

  Brett had called it a “citadel.” Gabe agreed. The word fit.

  He moved carefully away from the wall and padded toward the thick railing. For the first time, Gabe got a true sense of the sheer scale of the Arcadian Alcatraz. He stood on the bottom tier of a well the size of a football field, and when he tilted his head and looked up, row after row after row of balconies, all of them lined with cells, stretched up until they vanished from sight. Broad stairways connected one balcony to another. Gabe took a step toward the nearest one—and a sound made him freeze.

  He stood perfectly still. Wondering if he’d hear it again. Hoping he wouldn’t.

  The sound came again. Long, ragged, like air escaping from an ocean cave, dragging itself across barnacle-encrusted rocks.

  The sound of breathing.

  The skin on the back of his neck drew tight. Gabe tried to pinpoint the sound’s source, but it seemed as if it were at once everywhere and nowhere. He clung to the railing as he climbed one staircase, and another, and another. He heard more ragged breathing, and something about the noise was terribly wrong. There was a smell now, too: a mix of salt water, mold, and putrid musk like something from a skunk. He coughed and fought to keep from gagging. His eyes watered as he kept on climbing.

  On the fifth level, Gabe caught sight of what he hoped might be a way out. Far above him, eight or nine levels up, stood another broad, arched stone doorway, with a show globe mounted on either side of it.

  That’s got to lead somewhere! And anywhere would be better than here.

  Gabe increased his pace. He had just reached the top of the second-to-last staircase when he found two horse-sized creatures waiting for him, their fang-filled mouths widening as they spread out on the balcony to block his progress.

  Gabe froze. Oh God . . . it’s a prison! Of course there are guards!

  In one way they were like the hunters and abyssal bats he’d seen on Earth, with their eyeless, noseless faces and their skinless limbs dripping with slimy golden goo. But he’d been able to understand the shapes of the hunters and the bats. The bodies of these “prison guards” just . . . didn’t compute. He could identify specific features—long, whipping tentacles lined with saw teeth, feet sprouting claws like the tines of a pitchfork—but if he tried to put the whole together, a sharp pain pierced his head and his vision flashed white.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t tell what they were about to do. They crouched, ready to spring, and Gabe knew he’d have to fight. He’d have to conjure fire from the matter around him, too, the way he had on the leviathan, since there was no electricity in this place. “Come on,” he whispered. “Come on, do your worst.”

  But when Gabe raised his hands and concentrated on the prison guards, willing his connection with fire to come alive, he discovered something else that was different about Arcadia.

  Twin streams of white-hot power sprang from his palms like twin lasers. The force of it, the recoil, threw Gabe backward, so he almost tripped and fell—but that was nothing compared with the effect the fiery beams had on his targets. They struck the two guards dead-on and burned holes completely through them, and as Gabe watched, stunned, the holes widened until they engulfed the guards’ bodies completely, leaving behind nothing but glowing cinders.

  For a moment, the Citadel’s wet breathing went silent.

  Gabe stared at his hands. Summoning fire had been . . . easy. No, more than just easy. Effortless.

  Here, in Arcadia, fire lay all around him, waiting to serve. Eager to leap to his c
ommand. In this place, Gabe wasn’t going to have to exert his will to bring fire to him.

  He was going to have to exert it to hold the fire back.

  Two more prison guards dropped down from the balcony above and came shrieking toward him. Gabe didn’t even lift a finger this time. He merely fixed his burning, roaring gaze on them, and their bodies ignited, turning to ash under the infernal weight of his stare.

  Gabe climbed the final stairway. He shrank back when he realized that the cells here were occupied by strange, terribly disfigured prisoners. But then he drew himself up straight. These inmates were monsters, but they were still no threat to Gabe. Not with the fire inside him. Though he couldn’t understand whatever language the creatures spoke, he sensed they were beseeching him.

  Free us . . . help us . . .

  His eyes still aflame, the air around him hazy and wavering with the fire’s power, Gabe walked past more cell doors, and while he did not help them . . .

  Burn, burn, burn . . . the fire whispered in his mind.

  . . . he did not incinerate them, either. He could have.

  Burn, burn, burn!

  But he showed mercy. He was the fire. And the fire chose to spare these wretches’ lives.

  BURN, BURN, BURN, BURN . . .

  For now.

  Gabe made it to the doorway and was about to walk through it and down another long corridor, when a voice behind him spoke.

  “Gabriel.”

  He turned, curious to see who the voice belonged to.

  No. That wasn’t right. He turned because the voice left him no say in the matter.

  “You have delivered yourself to us, Gabriel.”

  Slowly, slowly, Gabe turned in place, and found himself facing something ten times worse than the prison guards. How could something so big have moved so quietly? Like the guards, its rhinoceros-size body was somehow impossible to comprehend—except for its eyes.

  Its human eyes.

  Easily the size of dinner platters, they were blue and shockingly, horrifically human, set above a gaping mouth filled with inward-curving, wickedly pointed teeth. The mouth didn’t move as the creature spoke. Its words appeared directly in Gabe’s head, written across his brain. And when he realized that this monster, this abomination, must be what was left of one of the original Eternal Dawn members trapped here a century ago, Gabe wanted to claw his brain right out of his skull.

  “You won’t hurt me, Gabriel,” the creature said, and Gabe knew it was right. Those eyes. The fire was still under his control, but . . . he had no desire to do the monster any harm. It crept closer. Its claws made a ghastly clicking sound on the cold stone floor. “Why have you come here, little boy? What is it that you seek? Hmm . . . let me take a look . . .”

  It’s mocking me. It already knows the truth.

  Gabe stood, paralyzed, and as the human-eyed monstrosity began peeling back the layers of his mind, Gabe desperately wanted to scream.

  The creature didn’t let him.

  Gabe could only stand, feeling naked and ashamed and more humiliated than he’d thought possible, as the creature pawed through his mind. Memories, ideas, hopes, fears, desires . . . the creature was paging through Gabe’s very essence. And as it did this, it edged ever closer. Inch by glacial inch.

  Gabe knew that when the creature reached him, when it had read the Book of Gabe cover to cover, it would kill him and eat him. The hunger oozed from it like a tide of clotting blood. Gabe tried to move his legs, though he knew there was no point.

  “Abandoned by your parents.” The monstrosity’s voice pressed against his mind, a loathsome, mocking violation. “How selfish. And prevented from making any friends by your cruel uncle.” Click, click. Click, click. “Of course you know, Gabriel, why your parents left you. It’s because of how worthless you were. How worthless you still are.” Click, click. Click, click. “And your uncle kept you from making friends because you are so relentlessly unpleasant. Spoiled, entitled little brat . . . how could he let any normal children associate with you?” Click, click. Click, click.

  Gabe wanted the voice to stop. Needed the voice to stop.

  His mind began to unravel.

  Oh God, it’s true, it’s true . . .

  That’s why Mom never came back for me. She never wanted me. I’m no good to anybody. I’m nothing . . .

  “You are useless. Worse than useless. You are human garbage, little boy.” Click, click. Click, click.

  Please stop. Please, please, please stop.

  “You should be grateful to me for seeing you as you truly are. You will serve a greater purpose after all, as I strip the flesh from your bones, bit by bit. I shall start with your feet. So you are awake as I eat you. With every bite I tear free and swallow you will thank me for giving your wretched life meaning. I—”

  The creature broke off midword. It took a step back, and another, and Gabe saw its wide, human eyes narrow in panic as its limbs grasped at its misshapen throat. As the creature gasped and choked, the sound of a roaring wind filled the tunnel, and a gust of air with the power of a freight train picked the creature up, flung it over the railing, and smashed it down to the floor far below. The abomination’s screams echoed through the prison before cutting off with a distant, wet crunch. Gabe realized that he could finally move again, and then Uncle Steve was there in front of him, his eyes blazing silver-white and wet with tears as he crushed Gabe against his chest.

  “Gabe. My God.” Uncle Steve grabbed Gabe’s shoulders and pushed him back to arm’s length, his eyes normal again. “Are you hurt? Are you okay?”

  It took Gabe a couple of seconds before he realized he could talk—before he realized that the self-loathing the creature had filled his mind with wasn’t real. When the words did come, they came in a rush. “Uncle Steve, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ve been so awful, I didn’t understand, I didn’t mean—”

  Uncle Steve broke off Gabe’s words with a single hard shake to his shoulders. “Are you hurt?”

  Gabe blinked. “I’m, I’m okay, how—”

  “Good. Come on! We have to get out of here!” Uncle Steve took hold of Gabe’s wrist and hauled him down the corridor, toward the dim but unmistakable outline of a door.

  Uncle Steve had two flesh-and-blood legs, Gabe noticed, stunned—but there was no time to ask about it.

  When they reached the door, Uncle Steve pushed through it with no hesitation, leading Gabe outside into heavy, golden light. While Uncle Steve shut the door and used air to move large chunks of masonry to barricade it behind them, Gabe tried to make sense of what was ahead of them.

  They stood on top of what seemed to be a wide, sturdy wall made of . . . he looked closer . . . bones. The bay stretched away in front of him. They had to be at least three hundred feet above the waves, which looked like liquid gold. A grotesque, twisted version of San Francisco squatted on the opposite shore.

  Arcadia.

  Behind him, Uncle Steve said, “Gabe. There’s someone you need to meet.”

  Gabe turned and saw a tall, slender woman in a billowing green gown standing about thirty feet away, her back to him. Her long, straight black hair flowed and rippled in the wind.

  It was the woman from his memories. It was the woman from his dreams.

  It was his mother.

  14

  Lily stared at the devil in black.

  Her cheek was pressed to the carpeted floor, her ears ringing and her body aching from the blast. Still, she stared so hard her eyes stung, so hard she wasn’t sure if she even had eyelids to close anymore, stared and stared and couldn’t stop. It didn’t matter that ferocious winds whipped through the room, or that tiny shards of broken glass from the demolished windows lay everywhere. Lily couldn’t pull her eyes away from the monster in front of her.

  Jonathan Thorne stood head and shoulders taller than the tallest man Lily had ever seen, yet he was so thin that he looked more like a scarecrow than a man. His sallow, gaunt face might have been handsome once, but now it seemed
like little more than a framework of bone supporting the two gleaming green orbs of his eyes. He stood before her in a crisp black three-piece suit, like something out of an old-fashioned silent film. Thorne straightened the lapels of his jacket, tilted his head back, and slowly, luxuriously inhaled.

  Though like everyone else Primus was still on the floor, reeling in the wake of the explosive ritual, she managed a grateful smile. “It is an honor, Lord Thorne! Welcome to—”

  Thorne cut her off with a dismissive wave of one hand. “I know where I am, thank you.”

  The lights around them began to flicker. In the guttering darkness, Thorne’s eyes pierced the shadows with rays of malevolent emerald light. He casually raised his arms above his head and stretched. Lily strangled a gasp. Crimson light shimmered along the lines of Thorne’s body as if leaking from the seams.

  She was close enough to Brett to tell that he was breathing. This was a relief, but horrible thoughts still chased themselves through her mind. Whatever Thorne was, part of him—part of it—had come out of Brett. That thing was inside him! Is he okay? Lily finally clamped her eyes shut as the full meaning of it sank in.

  Oh God, has it been there ever since he got back from Arcadia?

  Arcadia. Where Primus had just sent Gabe. What if the same thing happens to Gabe while he’s there? What if something . . . possesses him, like Thorne did Brett? She didn’t want to entertain the other thought creeping around the edges of her mind: What if Gabe gets killed over there?

  She shoved the idea away. Locked it down tight.

  Brett was right in front of her, still on the floor. And looking at him, a ball of ice formed in Lily’s stomach. All this time together over the last few days, and it hadn’t been Brett at all! With a paralyzing sense of dread, everything clicked into place. The increase in Brett’s power. The sudden interest he’d taken in Dr. Conway’s research and the Emerald Tablet.

  Brett hadn’t been himself since returning from Arcadia. He’d been Jonathan Thorne.