by Janean Worth
He pulled down his aviator‑style sunglasses, as if to allow his eyes to adjust, and scanned the room in what Bella thought must be a move he practiced in front of the mirror on a daily basis.
Again, she had the urge to duck behind the counter, wishing that his gaze would just pass right on by her.
After this thought, a blinding, stabbing pain lanced through her head and she winced, wishing heartily for the aspirin in her purse.
Blinking her eyes, which were tearing in pain, she glanced back at the door, expecting to see the customer nearing her desk.
To her complete shock, Mr. Eckles was not advancing upon the service desk. He was, instead, looking confused. He ambled over to Lucien, then gestured to the service desk counter with one hand.
“Where’d Bella go? I thought I saw her there when I came in,” he said, his voice a little uncertain and just a little miffed. “I only come in here to see her, you know.”
Lucien looked at her, and his gaze met hers.
Bella could feel her mouth hanging open in wonder. She quickly closed it and shook her head at Lucien, mouthing I don’t know, but don’t tell him.
Lucien’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded slightly in acknowledgement.
“I don’t,” Lucien said, staring intently at the man. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Well,” Mr. Eckles said, his voice sounding even more uncertain than it had a moment before, and his eyes flicking left and right. He licked his lips nervously. “I guess . . . Yes . . . I think I want . . .”
He closed his eyes, blinked hard, and then opened them to stare at Lucien.
“I guess I want an iPhone 6s plus. You get a commission on that, right?”
Lucien nodded, looking pleased.
Bella couldn’t help but stare at Mr. Eckles. He was known to be extremely thrifty. In all of the weeks that he’d been coming into the store, he hadn’t bought a single thing. He’d only asked questions at the service desk.
That model of iPhone was the newest on the market, and a bit pricey, so the purchase was very out of character for the man.
Lucian was smiling widely. And Bella couldn’t blame him. He would get a good commission on the sale. A really good one.
“I didn’t really want one when I came in, because, well, I really only came in to see Bella. But now, yeah, I think I want an iPhone,” the customer said.
Bella felt a chill skate up her spine.
Not only could he not see her—as she’d wished—but he was acting completely out of character and very confused.
She sidled to the side of the service desk so that she could more closely watch him interact with Lucian, trying to make sense of his behavior.
Was the man playing an elaborate joke? But no, he couldn’t be. He couldn’t have possibly known what she was thinking when he came in. And, if Mr. Eckles truly couldn’t see her, why could he see Lucien?
Bella’s head throbbed powerfully again, and she held back a moan.
It was all just too much. She didn’t know what to think of the man’s strange behavior, and her head was killing her. Another lancing pain spiked through her head, and she closed her eyes again, swaying a bit behind the service desk as dizziness assailed her.
When she opened her eyes again, Mr. Eckles had turned back to her.
“Hey, Bella, there you are. I was just asking this guy where you’d gone,” the customer smiled his lascivious smile, and sauntered toward the service desk.
“Do you still want the iPhone, sir?” Lucien called after him, looking deeply disappointed, and perhaps even a little angry.
“Nah,” the customer said, waving his hand dismissively as he stopped in front of Bella. “I just want to talk to Bella. I’m having a problem with my phone that only she can help me with.”
The customer gave her a wink, and, when he did, a shadow bloomed over his head. A shadow with red eyes and long shadow claws. The shadow reached inside the man’s skull with those claws and squeezed.
And as it squeezed, Bella’s head ached even more, as if she could feel the pain that it should have been inflicting upon Mr. Eckles. As the shadow gripped his skull, Mr. Eckles leered at her, his expression changing into one of prurient hunger and vile lust, morphing beyond what any normal human face should be capable of showing, becoming almost a caricature of himself. And, in her head, Bella heard a whisper, very faint.
She’s not wearing her ring today. She can’t shove it in my face. That pretty boy of hers must’ve had his fill and dumped her. That’s okay, I don’t mind leftovers.
Sickened by the whisper, Bella stumbled backward, grabbing the counter behind her to keep herself from falling. At her movement, the shadow looked up at her, red eyes flickering with malevolence, and leapt toward her.
Bella couldn’t help it. She screamed. And then she fainted.
Chapter Six
When she came around, she was lying on the floor behind the service desk, her cheek pressed to the low-quality, well-worn carpet. It stank like mildew and she turned her face hastily away and sat up, biting back a groan.
Her boss stood over her, looking down at her without even a hint of sympathy, and Lucien crouched next to her, his eyes wide with . . . Was that enjoyment on his face?
Bella blinked, trying to clear her head. It still ached, but not like it had moments before. The spiking agony that she had felt seemed to have lessened.
Suddenly remembering the shadow leaping toward her, she shot to her feet, then swayed dizzily. She didn’t see the shadow, or Mr. Eckles, anywhere. In fact, the store was completely empty except for her, Lucien, and their boss.
Lucien rose to his feet beside her, the strange expression of secret enjoyment gone. Had he only hidden it, or had it ever really been there? She wasn’t sure.
She closed her eyes against the spinning in her head and said a prayer of thankfulness. She didn’t know what she’d have done if her hallucination of the red‑eyed shadow had remained present.
“You’re fired, Bella,” her boss said, his tone hard and filled with an unexpected malice.
Her eyes snapped open.
“What?” she gasped out. Fired? For fainting?
“You’re obviously on illegal drugs. Can’t have you scaring away any more customers. I doubt Mr. Eckles will ever come back in this store after the way you screamed in his face. And the others”—he made a gesture encompassing the empty store — “they left, too, after you screamed.”
Bella felt herself sway again, her balance even more compromised by the shock of suddenly losing her job.
Beside her, Lucien reached out a supporting hand, a strange smile upon his face, but Bella couldn’t stop herself from cowering away. She didn’t want to be touched just then. Not by anyone. She was just trying to sort out her thoughts and she didn’t need anything else to deal with. She especially didn’t want his touch. And she didn’t want to think about why he was enjoying her situation.
She felt off. Out of sync with her surroundings. Everything seemed odd, as if there was something that she should be able to perceive, something just out of sight or barely beyond human hearing, but it remained faintly veiled to her senses. She didn’t know what it was. It felt like a pressure, but one that came from inside her.
Her fingertips tingled oddly, shocks of sensation darting down her arms like electric current flowing through a damaged wire. Her head throbbed in time with them.
What was happening to her?
She felt tears of frustration at her lack of knowledge sting her eyes.
“But, I just fainted. I’m not on drugs,” she said quietly, trying to salvage her job, or at least make sense of things. “You know I don’t do drugs.”
Her boss snorted through his large nose, eyeing her snidely, his steel gray eyes hard with derision.
“That’s what they all say. Get your things. And get out. I won’t have an employee who comes to work high.”
His reaction seemed extreme to her. He was usually a taskmaster of a man, but a f
air one. She’d always done her job, and done it well, and she’d thought that he appreciated her efforts to always be there, show up on time, and do a good job. He’d never been this unaccountably brusque to her before.
“But I’ve worked here for seven years, Mr. Bouthar,” she whispered, cowed by his unwavering tone, but unwilling to give up her only source of income quietly.
Her headache was beginning to worsen again, and she could barely maintain her shaky grasp on composure.
“I don’t care,” Mr. Bouthar hissed, a strange, unexplainable viciousness in his gaze when he looked at her. “I want you out.”
Bella gasped as he took an unexpected, threatening step toward her, and to her horror, a shadow began to rise up behind Mr. Bouthar, drifting up out of the floor as if it were the tapped source of his maliciousness and he was drawing it nearer to him.
The shadow was enormous, yet strangely insubstantial, with red eyes glowing as brightly as hot coals and long hands tipped with scythe‑like claws. It slowly flickered into existence, as if materializing out of nothingness. The murky gray that composed its body seemed to have no substance, yet its vaporous shape drifted closer and closer to Mr. Bouthar until it was nearly snuggled up against the man’s side.
Her boss seemed unaware of its presence.
“No,” Bella whispered to the shadow, and to herself, unwilling to believe her eyes. “No.”
“Yes!” Mr. Bouthar bellowed into her face.
Bella felt as if her mind was splitting. The ache in her head wasn’t even the worst of it. She could not comprehend what was happing to her. Why was she seeing these hallucinations? Why was everyone acting so oddly?
Mr. Bouthar was so angry, unaccountably so, out of proportion to the events that had just taken place. So she’d screamed and passed out. He’d be justified to call an ambulance, maybe, but not to get this angry, accuse her of being on drugs, and fire her.
And Lucien, why was he enjoying this so much?
She glanced at him. He was still standing there beside her, but he was no longer looking as if he was having a good time at her expense. Instead, he was staring at the shadow.
“You can see it?” Bella gasped. “You can see it too?”
Lucien did not reply but his gaze snapped to her face.
“If you stay in my store one more minute, Miss Thompson, I’m going to call the police and have you arrested for trespassing.” Mr. Bouthar shouted, a vein throbbing fiercely in his temple.
Behind him, the shadow grinned, reaching out a vaporous hand to stroke Mr. Bouthar’s bald pate, the gesture much like a loving owner would bestow on a pet that had just successfully performed a trick.
That was enough for Bella. Crazy or not, hallucinations or not, she couldn’t take another moment of trying to figure it all out. With panic riding her, she pulled the store nametag from her jacket, flung it onto the service desk, and turned to run into the break room, where the locker checked out to her held her purse.
She fumbled with the combination lock on the locker, her hands shaking so badly she could barely turn the dial. She felt a presence at her back and jerked around, expecting to see the horrendous shadow, but she found Lucien there instead.
“Let me help you, Bella,” he purred, smiling again.
“No,” Bella said, her voice quivering with emotion. “Just get away from me. You’re enjoying this for some reason. You’re a part of this somehow. I don’t know how, but you are!”
“Now, Bella, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucien said, his tone meaning just the opposite of his words.
His overly familiar, oily manner sent shivers up her spine. They joined the gooseflesh puckering her neck in foreboding.
With a cry, Bella turned back to the combination lock, her fingers frantically seeking the correct numbers. The lock chittered metallically as she repeatedly knocked it against the locker in her haste. After several failed attempts, during which time her panic seemed to grow exponentially, she finally managed to unlock it.
She flung the lock aside and jerked open the steel door, ignoring the loud bang as it rebounded against the locker next to it, and reached in with both hands to grab her purse.
Without another word to Lucien, she raced for the front door, passing Mr. Bouthar and the shadow on her way out.
Fleeing down the sidewalk, she let a sob escape her as she ran toward her apartment in defeat. First Derek and then her only source of income. She was losing everything. Even, it seemed, her grasp on sanity.
“I don’t care. I don’t care,” she mumbled to herself as she ran. “Nothing matters. Nothing really matters.”
Please help me, Lord, she prayed silently. Please help me.
She jogged down the sidewalk, clumsily jostling other pedestrians in her haste.
“Hey, lady, watch it! Are you crazy?” one groused at her as she stumbled against his arm, crowding him hard enough to make him spill the precious contents of the Starbucks cup that he held.
She ignored him, and muttered to herself, “I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.”
Several blocks from the cell phone store, she slowed her frantic pace, her breath sawing out of her lungs in great, heaving gasps, her whole body a jumbled mess of raw nerves.
She tried to calm her pounding heart, but it was no use. Fear, loss, and horror still rode her hard. Head down, avoiding the other pedestrians on the sidewalk, Bella watched her boots as they tapped out a fast tattoo against the concrete beneath them, taking her closer and closer to the haven of her apartment.
I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.
But, maybe she was crazy, Maybe she was. Who else saw red‑eyed shadows that weren’t even real? Besides Lucien, that is.
Trust me, Bella, you’re not crazy. But you are in danger.
It took her a moment to realize that the whisper of thought was not hers.
Gooseflesh once again prickled the skin of her nape, and she stopped walking, keeping her head down. Afraid to look up.
She was fairly certain that she would see another hallucination standing there. Only now, it was going to talk to her. In her mind.
I am not a hallucination, Bella. Look up, I’m standing right beside you. You are in danger.
Filled with dread, scared nearly out of her mind, Bella raised her head.
Chapter Seven
Lucien watched Bella flee down the sidewalk in front of him. He let her get fairly far away from him. He wasn’t walking quickly and he wasn’t going to rush to catch up. He knew where she was going. There was only one place she could go. A woman like her would scurry back to her apartment, where she felt safe. And he lived in the same building, so there was no need for him to hurry at all.
He smirked as he watched her retreating back , unable to believe that it had been true, what the others told him. There were people in the world with strange gifts like his. People who could see things that they weren’t supposed to be able to see, and hear things that they weren’t supposed to be able to hear.
That first day, nearly a week before, when he’d seen Bella, he’d merely found her beautiful and irresistible. Her unusual, entrancing beauty had been what had attracted his attention. As soon as he’d seen her, he’d known. The first glance had been enough for him to set plans in motion so that he could add her to his collection of beautiful things. He hadn’t known that she had been gifted with abilities, too. He hadn’t known that she was like him. It was all almost too perfect.
He’d thought they’d been lying when they’d come to him and told him their story. The Quislings, they called themselves. What a stupid moniker. Lucien snorted in derision, ignoring the weird look that the woman sharing his piece of sidewalk tossed his way.
She was slender, blonde, and mildly attractive, but she was no Bella. He dismissed her without another thought. She was meaningless. But Bella. Bella was . . . everything. She was so stunning, so extremely beautiful, that he just had to have her for his own. She’d make a fine wife for him.
He allowed
himself to gloat just a little. Bella didn’t know that she would soon become his wife. But he did. And, for the moment, that was enough.
After realizing that Bella had seen the red‑eyed shadow also, he knew that anything was possible. Evil, true evil, really did exist, though it seemed beyond the comprehension of most people and only viewable to a few gifted individuals. This knowledge gave him a great sense of power. It opened up a whole new dimension of possibilities. Until Bella had acknowledged seeing the shadow as it tormented Mr. Bouthar, he hadn’t been sure that he’d actually been seeing them himself. But now he knew that they were real. And, what was even better, he now knew that he could influence Bella’s thoughts if he tried, too.
She’d seen his wolfish mask during their ride together in the elevator. She’s seen the hunger he’d projected. He knew that she had.
And he almost couldn’t believe that she’d seen the shadow feeding off of Mr. Bouthar’s emotions, too. It was a piece of good luck that he hadn’t expected.
No one else, except the Quislings, had ever claimed to be able to see the red‑eyed shadows.
Quislings. He scoffed again. What a stupid name for an organization that they claimed was so great and powerful. It sounded like some sort of weird, cultish nickname—one picked by a teenage boy addicted to MMO games.
He knew what it meant, because they’d told him. And, it did seem appropriate. A quisling was a traitor who collaborated with an enemy force occupying their country. And that was exactly what their organization did. It collaborated with evil to overthrow good. And, if the Quislings’ plans came to fruition, they’d collaborate well enough that they’d eventually drive out spiritual goodness completely. All those do-gooder Christians. All those people seeking His face. Gone. And Lucien wouldn’t miss them.
Lucien rolled his eyes. God had never done him any favors. But evil had. Since he’d begun developing his odd talents and he’d learned how to use them for his own purposes, he’d achieved considerable financial gains. And other gains, too.