Shadeland (The Ethereal Crossings, 1)

by D.L. Miles

  Chapter 10

  It wasn’t all that difficult to not do anything. After Jared and I discovered that the stones were placed in the houses for protection he decided it was time for me to go home. I didn’t argue, he had said he needed to think about what to do next, and that his “process” did not involve me. Part of me knew that was a lie, but he was a bounty hunter and I…well, I wasn’t. What point was there in arguing?

  On the drive home I had tried asking him about Yamuna, and what she had meant when she said he had trapped her there. All he gave me was the fact that she was doing things she shouldn’t have been doing and needed to be brought in last year during the revolution. His face was dark when he spoke and I knew there was more to it; I just didn’t know how I would figure out what that was. There was something about Yamuna that kind of scared me, but was still intriguing. When I had asked him what had made the witches eyes go so wide he only brushed me off, mumbling something about being “spell-marked”.

  I had looked up what that meant, but it didn’t make sense to me. I found a few forums asking about it, and only a few serious answers. From what I could tell, being spell-marked meant you were protected from most spells, but only the basic ones; any witch or Eidolon powerful enough could easily get through the mark. It was no wonder Yamuna reacted the way she had.

  So while Jared was out doing…whatever it was Jared did, I was lying on my borrowed bed, staring at the ceiling. I tapped my fingers on my stomach, feeling a little useless. I had only felt this way once before I met Jared, and now there were murders all around me. Sure, I understood what it was like to feel useless, but not helpless at the same time. The detectives were hunting for evidence that pointed to Luke and I couldn’t do anything to stop it; I was amazed they didn’t keep him in lockup just because it looked like he’d committed the murders.

  I rolled over in bed and sighed, watching my lifeless phone on the nightstand. For the first time in my life I was wishing for a guy to call me. Suddenly my phone rang.

  Rushing to pick it up, I answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey Liv,” came Luke’s voice on the other end, “I need a favour.”

  “What is it?” I sighed, heart pumping for nothing. I rubbed my eyes and checked the clock; it was only a little after three.

  “We need some help at work, a few people called in sick,” he explained, “do you think you could come help for a couple hours till the next shift comes on?” I weighed my options. I could stay at home, watching my phone not ring, or I could go into work and keep my mind off of everything that had happened. That was what Luke was doing; otherwise he never would have gone in today in the first place.

  “Sure,” I said, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Spending time with Luke may even lift my spirits too.

  “Thanks! See you soon.” I hung up the phone and leaned back on my pillow for a moment before getting up. I changed into a more suitable outfit for work other than jeans and a tee-shirt and headed out the door.

  It was only about eight minutes before I was walking through the large glass doors of work. It was next to a few identical buildings, all filled with busy people on their phones and typing on their computers. People always asked me why I worked in such a tedious job; the simple answer was it paid a lot and was easier than anything else. For some reason, I knew if Jared saw me here I would be made fun of. I knew my office work was something he probably couldn’t even comprehend doing and thinking that made me wonder how long he had been a bounty hunter.

  Riding the elevator I tried to think of more work related things than murder. It wasn’t working very well, so I just started to count with the floors.

  Floor seven… has Jared found anything out? Floor eight… why would someone try and protect the girls without telling them they were in danger? Floor nine… did Luke have any idea how grave the situation was? Floor ten… what was going to happen if the killer was never caught?

  The elevator dinged and I got out on the eleventh floor, grateful that I could start doing paperwork or filing or anything really. Counting the floors was just like counting the questions in my head, but worse because I had more questions than floors. Striding into the plain white office, I found Luke’s cubicle next to mine and made my way there.

  My job wasn’t hard, it was really just filing. Take information from here, put it there then put it back here again. Simple, the only thing it involved was typing and occasionally calling people should something go missing. The worst part about the job was that people called in sick a lot; meaning Luke and I would get called in to come work just about every week, despite the fact that I told them I could only work weekends. It didn’t matter much, since we never made too many plans anyway. Well, I never made plans.

  As I walked through the office I noticed nobody was talking. Everyone in the room was hunched over their computers, doing their work. It was odd, since most of the time everyone worked as hard as possible to do nothing at all.

  “Hey,” I said as I rounded the corner to Luke’s cubicle. He was surrounded by paperwork, files towering over him as he stared at his computer screen. The bags under his eyes were ridiculous, since he had seemed fine this morning, despite obvious setbacks. Was everything starting to hit him now? I knew it had taken a bit to really sink in for me.

  “Hey,” he said back, “thanks for coming in. It’ll be so much easier with you here.”

  “Sure,” I held out my arms, “what do you want me to do?”

  “Do you remember how last week they had to hire the building owner’s niece?” he asked, scrolling through the page on his screen. “Well she’s a moron.” I raised my eyebrows at that; Luke wasn’t one to insult a person so lightly.

  “What happened?” Luke set a few files in my hands, careful not to use too much force.

  “She went through all of last year’s files and changed the date to this year,” he shook his head, “and then reorganized them with this year’s files.” Luke sounded like he might cry. He took this job too seriously, it’s not like we filed anything really important.

  “Why did she do that?”

  “Because she thought that they were the wrong year. She actually thought they were wrong and changed them all.” I resisted a smile, knowing Luke would be mad if I laughed. It was kind of funny though, there were thousands of files there, and it must have taken a while to change them.

  “So we’re changing them back?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “we need to go through the files up till June and figure out which ones are from last year and which ones from this year.” He stopped for a moment to type something into the computer. “We’ve already got from June to December changed, we’re letting tonight’s group put it into the main system though.”

  “Okay then,” I said and walked over to my own slice of mind numbing semi-privacy. As insane as it sounded, I didn’t mind doing stuff like this. But then again, I wasn’t what one would call a motivated worker. I did the work given to me, in a reasonable amount of time and then stopped. Luke was more of the get things done quickly kind of person and find the next duty to be done.

  An hour of reading and typing went by without a single peep from my phone. I had to set it to silent in case it did ring though; nobody would have been impressed if I answered it with so much work to be done. As I leaned back in my chair I rolled my head back and forth, feeling the familiar pain in my neck. Standing I rested my arms on the wall between me and Luke.

  “Wanna get a coffee?” I asked, needing a break and knowing Luke needed one even more. He sighed at his computer screen and lazily tapped the down key, debating.

  “Yeah,” he said, rubbing his face, “sure.” As he pushed himself off of his chair two of our coworkers drifted by, deep in conversation.

  “Did you hear about how they let the suspect go?” One of them said, Susie, I thought her name was.

  “Yeah,” the other one, Amber, said, “it’s obviously not him. I mean, ther
e was another killing while he was in custody.” They turned a corner into the office kitchen and I didn’t know what to say.

  “I can get the coffee,” I said, carefully choosing my words, “if you don’t want to listen to them.” Luke stared towards the kitchen, a lost and weary look on his face.

  “No,” he said, “I should get used to it. Let’s go.” He sighed again, about the fifteenth sigh I had heard that hour. We walked into the kitchen to find Susie and Amber sitting at the table, still gossiping about the murders. They looked far too interested for it to be considered a sane interest.

  I poured two cups of coffee, the last of what was left. Glancing out into the office, I thought it would be best to make some more, so I rinsed out the container and threw out the old coffee grinds. Luke passed me a filter from the cupboard without a word, probably listening in on the girls’ conversation. They were still debating as to whether the released suspect was guilty or not.

  “I say he is,” Susie said, getting a little upset that her co-worker didn’t agree, “I mean, the papers said he was present at almost all the crime scenes. With witnesses I might add!” I turned and leaned on the counter next to Luke and watched them.

  “I’m not sure,” Amber said, twisting her cup on the table, “there was that one girl that died when he was in jail! How did he do that?” Susie thought.

  “He has a partner,” she said proudly, “that John guy. Plus he’s not human, so he has superpowers that let him do it.” Amber stared down her friend.

  “Superpowers?” she said in a tone showing she wasn’t impressed. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Amber was involved with the Eidolon’s if she was that annoyed. Only an Eidolon that knew what they were before the revolution was annoyed when their abilities were referred to as “superpowers”.

  “Etheric’s,” I corrected them, hoping to make Amber maybe feel a bit better. The girls only gave me confused looks; they almost looked surprised that I could talk. “They prefer to be called Etheric’s or Eidolon’s.”

  “Where did you hear that?” It was Amber that asked, not Susie. I was a little surprised.

  “We’re taking a New History course at the college with Dr. Wineman,” Luke said, “that was something the professor said.” The girls nodded in agreement, not really bothering to correct themselves or ask more questions. I just hoped they didn’t make the connection between the latest killing and the college.

  “So have you guys heard anything weird about the killings?” I asked, wanting to seize the opportunity to find out more. Even rumours tended to have some sort of truth to them. Susie looked around the room before getting up to shut the door. She even went as far to close the blinds, giving us total privacy.

  “I have heard one thing,” she said sitting back down. Amber leaned in, excited with all the secrecy. “It’s a hundred per cent true too.”

  “What is it?” Luke asked, suddenly as interested as Amber. I would be too, I supposed, if I was the number one suspect.

  “My boyfriend’s friend knew the first girl, Rosa,” Susie said, the wide smile on her face making me uncomfortable, “and it turns out, she was pregnant!”

  “No!” Amber gasped. Was the news really that interesting? Enough for her to smile about it? It just sounded tragic to me…

  “Yes!” Susie confirmed. “She had just found out she was, like, three months pregnant! She was going to keep the baby by the way, at least that’s what I’m told.”

  “That’s so sad,” Amber said, emotion clear on her face. I couldn’t tell if she was actually feeling empathy or not.

  “Yeah,” Luke agreed, looking down at his coffee.

  “Why wasn’t that mentioned in the newspaper?” I questioned. It seemed like something worth mentioning. Susie shrugged.

  “Don’t know,” she said, “I hear she didn’t even have a boyfriend, and all her family is back in…wherever she’s from.” She waved her hand in the air.

  “I’m going to get back to work,” Luke said, rolling his head as I had earlier. “There’s so much to do.” Susie and Amber agreed but as we walked out the door I heard them continue to gossip. Part of me wanted to stay and listen to what they had to say, but I doubted it would be very useful. I would have to make sure to ask Jared about the pregnancy thing, if he ever called that was.

  Sitting down back at my desk I saw my phone sitting next to the mouse. Checking for any messages I was greeted with nothing; Jared still hadn’t called. It hadn’t been that long since he dropped me off at home but I was still irked at how long this was taking him. I wanted to help and he wasn’t letting me, though it wasn’t like there was much for me to do anyway. It just felt wrong to go about my everyday life when Luke was in trouble and there were murders all over town. What if Jared never called and he was only humouring me to get me to leave him alone? Having those thoughts put on top of my family constantly asking why I’m not going to college come September was making me stressed out more than I had ever been.

  I went back to work, the numbers barely taking my mind off of everything. When the clock finally hit six we headed home, with a lot less conversation than usual. If Luke did talk to me, it was only about work, or something else that didn’t mean anything. He was avoiding the topic like the plague and I let him.

  As we pulled into our building’s parking lot I saw Jared’s car waiting there. My heart jumped into my throat for a second as I drove past, wondering if he was inside; it was too dark to see anything clearly though. Luke didn’t seem to notice my interest in the car; after all, he only knew of Jared from my thoughts, he had never actually met him or noticed the Charger.

  We stepped out of the car when suddenly Jared jumped from the back seat of his. He grabbed Luke and locked his arms behind his back, cuffing him with a little too much violence for my taste.

  “What are you doing?” Luke shouted before I could.

  “Arresting you,” Jared said, far too calm, “you need to be in jail.”

  “But he didn’t do anything!” I yelled. I had thought Jared knew that, why would he be arresting Luke? “You know he’s innocent!”

  Jared didn’t say another word as he threw Luke into the back of his Charger, speeding off before I could even get around my car to stop him. I swore under my breath, confused and a little hurt. Jared was supposed to be on my side, he was supposed to be helping prove Luke’s innocence, not arresting him. It was then that I had realized Jared was a bounty hunter. He didn’t care about innocent or guilty, he cared about the money. My face burned with anger, the unfamiliar feeling of betrayal welling inside of me.

  I only pouted in the parking lot for a few seconds before getting in my car and heading to the police station. Jared was arresting Luke, so he would be there. And if he was still there when I arrived I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had never hit anyone before, but I was considering it now.

  When I drove into the station Jared was just coming out the front doors, with Luke nowhere in sight. Parking crooked on the yellow line I dove out of my car and charged at him.

  “Where’s Luke?” I asked, fury clear in my voice. Jared shoved a piece of paper into his pocket and looked down at me.

  “Inside,” he said. I went to go around him, feeling Luke was more important than my anger at the moment when Jared grabbed my arm. “He’s in questioning, you can’t see him. And you won’t see him for a while. They want him in jail, and it’s better that way.” He let go and walked towards his car.

  “Why did you arrest him?” I asked, following his steps.

  “Trust me, honey, it’s for his own good.”

  “Why should I trust you?” I yelled at him now. “And stop calling me that!” He opened his car door and leaned on it to face me.

  “Well, for one I saved your life,” he counted on his fingers, “and two, no, I won’t stop.” He got in and started the engine. I wasn’t going to let him leave so easily. Moving as quickly as possible I g
ot into the back seat, not wanting to risk trying for the passenger side door. “What are you doing?”

  “Luke’s innocent,” I said, “you know that.”

  “I do,” he told me, to my surprise, “but he’s in the way.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jared turned the car off and turned to face me.

  “He’s the only suspect in four open murder cases,” he explained, “the cops are so focused on him that they don’t see anyone else. He’s all they’ve got so they released a warrant for his arrest. Some higher up doesn’t like non-humans, but it’s only a matter of time before someone screams racist.”

  “So why arrest him? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sooner or later there’s going to be another murder,” he said, sighing, “and if your boyfriend’s in jail for two of those murders there isn’t a jury out there that would convict him.” Unless they’re all Eidolon hating humans that is, which, if Luke went to trial, was very likely. I wondered what “higher up” Jared was referring to, imagining it might be one of the detectives.

  “So what, either Luke goes to jail for crimes he didn’t commit,” I started, “or another girl dies to set him free?” Jared lowered his eyes, no happier with the outcome than I was.

  “It sucks but that’s how it is.” Angered with how easily he was taking this I stepped out of the car for fresh air. As I slammed the door behind me I saw Det. Miller coming out of the station with the blonde channel four reporter coming up to her. What was her name again? I couldn’t remember, at least not then; my feelings were making it hard to think.

  I was just close enough to hear their conversation from where I was. Jared stepped out of the car, starting to say something when I held up a hand to stop him. His eyes followed mine to the two women. Something wasn’t right.

  “So what did you want to tell me?” the reporter asked, a pen and notepad in hand.

  “Lucan Harroway,” Det. Miller said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Lucan Harroway,” the detective said again, “he’s the suspect that was in jail before, and he’s just been arrested again. He’s an Eidolon and he’s committed the murders.”

  “Oh, no,” Jared said quietly.

  “What evidence do you have?” the reporter asked, a little surprised at the detectives words. The mention of evidence stalled Det. Miller, she knew she didn’t have anything real but it wasn’t about to stop her.

  “We have enough,” was all she said. The journalist wrote down what she said, probably word for word. I took a small step forward, wanting to intervene but Jared grabbed me again.

  “Hold it honey,” he said pulling me back to whisper in my ear, “you’ll just make it worse.”

  “Or I’ll expose that witch for the Etheric hating racist she is,” I said but he yanked on my arm once more, dragging me to the passenger side door of his car, shoving me inside. After he shut it and moved I tried to open it but it was already locked, every time I unlocked it he would press a button and I was trapped again. He sat down next to me and drove away from the station.

  Maybe it was better that way, it’s not like the reporter would believe anything I said, especially with a cop standing right there saying something else. Begrudgingly, I put my seat belt on and crossed my arms. I knew what was coming. And no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that it wouldn’t happen, I knew I was wrong.

  Jared drove around the block a few times before the two women went their separate ways. He then led me to my car and made sure I drove straight home by following me there, not letting me talk to anyone inside the station. I forced him to promise to contact me the next day after he said he had plans to find the real killer. I was going to make him know that I was going to be with him every step of the way whether he liked it or not. He just agreed and walked me into my apartment, all the way to the front door. I had considered going back home, to see my family for comfort…but it was useless and I would only feel worse by answering their questions. So I stayed in Luke’s apartment, wondering if I would ever get to sit with him again.

  The next morning I turned on the news to find Luke’s face on every channel. He was declared the major suspect in the investigation; all that meant was the world would see him as the criminal. Even after he was proven innocent, nobody would look at him the same; he was a killer, whether that was the truth or not.