Shadeland (The Ethereal Crossings, 1)

by D.L. Miles

  Chapter 15

  “Are all the ingredients going to be as hard to find as the mermaid’s scale?” I questioned from the passenger seat. Jared tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, staring out the front window with an upsetting amount of intensity.

  We sat parked in front of the diner he had once taken me to. Jared remained silent most of the ride here, the mermaid’s scale safely in his pocket. For some reason I imagined something on his mind, but it’s not like he would ever tell me should I ask. When he had decided to speak to me, he just said that “this” was the reason he never worked with others. I had gotten in the way, but then again, I had gotten the mermaid to reveal her true form. It’s not like I was completely useless, not this time.

  “Yes, now c’mon,” Jared said as he got out of the Charger. I followed suit and walked behind him into the diner. He seemed to be ignoring answering my question in detail and I couldn’t tell if it was because he was mad I was there or mad that I had actually managed to help him. We sat down at the same booth and asked for two coffees, Jared adding the daily special to his order.

  “You’re eating?”“ I asked a little surprised. I felt as if I hadn’t eaten in days, ever since Charlie had died. It had only gotten worse after Luke had been arrested for the second time, and I knew it wasn’t going to get better once we returned to work.

  “Yeah, so?” Jared said, grabbing a knife and fork from the end of the table and placing them beside him. I shrugged, wanting to get back to finding the ingredients for Yamuna. I didn’t like taking this break, even after getting the mermaid scale. If all the other supplies would be hard to find, didn’t that mean we should pick up the pace? I poured some cream and sugar into my coffee and took a sip.

  “What did you mean back there?” I asked him, peeking up at him.

  “What?”

  “When the mermaid hit you…is it really your birthday?” I had almost missed what he said. But it was an odd, and kind of sad, thing I thought if today really was his birthday.

  Jared stayed silent for a moment before answering. He sighed and said, “Yes, technically.”

  “How old are you then?”

  He leaned onto the table, shifting his entire body towards me. Under the table one of his boots hit my foot and I resisted the instinct to turn away. A piece of hair flipped into his eyes but he didn’t brush it away. For a moment my heart rate sped up, wondering what he was going to say and as I thought of reaching over to brush that piece of hair out of his eyes.

  “Twenty-four,” he finally admitted, a hint of a smile on his lips.

  “Happy birthday,” I said. For some reason my mind calculated automatically that that made him only seven years older than me, technically six since my birthday was so late in the year. I had never calculated a man’s age before.

  “I guess,” he shrugged. I didn’t say anything after that, since his response was a little strange even by my standards. Instead I started to look around the room, my face felt too warm.

  The diner was busy but that only made sense considering it was almost lunch time. As I peered around the area the normal hustle and bustle began to bother me until a woman caught my eye. She was staring at me from another booth, just behind Jared. We made eye contact and I realised who she was; Cindy the reporter. The same reporter that had first put Luke’s picture out to the world but she was also the first reporter to apologize for it. I wondered if it was because she was actually sorry or if it was because her boss told her to say it.

  Cindy was sitting with a small, dark skinned man with black hair from what I could tell by the back of his head. His shoulders slumped over the table towards her, either showing interest in her or he was exhausted, I couldn’t tell. The reporter suddenly stood, paying no attention to her friend and approached me.

  “You’re his girlfriend, right?” she said to me, making an alarming amount of eye contact. I wanted to look away but I found I couldn’t, her eyes hypnotising me as the mermaid’s water had. At least this time it wasn’t because of magic. “I’m so sorry for what happened.”

  Finally, I tore my eyes away from her to look at Jared. He was watching her, leaning back in the booth, completely at ease. It made me uncomfortable, the way he looked her up and down, as if sizing her up. I guessed what I said was true; men really do prefer blondes. I played with my still-growing-out brown bangs and pouted a little.

  “I’m not the one you should apologize to,” I said and shifted my body away from her. She took the hint and slunk out the glass doors, leaving the man she was with to pay the bill. I saw him take the piece of paper and stuff it into his pocket as he stood. I risked looking at his face, just for a moment, to see that he had large bags under his eyes. He blinked at me and continued forward, not even realizing who I was connected to. Or maybe he just didn’t care; he looked rather distraught.

  “That was harsh,” Jared said, eyeing Cindy as she quickly walked past the window by us. I couldn’t believe he was saying that, after what had happened to Luke. “She seemed honest.” I shrugged my shoulders again and took another drink, tucking my hair behind my ears.

  “What are we getting here?” I questioned as Jared stopped in front of a pet shop downtown. I looked into the windows at the kittens playing and tapped on it gently with my knuckle. One grey tabby fumbled his way to me and put his paws where my hand had been, pressing his nose against the glass.

  We were only two shops down from the diner and Jared looked back at it, thoughtful. In one smooth motion he grabbed my arm and pulled me back to the car, sitting me onto the passenger seat. Jared was ignoring my questions again.

  “You’re staying here,” he said as he opened the glove compartment, pulling out an extra clip and leaving the other gun already there inside. He tossed the mermaid’s scale inside next to it, not even trying to be careful. What would he do if a cop searched his car? Seriously? “This is too dangerous for some novice who wants to play hero.”

  “But--!” The door slammed shut, cutting me off. When I went to open the door it suddenly locked, the small silver tab hiding inside of the frame. I was trapped, or so I wanted him to think.

  Jared never looked back at me; he didn’t even glance through the windows of Pete’s Pets & More before walking inside. My heart was beginning to clench a little, just imagining what might be happening. What could be more dangerous than a mermaid determined to kill everyone that crossed her path?

  I looked around the car, Jared never really thought his plans through it seemed. At least he never thought his plans through when they involved locking me inside something, or to something. How he survived as a bounty hunter was beyond me. I chalked it up to having more than one gun.

  I rolled down the window of the passenger seat, since the car was so old, it didn’t have power windows. After some simple manoeuvring I managed to crawl out the open window and land unsteadily on the sidewalk. Glancing around I only received a few strange stares but nobody said a word to me. Acting as if nothing had happened I straightened my sweater and marched towards the pet store. I resisted tapping the window with the kittens again and found it a little difficult as the small grey tabby that had looked at me with such hope was still there, watching.

  As I opened the door a bell rang to announce my presence. There goes any possibility of Jared not noticing my entrance immediately. He stood at the counter talking to a man but when the bell rang he turned to me with a scowl. The older gentleman behind the counter seized the opportunity and struck Jared in the cheek before running towards a back door behind him.

  “Son of a—” Jared called out and leapt over the counter and dashed after the man. I stood at the doorway, unsure of what to do. The animals surrounding me seemed to know something was wrong and began to make noise. The birds tried to fly from their cages but found they were trapped, settling to just shake their cages loose and fall to the ground. I rushed after Jared and the man when something crashing in the back roo
m jolted me to attention.

  I turned the corner of the counter when my foot caught on a heavy box. Tumbling forward I caught myself on the doorway just as a bullet whizzed past my head. If I hadn’t tripped, I would probably be dead.

  “Get down, moron!” Jared shouted at me from behind some shelves. The backroom to the pet store was filled with various foods and unlabelled boxes. Jared crouched to my right, just out of sight behind a large box with holes in it. Two more shots rang through the air but not towards me. I ducked down, realizing that there was now more than one shooter facing Jared and myself. “Over here, now!” Hastily, I crawled to Jared.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, understanding why Jared didn’t want me involved.

  “How the hell did you get out of the car?” he took the time to bare his eyes into me, thinking exactly what I thought he was.

  “The windows can roll down you know,” I said, trying not to lean against the box with holes in it. Over the gunfire I could hear something shifting inside. Jared didn’t seem to have a problem using it for leverage though as he stuck his gun out and fired. I covered my ears; his weapon was just too loud, even for a gun. More shots came back at us but none even came near.

  “What?” Jared asked, looking at me. “Son of a—” A bullet clipping the corner of the wooden box cut off his realization. He fired back and I heard a man cry out in pain, hit. “Ha!”

  More bullets came at us when suddenly Jared let out a shout. He thrust his chest forward and tried to hold onto his back.

  “What is it?” I asked, afraid he had somehow been shot through the box.

  “Something bit me!” he went to look in the box but whatever was inside retreated to the far side. When he turned to fire another shot at the men I could see a small amount of blood dripping through his leather jacket. It wasn’t gushing out, so I considered that a good thing. If his jacket hadn’t been there it probably would’ve been a lot worse.

  “Listen up, honey,” Jared said while reloading his gun, “I’ll deal with these three, you find the dragon’s venom. It should be somewhere in here.” I looked around.

  “What does it look like?” I asked, I doubted it would be in a bottle labelled “Dragon’s Venom”. Or would it…?

  “It should be purple.” That was all he told me as he leapt out from behind the box and dove behind another, bullets narrowly missing him as he rolled to safety.

  I began reading the labels on the boxes, careful not to get too close to the one next to me. Jared was occupied and not going to be much help. So what did “Purple” mean exactly? Would it be a purple liquid or in a purple container? This was frustrating and the gunfire wasn’t helping me think any clearer.

  “Good to see you so lively, Jared,” said one of the men on the other side. Great, they knew each other. “Last I saw you were about to get eaten alive by a werewolf.” Jared laughed.

  “What can I say?” he said back. “I have a knack for surviving.” I glanced over at him, crouched down and saw he was smiling. Was he enjoying the gunfight or the conversation? Either way it wasn’t good. When he saw me watching him he yelled, “Find it already!”

  Looking back at the shelves I didn’t see anything that appeared to be dragon’s venom. When the gunfire came to a sudden halt I crawled around the shelves to see the other side, another bullet narrowly missing me.

  “So to what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you again?” said the same man as before.

  “Just thought I’d drop by,” Jared called, “say hello, that sort of thing. I can see you’re doing well. I’m in the wrong business, shoulda gone into exotic creatures.” So Pete’s Pets & More really did mean “& More”. It had been downtown ever since I could remember, so had it always been like this? I remembered coming here for my first pet with my mother; had it always been run by gangsters? I hoped not, not wanting to lose such a cherished memory.

  Staying low to the ground I searched the bottom shelves. Some of it was regular pet store supplies; dog food, cat toys but as I looked I began to find stranger things. I cringed wondering why people would ever want some of these things as pets until I remembered they probably weren’t all pets. A shot flew over my head and I heard glass break. A purple liquid began to drip down the shelves and onto my hand, it almost felt like it was being absorbed into my skin. I quickly wiped it away on my pants when a thought occurred; purple liquid!

  “Business is wonderful,” the man said and the gunfire ceased. “But I am curious, who’s your friend? She’s cute, a little plain, but cute. Kind of young for you though, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  Looking up I could see some small vials, filled with a glowing purple liquid. There were only four there so I grabbed two, they were small enough to each fit into the palm of my hand.

  “How many do we need?” I asked Jared, hoping he would hear me. My ears were starting to ring louder with all the explosions.

  “She’s nobody,” Jared said to the man and turned to me as I peeked behind the containers. I held up the vials for him to see and he nodded. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah…I think,” I said, since I wasn’t completely sure it was the venom.

  “You think?” Jared ducked lower as the top of the box behind him blew up into tiny pieces. I stuffed the vials into my pocket, hoping they wouldn’t break. “Good enough!”

  He dove towards me, no gunfire following him.

  “What now?” I questioned.

  “Well,” he said, trying to rub where he had been bitten, “we need to get out the back door.”

  “Why not the front?”

  “There’s two of them there.”

  “There is?” I leaned to take a look but Jared grabbed the back of my hoodie, holding me back. “Where’s the back door?”

  “Behind Violet,” he said. He nodded in the direction of where some of the bullets came from. It wasn’t too far from us and we could actually be seen rather easily from where the girl crouched. I could just make out the top of her head, streaked with a dark blue. How she hadn’t shot us yet was a mystery.

  Near the girl was the back door, to get to it, we needed to get rid of her.

  “How do we get there?”

  “Like this.” Jared grabbed my hand and ran for the door, bullets trailing behind us with every step. The adrenaline coursing through my system made it hard to see or to even feel my legs. He shoved me to the ground when we made it to Violet and she gave us a hardened look. Was she not expecting us to run towards the enemy? I guessed I wouldn’t have, if I were her. Jared mumbled, “Sorry Vi.”

  Violets narrow eyes became very wide then as she tried to back away. Jared hit her with the butt of his gun, knocking her out. I was a little surprised he would hit her so easily, but I was more surprised that he apologized first. He must have known her, what else could it be? He had called her “Vi” after all…

  “C’mon,” Jared said, holding my hand again and pulling me out the door. We fell out into an alleyway, covered with old boxes that had been used to store “exotic” animals. Jared began pulling me to the mouth of the alleyway and into the light.

  “Gun,” I managed to say before we hit the sidewalk. He shoved his gun into its holster, finally releasing my hand. He had such a tight grip on me I thought I was being crushed. Shaking my hand out of his titans grip we walked around the block towards the car.

  “What part of ‘stay in the car’ did you not get?” Jared said, his voice filled with anger. I was hoping it was just left over adrenaline from the fight, but somehow doubted it. When we passed the front window I couldn’t see anyone inside and took one last look at the small grey tabby. He and the other kittens didn’t seem frightened by the gunfire.

  “I just…I just wanted to help,” I said, my body beginning to calm down now that we were safe. Jared opened the passenger side door and ordered me in. When he climbed into the driver’s seat he sighed. “I helped, didn’t I?”

&n
bsp; “This time you did,” he said, “next time you could die. You could’ve died this time!” He groaned and struggled out of this jacket, tossing it into the backseat. His white shirt was stained with blood on the back but didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore. “Damn it.”

  “Did you know her?” I suddenly blurted out and immediately regretted it.

  “Yeah,” he said, “why?” Jared reached into the glove compartment in front of me and pulled out a white bandage and some tape. It must have been his idea of a first aid kit. “Stick this on for me.” He lifted his shirt and handed me the supplies.

  “You said sorry before you hit her,” I told him, almost sounding jealous. Not that he hit her, but that he seemed to know her well enough to actually apologize to her. Some silly part of me wanted him to apologize for how he had treated me, for giving me so many sleepless nights. But I knew that would never happen, he didn’t even know how much grief he had given me. Plus his apologies looked rather….painful.

  “’Cause we used to…know what? It’s none of your business.” I stuck the bandage over the wound, not paying any attention to the various scars he had. I tried to see what might have bit him but there was too much blood, all I could make out was what looked like a snake bite. I patted on the white cloth, making him wince, but it was only to make sure it would stay. Really.

  “What now?” I asked, not bothering to pry into Jared’s history with Violet.

  “Let’s see the venom,” he said rubbing his forehead, one hand held out to me. I handed him the glowing vials and he inspected them. “We’ll give these to Yamuna, that way they can’t get lost while we get the pixie’s dust.”

  “How would we lose them while getting the pixie’s dust?”

  “Clearly you’ve never met a pixie.” He started the car and drove off, not even checking if we were being followed. I tried to make sure of that though; I didn’t want to be in another gunfight today.

  Engine purring, Jared stopped the car in the same spot in front of Yamuna’s house. Our car ride back had been silent and for some reason I couldn’t keep my mind off of Violet. She was small for an illegal animal’s dealer, or even a henchman, but Jared knew her. He even said sorry before hitting her, and she seemed surprised that he would do such a thing. Whatever their relationship, Jared didn’t want to talk about it. Jared didn’t want to talk about a lot of things with me.

  My thoughts were consumed with questions again, always about the bounty hunter I was working with. His very existence invaded my mind but maybe that was because he was always saving my life? I had lost count as to how many bullets he had helped me dodge, and how many ancient monsters. That was all it was though; fear, adrenaline and unfortunate situations that made me think about him.

  Yamuna opened the front door as we stepped onto her decayed porch.

  “Do you have it already?” she asked, peeking through the crack.

  “Almost,” Jared said and handed her the container holding the mermaid scale and the vials with dragon’s venom. She held the scale in the air and watched it glitter with a smile. Jared finished, “We should have everything by tomorrow morning.”

  “Better hurry,” Yamuna said, still holding her smile. She blinked at me and then waved her hand at us, telling us to leave. Jared turned and walked down the steps, with me just a foot behind him. “Wait.”

  I stopped on the last step, hearing Yamuna walk out the door. Jared stood in front of me on the concrete path, and faced the witch, a sour expression on his face. It didn’t seem to be from his hatred of her though; it seemed more like…pain.

  “What?” he rubbed his forehead again, like he had been through most of the car ride.

  “What happened to your back? Get shot?” she laughed, mocking him. Would she really enjoy him getting shot that much? Probably. He grimaced and began to walk away, ignoring her.

  “He was bitten at the pet store,” I told her, if she really wanted to know. Her pasty complexion paled even more as her eyes flashed black.

  “Stop!” she shouted and took another step forward, stopping just before the stairs. I stumbled backwards in surprise, my feet just catching their balance on the pathway. Looking to Jared I saw him fall to the ground, unconscious.

  “Jared!” I called, trying to rush to his side. Yamuna grabbed me though, reaching too far out of her confinement, causing an electric current to run through her body. She screamed in pain as she threw me backwards onto the wood. Falling to her knees she gasped for air.

  “Don’t touch him,” she managed, “not yet.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, tugging on her to get free. All she did was point at him, and together we stared.

  Slowly, starting from his wound, he began to change colour. Jared’s skin and clothes hardened, changing to a deep grey as he turned to stone. The line separating him from human to rock engulfed his body and he lay there, frozen in place; a statue.

  “He was bitten,” Yamuna gasped, “by a Child of Medusa.”

  “Will he be okay?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question. I didn’t like Yamuna’s face then because it answered me more than her words did.

  “What do you think?”