In Icarus' Shadow

by Matthew Jones

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Nadia woke to find herself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, covered in posters that showed her glimpses of faraway cities, famous reporters and the odd band. Unfamiliar, that was, in the sense that she had not woken up to it since moving out from her parent's house and into residence for college. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she rolled over to squint at the clock beside her bed and groaned when its digital display informed her it was barely more than four o'clock in the morning. Under normal circumstances, she would not even be approaching consciousness for another half dozen hours yet, but she supposed it was to be expected given that she had gone to bed remarkably early.

  She and Orion had, after their escape from Icarus Development Incorporated, located her Prius at last and driven to her parent's house; a decision made largely because of the fact that it had been closer than her apartment. Pulling into the driveway in the wee hours of the morning the way they had, it couldn't have been later than three; they had let themselves in with Nadia's key and sat themselves on the couch. Her parents had found them there, several hours later, sound asleep against one another. Waking the pair up, the rest of the day had gone into having to explain everything that had happened to her parents. Needless to say, it had been a long and, at times, frustrating process; they had been forced to adjourn their discussion several times for one or more members of the conversation to cool off. Orion, to his credit, had never been one of these, as he knew her parents were uncomfortable with him already and had done his best to remain calm.

  But they had kept at it diligently and her parents had slowly, finally, come around. Or, at least she hoped so. She wasn't sure if they bought the idea that their mystery man behind I.D.I. was a mythological Greek deity, neither was she sure that they trusted Orion any more than they had before. It was clear that they held him partially responsible for dragging her into all of this, but they kept their promise to give him another chance and did not openly attack him this time around. Nadia had, of course, kept Black's involvement out of her story entirely. She had simply told them she was not there when Burgess and Orion had encountered one another, which was the truth, and then not mentioned the parts she did see. There were just some things people were better off not knowing; she felt guilty about keeping things from her parents, as she always did, but was confident in her judgement just the same.

  With only a few hours of sleep under their belts, though, neither Nadia nor Orion had very much energy left in them once their debate had come to its conclusion. Her parents had, obligingly, let them spend the night at their home rather than see them drive back to her apartment while half-asleep. And so it was that they had shooed the pair outside for a moment as they dug out their spare blankets and pillows to fix up the couch as a suitable bed, as well as freshen up Nadia's former room. Out on the front porch with nothing in particular to do, the duo had finally a moment to relax. With it being the first break they had had all day, this had seemed the perfect opportunity for Nadia to relay Black's message to Orion.

  "Do you remember how I mentioned I had something to tell you?" she had begun. "About Thomas and Black?"

  Looking her way, he had nodded. "Yes, I do."

  "It was about the time Thomas said he met with Black, if you recall my mentioning that?"

  He had smiled knowingly. "I remember it both from my perspective and yours. It is a curious thing, to have two memories of the same event."

  That had made her laugh, a little. "Well, when I asked him how he had done it, he told me he hadn't, that it wasn't him. He seemed to think someone else was manipulating events, though he didn't know who or why. What do you think?"

  Orion had been quiet for a time after that as he thought it over, before he simply shrugged. "I do not know. It would require a certain knowledge of me and my other identities, as well as excellent timing, to manage and I do not know enough about others like myself to hazard any accurate guesses. I do not, however, think we should worry about that."

  She had been surprised by his reaction. "Oh? Isn't it bad that someone knows you so well, though? I mean, you aren't exactly easy to find, so they must have put a lot of work into it, whoever they are."

  "Maybe," he had ventured. "However, I think that, if they had intended to do me harm, they would have done so without showing themselves. It is evident they require me to perform specific tasks; it is possible their goals and mine may even overlap and any assistance is a welcome boon."

  "I guess that makes sense," she had agreed, though she had felt less sure. "Say, Orion?"

  "Hmm?"

  She had hesitated before asking him her next question; but ask him she had. "Do you ever feel like you're running from yourself?"

  This had perplexed him; she remembered how he had turned to lock eyes with her, as if that would help him understand. "Running? I am not sure what you mean."

  "Well, with all of those spare identities of yours to hide in, I figured you had to have a reason for spending so much time as other people. I mean, I know about the things you've been through, but people have different ways to deal with things. Or ways to not deal with them, I guess."

  Orion had seemed to understand, then. "I see... Then yes, I suppose I would have to say you were right. It is not something I am proud of, but I have not spent this long in control of myself and my actions in an exceedingly long time."

  She had smiled, hoping to encourage him. "I hope you can be you more often from now on."

  They had been quiet for some time after that, just watching her parents' garden figures spouting glimmering arcs of water through the twilight air. It was he who had broken the silence, though, as she remembered.

  "Nadia," he had asked, suddenly. "If I said that, if you asked it of me, I would again become Thomas and that he would be as he was, without knowledge of me or any of these other events that have happened, would you want me to do so?"

  It had taken her rather off guard, to say the least, but she had known the answer without needing to think about it. "No. Thomas was a sweetheart, he really was, but... it wouldn't be the same, now. Even if he never knew, I would know. And sure, he was a real person, with his own personality, thoughts and ideas, but he wasn't the original person. He's not you."

  She had sworn she had caught the slightest blush on the man's face at that, which even now brought a grin to hers. "That is very flattering of you to say, but... No, never mind."

  She had frowned at his pause, but he had continued a moment later. "It does not bother you, then, that I am seemingly ageless? He, Thomas, could spend a lifetime with you, grow old with you. Both of which are things that I could never do."

  Nadia had frowned at that. "Look, mister, I don't want you making me out to be an old maid just yet. I'm only twenty-four!"

  His answer had come with a smile, but it had been a melancholy one. "Yes, of course. I apologize."

  Her parents had finished their preparations by that point, though and come out to shoo the pair off to sleep. Nadia had staggered off upstairs to her old room while Orion got comfortable on the couch in the living room. What the exhausted duo had failed to realize was the time, for it was barely eight o'clock at night when they at last ran out of steam, which, inexorably, had resulted in her waking entirely too early for her preferences.

  Grumbling at both the display on her clock and the feeling of being well rested that permeated her being, Nadia grudgingly hauled herself upright. There was no way she could go back to sleep like this. Fumbling around in the dark for the somewhat floral housecoat her mother had lent her, she pulled it on over her similarly borrowed pyjamas and completed her ensemble with a pair of slippers, these actually belonging to her. She smiled with a light laugh as they fit snugly onto her feet; she had stubbornly chosen a pair much too large for her as a teenager and had provided her parents with the reasoning that she would grow into them by the time she grew up. The real reason she had chosen them had, of course, been because they were made to look like sharks, complete with a dorsal fin on
top of each foot, silly mouths full of triangular felt teeth and stubby tails at the heel. The nature of her footwear aside, she felt a certain satisfaction at finally having grown to fit them; she wasn't sure if her parents would count her as 'mature' yet, but she had the feet of an adult and that was good enough for her. Even if they were feet clad in stuffed toy sharks.

  Tiptoeing from her room, she slipped past her parents' bedroom door, kept ajar just as she remembered it had been in her childhood, and crept downstairs. Getting a glass of water from the kitchen sink, she then padded over to the couch to see if Orion was awake yet. She wanted to pick up where they had left off the night before; the way their conversation ended had left a curiosity in her, one that would only be satisfied after knowing more of what was on the man's mind. Peering over the back of the couch, she saw the blanket he had used neatly folded in the centre, the pillow his parents had lent him placed atop the crisp bundle. Feeling her heart rate picking up, she skidded her way down the hall to the front door and pulled it open, hoping, perhaps, to catch him before he got too far. To her surprise, it was her father she found standing on the porch, looking out over the front garden with a steam-emitting mug in his hands. The sky was beginning to lighten, now, though the sun was not yet up, making their fantastical garden figures seem alive and just holding still. He was in his burgundy house coat, with matching slippers at the end of his plaid-clad legs. It was a pyjama look she had seen him in many, many times; it still mystified her, but he seemed to like it well enough. It was the last thing on her mind at the moment, though.

  "Daddy," she verbalized, momentarily caught off guard. "You're up early. H-have you seen Orion anywhere?"

  He shook his head, smiling a little sadly at her. "No, Sweet-Pea, I haven't."

  She found herself beginning to bristle, though she knew she was more upset at her friend's sudden disappearance than at her father. "Did you say something to him? Please don't tell me you pulled one of those 'if you care for her, you'll leave her alone' lines out of the attic."

  He sighed, shaking his head and sipping from his mug. "No, Nadia, I didn't."

  She frowned, shaking her head in confusion instead of denial. Well, perhaps in denial, too. "Then I don't understand! Why would he just go, without saying anything to anybody? To me?"

  He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Sweet-Pea... you may not want to hear it, but maybe he came up with the idea of keeping you safe by leaving on his own. From what you told us yesterday, if he is the Orion and the real Apollo is still around, these two have a lot of unfinished business between them. It's going to be dangerous and he probably realized that you didn't need to be pulled into it."

  Shrugging his hand off, she stormed to the other end of the porch. "But that's crap, I can handle myself and he knows it. He wouldn't just write me off as getting in his way, as a liability."

  Mr. Lawson sighed. "I never said liability, Sweet-Pea. Accidents happen. Mistakes are made. Even those people who are the best at what they do can never be infallible. It's what being human is all about. There was no way he could guarantee you would be safe, so he chose the only road he could see that increased your odds of going unharmed. And you may not want to hear this, either, but I agree with him. I thank him for that."

  "You would," she snapped. "You never wanted me hanging around with him in the first place, but that was only because he was a man, not because of the danger."

  "Yes," he admitted. "That's true. But that doesn't make it any less the right decision. Sweet-Pea, you're twenty-four, now. I get that you want to make a big splash in the world of journalism and reporting, so you're looking for that one, big story. I get that you don't want to be seen as having succeeded because of my reputation. But isn't it time that you got started on it in a more practical way? Just wandering around waiting for a bolt from the blue isn't making a splash or waiting for opportunity, it's expecting miraculous luck to come along. But luck is a fickle thing; there are a lot of people out there who have had to make their own good fortune."

  She turned back towards him, her frustration evident. "I had my story, Daddy. Immortals. Real, living immortals working under the skin of normal civilization. Could you imagine the impact that would have?"

  "Yes," he responded, flatly. "Absolutely none."

  She blinked at him, disbelieving and just a little hurt. "What?"

  "Look, Sweet-Pea, I hate to say it so bluntly, but... who would believe it? Both you and your mother have sworn up and down that that friend of yours can change his face, body and everything else. Hell, I've seen it myself, with my own two eyes and I still can hardly get myself to believe it wasn't some kind of trick. People just can't take those things seriously. I don't know, maybe we just don't like to think we can be that wrong about the world as we know it, or maybe it's just part of being human."

  Nadia sighed; she had to admit, he had a point. She took it as normal now, but she had been at the heart of the issue and seen Orion change so many times that it no longer bothered her the way it had at first. "All right, so I can find another story, there's always more to dig up. It could have waited until after I helped Orion see this business with Apollo through."

  "Could it have, Sweet-Pea? How old would you be then? Would it be only a few months, or would you risk ending up like that man who was here, holding us hostage to draw out a myth, a legend, a phantom? How many years of his life has he kept up that chase? And what has it gotten him?"

  "McClane is obsessed with Orion, Daddy, he can't let it go and get on with his life."

  Her father looked her straight in the eyes. "Can you, Nadia? Can you give up chasing the coattails of a ghost and put your feet back on the ground? Life isn't going to set itself aside while you have your head in the clouds, you know; even if you find him again and help him, will the job and career you wanted just materialize out of thin air once you're done?"

  She flinched at that, beginning to feel like she was back in high school and being scolded for skipping class without good reason. "Well, no, but..."

  Mr. Lawson sighed, realizing he had become harsher than he had intended to be. "Sweet-Pea, it is your life and it is your decision. I can't stop you if you really want to go after him. I just want you to be sure you know what you're doing before you do; not just in terms of what you need to be able to do to keep from getting hurt, but what you risk giving up by putting your 'ordinary' life on hold. You have to decide if it's worth it."

  Nadia stood there for a long minute, wrestling with that idea. She had wanted to be a success, the way her father had been, for a long time. She had wanted to start from the bottom, the way he had, to climb her way to the top on her hard work alone, without favours from anyone. She had always understood that doing it the hard way would take time, but, as the young were wont to do, she had always taken for granted that she would have that time. If she became embroiled in these events, these weird happenings, would she? These people, these immortals, could spend years locked in contest with one another without a single care; they would always have time. She was not so fortunate.

  Taking a deep sigh, she felt her shoulders sagging and smiled weakly, sadly, at her father. "I guess you have a point... I don't like it, but you do. I'll... think about it, I guess."

  Her father smiled and, placing his mug down on the porch rail, gave his daughter a long embrace. "That is all I wanted you to do, Nadia. I know you will make the right decision."

  Letting him hold her up for a moment, she took a shuddering breath as she realized her throat was beginning to tighten. "I think I need to go back to bed for a while. Pancakes when I get up?"

  "That sounds like a good idea," he agreed, smiling.

  Nodding, she went back inside, the path back to the stairs seeming far longer than it had before. She was not crying, not yet, but she felt rotten inside, like she was letting someone down and missing out on an adventure all at once; but then, she supposed, taking the responsible route was probably supposed to feel like that, sometimes. She hadn't wanted to fit he
r slippers quite so well, but perhaps it was time she did. Sighing again, she plodded past her parent's door, and then froze as she heard someone humming in the washroom. Someone with a decidedly male tone. Staring at the door, she felt her spirits being rapidly pumped full of air; maybe he hadn't left!

  As the door opened and she prepared to dive onto the man who came out with open arms, she felt her limbs turn to lead as she saw her father come shuffling out in his usual slippers and housecoat, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. "Oh, Sweet-Pea, you're up early. Your mother and I were thinking we would do something special today, what with how serious we all were yesterday. How do you feel about pancakes for breakfast?"

  Feeling her leaden limbs beginning to move on their own, Nadia turned on her heel and flew down the stairs, jumping down the last few steps as she bolted for the door. Practically skating down the hallway in her slippers, she reached for the knob, dreading what she might, or might not, find on the other side. No, no, no, no! Don't you dare be gone, you tricky, scheming sneak! Wrenching open the wooden portal without looking out the window, she stumbled over the lip of the door and caught herself on the porch rail; straightening up, she saw the porch was vacant, aside from her father's mug, left on the porch with something white pinned beneath it. Snatching the mug up, she peeled the folded piece of paper from its underside and hurriedly opened its several sections so the page was again full size. Inside was a lengthy hand-written message to her, judging by the first line.

  Nadia, it began, the script flowing in an immaculate, cursive hand. I am sorry to have deceived you the way I did. Please understand that it was as difficult for me to do as it is for you to have found out I am gone. You will undoubtedly be furious with me, for a time, but I deserve that. I only hope you can forgive me, eventually. There are too many things that neither of us knows very much about at work, here. We do not know the goals Apollo has for his enterprises, nor anything of this 'Veil' he spoke of. I will not risk your safety by having the both of us walk blindly into these matters. I am able to survive things you cannot and it makes sense that I be the only one to take the risks inherent in discovering these pieces of information. Perhaps whoever it is attempting to manipulate my actions will assist me in finding these things out, perhaps not, but I do not want for you to be a pawn in their game as well, regardless of whether it is for good or for ill.

  You have a life of your own to live and, before you met me, dreams you wanted to follow. Please, follow them; I will return, eventually. And, when I do, I promise I will apologize once more and explain everything I have learned. Then you will have known both the life you wanted and the events you may have been caught up in and will be more able to choose between them. I know this will not satisfy you, it is not your way of doing things and I am sorry for that, too. I did not enjoy making this decision without you, but I felt I had to. You likely think I am wrong, but, for all of my apparent immortality, I am still only human and therefor prone to error.

  The next segment of the letter looked more hastily written and, had Nadia not been preoccupied with the contents of the written document, she would have guessed he had written it in a hurry after their last conversation.

  I thank you for speaking plainly with me, as well, in regards to your impressions that I was running from my memories. As I had said, you were quite correct. I suppose I had not thought a great deal about it up until now, but now that I have I realize things about myself that I had not before. I can certainly understand the apathy and cruelty Black displays more completely; it is his method of expressing that which I had refused to even acknowledge. It was also this thinking that made it apparent to me that I cannot stay by your side any longer. Not as I am. I have a long past, most of which is unknown to me at the time I write this, but one thing has become clear to me; I have not yet come to terms with the events that made me this way, nor what I lost because of those events. For one thing, I am not yet over the loss of Artemis; yes, it was many centuries ago, but to me it happened mere months ago. And... I have been inside your head, Nadia, or, I suppose, you have been inside mine, but... I know you, so very well. I could see the feelings you were beginning to have for me, building from what you once felt for Thomas. It would not have been fair, or honest, of me to remain with you knowing I could not return those feelings. Moreover, the injuries I sustained in the Icarus Development building... I can feel them, Nadia, aching inside; I must gather more essence, and soon, or the hunger it brings with it will rob me of my reasoning. If I remained near you, or your family, without finding a suitable source, it is possible that one of you could be harmed; I will not allow that to happen.

  Whether we see one another again, or not, it has been a privilege to know you, Nadia Lawson. I thank you for all you have done for me and I hope that, eventually, you achieve everything you set your aim on and find your recognition, your happiness.

  - Orion

  Letting this process for a moment once she had finished reading it, Nadia felt herself sparked back into motion. Running down her parent's front walk, she slid out onto the sidewalk, looking first up one direction of the street, then down the other. She saw no one making a hasty escape around a corner or sprinting off into the lightening twilight; she did, however, see someone approaching. Squaring his shoulders within his trench coat and adjusting his hat, Simon McClane stepped near enough for her to see his face and Nadia sighed, not in the mood to deal with his particular brand of crazy just now.

  "You're too late," she informed him flatly. "He's already gone. See? He even left me a note." She held up the sheet of paper in question to add some evidence to her statement.

  McClane watched her for a moment, as if trying to determine if she was bluffing him or not, then sighed and kicked the ground with the toe of his shoe. "I don't suppose he mentioned where he was going?"

  "Nope," she replied, being deliberately unhelpful despite honestly having no idea where Orion had gone. "I don't suppose you'd consider just leaving him alone, either?"

  "Nope," he echoed, smiling grimly. Turning on his heel, he began walking back into the lightening morning, shaking his head. "I told you he would abandon you, eventually. You should have partnered up with me when you had the chance!"

  Watching him go, Nadia shook her head. No, McClane, he left because he cared. She sighed, turning away from his retreating back and making her way out of the street. Folding the letter in her hand, she tucked it into her housecoat's pocket, frowning at the dull greys and light pinks of the approaching dawn above.

  Well, you're back to square one, girl. No leads, no partner, no story. Do I really want to go back to chasing down ghost stories and stalking imaginary vampires? ...No, she decided, feeling certain in her judgement. I spent years on that and it got me practically nowhere. If I'm going to catch up to Orion, I need to find another way to track him down; if Apollo's influence spans even half as far as he was boasting it did, Orion could be anywhere trying to dig up clues. I need a way to stay informed of goings-on on an international level. She smiled as this brought an idea to mind. Well, then, maybe it is the time to find myself a job, after all What better place to keep an eye out for weird events than a newspaper or broadcasting station?

  Maintaining her grin as she looked to the east, where the rising sun had painted the sky a pale purple with its first rays of light that had broken the horizon, she stuck her tongue out at nobody in particular. You can do the 'noble' thing with somebody else, I don't need protecting. So just you wait, mister; you aren't going to be getting rid of me that easily.