Chapter Thirty-Two

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

 

Somewhat to my surprise, the odd, supernatural poet actually was outside. They hadn’t simply vanished when they walked out the door, and were in fact walking at a casual pace through the snow. They weren’t dressed for this weather; just a black t-shirt and tattered black jeans, beat-up old sneakers, nothing like sufficient for a January night in Pittsburgh. They didn’t seem to care, or even notice.

I caught up to them easily enough, since they were moving at a pretty relaxed speed. I made a point of moving up beside them rather than directly behind them, giving them time to register my presence before getting close. People who had any involvement with the supernatural often ended up…jumpy.

“Hi,” I said, once I was close enough. “You want some company?”

They shrugged. “Sure,” they said, and their voice was odd. I could barely detect inflection in it, certainly nothing like the intensity of the recital I just heard. It was just a toneless, calm voice in the space where male and female standard vocal ranges overlapped. They said nothing further.

This fit with the rest of their presentation. Now that I was closer, I could see that they looked…blank. They were entirely monochrome, to a degree that was creepy. Their skin was white. Not the pinkish shades people usually mean when they say that. It was white like paper, like bone, like the snow falling onto it. Their hair and irises were pure black, black like ink or a raven’s darkest feathers. They wore black and white, exclusively, and the overall impression was lacking color to a degree that was kinda unsettling now that I actually saw it.

I was starting to wonder if this was a good idea. But I was already here, so I might as well keep going.

“My name is Kyoko, by the way,” I said, as we continued walking. I wasn’t sure whether they had a destination, though once again I was keeping track of where we were. I really had learned that particular lesson pretty well.

“Mine is Shadow,” they said. Apparently my reaction to that was a little too obvious, because they smiled a tiny bit, and elaborated. “It’s short for ‛The Shadow You Cast In Brightest Light’. A friend gave me the name.”

“Okay, that’s at least slightly less cringe,” I acknowledged. “Still a little over the top, but at least it’s original.”

“It was a joke,” they explained. “It was…the light is not your friend in that place. It will burn your skin off in less than a minute, and keep going into the meat. We learned to stick to the dark places, most of us.”

“Ahh,” I said. “I see. A refuge, when the danger is most pressing.”

“Yes. A reminder that however bright it was, you still cast a shadow. It was…a meaningful gift.”

“I would imagine,” I agreed. “And also a pretty good joke, have to say. At first I was thinking, you know, overly dramatic edgy posturing. That it’s something kind instead is an interesting reversal of that expectation.”

“Yeah,” Shadow agreed, smiling wider now. Their lips were jet black, their teeth perfectly white. “That’s why he phrased it like that. Little mindfuck for fun, you know?”

“Yeah, I dig it.” I was quiet for a few moments, then said, “For clarity, I don’t have, like, a specific goal here. You just seemed interesting, so I figured I’d come say hi.”

“Huh. That’s a first.”

“That someone would want to talk to you?”

They shrugged. “More or less, yeah.”

“Dunno why,” I said. “You seem interesting.”

“Thanks. And…likewise? I think that’s the word.”

“Might be,” I agreed. “Do you have a hard time with that? Language, I mean.”

“Yes and no.” Shadow smiled a little again. “I used to be good at it. Things got…shattered down there, though. And now it’s like I know the words, but I don’t know why I know them, and that makes things hard sometimes.”

“Huh.” I was quiet for a couple steps, then said, “That’s impressive, honestly. The poem was pretty good, even for someone who doesn’t have any issues with language.”

“Thanks. I think I used to like poetry.” They shrugged, dismissive in a way I couldn’t quite read. “It’s something to do.”

“You do it well.” I paused. “Oh, hey, pronouns? Sorry if that’s overly direct, just don’t want to be rude.”

“I think I used to be a boy,” Shadow said, slowly as though each word had to be thought through before it could be spoken. “But I don’t remember what that meant, or whether I cared. So I guess I don’t really have much attachment to the idea.” Abruptly, the pensive look was replaced with a playful, almost feline smile. “Let’s go with ‛it’. That seems likely to trip people up, it’ll be funny.”

I sighed. Well then. If that was what Shadow’s sense of humor was like, it would fit in great with the gaggle of lunatics I’d somehow accumulated.

“Are you going anywhere in particular?” I asked after a few moments of quiet.

It shrugged again. “Not really. Figure I’ll find somewhere to sit and think.”

I paused. “Do you need somewhere to sleep?” I asked. It had occurred to me that if it was really that isolated, it might not have basic shelter.

It laughed. “No. I don’t sleep. Traded that away a while ago.”

“Traded it away,” I repeated. “Uh. Not sure what you mean by that.”

“Hm. I don’t really know how to explain this.” It gestured vaguely at itself. “It’s…you give things up down there, you have to if you want to keep anything at all. You cut stuff away and replace it with something else. I gave up sleep, so that I didn’t need to. That kind of thing.”

That made…very little sense to me. I got the distinct impression that Shadow was referring to things that I had no context for, no way to understand. But I could at least get the basic idea. It had gotten the ability to function without sleep, in trade for giving up the capacity for sleep.

I felt a noticeable surge of envy at that thought. I tried not to let it show; I wasn’t sure how well it was working.

“I have to go back to the Blackbird soonish,” I said, rather than comment on that. “So we probably don’t want to wander too far.”

“Cool.” It turned at the next intersection, starting to meander back in that direction. I followed. After about half a block, Shadow commented, “I like your tattoos. By the way.”

“Thanks.”

“Are they colorful?”

That one threw me for a second. “Uh,” I said. “Yes? Can you not tell?”

It shrugged. “I don’t have colors anymore.”

“Ah,” I said after a moment, recognizing what it meant. “That’s why you’re rocking the monochrome look?”

“Not monochrome,” it corrected. “Achromatic. I don’t know why I know the difference, but I do. And yes.”

I laughed. “That kind of memory glitch sounds really confusing, wow.” I paused. “Didn’t you just do a whole poem themed around the color of flowers, though?”

“Do prisoners only write songs about the inside of a cell?”

I considered that, and then nodded. “Yeah, that’s a fair point. Anyway. Yes, my tattoos are very colorful.”

“They sound nice. I remember liking colorful pictures.” Shadow sounded a little wistful, and a lot thoughtful.

“I like them,” I agreed. “I’d show you if I could. Living without color sounds…hard.”

It shrugged. “It is what it is. No one comes back the same.”

I started to respond, then paused. Something felt…wrong. I wasn’t sure what; there was just a feeling that something was wrong, out of place.

After the week I’d had, I wasn’t about to question it. I dove forward and to the side, ducking behind a dumpster. It wasn’t much shelter, but it was what I had.

And because I had, when a flashbang went off a few feet from where I’d been standing, I was…slightly less incapacitated. I did not, for example, actually lose consciousness. But it was still one hell of an intense overload, a light so bright it left me blinded and trying to blink away the afterimages with no success. My ears were ringing loud enough after that piercing screech that I couldn’t even hear the gunshots that started a second or two later, never mind speech.

And there were gunshots. Even if I hadn’t expected as much, I could just barely see a plume of snow where I’d been standing, and it was still way too damn close for comfort.

This wasn’t good. I could barely see enough to walk, and while it wouldn’t take terribly long for me to recover from that, it would be longer than I had right now. And this wasn’t enough cover to hold up for more than a few moments. The dumpster would only shield me from a limited angle, and it wasn’t sturdy enough to hold up under heavier calibre rounds for long at all. I didn’t know where the shots were coming from, and didn’t know where to run even if I could see well enough to do so.

I could recognize how bad the situation was, but that was about it. I could barely even think through the ringing in my ears. That had been one hell of a nasty flashbang, and it wasn’t like I was good at shrugging those off to begin with.

Before I could even try to form a plan, much less act on it, I felt someone grab my hand. I almost jerked away, but then remembered that I hadn’t been alone, and while I didn’t know if I could trust Shadow, it was a better choice than staying where I was. I let it pull me to my feet, though I couldn’t see it through the afterimages.

It didn’t appear to have any such difficulty. It pulled me up, and then tugged me over towards the wall; I was stumbling, but with its hand to help me balance myself I didn’t actually fall. Then it took us through the wall, which was strange. After a moment, I realized that it was just a side door, still somewhat functional even though the warehouse it belonged to was long defunct. An ordinary enough escape route.

How it had gotten the door open so quickly, though, was beyond me. It had to have been locked, and even a gifted burglar needed at least a little time to get through even a basic lock. It couldn’t have taken more than five or ten seconds for Shadow to recognize the ambush, locate an exit, get the door open, and pull me through it. That…wasn’t normal.

The door slammed behind us with a thump I could barely hear, and Shadow was continuing to move. It was pitch black inside, and I couldn’t have seen even if I could see right now; my vision was better in low light than human, but I needed some amount of light to see. Shadow evidently had no such limitation, because I could feel how precise its movement was, how confident. And following it into the dark was probably an objectively terrible idea, but I had no better ones, and if all it wanted was to kill me, I’d be bleeding out in the snow already.

I followed, and it kept a grip on my hand, steadying me as I stumbled along through the building. I had no real idea what was going on; I couldn’t see at all, couldn’t hear. Shadow’s hand was cold and wet from the snow, and its skin felt odd somehow in a way that I couldn’t pin down. I could hear the howling wind, could see the almost-visible flicker of its signature. In the absence of any actual sight or sound to interfere with them, the overall impression was that I was stumbling through the void while clinging to a cold, unseen presence, with the certainty that I could almost see something I should be scared of. I could feel the emotional resonance very clearly, too, a sort of calm assurance. Shadow wasn’t scared or unsure in the slightest, and it wasn’t hesitating.

On the whole, it was one of the spookiest experiences I’d had in my life, and by the time my hearing started to recover, I was hyperventilating.

“We’re almost to the street,” Shadow said calmly, apparently recognizing the shift as my hearing started to recover. “They stopped shooting as soon as we were out of sight, so I think we should be safe.”

“Okay,” I said, somewhat surprised by how steady my voice was. “Ugh. Fuck. Thanks.”

It shrugged. I could feel it from where I was still holding its hand, even if I couldn’t see the gesture. “No problem.”

“That is. An unusually casual attitude about getting dragged into a gunfight.”

“It’s not a big deal.” Shadow sounded a little amused now. “I’ve seen worse things. Okay, we’re at the door.”

“Okay,” I said, and it pulled open a heavy metal door. It wasn’t bright on the other side—it was still the middle of the night in a sparsely-inhabited industrial neighborhood, after all—but by comparison to the pitch black of an unlit building, and coming on top of the overload of the flashbang, the dim light of stars and the occasional streetlight reflecting off of fresh snow was almost blinding.

That door had to be a heavy one. And at a glance, it looked like it might have been rusted shut; this garage hadn’t been used in years. Shadow didn’t seem to have any difficulty with it, and let it slam shut behind us.

“So,” it said after we’d walked about half a block from the garage. There were no further signs of danger, and I was guessing that there wouldn’t be. “Friends of yours?”

I laughed. My senses were mostly recovered now, which was a relief. “No,” I said. “Not exactly. Some asshole who’s been trying to kill me a lot lately.” Which didn’t narrow it down much, but I was confident this was Cormac’s work. Or, rather, his assassin’s. I was at this point pretty much certain he wasn’t the one pulling the trigger on any of these attacks. The contrast between the aggressive, reckless disregard in larger strategies and the elegant, skilled mechanisms being used on the ground still felt very stark. And I was getting the distinct impression that Cormac was both the kind of asshole who wouldn’t care about dragging bystanders into a gunfight, and the kind of coward who wouldn’t take the risk of being on-site for it himself.

I was just as glad, in a way. Of the two of them, Ekaterina was by far the one I had more respect for. That was…convenient right now.

“Do you know what you’re going to do about them?” Shadow asked me.

“Yeah, think so,” I said. “Figure tomorrow I’m going to go try to kill the bastard before he gets another shot at it.”

“You want a hand?”

I paused at that. “You literally just met me, like, fifteen minutes ago,” I said. “And you want to help me kill someone with no more information than that?”

Shadow shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. And I got back five months ago. You’re the first person I’ve talked to since. Seems simple enough.”

“You’ve said a couple things like that,” I said. I hadn’t started walking again. “The light in ‛that place’, stuff getting broken ‛down there’. Kinda wondering what you mean.”

“Oh,” it said. “Right. Forgot to tell you, sorry. It’s…hard to explain.” It was quiet for a moment, then said, “I used to be human. Not sure when. But I was.”

“But something happened.” It wasn’t a question. I’d felt its signature, and if there was any human in Shadow, the telltale shimmer of human magic was utterly drowned out by the howling wind.

“Yeah.” Shadow smiled. It didn’t look very happy. “Don’t know exactly what. Everything from back then is…fractured. Like a kaleidoscope, a little bit. I know what a kaleidoscope is and that I used to like them, but I don’t know what they were like. It’s just shards of memories that I can’t reassemble. There was some fucked up shit going on, though. I know I tried to kill myself when I was seventeen, and then I fell through the cracks and things got a lot worse.”

I hesitated. But Shadow looked pretty distressed by those memories, and it had taken my hand earlier, so I was guessing it didn’t have the kinds of problems with touch that, say, Melissa did. So, delicately and giving it plenty of time to opt out if it wanted, I reached out and patted it gently on the shoulder.

It smiled a little more, and it still didn’t look happy, but it at least seemed to take a little bit of comfort in the touch. “Thanks,” it said. “Anyway. Apparently I fell into this part of the Otherside called Limbo. Didn’t know any of this at the time, I was just a normal kid. I called it the Badlands, kinda my little joke. That part of Limbo does look like Badlands National Park, just taken to an extreme. But it’s also a really bad place.”

“And no one comes back the same,” I murmured. Even if it hadn’t told me, I’d have known that. Privately, I had to wonder both how an ordinary kid had survived there, and what it had sacrificed in the process.

We all paid a price for our sanctuaries. I was guessing Shadow had paid more than most.

“No one.” Shadow shrugged. “Limbo takes things. I think that’s the whole point, what it’s for. It tears things away, and you have to find something else to patch yourself up with, or else you die. Hardly anyone gets back out, and even if you do, you’re, well. Not you anymore.”

“I don’t imagine so, no. Even leaving the supernatural part out, that kind of experience…changes a person.”

It laughed. “Yeah, guess that’s true, too. Anyway, I got out about five months ago. Into the same world I came from, even, and that’s even harder. But I don’t know how to live here anymore. Learning that has hurt.” It shrugged. “Everything’s dangerous down there. I almost died four times in the first ten minutes, and it didn’t get better from there. And you’re the first person who’s talked to me since I got out. Seems reasonable to me.”

I just stared for a few seconds processing that. I could somewhat see what it meant; if it was that accustomed to violence and other near-death experiences, a gunfight might not be a big deal to it.

But when I tried to imagine what that had been like—spending god knows how long in a nightmarish world where everything is trying to kill you, as a teenager who was already broken, while having your humanity and identity ablated away by the wind, spending long enough like that for lethal violence to stop having any meaning at all—I had to work not to physically shiver. And when I tried to imagine the kind of person who could do it, the resolve and sacrifices required to survive that experience, it didn’t get better.

Bottom line, Shadow probably did regard this as a trivial favor. And while it was creepy as fuck, if I followed Nemesis’s advice and looked at its actions instead, they were pretty benign. I was not sure I would have survived the most recent attack had it not been there.

And I just did not have enough options to turn down help. Not even from a creepy, achromatic spectre I’d met fifteen minutes ago.

“I would appreciate the help,” I said after that pause, and Shadow smiled, and for just a moment it wasn’t hard at all to see the scared, lonely boy it used to be.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter