Return to the Shadows (12 page)

“Okay,” she nodded, relief evident in her
tiny form.

We skirted a wide path around the meadow,
walking the forest’s edge, staying within sight of the open meadow
but still well within the cover of tall trees that edged the woods.
The detour cost us nearly an extra half hour of walking on feet
that were already aching, but I considered the added time and
effort well worth it. It wouldn’t do at all for me to run into
Faith and claw her eyes out in her own front yard, in plain view of
my daughter, no less. I was still seething inside over what she had
done to Ashley. It was inconceivable to me how anyone could bring
such harm to a child, and the slight was not one I was inclined to
let go of anytime in the near future. No, what Faith and her
husband had done was simply unforgivable.

We walked on in silence for another half mile
or so, each absorbed in our own thoughts and focused on putting one
foot in front of the other in order to reach our destination.
Finally, we came upon Lerna’s edge, cresting the hill and pausing
to look down at the town not far below. It took all of two minutes
to realize something was off with the scene that greeted us.

“Is that it?” Ashley spoke up from beside me,
pointing to the deserted streets of the town.

“Yes, this is it, but…” I trailed off, taking
in the eerie silence and lackluster appearance of what I remembered
to be a brilliant city.

“It doesn’t look like much of a town. Where
are all the people?”

“I don’t know.” I frowned.

I noticed the fence almost immediately. The
low countryside-style fencing that had once glowed with magic was
dim, plain, and ordinary in the harsh light of day. The spell cast
so many years ago by the Matrons was supposed to be infinite and
very strong. During the war of years past, the surviving
townspeople had erected the rudimentary fences to surround their
towns and many of their roadways.

Blessed by the Matrons, the fences shimmered
and glowed with a life of their own, forming an impenetrable
barrier against Kahn and his beasts and the wild things that lived
deep in the woods. None of the evil the people of Terlain had
fought so valiantly could touch them after that, so long as they
stayed within the boundaries of those fences, or protected zones,
as they were commonly called. How had the spell cast by the
powerful elder Matrons been broken? Had they removed the protective
barrier themselves and, if so, why? More important, what had become
of the city?

My head spun as Ashley’s question and
observation hit home. She was right, there were no people milling
about the streets below.

“Come on, we’ve got to get a closer look.” I
pulled her along beside me, stopping to trace the carvings in the
fence, becoming all the more alarmed when I felt no tingling
sensation along my fingertips.

Something was very wrong in Lerna.

***

The city was ruined. We stood in the center
of what served as Lerna’s Main Street, or rather, what used to
serve as the town square, I reflected with a sick sense of
disbelief. The place had become a ghost town. There simply wasn’t
much left, I grimly acknowledged. It looked as though a tornado had
ravaged the city; that or an army, and personally, I was betting on
the army. Windows were shattered all along the street, shards of
glass littering the once neatly swept walkways. Entire store fronts
were ruined, their contents ransacked.

Looting…Kahn’s men had been here, I realized
in an instant, fear pooling in my stomach. It was hard saying what
else had ambushed the city; enormous three-toed prints were visible
in the dirt, plants hopelessly crushed under what must have been
unbearably heavy footfall. I didn’t want to know what weighed
probably upwards of three hundred pounds and had three giant toes,
and certainly didn’t intend to stick around long enough to find
out. But the fact remained, Ashley and I needed supplies and I
desperately needed rest.

Taking in the massive street sign pole that
hung snapped in two in the middle of the road, I mentally kissed
six hours of restful sleep goodbye. In fact, the chance of getting
off my feet at all in the near future was looking slim. But at the
very least we would need to eat. The field rations I’d packed at
the start of our journey were running low, and Ashley would need a
more balanced meal very soon. Not only that, I admitted with a
resigned sigh, but we were nearly out of water. Running in the
other direction was simply not an option. Hell, I thought,
traveling on foot is not an option, not without the protection the
fences would have afforded. We would have to steal a car…if there
was one left behind that hadn’t been ruined.

If it had fuel. If it had the keys in it.

I rubbed my temple with the hand that Ashley
wasn’t clinging to like ivy, feeling a headache forming behind my
eyes. Too many ifs…I didn’t like this one bit. We moved silently
through the deserted streets and I half expected to see tumbleweeds
blow across the broken road in front of us. We crossed to the
sidewalk, trying to stay in the shadows cast by the tall trees that
graced the once prestigious residential neighborhood we found
ourselves wandering through. This, I decided, was likely as good as
it was going to get. Any one of the tall houses that lined the
street would contain the food and other supplies we would require.
But which house to break into? They all appeared to be long since
deserted, grass overgrown, gardens untended, dark, dingy windows
facing the street.

The cars, I considered, coming to a stop and
gathering Ashley close to my side, would determine which house I
ultimately forced my way into. We needed something reliable, not
too old, no bright colors, and it had to be sturdy. A tank, I
thought with renewed enthusiasm, peering up and down the block.
Failing that, an SUV would have to do, I decided as I spotted the
midnight blue sport utility vehicle about six or seven houses down.
It even came equipped with a brush guard, I noted on closer
inspection. Hopefully it had plenty of fuel in the tank, enough to
get us at least fifty or sixty miles away from Lerna. Ideally, the
tank would be full, eliminating at least one potential problem. If
the roads and towns all the way to Grandview looked anything like
this place, we wouldn’t be able to stop and fill the tank.

Starting out with a full tank meant we could
make the trip to Bob and Marta’s without stopping. It could mean
the difference between life and death. If Grandview had been
affected…well, I didn’t want to think about that, not just yet
anyway. Truth was, if Grandview had been affected, if their fences
had failed too, we would be screwed. Well, maybe not screwed,
necessarily, but it would certainly complicate matters.

I turned my attention to the house after
trying the handle on the SUV and finding it to be locked.

Great, I thought dismally, I have to find the
keys, too, in addition to breaking into the house quietly and
gathering the required supplies. I could only hope the people who
used to live here were neat freaks, or at least religiously hung
their keys in one spot each and every time. The old adage “don’t
borrow trouble” flitted through my mind.

“Ash, I need to go into that house and pack a
few things that we’ll need for the rest of our trip,” I began,
unsure of how to explain to the child that she was about to see me
carry out acts that, back home, would have landed me in a jail
cell.

“But nobody’s home,” she protested, pointing
at the darkened property looming before us.

“Right,” I nodded, waiting for comprehension
to dawn on her.

“You’re going to steal stuff from that
house?”

“Yes,” I patiently explained. “But it’s
okay—just this once—because we have to. Do you understand the
difference? The people who used to live here look to be long gone;
they don’t need anything that was left in the house, and I doubt
they’re coming back for any of it anyway. We, on the other hand,
are here now, and we need food and water and a change of
clothes.”

“But we have clothes,” she said with a
frown.

“We need clothing from here, from the magic
place. The people here dress differently than we do and we should
blend in, don’t you think?”

“I guess so.”

“So.” I smoothed the hair back from her
forehead. “We need to take a few things, which normally would be
wrong; but right now, under the circumstances, is okay and
perfectly acceptable. Does that make sense?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, let me put it another way. Do you want
to stay here in this city?” I calmly asked.

“No.” Her response was automatic.

“Neither do I. So we’ll do what we have to in
order to get out of here, and soon,” I added, noticing the sun
sinking lower on the horizon. I had to move quickly if we were
going to be out of Lerna by nightfall. “You’re going to stay here
while I go in, Ash.” I broke the news to her in a tone that booked
no argument. “I want you to duck into these bushes right here next
to the porch,” I continued smoothly, walking with her to the thick
cluster of shrubbery gone wild.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. And you are not to move from this spot
for any reason, no matter what you see or what you hear.”

“Fine,” she pouted, minuscule but
mutinous.

“I mean it; I can’t stress enough how
important this is—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it—stay put,” she sighed,
climbing into the vegetation and wrapping her arms tightly around
her knees.

“Right. Good girl,” I nodded, diplomatically
opting not to take her to task for her attitude. Truth be told, I
was relieved that she hadn’t yet broken into hysterics, which,
while not her usual style, wouldn’t have been an unnatural reaction
to all that she’d endured in less than forty-eight hours. Dramatics
wouldn’t even have been an abnormal response to what I was
currently asking her to do. Hating the fact that I had to make her
hide in a tangle of overgrown landscaping to wait for my return, I
arranged the foliage around her until I was satisfied that she was
well hidden from view before stepping back onto the porch,
promising to hurry as I wrapped stiff fingers around a brass knob
and turned it, testing.

As I had figured, the knob turned only a
fraction of an inch, if that. It was locked.

“No surprise there,” I sighed, eyeing the
wide window that faced the porch. From the looks of it, that
particular window would get me into what appeared to be some sort
of living room or parlor. If luck held any favor at all for me
today, the window would not be locked. I realized that it probably
was, but I couldn’t help but hope for the small miracle. The less
noise I was forced to make, the better. The town looked deserted,
and it very well may have been, but it was always better to err on
the side of caution, and intuition told me that we weren’t the only
living things skulking about the city. If we had been detected, we
would have been attacked by now, I reasoned, calming myself by
degrees while I applied increasing pressure on the dusty window
frame. Although some beasts, I remembered, only came out at night.
Though I couldn’t recall the name right then, they were Terlain’s
answer to Earth’s mythical vampires. Except vampires were creatures
of legend, stories passed down from generation to generation that
made for some good, spooky entertainment but little else. Terlain’s
“vampires,” on the other hand, were very real and very
dangerous.

Though not typically found so far north, it
was hard to tell what creatures were where, considering the breach
in Lerna’s fence. With no way of knowing if the breach was an
isolated incident or if other places in Terlain had experienced
similar glitches, it was impossible to say what was where at this
point.

As far as I knew—and my knowledge on Terlain
was admittedly limited—the beast had always been native to southern
regions like the coastal city of Coztal. The million dollar
question was, did the beasts remain in their typical warm climate
out of necessity or geography? Had they once been indigenous to
other parts of Terlain and been trapped in the southern hemisphere
at some point for some reason? If the fences failed to keep them
repelled would they—could they—make it this far, and more
important, could they survive? If so, for how long?

I exhaled and then took several deep breaths
as my efforts finally paid off; the dingy window slid up in its
casing with a screech that seemed to ricochet through the unnatural
stillness that permeated the once vibrant neighborhood. As noise
levels went, it was probably the lesser of two evils, I admitted,
wincing at the shrill sound. At least I had not been forced to
break out the heavy pane of glass. If there was anything out there
roaming the city in search of blood, then glass shattering would
have been the equivalent of hanging out a welcome mat to every
predator within a two mile radius. If the beasts were inhabiting
the city, I thought with renewed fear, then it wouldn’t matter how
much noise I made or didn’t make. We would have already been
spotted. If they had found their way to Lerna, they were probably
watching us right now. Ashley’s hiding spot would prove useless,
and I had no idea if my bullets would stop them. Logically, it
should work, but I’d long since learned not to take anything for
granted in this strange land. In Terlain, the phrase “expect the
unexpected” took on a terrible new meaning.

I considered this and more, hoisting one leg
through the window and swinging easily over the sill, paying little
attention to the smears of dirt that rubbed off onto the thighs of
my snug jeans and the palms of my hands. Gun held steadily forward,
I swung into the room, immediately dropping into a crouch below the
window. Keeping perfectly still and poised on one knee, elbows down
and gun held firmly in both hands, I let my eyes do a couple of
sweeps of the dark room. Only when satisfied that I was alone in
the musty-smelling space did I allow myself to relax and do a more
thorough inspection of my surroundings.