Shadowlark (5 page)

A fifth shadow stood before us in the mouth of the alley, framed in the moonlight. I could only see its white eyes glittering, fixed on us, burning with hunger.

Tansy and I lurched back and to the side until our backs hit the brick wall of the building. The fifth shadow advanced on us, its harsh breathing labored and thick with wanting.

The shadow family caught up, the largest stepping up to corner us.
Brandon
, I tried to remind myself, my brain clinging desperately to the knowledge that just an hour ago these had been people, kind and decent, and oblivious to what they really were.

The other three members of the family sent up a low, sighing wail, and I turned my face away, willing my stolen magic to change them back before one of them pounced on me or Tansy.

The Brandon-shadow growled low, the sound building—I knew he was about to snarl and leap.

When it came, I shoved back against the wall, instinct trying to find a way to escape.

But where I’d expected pain and blood and the crunch of my own bones, I heard only an answering snarl of rage.

I opened my eyes. The Brandon-shadow had leaped not for me, but for the fifth shadow. They were no more than a tangle of teeth and muscle and sinew, feral screams. Blood splashed onto the pavement, inky-black in the moonlight. The Brandon-shadow broke away with a cry of pain.

No longer silhouetted, the fifth shadow was easier to see.

I stopped breathing.
No. It can’t be him.
My mind refused to believe what my eyes were telling me.

The other shadows jumped on him, the children and mother together, and my eyes blurred with tears of shock and confusion and focus as I tried to concentrate. Tansy slumped to the ground, overwhelmed, still shaking violently from the aftereffects of being harvested.

The knife was still in my hand. My fingers tightened around it, but the fight was moving so quickly I couldn’t track who was where, only that it was still going, that the fifth shadow was still fighting. One of the smaller shadows was flung free, stumbling against the opposite wall of the alley.

The Brandon-shadow barked a short command, wordless and wild, and the remaining two shadows broke away and backed up, limping and snarling their rage. After a few more wails and whimpers, the family turned and loped away, vanishing down the other end of the alley.

The fifth shadow turned toward us, its breathing harsh and irregular. I heard Tansy gasping for breath at my side, trying to rise despite the way her legs and arms shook. I put a hand on her shoulder, my own fingers trembling.

Though she could not have understood, Tansy slumped back, too weary to try again.

I summoned every ounce of courage and stepped forward. The shadow snarled a warning, half-fury, half-anticipation. The hunger in its voice was unmistakable.

I swallowed, licked my lips.

“Oren?”

He didn’t react, his white eyes fixed on my face, his teeth bared and bloody from the wounds he’d inflicted and received. His hands clenched and unclenched, the muscles in his legs quivering as he stood there, struggling with himself. He twitched forward only to jerk back, the tendons standing out on his forearms, in his neck.

I started to lift my hand and too late remembered that it was the one holding the knife.

The shadow leaped forward, raging, grasping at my shirt and jerking me in close so that I felt the heat of his breath, smelled the grass and the wind and the metallic tang of blood. He growled a low, desperate, drawn-out sound.

The growl turned to a gasping groan, the breath shuddering in and out of him. He stumbled forward, his body heavy against me. Suddenly the hand twisted in the fabric of my shirt wasn’t holding me close—it was holding him up, and my knees sagged with his weight.

He coughed and reached out with his other hand for me, trying to keep himself from falling. He lifted his eyes, anguished—for the briefest instant I saw them flicker from white to palest blue.

Then his grip failed and he dropped like a stone, unconscious before he hit the ground.

He looked exactly as he had the day he left. I’d memorized every contour and feature of his face in that moment when he’d looked back over his shoulder at me. I traced them now, my fingertips shaking. His skin was clear again, all signs of the dark grey veins and semitranslucent flesh gone. Long, fair eyelashes, stubborn jaw, sandy hair that fell wildly over his forehead.

Despite the evidence of my eyes five minutes ago, it was nearly impossible to believe he was a monster, looking at him now. I tried to remind myself that no matter how human he seemed when he was feeding off my magic, he was a shadow and always would be. The moment he left my side, he’d become mindless, dark, and hungry. The moment I ran out of magic to keep him human, I’d be dead.

My mind was blank. I’d thought I would never see this boy again. Or, at the very least, if I did, he’d kill me before I had a chance to figure out what I thought of him.

I’ll find you.
His last words to me hung so vividly in the air that for a moment, I thought he’d woken up and spoken.
Even in the dark, you shine.

I jerked away from my inspection of Oren’s face and turned to see Tansy, half-propped awkwardly against the wall, one eye swollen shut and her arm still dangling uselessly at her side.

“My pack,” she moaned again. “I need my pack. I need my pack.”

I left Oren’s side and crouched, fumbling with the straps of my own pack in my haste to take it off. I knew what she needed. To regenerate magic required energy, and that required food.

“Your pack’s in the house, Tansy. But I have food here. See, look—cheese. Take it.”

But she shoved my hands away, trying to stand. “No—my pack. I need it.”

“Tansy!” I hissed, trying not to shout and alert any other shadows who might be nearby. “We can’t go back. We have to leave it. Even if the shadows didn’t return there, we can’t get past those barricades and we can’t climb up to that window to get back inside.” I reached out and took her good shoulder, giving her a squeeze. “It’s gone. Accept that. We have to keep moving, we can’t stay here.”

She’d started to shiver, and I realized I had too. Neither of us had had time to grab our jackets before fleeing the building. If we didn’t find shelter, and soon, then Tansy’s shock was going to be the least of our worries.

I heard a familiar sound and straightened, letting Tansy slump back again. A weight lifted, letting me take my first full breath since the Molly-shadow had lunged for me. Nix came winging fitfully up the alley, the grind of its gears harsh and irregular. I moved toward it and held out my hands. It shifted midair, spiky form reverting to that of a bee, and dropped gratefully into my palms.

“I followed them,”
it said, voice unusually tinny.
“They’re gone, they didn’t turn around to come back. That one scared them off.”
Its blue eyes turned to the motionless form lying unconscious in the middle of the alley.

“And you?” I whispered, lifting my hands so I could try and inspect the pixie in the meager moonlight. “Are you okay?”

“I will require some time to repair myself, but I will soon be fully functional.”
Already I saw it shifting, tiny needlelike arms emerging to begin bending damaged panels and pieces back into the correct shapes.

“Thank you.” Carefully I transferred the little machine to my shoulder. “You saved us.”

It clicked with irritation as it inspected my torn earlobe.
“Keep Lark alive,”
it said absently, dismissively, in its programmer’s voice. Kris’s voice. I tried to ignore the surge of hurt and confusion that sound brought and turned back for Tansy.

“We can’t stay here, Tansy. Can you walk? Did you eat?”

She took a bite of the cheese, uninterested but following orders. Only after she swallowed did a little spark return to her eyes as she discovered her appetite. She finished the rest ravenously and licked her fingertips.

“Your arm?”

“I think my shoulder’s dislocated,” Tansy said with a grimace, picking herself up with some difficulty, but managing to get to her feet on her own power. I was never so functional after my own experiences with having my power harvested from me.

“What do we do?”

“Pop it back in.” Though the grin she flashed at me was nearly feral with exhaustion and pain, it was still Tansy’s grin, and a second wave of relief washed over me. We could do this. Recover. Survive. Find a way out of this cursed city.

“Tell me what to do.”

By the time it was done, I was the one who had to stagger away and put my head between my knees, sweating and trying not to throw up. I could still feel the scrape and pop of bone under my hands radiating through me like the scratch of nails on a schoolroom chalkboard.

When I felt more sure I wasn’t about to lose the dinner I’d eaten not two hours before, I helped Tansy make a sling for her arm. She’d regained a little color in her face, but it was clear her arm wasn’t going to be useful for some time.

“My bow is outside the house,” Tansy said, remembering. “Not inside. They made me leave it. We can go back for it.”

“No. You can’t draw it like that,” I said, nodding at her arm. “It’d be useless.”

“But—it’s my bow.” She was staring at me like I’d suggested she leave one of her legs behind.

“I know. But Tansy—it’s just a thing. If we go back that way we risk the family finding us again. What if the entire city is full of people who turn into shadows at night? That whole street will be full of shadows trying to break through their own doors to get to us.”

She shook her head, closing her eyes.

“Your bow, your pack—they’re just things. You’re what’s important. You can make another bow, another pack. But there’s only one you, and I need you.”

“Would you be saying that if it were your pack? If it was Oren’s knife, or your brother’s bird, back there?”

I bit my lip, but nodded. “Yes. I would leave them behind.”

Tansy swallowed, the fingers of her good hand twisted so tightly together that the knuckles gleamed white in the moonlight.

“We need to move,” I whispered, taking that for agreement. “We have to wake Oren.”

Tansy’s jaw tightened, and her eyes moved past me. I knew she was looking at Oren’s unconscious form in the middle of the alley.

“Leave it,” she said, coldly. “It’s just a monster.”

I fought the urge to clench my own jaw. “Tansy, you saw those people in there. They didn’t
know
. None of them know. Oren may be the first self-aware shadow ever, and only because I told him. When they’re human, they’re
human.
You sat at their hearth, ate their food, told them stories.”

“And they betrayed us.” Tansy’s lips pressed together in pain and determination, confusion and fear.

“It’s not betrayal when you don’t know,” I insisted, moving so that I’d be in her line of sight, force her to meet my gaze. “They knew something happened at night. They thought we would be safest indoors. They were doing their best.”

“There’s no forgiveness for betrayal,” muttered Tansy, looking away.

I groaned. “We don’t have time for this. Help me get him up.”

“No.”

I sucked in a deep breath. “If you want to come with me, then he comes too. It’s that simple.”

Tansy’s eyes flicked from me to the unconscious Oren and back again. After a long pause, she sniffed briskly and nodded. “All right. Wake him up.”

She got to her feet as I crossed back to Oren and gave him a shake. He didn’t move—not even a groan. I called his name, shook him some more, pinched the skin on his arm, and—in desperation—slapped him across the cheek. Nothing.

“Lark,” Tansy breathed.

“I know what you’re going to say. I can’t leave him. He saved us.”

“No—Lark—” She reached down and touched her fingertips to my shoulder.

Something about her touch triggered an alarm at the back of my mind, and I tore my gaze away from Oren’s long eyelashes.

A trio of dark figures stood at the mouth of the alley.

They weren’t shadows—I could see that right away. They stood watching us with deliberation and poise, lacking the animal eagerness and focus of the shadow people. They were thick and bulky forms, and their heads were bulbous.

I couldn’t do it. I was spent. One companion unconscious, the other wounded and despairing, and me—I was just me, what could I do against this new breed of monster?

And then my focus snapped into place and I realized they were men, wearing suits and helmets. Protection against the void. I could hear the sounds of their breathing, harsh and artificial. One took a step forward, and his tinny voice came through some filter in his helmet.

“You three, get moving. You’re coming with us.”

• • •

They bound my hands behind my back with rough, scratchy rope. Tansy they left unbound after verifying that her right arm truly was useless. Though they tied Oren’s hands as well, they were forced to half-drag him along. At times he seemed to regain some level of consciousness, managing to walk a little, but the few times I saw his eyes open they were staring and vague, unfocused. He didn’t know what was happening.

I hadn’t seen Nix, but I no longer felt it on my shoulder. I hoped the pixie had fled or hidden itself in my pack.

They asked no questions and marched us along in silence. Trina’s words came back to me, what she’d said before the sun had set and everything had changed.
They come at night. And if anyone ever sees them, they don’t live to tell the tale. They vanish forever. Gone. Taken.

We had assumed they meant the shadow people. But they were shadows themselves. What could be so horrible that even the shadow people feared it?

Our captors led us to a round iron disc in the ground. One of them pulled out something that looked a little like a crowbar and inserted it into a hole in the disc, prying it up and open enough for a man to pass through. The smallest of the three figures dropped down into the blackness below, and then they dropped Oren down afterward. I heard him land with a sickening
thud
—no one had caught him. They shoved Tansy forward and she stumbled down, landing only slightly more gracefully than Oren.

The man holding me pushed me to the hole’s edge. “Down you go,” came his tinny voice.

I wished my arms were unbound so I could use them for balance. But one glance at the impassive, reflective surface of the helmet and I knew there was no point in even asking. So I stepped forward and dropped through, striking the ground and rolling as I hit.

We were in some sort of sewer system beneath the city. The close air pressed in, strangling and dank. The other suited men dropped in and closed the hole over our heads. The tiny bit of moonlight vanished, leaving us in darkness more complete than any I’d known before.

Somehow, the suited men knew exactly where they were going, missing every bit of broken stone and exposed pipe as though they could see in the dark. I heard Tansy stumbling and cursing almost as much as I was—her natural grace and coordination were no use when she couldn’t see and was being forced to march along quickly. I couldn’t hear Oren, but had to assume from the dragging sounds behind me that they were still bringing him.

Eventually we stopped, the hand that had been propelling me forward now shifting to grab the collar of my shirt and haul me back. I still couldn’t see anything, but I heard footsteps moving forward, followed by the grating shriek of rusty metal. I heard Tansy give a grunt of pain as one of them brushed past her, jarring her shoulder.

A weight stumbled against me, a familiar smell on the air. I fought the urge to jerk away, instinct warring with what I knew to be true.

“Oren?” I whispered. “Are you awake?”

For long moments, there was only the shriek of metal and the sound of his breathing. Then, voice so hoarse I almost couldn’t understand him: “Lark?”

And then hands were shoving us forward again, into what felt like an even smaller space. The hinges shrieked once more, and a door clanged shut behind us.

A fog descended over my thoughts. Muffling iron surrounded us on all sides, the metal insulating my senses. I was worse than blind. Devoid of every sense, cut off, everything silent and still as death. I gasped, trying to force air into my lungs, and could only breathe the smell of metal, sharp and cold.

Dimly I heard Tansy say something, and then the answering bark of one of the men. A light came on, dazzling my eyes. Our captors stripped off their suits, revealing ordinary people underneath. Their clothes were worn, but nowhere near as ragged as ours—but for the sweat and grime of wearing the suits, they seemed normal. Another door opposite opened and we were shoved through. I couldn’t see right, couldn’t hear. All around was iron, worse than the Iron Wood, worse than my cell in the Institute.

I went where they shoved me, kept my feet only because falling would mean touching the iron beneath me. Even Oren felt like metal when his body brushed against mine—I couldn’t feel the familiar tingle of energy between us, sensing only death and stillness.

After an eternity they shoved us forward and then clanged a barred door behind us. I ricocheted off the back wall of the room. No, not a room. A cage. Bars on all sides. Trapped. I scuttled to its center, as far from the four iron walls as I could. We were all together, Oren sprawled on the ground and Tansy leaning against the side wall, glaring through her one good eye.

A key turned in a lock.

“Wait,” I gasped, as hoarse as if my lungs were on fire. “Who are you? What are you going to do with us?”

Two of our three captors kept walking, but one hung back. I realized it was a woman, now that she’d taken off her suit.

“You’ll stay here until he asks for you. If he decides you die, you die. If he has a use for you, you live.”

“He,” I echoed, starting to shiver as shock settled in. “Who?”

“Prometheus.”