The Shadow Society (11 page)

“We’re not accusing you,” Fitzgerald said. “I’m simply telling you history that you apparently don’t know.” She swept a hand toward the last image. “This is a mere sample of the horrors the Shadow Society has perpetrated on humankind in the last century. The Interdimensional Bureau of Investigation was established with two related purposes: to patrol the borders between worlds, and to protect human society. It’s a losing battle. Catching a Shade is difficult, for how can you catch what you can’t see? How can you fight what you can’t touch?”

“I’m guessing that this has something to do with your pyromania.”

“Yes,” said Fitzgerald. “Fire keeps you solid. It can hurt and kill you. It’s our best weapon.”

“Listen, I don’t go around gassing people for fun. I’m not a terrorist. Before Conn dragged me here, I was living an ordinary life. Maybe it was a crappy one, but it was mine. Can’t you just let me go?”

“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

“You … do?”

“If what you claim is true—and McCrea’s evidence supports this—then you were raised as a human with no knowledge of your origins. You are perhaps the one Shade who has no belief in the Society’s propaganda of hatred and destruction. You must have sympathy for the human cause.”

“My sympathy might be a little tarnished by abuse and kidnapping.”

“Regrettable, but consider what we face.” Fitzgerald pointed at the hospital scene, at the rigid limbs and bugged-out eyes. “There hasn’t been a Shade attack in years, but recent intelligence indicates that one is in the planning stages. The IBI could keep you here forever, or we could take a risk. We could ask for your help. Infiltrate the Society. Make the Shades accept you as one of them. After all, you
are
. If you manage to gather useful information, the IBI will send you back to your world.”

“How
much
information? How long would this take?”

“The IBI will determine that. Darcy, do you want more people to die?”

“No.”

“Do you want to remain a prisoner of the IBI?”

“Yes. It is my one true ambition in life.”

Fitzgerald made an impatient noise. “Do you want to go home or not?”

Home. I wasn’t sure what that meant anymore. After the freak show on Saturday afternoon, Marsha would probably be glad to have her spare room back, and I’d have a short return trip to the DCFS. I’d stay in a group home until I was eighteen. Then the DCFS would cut me loose. Lily, Jims, Raphael … maybe we’d stay in touch. Or they’d forget about me. They’d have each other.

I remembered leaning toward Aunt Ginger and whispering my secret in her ear. “I want a family,” I had told her.

Aunt Ginger had thrown back her head and laughed. “Why, make your own!”

Now, in the iron-walled cell, I considered Fitzgerald’s proposition. I doubted there was much left for me in Lakebrook. As for the Shadow Society, it was possible they had done the horrible things Fitzgerald claimed, but I had only her word, and I didn’t exactly trust the IBI to tell me the truth. Could Shades really be so evil? I wasn’t evil.

And I was a Shade.

This was a chance. A golden opportunity, like they said. I could find out more about my past. I’d judge the Society for myself. Maybe I could find my parents and tell them exactly what I thought of them.

And maybe, just maybe, I’d find a place where I belonged.

“Yeah, okay,” I told Fitzgerald. “I’ll do it.”

19

“Excellent,” she said. “McCrea will be your handler.”

“My
what
?”

Conn’s eyes cut to Fitzgerald’s. When she nodded, he said, “You’re to report to me, Darcy. We’ll meet on a regular basis but at irregular hours, and in different locations. You’ll pass along any valuable information about the Society. Meanwhile, if the IBI needs something else from you—either based on your intel or on its own agenda—I’ll give you instructions.”

“No way,” I told Fitzgerald. “Not him.”

“You have no choice,” she replied. “You need a liaison within the IBI. If you don’t like it”—she tapped the glass box—“you know your alternative.”

“Give me someone else!”

But she was already heading toward the iron door. “McCrea is best equipped for the job. And quite frankly, no one else would be willing to work with you.”

She left me alone with Conn.

With a slight shake of his head, he began talking. Rules and regulations of our partnership. Standard operating procedure. Et cetera. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe he was acting as if he had done nothing wrong.

“Darcy, are you paying attention?”

Silence.

His mouth tightened. He stood, jerked the door open, and slammed it shut behind him.

What was I supposed to do now? Maybe I’d gotten lucky and Conn was out there shanghaiing somebody else into working with me. Or maybe the deal was off.

He wasn’t gone long. He came back with a glass of water. He handed it to me. “In training, we’re told that Shades don’t need to eat or drink. But I know
you
do. I’ve seen you. After everything … I should have thought of this earlier. This water’s balanced with electrolytes, sugar, protein, and vitamins. It’s essentially a full meal.”

I drank. “What about a shower? I’m a mess.”

He shook his head. “You look authentic like this. Like you were brought into IBI custody and escaped. That’s your story. There’s more to it, of course, but we’ll go over that later.” He hesitated. “Darcy. I have to take off your bandages.” His hand reached for mine.

I flinched away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“You heard what I said.” I gripped the empty glass, wondering if Conn realized that he had handed me a weapon.

He closed his eyes. Briefly. When he opened them, they were weary. “I don’t want to take off your bandages, but it would look suspicious to the Society that the IBI healed your wounds.”

And if I bashed the glass against his cheek, what then?

I’d face a swarm of people itching for the excuse to do their worst.

“Please,” Conn said.

“Fine.” I set the cup on the floor. “Go ahead.”

He was gentle. The gauze unwound with a whisper, coiling onto the floor. My skin emerged: pink, crinkled. But healed.

Conn touched the back of my hand. I felt a spike of desire, then a gush of disgust. I wanted, more than anything, to disappear. At least then my body couldn’t betray me.

“Michael did a good job,” he said. “He has some medic training.”

“Whose idea was it to jump me in the parking lot?”

At first, he didn’t answer. “Mine. But the plan was laid before I really knew you. After we went to the railroad tracks, I couldn’t figure out if you were pretending to be human or genuinely thought you were. The plan was a test. To see what you would do. At the very least, I hoped it would make you trust me.”

It was hard, very hard, not to pick the glass off the floor and break it against him.

Conn said, “That night, when you didn’t disappear in front of him, Michael wanted to arrest you then and there. It was the smart move. It would have been easy. But … I didn’t want to do it.”

“Oh, but you did. You
did
arrest me. Eventually.”

Conn looked away. He nodded, and when he spoke, his tone was empty and official. “Tell the Society that you were burned when the IBI arrested you, and that you were imprisoned for at least two weeks. Then they’ll think that time healed your burns. You got these”—he pointed at the small cuts etched around my wrists—“when you escaped.”

He put another pair of firecuffs on me (yes, again!), swearing that they weren’t turned on; they were for show, so that the entire IBI force didn’t freak out at the sight of a free Shade strolling its halls. Then he led me through the IBI labyrinth until we reached an underground garage. He uncuffed me, unlocked a car with tinted windows, and then we were inside the car, up and out onto the street, driving along the lake.

“Where are we going?” I asked. A heavy fog cloaked the city, and all I could see was the road and the lake and the white sky.

“North. Closer to where the Society lives. Or that’s what we think, anyway.”

He outlined his master plan to get me inside Society headquarters. It seemed hopeless and dumb. I didn’t care. At least I’d be free.

“It’s quiet,” I interrupted.

“It’s Sunday. The streets are often empty on Sundays.”

“No, the car. The car is quiet.”

His face lit up. “That’s because it runs on internal magnetic energy. You really should have that technology in the Alter. It causes less wear on the transmission, there’s no messy oil…”

“Do you honestly think I care? I just found out I’m not human. I’ve got a few more things to care about than the transmission of a
magnetic car
.”

He shut up.

I gazed out the window at the lake and the boats rocking by the piers, their masts fuzzy in the fog, as if they were being slowly erased. The sky was heavy with weather. I felt like the giant cloud sagging over the city—full, full almost to bursting, because even though the last thing I wanted to do was chat with Conn, I also was dying to spill out a thousand questions.

I settled for the one that seemed most important. “Fitzgerald said you presented evidence that convinced her I didn’t know I was a Shade. What evidence?”

Conn took an exit and turned onto a small road. “From the beginning, you—you were complicated.”

“Complicated.”

“Mysterious. Shades don’t exist in the Alter, and one has never been seen on surveillance of the portals. You looked happy. Happy with a human.” He shook his head. “Impossible. And the name you signed wasn’t fake. We traced it to Lakebrook High within seconds. I thought you were taunting the IBI. Showing us how powerless humans are, how we couldn’t stop you from doing whatever you were there to do, even if we could easily track you down.” He paused. “But there is another interpretation: that you had nothing to hide.”

“And that convinced Fitzgerald.” I raised my brows. “An interpretation?”

“There’s also the way you reacted when I arrested you. The arrest … I didn’t—it didn’t go as planned. You broke your chains. I never thought you would do that. No rational Shade would—unless she didn’t know what firecuffs were.”

“Maybe I knew, and gambled. I could have bet that the cuffs were set to a low flame. Or maybe I wanted to go out in a kamikaze blaze of glory.”

The car slowed. “We considered those possibilities.”

“Then what proof did you have? I’m a monster. Why would Fitzgerald even think about letting me loose?”

Conn stopped the car. “It was your file.”

“My
file
?” I had the strong suspicion that I was going to have to kill him.

“Your DCFS file. I showed it to her.”

Psychological and medical evaluations. Report cards. IQ scores. Complaints from foster parents … even
I
didn’t know everything that was in my file. “You stole it,” I finally choked out. I felt as if Conn had seen me in nothing but my oldest, ugliest underwear. “When?” I demanded.

His hands fell from the steering wheel. “After we cut class and you told me about how your fingers had disappeared while you were drawing.”

“Why did you do that?
Why?
”

“I was confused.” He kept staring at the windshield. The weak light traced his profile, his crooked nose. He rubbed his eyes, and I found myself wondering when he had last slept. Then I wiped that thought from my mind. “It was obvious that you had no idea what happened,” he continued. “You seemed so innocent. I’m trained to look for deceit, Darcy, but when I met you I had to rethink everything. It was possible that my training meant nothing and that you could lie without the tics and tells humans have, but then why would a Shade share anything about her past with me? Why would you welcome my friendship? Or seem to. Why would you—?”

He stopped right there, and it was a good thing that he did. The memory of our kiss paced between us like a dangerous animal. Neither of us wanted to touch it.

Conn leaned back in his seat and winced. I had forgotten about his ribs. He stared out the windshield and didn’t speak.

When he finally did, his voice was crisp. “Don’t deviate from the plan. Remember that the most insidious thing about Shades is that they can be anywhere, anytime, unseen. They may already know you’re working for the IBI. Even if they don’t, they might come to suspect you.” He handed me a backpack. “Good luck. I’ll see you on Tuesday at 3:23 p.m., at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street.”

We’ll see about that,
I thought. I opened the car door.

“There’s something else,” he said.

I looked at him. I didn’t know how much more “else” I could take.

“A photograph,” he said. “Of a little girl. I found it in the IBI database, before I left for the Alter. There’s no definite match, but she looks like you.”

“All Shades look alike. That’s what Fitzgerald said.”

He shook his head. “They have the same coloring, but there are differences. Believe me. She looks like
you
.”

“Then give it to me.” When he didn’t respond, I raised my voice. “Conn, I want that photograph.”

“I know you do. I’ll bring it with me to our meeting.”

For a moment, I held the door handle, shocked at how easily he had manipulated me.
Again
. That photograph was bait. Now I
needed
to see him again. I got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and walked away.

I didn’t get very far before I heard the first scream.

Stage One of Conn’s plan was for me to parade myself in full view of everybody: a nightmare walking around in broad daylight. If I caused enough commotion, an invisible Shade might notice. Brilliant, right? I mean, if I didn’t get killed first.

I had had just enough time to register that the fog had lifted and that it was wickedly cold. I looked around at the low row houses and caught the smell of cinnamon rolls from a bakery. I guessed that maybe I was in Andersonville, the Swedish part of town. At least that’s what it looked like, except that this street had an odd metal rail running along both sides, tacked high onto the walls of the buildings, sort of like a sideways roller-coaster track, except with a single rail. And in this world, there were more trees. The streets were cleaner. Also, everyone was dressed very formally, in a mix of tailored coats and strikingly modern accessories, like caramel-colored sunglasses and high-top boots with cutout patterns. No one wore even a trace of black.