“Look at the light.”
Danny glanced at it. “Yeah. It’s a light. Big whoop.”
“Wait there.” Gustav left the room. Danny heard him open a closet door. He returned, carrying a light bulb. “You see? Sixty watts. Should be brighter, no?”
Danny shrugged. “What’s in there now?”
“Take it out. You tell me.”
Danny licked his fingertips, and touched the bulb. He was surprised. It was cool, not hot. He unscrewed it. The bulb came free of the socket…
…and glowed in his hand.
“How the…”
The light turned off in his hand.
Back on.
Danny was speechless. Gustav stopped clapping and fell silent again. Turning the glowing bulb over in his hands, Danny looked for a battery or an ultra-thin wire that he might have missed, but found neither. His mouth dropped open. There was no battery. No spider-silk-thin wire. No As-Seen-On-TV offer mechanism hooked up to the house lights. It was…
…impossible?
“Put it back,” Gustav said.
Danny screwed the light back in.
“Sit down.”
Danny sat.
“Read.”
The light went out again. Danny stared at the empty page, trying to wrap his head around all that had just happened. He saw nothing, between the darkness and the empty pages, but still he sat, looking at the book, trying to come to terms with the series of bizarre events. His mind replayed the whole day, the things that Gustav had said, the things he’d done …things that seemed impossible…but mostly, Danny thought of the string spinning on his own finger.
His vision blurred. When it cleared, he saw that a series of strange symbols had appeared on the blank page.
Gustav squeezed his shoulder. “You see now, yes?”
“I see it, but I don’t understand it.”
“Of course you can’t understand that book,” Gustav said. “Never seen the language before, no?”
“Right. So why’d you give me this when I can’t read it?”
“I gave you the book to prove to you the light. It can only be read in darkness.”
“It’s some kind of invisible ink that glows in the dark, right?”
“Is it?”
Danny started to agree that it was, but deep down inside, he knew better. This was something else entirely. “Are all the books like this?”
“Like what?”
Danny hesitated. He knew the word, but it sounded wrong, foolish. Stupid. His friends would have laughed at him. But it was the only word he could think of.
“Magic.”
“All books are magic,” Gustav said. “Now try again. Try to read.”
“I can’t—”
“No. There is no ‘can’t,’ understand?”
“You sound like a Russian Yoda.”
“What is this ‘Yoda’?”
“Are you serious? You don’t know?”
“Nyet.”
“What?”
“Nyet. No. Explain.”
“He’s a Jedi master. Sort of looks like a frog.”
“Bah.” Gustav waved his hand in dismissal. “Read.”
Danny tried making sense of the symbols on the page, looking for a pattern.
“
“Shut up,” Danny said. “I’m trying to read this.”
Gustav said no more. He watched as Danny engrossed himself in the book. Watched as the afternoon passed and turned to evening, and then to night. Watched as, outside, the shadows started to dance.
He stared into the darkness, and the darkness stared back.
FOUR
Dana Wheeler knew how to use her looks. Her biggest problem was a lack of ambition. She could have gone on to bigger and better things on her own, but she preferred being with the right guys who might take her to bigger and better things themselves.
Currently, the right guy was Tony Amiratti Junior. As far as the public knew, his dad owned a roofing company, an electronics store, and invested heavily in the right stocks. In reality, Tony Amiratti Senior was part of the Marano Family crime syndicate. So was Tony Junior. Like father like son. As a result, Tony had money to spend on Dana. They lived the good life. All she had to do was make sure he stayed satisfied—and she was very good at keeping Tony happy. Much better than the other women he slept with.
Sweat glistened on her naked body. Her nipples hardened as the ceiling fan gently blew air across them. Tony snored softly. Dana was restless and wide-awake. Tony never had that problem after sex. He needed a full night to recover. She didn’t really mind, but now and then it would have been nice to talk afterwards. She glanced at the alarm clock on the dresser. Nine PM. Not late. Sleep would be a long time coming.
The bathroom light was on. Its rays spilled out from the open door and into the bedroom, casting shadows. Movement in the corner of the room caught her attention, and she looked to her right. There was nothing to see, but the fine hairs on her arm rose. One of the shadows seemed darker than the others.
“Tony? Baby?”
Tony mumbled in his sleep.
Dana had always been afraid of the dark. Bad things waited in the shadows. That’s what her older brother Pete used to say when they were kids. He’d told her that shadows had minds of their own. Growing up, she’d believed him. As an adult, the notion was easy to dismiss.
It wasn’t so easy now.
Tony rolled over and smacked his lips. “Tell Vince to ugh wump,” he mumbled. Then he was silent again.
Dana was about to dismiss her nervousness when, in the darkness, something moved again. She sat up. A shadow slipped across the wall and glided slowly along the carpet. The bathroom light did not keep the shadow at bay. She tried to cry out, but couldn’t. As she watched, the shadow slipped up over the foot of the bed. It was
