human in size and shape, but there was no one else in the room with them. Dana blinked her eyes. Her stomach knotted with old childhood fears. Her brother’s voice taunted her.
She moaned.
The shadow hovered over Tony, settling on him, covering the length of his body. Gasping, he awoke suddenly, jolting upright. His eyes were wide. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.
Terrified, Dana slipped off the side of the bed and landed on the thick carpet. “Tony? Oh God…”
Tony reached for her, his eyes growing wider. Dana jumped to her feet, reaching for the light switch. Tony began shaking. The bedsprings squeaked. And then Dana screamed.
The shadow pushed Tony down onto the bed again and wrapped its hands around his neck. Dana saw finger-shaped indentations on the flesh of Tony’s neck as the shadow squeezed, even though the attacker’s fingers were indeterminable. The shadow shoved Tony’s face into the mattress. Tony’s hands clenched the sheets and beat against the bed. Dana moved closer, grabbing at the shadow. Her fingers slid through the darkness, feeling nothing but a sudden wave of cold.
One of the shadow’s hands released Tony’s neck and sought her instead. Its cold grasp brushed her face and hair while Tony desperately sucked in a breath of air and gagged. Dana screamed again. The shadow took advantage. Its hand slid into her open mouth. The darkness slipped past her lips, her teeth, and pushed into her throat. It pushed into Tony’s mouth as well. Dana had one advantage over her lover—she was still on her feet. She staggered backwards. The shadow stretched like taffy for a moment before losing its hold on her. The frigid, inky substance left her mouth and air rushed in to fill the void. Dana retched. Tony made a small, choking sound.
Without looking back, Dana ran, taking the hallway in four strides, bouncing off the wall as she dashed into the living room. The house was dark, filled with more shadows, more places where bad things could hide. Dana froze, uncertain if she wanted to go further. But she couldn’t go back into the bedroom. The house was silent now, but she had no doubt what was happening back the way she’d come. She slapped her hand against the wall, feeling for the light switch. A framed picture of Tony’s grandmother fell to the floor. Glass shattered at her bare feet. Even though she couldn’t see, she knew the location of the picture. It was the only one in the room. She had to go at least six more feet before she’d reach the front door. Dana stepped forward, forgetting about the broken glass. A shard punched through the bottom of her foot.
“Fuck!” Her voice cracked. She tottered on one foot. Again, her fingers sought the light switch.
She found something else instead.
A hand closed over hers. It was warm, not cold, and flesh, not shadow. Dana tried to pull back, but the hand squeezed harder until she thought her fingers would break.
“Your brother was right, Dana,” a male voice whispered in her ear. “Bad things do wait in the shadows.”
The speaker wasn’t familiar. How could he know about her brother, she wondered?
“Tony…”
“He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about him. Worry about yourself. Now sleep.”
Another hand closed over her mouth and the speaker whispered a word Dana didn’t understand. She slipped from consciousness.
789
In Gethsemane Cemetery, the dead cried out, but there was no one around to hear them.
789
Michael Bedrik received word of his brother’s death at a quarter till ten. He’d barely made it home before the police arrived. He hurried up from the basement, wiping his hands on a dishtowel before answering the door. The chief of police, Ed Winters, stood on his porch. Bedrik made sure to look appropriately mournful as the man gave him the news.
“Will you need me to identify the body, Chief Winters?”
“Well, it’s really only a formality these days, but in this case, no. He was in the water for a long time, Mr. Bedrik. We were able to identify him through prison dental records, so you don’t need to go through that.”
Bedrik sighed. “Well, that is a blessing, at least. I don’t know how I’d…”
He broke off and wiped his eyes, suppressing the urge to laugh.
Winters looked uncomfortable. “I’m so very sorry for your loss, Mr. Bedrik.”
“I appreciate that. Thanks for coming and telling me yourself, Chief. I know it’s not the easiest part of your job.” He put on the proper expression of grief, not quite getting to tears, but broken up inside, as he shook the man’s hand. “I’m afraid it might take me a few hours to make arrangements regarding Martin’s”— he made himself choke—“Martin’s burial. Is that all right? I don’t want to be a nuisance.”
“No, really, it’s fine. You take all the time you need.”
Bedrik knew that Chief Winters hated thinking about the dead. He saw it in his mind. Talking about them was one of the best ways around to drive the man away. Winters had dealt with too many deaths in his own family. Too many loved ones buried before their times were due. It was a side effect of a history of serving the community: One uncle and a father who were both police officers and a brother who chose to be a firefighter. None of them had lived past fifty and the police chief was closing in fast on his forty-ninth birthday. Fear was his constant companion. Bedrik tasted it in the man’s aura.
“Thank you again. Be safe on the road, Chief.”
“Will do. Take care.”
Bedrik smiled. “See you soon, Chief. See you very soon.”
After Chief Winters left, Bedrik sat down on the couch and stared at the wall. His amusement turned to anger. Of course he’d known of Martin’s death. After all, he’d been responsible.
In order for Bedrik’s plan to see fruition, he’d had to anchor his shadow to someone else—a homunculus. But Bedrik had neither the time nor the inclination to build one, to harvest it from his own semen and blood and hair and shape it in the moonlight—not when his twin brother would suffice. Bedrik didn’t need to waste his power manufacturing a double. His parents had already manufactured a perfect double for him.
It was easy. He’d simply released Martin from his bonds. One moment, his brother was sleeping in his cell. The next, he was standing alongside the Hudson, staring at Michael in shock, wondering how he’d gotten there and why. Michael answered his brother with a knife. He’d carved sigils that would never be found by the police, because rather than being hewn into Martin’s flesh, they’d been carved onto his soul. Then, Bedrik attached his shadow to his brother’s corpse. A simple circle of concealment had finished the job, hiding Martin in plain sight, insuring that his brother’s corpse wouldn’t be found by prying eyes—allowing time for nature to dispose of the evidence. But somehow, that circle had been broken. Martin’s body
Bedrik clenched his fists. It should have been flawless. The process had taken only a modicum of power.
It wasn’t an easy thing, the acquisition of power. You could only go so far with your natural talents. After that, if you wanted more, you had to sacrifice and study and wait. Or, if you were Bedrik, you opted for the easier route. Take the power from someone else.
A perfect example was the girl waiting down in the basement.
Sighing, Bedrik stretched and shook his head to clear his exhaustion. It had been a long day and a longer night. There were other forces at work in Brackard’s Point. He was sure of it. The discovery of Martin’s body proved it. Gustav? Perhaps, but this felt like something more. He couldn’t determine what. Still, despite this unforseen occurrence, he’d made some progress. He’d worry about the rest later. No sense wasting power on it now. Wouldn’t do for him to be impatient.
He returned to the basement. Dana Wheeler lay naked and spread-eagled across the workbench.
“Hello, Dana. I apologize for the interruption. Where were we?”
Her bloodshot eyes bulged. Her screams were muffled by the strips of duct tape around her mouth. Snot bubbled from her nose.
“None of that,” Bedrik stroked her hair. “You have to understand. There are only two ways for me to achieve my goal here. The first would take many years of meditation and offerings, and would hurt me a great deal. The other way—the way I choose—is much quicker and less costly; at least to myself. I only had to give up my shadow, and that didn’t hurt at all. You, on the other hand…Well, let’s just say this will hurt you much more than it will hurt me.”
The knife he took to Dana’s flesh was very sharp.
Bedrik whistled while he worked.
