Shadow Hunter

My fingers drummed against cracked leather as I stared at the bolted door, willing it to open. The boys should have been back by now. Not just hours ago, a day and a half ago. I closed my eyes, squeezing them against my rising panic. Daylight was fading fast, and with it, my hope of their safe return.

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the worry as I looked back at my twin, her body still except for the occasion twitching of her fingers. We'd been identical once, right down to the freckle behind our right knee and it was strange, almost surreal looking at her, knowing she should be what I saw when I looked in a mirror.

My sweet sister cried when she’d seen what I'd done to myself. She'd tried reasoning, pleading, everything she could think of to make me change it all back, but I'd liked tinting every hair on my body black and I'd liked the feel of my short pony tail tickling the edge of my shoulders.

For the first time in my life, I'd felt normal.

Lillith didn't see ourselves the way I did though, she thought our differences were a gift, something that made us unique, special. But we weren't special. We were the butt of nature's joke on humanity and my gut screamed at me every second of every day that we shouldn't exist.

The devastating truth was depressingly simple. We were seventeen year old white haired, violet eyed freaks, caught between the waking world and the one that existed behind our closed eyelids. The same strength sucking world she’d insisted on walking one last time before the boys got back.

I looked down at her, eyes closed, teeth clenched, struggling to hang on. I balanced her silver ring, a gift from our Mother, on my knee and pulled my grey sleeve over my finger tips, dabbing at the beading sweat on her forehead.

Something was happening in the Blacklands and for the first time in memory, Shades were crossing the Southern boundry in droves, bringing with them their violet sky and starless nights. They didn’t eat, they didn’t sleep, they didn’t stop. They just kept coming, pushing us back and taking our land, leaving a sea of dead bodies in their wake.

Lillith whimpered and I jerked into action. Left hand to her forehead, right to her pulse, hammering visibly through the delicate skin of her throat. It was a habbit as familiar to me as breathing, a habbit I longed to forget.

"Damn it Lillith! Wake up. Now!"

She parted clenched teeth, her bloodless lips twitching with words that wouldn't come. I caught one of her trembling fingers, shoving her ring back on. Her eyes snapped open, their pupils blown to an incredible size as she tried to focus on the room before her.

"What…” my twin caught sight of my dark expression and trailed off, taking a moment to collect herself. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

I bit back a sigh and stood. It didn’t matter what I said, truth or lie, it would do nothing but upset her. Besides, it wasn't her fault I'd gone against my better judgement and given in. At least now I wouldn't be stupid enough to let her do it again, however persuasive she tried to be. Being the bad guy was better then loosing her.

She huffed at my silence, scratching the side of her neck as she sat up. "I swear this bed has fleas."

"It wouldn’t be the first."

She twisted the ring I’d forced on her finger, slipping it off to put on her thumb. "I didn't find him."

My heart sank with her words. "No news is good news."

She nodded, though she looked far from convinced.

I softened my tone, wary of her disappointment. “Lie down and get some rest, I’ll keep watch for the others.”

She shook her head, stuffing her still trembling fingers beneath her armpits. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“You’re the one who hasn’t slept since they left.”

“I’m fine.”

“But-”

“You know you’re weak after that,” I snapped, nodding towards her ring, “and we can’t afford you getting run down and sick. You know the deal. You go there, you sleep.”

She glared at me, pulled out her hair tie and lay back down, rolling her back to me. I put what distance I could between us in the matchbox of a room, letting her sulk on her own as I leant back against the far wall.

As much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, I was tired. And my nagging need for sleep was steadily growing from a dull thud behind my left temple into a full blown headache. I tilted my head back, inspecting each and every light above us in an effort to keep myself awake.

Our temporary home was just like every other we'd stayed in this close to the creeping boarder. Two double beds, a cracked cabinet sporting a small radio and a round table that surprisingly enough, still had three matching chairs.

They’d tucked an olive kitchenette into the far corner, making the fridgeless waste of space share a wall with the bathroom. The two windows had been boarded up with splintered planks of rough wood, whilst the roof, completely intact and free of water stains had its usual horde of hanging lights plus an extra row of fluorescent tubes that ran the perimeter of the front door and window panes.

Before the war, this kind of lighting was unheard of outside the mining towns that ringed that Blacklands. But as the blue sky turned violet, heralding the coming terrors, night proofing had become essential to everyone’s survival. Light produced an impenetrable barrier to hostless shades. Add an Ultra Violet bulb to the mix and you could kill them. Taken on the other hand...

The wind shrieked, giving voice to my growing fear as it raked its angry claws down the side of our motel room. I glanced at my thin fingers, studying the battered band I spun with my left thumb, the identical partner to Lillith’s.

"Fayle?"

My head snapped up at the sound of her voice. "Yeah?"

"I miss him."

"Me too."

"Do you think we'll ever find him?"

"I know we will."

"What if we're too late?"

"Then we'll find a way to free him."

She rolled over to face me, her long white hair coiling around her neck. "And if we can't?"

"We'll find him."

She curled herself into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest. "But -"

"Lillith, listen to me. Would you have found him if he’d been Taken?"

She nodded, wiping her wet cheek on her knee.

Nick being Taken, becoming one of the countless people that had stepped too close to a dark corner and become, for lack of a better word, possessed by a shade, was our biggest fear. When they took hold of your body they forced you from it, sending your wandering soul to the other world whilst they used your flesh to fight the rest of us in the light of day. It was these faces that Lillith searched, trying to find our brother.

"I won’t give up on him Lills. Neither will you."

"But there's so many now... Begging for help... What if I've missed him?"

"You could never pass over Nick. You love him too much and I doubt he'd let you."

She put her head back down on her lumpy pillow, her face defeated.

"Who did you see?" I asked, recognising the look.

"No one."

"Lillith!"

"It was... It was Stuart," she whispered, her voice breaking.

"Stuart?" My stomach leapt to my throat. "What about the others? Did you see the others?"

"I -"

My gun was in hand and aimed at the door faster than I could think, the turning lock giving me just enough time to land crouched at Lillith's feet, my body her shield. If those spawn of hell wanted her, they’d have to get through me first.

"Put your gun away," Aaron said, his voice muffled by the thick door.

Relief tugged at the edges of my consciousness but fear held me still. The lock turned and the slab of painted wood opened just enough to let him and his cousin slip through before he closed it again, bolting it behind him. The second man in was smart enough to to enter face first and make eye contact, he knew I was too trigger happy to risk doing otherwise. Aaron on the other hand?

"Turn around!”

Ice blue eyes met my violet, and somewhere deep inside I acknowledged the fact that he didn't flinch from my gaze like most others did. The thought sent a tingle of unwelcome warmth through me, from its molten start in the pit of my stomach to the tips of my gun gripping fingers. I shoved it aside with a viciousness saved for little else, telling myself it was nothing but relief at having them back.

"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead." He flicked his thumb towards Dave. "And do you really think he'd still be himself if I was one of them?”

"Where's Stuart?"

His tired face hardened. "Gone."

"How?"

He turned from me, unzipped his duffel bag and upended it, spilling dented tins of food and a spare light bulb onto the table. "All you need to know is that he's dead. The shade too."

He threw the bag on the floor and strode off, slamming the bathroom door behind him.

"Give him a break Fayle, it was a rough couple of days."

"Unless you're gonna fill me in on why you're a day late and how Stuart ended up dead, shut the hell up!" I yelled, turning my anger on Dave.

Poor sweet Dave.

His jaw clenched in that same stubborn way Aaron's did, though his brown eyes weren't as hard, nor his voice as rough. "He just killed his best friend!"

I forced myself to take a shuddering breath and use the three seconds it gave me to slow my pounding heart. It wasn’t Dave’s fault I was ticked at Aaron. Aaron was after all, the one who called the shots out of the three of them. Two of them, now.

“Did the Shade escape?"

Man made light couldn’t kill a shade, not like the UV rays of the sun, but it still produced an impenetrable barrier, so fending them off was as simple as keeping your lights turned on and avoiding dark corners. But a Shadow Man, someone who’d been taken by a shade? Sure, you could kill their human host as easily as the next human but that just forced the unharmed shade out of its dead flesh and into the next closes body. Yours.

If you were lucky enough to to be too far away or surrounded by light the shade would disappear into the shadows, lurking there until the next poor soul ventured within reach. It was a pathetic and undeniable craven existence but it was how they were winning the war.

Dave let out a sigh. "No. He used a HG blade."

I nodded. A brilliant man named Henry Gomez spent his life developing a UV spiked, but essentially silver based liquid that could be applied to any metallic object, leaving a coat of active poison that would kill both shade and host upon entering the their shared body. Something in perfectly balanced formula temporarily imprisoned the shade and as long as the wounds you inflicted on the human were mortal, the shade shared the same fate. The HG liquid had become as precious to us as light bulbs. It was hard to come by at the best of times, especially out here, but the boys had their connections and we'd been able to keep up a steady supply.

I stepped close and put a hand on Dave's tanned arm. "Lills had a bad run."

His eyes flicked to my huddled twin and back again. "More nightmares?"

We'd never told them exactly what it was she could do, but we'd needed a cover story and night terrors was the most believable. Aaron made it known from the start that he thought there was more to it, but Dave, like Lillith, had a good heart and preferred to believe the best in people.

"Yeah. Keep an eye on her for me?"

I felt bad asking him, common sense told me he was just as sleep deprived as me, if not more, and he had his own grief to deal with over losing Stuart, but I couldn't let Aaron walk away from me like that. Besides, Dave lived for his moments alone with Lillith, few that they were, and a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach said she felt the same way.

"Of course. You gonna get some shut eye?"

I shook my head. "I need to sort this out with Aaron."

The other two men might have bowed to his every wish and demand, but I wasn’t about to let him call the shots for Lills and I. This was suppose to be an equal partnership.

"Fayle! Let him shower in peace!" Dave didn’t yell, he never did, but he’d still managed to whisper it with enough intensity to get his message across.

"Peace is a pipe dream" I snapped back, my hand already gripping the handle.

I went in, ignoring Dave’s shaved head shaking at me as I closed the door behind me. I stepped over Aarons discarded clothes and opened the shower curtain, surprised by the amount of steam that rushed me.

"You want to tell me what happened?" I demanded.

"You're letting the heat out."

"Then you better start talking," I said, watching a river of water fall from his dark hair.

We'd spent the last five months travelling with this petulant brat of a man and his two sidekicks, the lot of us convinced that the perks the other strangers offered, us, our transport and cash supply, them, their food and light connections, was worth the conflicting personalities. The other two men had been easy to get along with, but Aaron? He irritated me. Every word, every look, right down to the way he shovelled his food in when he ate. His ferocious moods and cutting outbursts made me want to tear my hair out and slap some sense into him, yet here I stood, heart pounding, lips tingling, every cell in my body begging me to reach out and touch his tattooed skin.

"I've got nothing to say to you."

I glued my eyes to his turned face, pushing the rising heat within me aside. "You killed Stuart."

"I know!" He yelled, thumping his fist against the tiles, "I don't need you to remind me!"

"Then let me help."

His face twisted into a half scowl, half snicker as he turned to face me front on. “And what are you going to do? Bring him back? Save his soul? How about telling me the damned truth for once!"

I raised an eyebrow, refusing to let his tirade get the better of me. "And what truth would that be?"

"Whatever it is that's going on with you and your freak of a sister!"

"She's not a freak!" I hissed, using every ounce of restraint I had to keep my clenched fists by my sides.

How dare he call her that. That name was for me, not her. Not my Lillith.

"Then why did it want her?"

My stomach rolled, twisting in on itself. "What?"

"The. Shade. Wanted. Her," he said, his eyes blazing. "Why?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do!"

"No I don't!"

I truly didn’t know why they would want her. How the hell did they know about her in the first place? Only three people on the face of this wretched planet knew our secret. Me, her, and … and Nick.

"Listen to me and listen good," He said, grabbing my arm with his wet hand, "I just killed Stuart for her, and I'll be damned if I let me or Dave die for her too. Now tell me what's really going on!"

I looked from his jabbing fingers, gripping my red flesh back to his face. I’d seen him angry before, too many times to count but there was more to it this time. Guilt. Fear. Grief. A cocktail of emotions that wouldn’t let my lame excuses slide, not this time.

"She has nightmares," I spat, feeling my insides boil.

"The hell she does!"

"She has nightmares," I said again, "but not like you or me."

He loosened his grip just enough to let me yank free. "So she see's stuff."

I nodded, scrubbing the feeling of his fingers from my skin. I’d have bruises in the morning.

"Like?"

"She sees the souls of those the Shades have taken. She knew Stuart was gone before you got back."

"You're lying."

"You see this?" I said, flashing him the only piece of Jewellry I wore. "It’s the other half to the one that keeps her sane, because every time she takes it off she sees them, every should that’s been forced from their living body!"

"How?"

"I don't know."

"Can you do it?" He asked, his face twisting with the question.

"Just her."

He didn't need to know what I saw.

"Damn," he said, running a hand through his wet hair. "What would they want with that?"

"I don't know." I folded my arms across my chest, furious with myself for telling him even this much.. "How do you know they were after her?"

"Stuart," he said, shutting off the water. "The shade was trying to get information from him, not just a body. I’ve never seen one do that before."

I sucked in a relieved breath. Stuart wouldn’t have been able to give them access to anything besides harmless conversations, places we’d stayed, people we’d met. Nothing that could hurt us, not if we kept moving. But if they’d found the boys once, they could do it again.

"Would you mind?"

"What? Oh." I handed him the towel hanging beside me. "So what happens now?"

"Now? We sleep. Tomorrow we leave."

"We or you and Dave?"

"We," He said after a moment, towelling off. "And Fayle?"

"Yeah?" I said, turning from the half opened door.

"Don't hide anything from me again."

I bit my lip, forcing my tongue to reamain still as I slammed the door behind me. He’s grieving, I reminded myself, not that he was acting any different for it. I breathed out a sigh and scanned the room for Lillith. She was fast asleep, wrapped in a blanket next to a snoring Dave, still clothed in his black shirt and torn kakis. I shook my head.

His passing out next to Lillith had left me bedless and faced with two options I didn't want. Share the only other bed in the room with Aaron or sleep on the filthy, bug infested floor. I smiled to myself, option three tickling my fancy.