Shades

A police car rolled slowly down the street. Edward grinned in satisfaction. The others were arriving right on schedule, eager as he was not to disappoint their Master. Bedrik was already angry over Wells’ failure. If they screwed this up…he shuddered, unable to contemplate the ramifications.

The car pulled to a stop in front of the house and two men got out. They glanced in his direction, looking at the bushes where he was hiding, and then quickly turned away.

Careful, you morons, he thought. Don’t let him know I’m here.

The others approached the house and Edward tensed, preparing himself.

“Showtime!”

789

Gustav felt their presence seconds before they knocked on the door; three men who were not men but something else.

He glanced at the bedroom. Danny’s mother slept soundly. He’d checked on her throughout the day and was satisfied with her progress. Another twelve hours or so and she’d awake, fully recovered.

Moving quickly, he ducked into the kitchen and rubbed salt onto his hands, feeling the tiny grains scratch against his calluses.

The knock came again, insistent. Gustav crossed the room and opened the door. Two policemen stood on the porch. Their badges glinted in the late-afternoon light. Their uniforms were crisp and clean. The men were young, mid-thirties, and in strong physical shape. One of them wore a gold wedding band. The other had a neatly trimmed mustache. Their police car sat at the curb, washed and glinting in the evening sunlight. But despite appearances, Gustav knew the men were not police officers. Oh, they had been, once. But no longer. Something else was inside them now—someone else. The dead lived, walking the earth in borrowed bodies.

The policemen who were not policemen didn’t smile.

He’d felt three presences, and wondered where the third had gone.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said the first. His nametag read, ‘STINE’. The other’s nametag said, ‘PUGLISI’.

Nodding, Gustav returned their frowns.

“How may I help you?”

Stine hooked his thumbs into his belt and hitched up his pants. “We had a noise complaint, sir. Care if we come inside and have a look?”

“Da, I care. I do not invite and you cannot cross.”

“Police business, sir. We do have the legal right to search these premises if we have reason to believe—”

“A policeman could, yes,” Gustav interrupted. “But you are not policemen. Nyet. You are not men at all. You are little shades, playing at being men. Is not Halloween, little spirits. Take off your costumes and return where you came from.”

Puglisi reached for his sidearm and Stine took another step forward. With a speed that belied his age, Gustav’s hand shot out. He grabbed Stine’s arm and pulled with his mind. Stine jerked as if electrocuted. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came forth. Gustav’s fingers dug into his flesh, squeezing. Darkness flowed from Stine’s pores and orifices, forming into a shadow and hovering above the body.

Puglisi fumbled with his holster, obviously unused to it. Without releasing his grip on Stine, Gustav laughed at the other.

“Your master should have given you more time to get used to your new body. You’re slow on the draw, ‘pardner’. Not make good cowboy. Me, I watch many westerns. I will show you.”

Gustav cocked his free hand like a pistol and pointed it at Puglisi. A bolt of energy erupted from his fingertip and hit the officer in the chest. Such an attack, launched by a more inexperienced magician, would have had much more explosive results. But under Gustav’s control, the shade inside Puglisi flowed from his pores, mouth, and nose, just like the other had.

Both shades floated in the air, tethered to their hosts by a thin wisp of shadow. Then Gustav made a scissors motion with his hand and the shades screamed.

“I have bound thee,” Gustav shouted. “Now I sever those ties. You thought to challenge me, no? I have defeated the Nerpa in the cold wastes of my home. I have spoken with the Siqqusim and wrestled with Belial and danced with Pan as the leaves change color. I have walked through fire and rain and the spaces in between. You have no power over me.”

The shades began to dim.

“You will not return to your graves,” Gustav continued. “Nyet. You will not go to next plane or the Labyrinth or anywhere else. Even the Void is not for you. No Heaven. No Hell. You are not even dust. You return to nothing.”

As he spoke, the shades faded until there was nothing left. The soulless bodies collapsed on the front step like sacks of flour.

Gustav stared at the police car.

“Easy to deal with shades,” he grumbled. “Harder to make car and bodies vanish.”

He stepped out onto the porch and dragged the lifeless officers inside. Then he straightened up, wincing at the pain in his back.

“Now,” he muttered, “where did third one go?”

He no longer sensed the third’s presence. Could he have been mistaken initially? Could there have only been the two? He hurried to the bedroom to check on Danny’s mother. When he opened the door he cursed.