The Darkness of Shadows Read online

  “Kitchen please. I just want to change,” I said.

  Val stayed with me as I pulled some clean clothes together and got dressed.

  “You had me beyond worried,” Val said.

  “I’m okay. Physically much better. Mentally … Did your mom talk to you?”

  “About Rita, the early college days? Yes. Who would’ve guessed that Mom … Dad in a heartbeat, but not Mom.”

  “Everybody has secrets,” I said. And both Val and I knew that wasn’t the only little ditty Mrs. G was hiding.

  The doorbell rang.

  “That better not be Tina,” Val said.

  “I will get it,” Mrs. Guerrero said from the living room.

  It was much worse.

  “Rita,” my father said. “So good to see you after all these years.”

  “Leave, you son of a virus,” Mrs. Guerrero said.

  Wow! That’s the closest I’d come to hearing Mrs. G swear!

  “Give me my daughter and I will.”

  Val pressed her knuckles to mine. “Wonder Twin powers activate!”

  I went to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out one of the prepaid cells. We went to the window and pushed the curtains aside. The kid from Walter’s shop was in the car. The little bastard smiled and waved at us!

  Val flipped him half a peace sign and he disappeared into the seat.

  I dialed the number taped to the back of the cell, had a quick conversation, then shut it off. Val took the phone and rendered it useless.

  Energy washed over us as we joined Mrs. Guerrero at the front door.

  William Gannon stood on the porch. He wasn’t his normal put-together self: there were dark circles under his eyes, bruises dotted the landscape of his face, and a small scar crossed his jugular—my contribution to his attire. His posture was horrible, something he would’ve beaten me silly for.

  Walter was sporting a white eye patch, many black and blue bruises, and was doing the hokey pokey on the lawn.

  My father took a haughty step toward Mrs. Guerrero and bounced back like a hockey puck off a goalpost.

  “Natalie is not a possession, she is a person. And she is my daughter.” A fervent hostility pulsated through Mrs. Guerrero’s petite frame. “And Walter, you disgust me.”

  Walter looked everywhere but in Mrs. G’s direction.

  “Rita, blood is thicker than magic.” My father grinned wider than the expanse of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. “She’ll come to me to save you. It’s what you and Miguel taught her.”

  “Natalie is my daughter by love. It is all that matters.”

  “Wordplay. You were always a grand master at that.”

  “Mrs. Guerrero and Val aren’t the ones that need saving,” I said. “And I’m not going anywhere with you, Billy.”

  “How dare you!” He rushed forward only to be rejected by the shield surrounding us. “Dammit!”

  “Tough luck,” I said. “Thing is, Billy, some people are on their way here to see you. And they’re really interested in meeting you.”

  “You called the police?” Anger leached from his breath.

  I shifted my weight and regripped the cane. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your mind completely.” He held his hand out, as if asking me to dance. “Now come with me.”

  I laughed—it was jaded, even for me. “I don’t think so. I called the FBI. Chatted with the serial killer task force—nice group of people. Sent them a package on you a week or so ago.”

  “You what?”

  “And I called them a few minutes ago. They should be here …” I checked my watch. “Val, what do you think?”

  “The office in Newark, right? Given the time … traffic’s light. Ten minutes max,” Val said.

  “You tortured and killed sixteen women,” I said. “And Walter, they’re coming for you too.”

  “H-h-h-ow?”

  “Listen carefully because you’re running out of time. The Guerreros are my family. Plain. Simple. Done. You have nothing on me anymore.”

  “William, we need to leave!” Walter said.

  My father tried to rally. “Well played, Natalie, but this is far from over.”

  “The next time I see you, I will kill you and cut off your head, you fucking death hag!” I said. “And all the king’s Healers and all the king’s minions won’t be able to put Billy back together again.”

  I watched my father’s layers of arrogance sluice to the ground. The terrorist no longer had any leverage. Something akin to fear tangoed in the grayness of his eyes.

  Walter dragged my father to the car.

  Val and I sat on the couch. It was like when we were kids and were getting a talking to because we got caught doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing.

  “You two have been rather busy.” Mrs. Guerrero was perched on the big butt chair. She looked so tiny against the cognac-colored leather.

  “My father said some things to us,” I said. “We did some investigating and found out he’s the Dragon Slayer and Walter is his partner.”

  “Dear Lord! How did you—”

  “Ma’am, sometimes the less you know about something, the better off you are.”

  “The authorities know who you are?”

  “No, ma’am. I used a different prepaid cell phone each time I called the FBI and destroyed it after I was done.”

  “They have a recording of your voice,” Mrs. Guerrero said. “They tape incoming calls.”

  “It was a risk I had to take.”

  She nodded. “What was in the package? Where did you get the information? What about your fingerprints?”

  “It was my father’s scrapbook of the women he murdered. I took it from Walter’s house. I never touched it with my bare hands.”

  “If the FBI ever catch William and Walter, it’s enough to put them away for life, several times over,” Val said.

  “Your exploits—”

  “We don’t need a lecture—what’s done is done,” Val said.

  Mrs. Guerrero pursed her lips and stored the information away for later use.

  “Mom, can I ask you something?”

  She nodded.

  “Who found us that night? Did Tina call you?”

  I was hoping Tina had scraped some humanity from her soul to save her sister.

  A sadness flew over Mrs. Guerrero’s face and disappeared.

  “No, she did not. It was the sprites. I have other resources as well.”

  Who, Gnomeland Security?

  Something zipped into the room. It was Nigel.

  “Oh sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said as he hovered in midair.

  “Hey, Nigel,” I said.

  “Hola, Nat. Feeling better?” he said.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Val shot off the couch. He floated backward just out of her reach. “What the hell is that?”

  “Valerie, that is very rude.” Mrs. G extended her hand palm up, and he took a load off. “This is Nigel.”

  “What the hell is that thing?”

  “A sprite,” I said.

  “How do you know?” Val said. “… Oh, right.”

  “Young man, I do believe you have forgotten your manners,” Mrs. Guerrero said.

  “But I have something really important to tell you,” he said.

  “You know this is not the way we do things.”

  I felt sorry for him. I’d been on the receiving end of Mrs. G’s etiquette lessons myself.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Nigel said.

  “Do not apologize to me.”

  “Sorry, Nat.”

  “No problem. Now we have that settled, how are you?” I said.

  Instead of answering my question, he lifted off from Mrs. Guerrero’s hand, whispered something into her ear, then flew into the kitchen and out the window.

  “Un-friggin’-believable,” Val said.

  “In our world, it is the norm.” Mrs. Guerrero tucked her hair behi
nd her ears. Then a moment later, ran her fingers through it, displacing her coif.

  “I would like to know of the events leading up to the evening at Walter’s house. Valerie, please tell me what happened.”

  “Tina wanted to talk to me about Nat.” Val shook her head. “When she came over, I was doing research on the designs on Nat’s back. I shut everything down, put all the files away, but I guess she saw something. We had a huge fight and I threw her out. I had a meeting so I left right after she did. When I got home, I knew something was wrong. Tina didn’t cover her tracks very well—she didn’t set the alarm, wasn’t careful about putting things back where they belonged.” Val was a little OCD. “She printed out the scans of the last three pages of the grimoire. Nat, I’m sorry, I should’ve deleted the files and wiped the drives.” The guilt was heavy in her eyes.

  “It’s okay. My father would’ve gotten them somehow.”

  She let out an almost inaudible sigh. “I had Tina followed after that.”

  Mrs. Guerrero did a little more rearranging of her hair.

  “You’re upsetting your mom,” I said.

  “She needs to hear this.”

  “Valerie is correct.”

  “But, ma’am …”

  “The truth will not change because I do not like it,” Mrs. Guerrero said.

  Val finished the retelling of the nightmare. She needed her mom to listen, to hear her. The edge of insanity can be a lonely place to dwell.

  Mrs. Guerrero said nothing as she sat next to Val. Tears were in both women’s eyes. Tears infused with the strength of generations past, present, and of those yet to come.

  “Mom, I …” Val wept. “I couldn’t help … they did such horrible things to her … she saved me.”

  Mrs. G took her daughter into her arms and Val collapsed into them.

  “I am sorry for all of this,” Mrs. Guerrero said. “My secrets have become much too costly to keep.”

  It was mother-daughter time and I headed for the kitchen.

  “Natalie?”

  “Ma’am?

  “May I see your hand please?”

  Crap! So close …

  Mrs. Guerrero examined it as a doctor would.

  “And Valerie’s arm shows no trace of a knife attack …” She shook her head. “Traditionally, if we are treating an open wound, there is always some type of scar. I am perplexed by the healing powers of your blood.”

  “Maybe Nat’s some kind of hybrid Healer,” Val said.

  “I believe you are on the right path,” Mrs. Guerrero said. “When you visited Valerie in the hospital, what happened? Were you touching any part of her body?”

  “She was holding my hand,” Val said.

  “Then what happened?” The Guerrero eye lock was in effect.

  “The scars on my back started to hurt. Got dizzy,” I said.

  “After you healed her, what occurred?”

  “Nothing, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Guerrero gave me a lynx-eyed stare.

  “I had some real bad migraines. Passed out a few times,” I said.

  “I thought you were asleep in the chair,” Val said.

  I shook my head.

  “You did not know how to refocus the energy that you used. It went to your weakness—your migraines. Did it affect your other injuries?”

  “Some.” Oh man, did it ever!

  “You were able to bring Valerie back from the darkness.”

  “Mrs. Guerrero, it’s what friends do for each other. It’s not magic.”

  “When Valerie was first brought to the hospital …” Her eyes closed—the pain of the memory clear on her face. “She was unconscious. Breathing on her own, but not responsive to anyone or anything. Her CAT scan showed no signs of damage. The EEG was normal. The doctors were perplexed and had no answers for us. They said it was some type of coma. The only major injuries were to her hand and wrist. They were worried about her regaining full use of her hand.”

  “Her mind shut down to protect her from what happened, to save her sanity,” I said.

  “Is that true, Valerie?”

  Val shifted, distress in her posture. “It makes sense now that Nat said it. I heard you talking to me, but I was afraid to wake up. Then I heard Nat’s voice and I felt safe.”

  Val started to trace an imaginary fleurs-de-lis design on the leg of her jeans. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I needed to run some interference.

  “The Goths and my father keep calling me a ‘mixed breed’,” I said. “But I thought that wasn’t possible. Were they talking about the shield?”

  “I do not know what you mean by Goths,” Mrs. Guerrero said.

  “The ghouls.”

  She scowled. “Ah yes, the ghouls. A nasty bunch. Tradition states that only a Healer can share a shield with a Protector.”

  “Something surrounded Val and me—what was it?”

  “I know what the energy of a shield feels like,” Mrs. Guerrero said. “What encircled us was a shield.”

  “According to them, it shouldn’t work at all.”

  “Not necessarily,” Mrs. G said. “My feeling is that Karen’s magic was stronger than William’s. So much so that your healing powers are the more dominate of the two. She changed the dynamics in your favor. They thought of you as a conduit in which to control their blended magics—they were mistaken. I have never met another like you. I am not sure what powers you have besides healing.”

  Maybe Scooby and the gang could help us solve the mystery of the mixed-breed Healer.

  Mrs. Guerrero said, “We must also procure a security detail.”

  “Excuse me,” Val said, “the books said the Protector thing is a lifelong gig.”

  “These are extreme circumstances.”

  “But—”

  “You do not have the proper experience to protect your sister,” Mrs. Guerrero said. “The group I have in mind will be able to defend Natalie more suitably.”

  “Will she be comfortable around them? Can they form a shield with her?”

  Good questions!

  “No, only you and Natalie can accomplish that together. This group is comprised of humans, whom I—”

  “Nat, what do you want?” Val said.

  What I said next would either free Val or damn her to a life of protecting me.

  “Ma’am, I don’t think we’ll be getting any do-overs in this game. Val and I survived this because we trust each other. And there’s no one else in this world or yours I will ever share that bond with. As long as Val’s okay with it, we’ll look after each other.”

  Val did a mini-fist pump into the air and bit her lower lip to keep from smiling. Mrs. Guerrero scrunched her nose, huffed, and nodded her defeat.

  “Ma’am, the people at Walter’s are all scared shi—” I got the hairy eyeball from Mrs. G. “Sorry, ma’am. They’re really scared of you. Even my parents. How come?”

  Mrs. Guerrero cleared her throat. Uncertainty clouded her beautiful face. She was stalling! Man, oh man! This must be the biggest MOAS of all time!

  “To protect my own, I have resorted to violence,” Mrs. Guerrero said.

  Whoa! The diminutive woman that preached nonviolence like a Cuban Gandhi had a dark past that rivaled mine!

  “My life in this world has been dear-bought. Marrying Miguel, a human, was not thought of kindly by my parents. Not becoming a Healer was another hurdle. We had many years of turmoil because I choose a different life. They came to adore Miguel and saw that I was genuinely happy.”

  “Was it my father what pushed you away? From this world, I mean?”

  Mrs. Guerrero’s eyes rose to meet mine. “It is complicated.”

  “Ma’am, we’ve had a down-and-dirty intro to your world. It wasn’t exactly a day at Disney.”

  Mrs. Guerrero was silent for a time. If I had one of those expensive clocks in the house, you would’ve heard it ticking.

  “I know it is difficult for you to have faith in others when you have been betrayed so badly,
” Mrs. G said. “Your experiences have been relegated to William’s purview. His malfeasance. Please do not be prejudiced by him. As in any society, there is good and evil.”

  “So where do we go from here?” I said.

  “You both have much to learn about our world. You will need to do so quickly. William has exposed your talents, leaving you susceptible to the nefarious among us.”

  Both Val and I stared.

  “Your blood and energies can heal. And in conjunction with your Necromancer heritage, this makes you very valuable. As Valerie said, a type of hybrid.”

  “But my mother’s dead. The ritual died with her.”

  “Yes, but there are other rituals. Other uses for your gifts.”

  Of course there were.

  Without preamble, Mrs. Guerrero said, “I have resigned from the prosecutor’s office.”

  “Mom!”

  “Ma’am, you can’t do that! You love your job. And you’re only like fifty-five,” I said.

  “Fifty-three.” She smiled. “I love my girls more than any occupation. I do not trust your education to anyone else. In addition, you two are a handful and require all of my attention. Valerie, you will continue with your work and train in the evenings. Natalie, your studies will be full-time.”

  This magic stuff was like cooking to me. Too many unknowns, too many variables. Now I had one-on-one tutoring with Mrs. Rita Betancourt Guerrero. My instincts to escape by land, sea, or air kicked in.

  “Ma’am, I have to get a job. I’m not independently wealthy.”

  “With the exception of your extravagant gifts to Valerie and me, you live a frugal life. And the sale of your business was rather lucrative. If the issue comes up again, we will discuss it.”

  Game, set, match, Mrs. G.

  “Do we have time for a vacation before school starts?” I said.

  Val snorted. “Good one.”

  I pulled the green folder from the coffee table drawer.

  “I wanted to thank you both for taking care of me after the hospital.” And for saving my life.

  “You have thanked us numerous times,” Mrs. Guerrero said.

  “This is more of a formal thank you. And early Christmas and birthday gifts too.” I handed Val the folder.

  She read the contents. “Holy shit! Mom, check this out.”