Shadow Born Read online

  It was Sunday morning and it would have been a beautiful day if not for all that had happened. Gabriel, Pete, and Jodi were all sitting at the wrought iron table in the atrium, basking in the morning sun. Pete said it was Julia’s favorite place to relax, and Gabriel could see why. Birds chirped around them and a light breeze stirred up the fragrance of honeysuckle and lilacs. A musical little waterfall ran between two trees into a pool of Japanese koi fish. It was paradise. As pleasant as all that was, a darkness hung over them.

  Reeves was gone. Dead. Julia and Mr. Oglesby were captives.

  The only good news was that Julia appeared to be alive, at least for now. They knew this because she’d had a tracking device installed under her skin a few years earlier. If the information Pete was getting from the satellite was accurate, Julia was alive and she was on a fast moving boat headed towards Asia. That left more questions than answers. Where were they going? What did Victor have planned for her? Was she safe for the moment, or had the torture already begun? And was Mr. Oglesby with her, or had they become separated? Unfortunately, the elderly gentleman had no implant.

  Gabriel had asked why Mr. Oglesby and Reeves didn’t have them, and his friends burst into laughter. “Reeves would’ve ripped it out with his teeth,” Jodi said. “He’d die before getting something like that.”

  “Mr. Oglesby shouldn’t have needed one,” Pete explained. “He wasn’t a field agent. The only reason Julia had one is because she’s so important to D.A.S. That, and because of what happened to her husband.”

  That made sense. Gabriel remembered that Julia’s husband had disappeared while on Safari. Julia must have suspected the Shadow’s involvement. His disappearance had frightened her enough that she’d had herself tagged with a microchip.

  “I can’t sit around like this,” Gabriel said. “We know which direction they’re going, I say that’s enough. I can get on a plane and be in China in twelve hours. Give me one of those satellite phones and call me when they stop moving.”

  “Hold it!” Jodi interrupted. “If you think you’re going without me, I’ve got news for you!”

  “Calm down,” said Pete. “Nobody’s going anywhere. Not yet. Gabriel, if you get on a plane to China and they end up skirting the coastline and going to Italy you’re going to regret it. It’ll take you longer to get through customs than it would to swim across the pacific. I know how you feel because we all feel the same, but right now we have to use our heads. We have to work together. We’re all that’s left…”

  He didn’t have to finish. Gabriel stared guiltily at the table. It was a waiting game, and they just had to sit there, doing nothing, waiting for Julia’s signal to stop moving. Gabriel tried, but he just couldn’t turn his brain off. He thought about the situation, and the inevitable problems that would soon arise: How long would it take to get there? Would it be possible to rescue Julia? If so, what would they need to bring with them?

  He absent-mindedly began sketching on a napkin. A few minutes later, he handed a crude drawing to Pete. “Can you do this?”

  Pete looked it over. “You want to modify the Albatross? I don’t see why not. It’ll take a day or two.”

  “Let’s get on it then,” said Gabriel. “Maybe we can have it done by the time Julia gets wherever she’s going. Jodi, what kind of supplies do we have?”

  “Supplies? As in things that go boom? There were lots of UV lights, cameras, and whatever guns and ammo Julia could scrounge up. It’s all on the plane already.”

  “Let’s get an inventory,” Gabriel said. “We’re gonna need all the firepower we can get.”

  Suddenly everything changed. They were on a mission. Gabriel helped Pete locate the parts and tools they needed in the shop while Jodi took the ATV back to the plane to assess their supplies. They used the four-wheeler to cart supplies back and forth to the Albatross. They saved the T.I.G. welder for last. The thing ran off its own portable generator, and it was so heavy that it was built right onto a trailer. Unfortunately, as they reached the plane, something happened to the ATV. It rolled to a stop a few feet from the plane and would not move. Jodi gunned the engine, but the machine stood motionless.

  “The clutch is fried,” said Pete. “Either that or the transmission’s busted. Reeves won’t be happy about that.” Then he corrected himself. “He wouldn’t have been happy.”

  That was depressing, but they got on with their work and tried to forget about it. They had to stay focused if they were going to save Julia. Just as Julia had recently said, there would be time to mourn later. For now, there was work to be done.

  When Jodi saw Gabriel and Pete taking a saw to the body of the Albatross, she decided she didn’t want any part of it. She peeked at the plans Gabriel had drawn, but it looked like a bunch of scribbling with arrows pointing to a lunch box. Then, when they fired up the welder and sparks began to fly, she’d seen enough.

  “I’m gonna walk back to the house and make some sandwiches,” she announced. They didn’t seem to hear her over the roar of the generator and the loud buzzing of the grinder. It didn’t matter, she just wanted to get away before the inevitable explosion.

  A couple hours later, they were all relaxing in the shade under the Albatross, munching on Jodi’s PB&J’s. They were either really good or the boys were starved, because they each had two and then began woefully searching the empty bag. “I’ll make more,” she promised. “But first we need to talk. It’s about the inventory I took.” She unfolded a scrap of paper and read it aloud, listing out all the supplies that they had left. The list sounded woefully inadequate.

  “Four magazines of ammo?” Gabriel said. “Three EGGs? That’s not enough. That can’t be everything.”

  “It is,” Jodi assured him. “Between what they took out of the armory, and what we lost in Canada, we’re pretty screwed.”

  “That won’t even get you close,” Pete said. “There’s an endless supply of shadow creatures.”

  “We know,” said Gabriel. “We saw them last night. Victor must have been pulling them through for weeks. We’d need a whole army to fight them all off.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” said Jodi. “We can’t just walk up to them and demand Julia back.”

  “There is one other option,” Pete said. “Mr. Oglesby’s lab at the school…”

  “The lab!” Jodi interrupted. “Of course.”

  Gabriel stared at them questioningly. All he’d seen in Mr. Oglesby’s office was telescopes. Those, and the contraption on his wall.

  “He always stored a few extra things,” Pete said. “Outmoded devices that he liked to keep around, and prototypes. That sort of thing. We designed a second-generation EGG that he said would be ready soon, too. Maybe he’ll have a few done already. Cross your fingers, because you’re going to need as many as you can get.”

  It sounded like too much to hope for, and Gabriel was pessimistic. “So we don’t even know what’s there?” he said. “It could be nothing. And how are we going to get there? Take a bus? Hi, bus driver, can I bring my grenade or does that have to be stowed?”

  “Take my motorcycle,” said Pete. “You won’t be able to haul much, but its fast and it won’t attract too much attention.”

  “Sounds good,” said Jodi.

  Gabriel suspected Jodi went along with the plan because she wanted to drive the bike. His suspicions were soon confirmed. A short while later he found himself hanging on for dear life as Jodi negotiated the dirt bike along the Old River Road at speeds that were almost certainly illegal. If the speed wasn’t, the wheelies and jumps were definitely illegal.

  For the most part they stayed low, cruising down the dry runoff ditches, unless they came to a turnoff or driveway. Then Jodi gunned it and they went flying. And Gabriel started praying.

  At the edge of town, they abandoned the road and cut through the woods along the railroad tracks. Gabriel had been thinking they would go around Shadow Falls and cut back through the rural properties near the school, but Jodi seemed to be headed d
irectly into the heart of town.

  “Where are we going?” He said through the COM radio in his helmet, “I’m not sure we should ride this thing through town.”

  “We are, though,” Jodi said slyly. “Relax. I’m gonna stick with the railroad tracks. They go right by the school, and they’re lined with sound barriers most of the way so nobody will even see us.” Well, she had a plan. He had to give her that much. Now if she could just get them there without killing them. For a while, he thought they might make it.

  Gabriel noticed that the sky had grown dark and he glanced up at the threatening thunderheads. He was surprised because it had been such a beautiful day up until that point. “Was it supposed to rain?” he said.

  “Not sure,” Jodi’s voice buzzed in his helmet. She sounded a little concerned as well. “Keep an eye out.”

  Gabriel knew exactly what she meant.

  They were flying down the tracks through the old business district when a dark spot in the corner of Gabriel’s eye caught his attention. He turned to see a swarm of shadowy creatures bearing down upon them from behind. They looked a lot like pterodactyls, with long menacing beaks and sharp talons on the leading edge of their triangular shaped wings. They moved through the air like kites, and they seemed more to glide than actually fly.

  “Devourers!” Gabriel shouted. The Book of Shadows had said that they were used mostly for assassination purposes. They were fast and silent, and their claws and fangs were deadly weapons. They were particularly good at slicing throats, and they had a craving for human blood.

  Jodi twisted around to see them and shook her head. “Now we know where the storm came from. This is not good.”

  Gabriel leaned over, searching the road ahead for a place they could lose the creatures. It appeared that their luck had run out. Just two blocks ahead, the sound barriers gave way to wide open city. The railroad tracks cut straight through Main Street. Traffic filled the busy street, and dozens of pedestrians strolled along the sidewalk.

  “How did you plan on getting across that?” he shouted into the intercom.

  Jodi glanced back at the devourers, and then towards the crowded street. “I was going to push the bike across. Can’t do that now. Hang on.” There was something final in the way she said it, as if she were accepting her fate. Gabriel hoped that fate wasn’t death. Jodi throttled the engine and popped another wheelie. He held on for dear life as the bike roared down the tracks towards certain doom.

  “We’re gonna die,” he mumbled.

  “No we’re not!” Jodi shouted. “But we’re probably going to jail for a long time.”

  Then, they ran out of track. The bike plowed up the edge of the culvert and shot into the air. Gabriel felt a strange sensation in his gut as he looked down and saw pedestrians and cars passing below. He saw faces turned upward, disbelieving. Then he looked up and saw the bus headed straight for them.

  “We’re going to die,” he whispered again.

  Chapter 31

  “What should we do with her?”

  “Lock her up. We don’t need her right now, but she might still be useful.”

  Julia opened her eyes. She blinked, but her vision wouldn’t come into focus. The shadowfriends had drugged her and the effects hadn’t worn off completely. She recognized their voices, though. The first was an overweight balding man in his early forties. He was a shadowfriend, but he didn’t seem to have much of a future. Stupid was a qualification and he had it in spades, but laziness was an offense even among the Shadow. The imbecile would probably be Shadow food within a year. Julia smiled weakly at the thought. It was small consolation, but it helped.

  The second voice was that of the young man named Victor, the boy with the whip. The one who Gabriel had knocked out in a single punch. Strangely enough, Victor seemed to be the one in charge, though the boy was still a teen. If only Gabriel were here to punch him again. If only Gabriel were still alive. Even that seemed too much to hope.

  Heavy hands caught her around the shoulders and dragged her out of the room, and then down a long flight of stairs. She counted them as they went, counted every step as her feet thudded from one to the next. Seven, eight nine… She saw flashes of light and tracers across her vision, like laser beams in a tunnel. Her eyes were of no use.

  They paused at a landing and then it began again. One, two three… until they reached a long hallway at the bottom of the stairs. The man readjusted his load and began dragging her down the hall. Julia listened intently to the sound of his echoing footsteps, hoping she might somehow be able to find her way back. That was unlikely, considering the fact that she had already forgotten how many steps there were.

  The shadowfriend paused to open a door, and Julia heard the jingling of keys and the rattle of the lock. The hinges creaked open. A second later, she felt herself lifted into the air. He tossed her inside the room like a sack of potatoes. Julia felt a distant, dull pain shooting through her limbs as she tumbled down the stone stairs and landed roughly on the cold earth floor. There was just enough sensation to make her worry about what she might find broken when the drugs wore off. The door slammed above her and footsteps faded in the distance.

  Julia lay there for a while, panting and waiting for the room to quit spinning. The dirt beneath her smelled rank, but it was cool and that was something. Not only that, but her body felt so heavy. Perhaps if she took a short nap…

  The sounds seemed distant at first, almost ghostly. Julia didn’t open her eyes but listened intently as the murmur became whispers, and whispers became voices. She heard scurrying, shuffling sounds that came closer, and the voices became clear. They were children’s voices.

  “Is she dead?” “She’s not dead, she’s asleep.” “No, she’s not, I saw her move. Look, her foot! I just saw it again.”

  When she opened her eyes, the light hurt, though it was little more than starlight. She blinked and her blurry vision gradually cleared. Small shadowy figures leaned over her. Dirty angel faces, peering down. She started to rise, and there was a universal gasp among them. They went scurrying back into the corners, leaving her alone at the foot of the staircase.

  Julia pushed herself unsteadily to her knees and took an assessment of her damage. “Nothing broken,” she muttered. “At least I don’t think so. Just some bruises.” She felt shaky, but that was probably an after effect of whatever drug they had used on her.

  Pale silver light streamed in through a single barred window high on the wall. Moonlight. She checked her watch. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” she said. The watch said it was four P.M. Either it was broken or she was now somewhere on the other side of the world. If that were the case, she could be anywhere from Japan to India, or even as far North as Mongolia. It was impossible to tell.

  She turned her attention back to the present. The only obvious exits were the window -impossible to reach and likely impossible for her to fit through, not to mention the bone-crunching drop on the other side-and the door, which appeared to be made of heavy oak boards reinforced with iron bands. She might be able to pick the lock if the light was a bit better, assuming she could find or fabricate the tools required. She scanned the darkness, and barely made out the small shapes huddled against the walls.

  “Hello,” Julia said softly, uncertainly. Even with her brain fogged up from the drugs, Julia knew that this could be some sort of elaborate trick. This might not even be real. The room, the children, even the drugging could all be in her mind. That was the sort of thing the Shadowlords specialized in.

  Of course, there wouldn’t have been much use. Julia didn’t have any secrets left that were worth knowing. D.A.S. had crumbled like the Roman Empire. Worse still, it had happened on her watch. She didn’t bear the sole responsibility, but it sure felt like it.

  The children shuffled at the sound of her voice, but none came forward. They were still assessing her, trying to judge her as friend or foe. “I won’t hurt you. I just want to be your friend. I don’t suppose you kids know a way out of her
e? No, I didn’t think so.”

  “Mother?” said a voice. It was a young girl, probably about nine. Julia squinted as the child came a few steps closer.

  “No sweetie, I’m not your mother, I’m just a friend. I’ll help you find her though, I promise. Okay?” The child came closer. Her dirt-smudged face was streaked with tearstains, her long blonde hair ratty and filthy with neglect. Even so, she was all innocence and wonder, and it almost made Julia cry. “Your dress is torn,” she said. “You poor thing.” The dress wasn’t torn, it was a rag. She couldn’t imagine what was holding the thing together. Once they got out of there, Julia was taking those children straight to the mall.

  “Are there any grown-ups here?” Julia said.

  The girl shook her head. “Just them,” she replied. “Are you one of them?”

  “Them? You mean the shadowfriends. No, dear. I’m their prisoner, just like you.”

  “Thought so,” the girl replied. “You don’t look like them. And you’re nice. How come they put you in here?”

  “I’m not sure,” Julia said. It was true. She had expected them to torture and kill her. The fact that they hadn’t made her even more suspicious. The Shadow was becoming more devious every day. “You’d think a high-ranking D.A.S. official would at least rate a bit of torture.”

  The child stared, wide-eyed and uncomprehending. “Sorry,” Julia said. “Bad joke. Let’s start over. My name is Julia. What’s your name?”

  “Crystal.”

  Chapter 32

  Flannigan Oglesby was rudely awakened by a bird pecking at his face. The obnoxious little creature barely moved as he stirred. When he tried to wave it away, the avian skittered out of reach for a moment and then immediately went back to work. Flannigan angrily snatched it up in his fist and tossed the thing aside, but it caught wind and alighted onto a nearby branch. It glowered at him from the safety of the tree and began squawking about the miscarriage of justice.