Shadow Play

  SHADOW PLAY

  by Domino Finn

  Copyright © 2015 by Domino Finn. All rights reserved.

  Published by Blood & Treasure, Los Angeles

  First Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental. This book represents the hard work of the author; please reproduce responsibly.

  Cover Design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design LLC.

  Print ISBN: 978-0-692-65403-3

  DominoFinn.com

  Chapter 1

  This is it, the room where I died.

  No, I don't mean my brush with death last week when I was ambushed by a Haitian voodoo gang and deposited in a South Beach dumpster. I'm talking about the first time I died. Ten years ago.

  Yeah, my life's a little complicated.

  You've all heard the story: Cocky young necromancer gets in over his head, finds a priceless Taíno artifact, gets gutted by a West African vampire in a swanky beach house, and then cursed into zombie hit man for a decade.

  No? Is that one new to you?

  Me too. Like I said, it's a little convoluted, but it's my story.

  Turns out I wasn't really dead. Or not dead-dead, whatever that means. The zombie curse was accidentally dispelled by a voodoo high priest with a bone to pick. I came to my senses.

  Only the world had kept turning without me. For ten years. My family was murdered. Even worse, their deaths were at my own hands. That's the thing with zombie thralls—they take orders unquestioningly. You say jump, they don't even ask how high because they're already in the air. And if a master commands them to brutally murder their parents and little sister, there's gonna be a nasty mess.

  But not to worry. Karma has a habit of rearing its unyielding head. I took down the blood-sucking bastard who did this to me. Snapped his neck and burned him to a crisp for good measure. That ended the chances of my ever being enslaved again.

  Unfortunately, it also left unanswered questions. You see, I have no memory of dying or being a zombie. And the vampire I executed wasn't working alone. In some ways he was a servant, like me. The person behind the curtain of my personal horror story was still a mystery.

  Another mystery? When that fabled karma was going to catch up to me.

  So here I was, at an affluent beach house on Star Island in the middle of the night, a view of Biscayne Bay filling the wall-spanning windows. My own crime scene, ten years too late.

  Let's set the stage properly. My name's Cisco Suarez, necromancer slash shadow charmer extraordinaire. I go for the simple jeans-and-white-tank-top look. I know—you're thinking wizards should wear robes. A trench coat at least. First of all, I prefer the term animist. Second thing is Miami's hot and humid. You keep it simple and you keep it cool. Plus, I gotta rock my guns.

  Yup, my decade of mindless service left me well-muscled. It also put me closer to forty than I'd like to admit, but I'm trying to make up for lost time. Only alive again for a week and I've caught a lucky break.

  During my time as the walking dead, there was a big real estate bubble. You might've heard of it. After my murder, this extravagant house was cleaned and resold. More gory than my death were the balloon interest terms of the mortgage. Queue a few years of decadence followed by austerity, then the house was foreclosed on. It was now bank owned. Empty again.

  Funny how things are cyclical.

  I glanced at the photographs in my homicide file. My contact in the city had told me this was a dead end. The investigating detectives had found evidence of ritual activity and a whole lot of blood, but no body and no suspects. That was pretty much where the case had stagnated. And now, years down the line, it was a long shot to uncover anything at all, much less something useful.

  Lucky for me, my knack for black magic opened doors the police didn't have keys to.

  I stood in the recessed living room, still sparsely furnished. Two low couches in an L shape faced an entertainment center sans TV. The empty space in the middle of the room made it easy to imagine the pentagram drawn in blood and brick dust on the tile floor.

  None of it rang a bell, of course. And the ritual paraphernalia was long gone. But the crime scene photos clearly showed the gruesome scene. Five candles placed at the points of the star, fully melted down by the time of the photo. The outer circle was broken and the star smeared all to hell.

  I like to think I put up a struggle, but it was hard to tell.

  Black magic gets a bad rap. Mostly because people think it's all summoning demons. Let me explain something to you. Demons don't exist. Not that I've seen or heard, anyway. There are beings out there—spirits, nether creatures, constructs we don't understand—but the idea that they're demons because they're different doesn't jive with me. It's all just interpretation. Calling something an angel or demon is really just a way of attaching morality to a being. If you wanna do that, more power to you, but I try to keep an open mind. Ninety-nine percent of the universe is unknown. We live in the one percent. It would be cocky to pass judgment on the rest.

  Point is, class, black magic's not inherently bad. We need to be straight on that before we go on this journey together. Yes, I'm a necromancer. And yes, maybe I got what was coming to me. But I'm not evil or a satanist or a demon summoner. The magic of death reflects the magic of life. Doctors, combatants—real people everywhere see both on a daily basis.

  Sure, necromancy's morbid. It can be a little horrifying at times. But blame the people, not the craft. I hadn't been dragged here by accident. If I just followed the clues backwards, I was sure they'd lead to a batshit-crazy Bond villain, as dangerous with magic as with any other weapon. (Except maybe rocket-propelled sharks with laser-beam helmets.)

  Sorry. I think too much sometimes. Where was I? Ah, yes. Forensics.

  The first thing I did was close my eyes halfway. Unfocus them. My pupils widened and spilled into the color of my eyes, drowning green with black. The shadows are my friend, you see. I prefer to operate in darkness, where I won't attract attention, where my magically enhanced vision has an advantage.

  But the moon was bright tonight and the outdoor property was lined with security lighting. It wasn't all that dark in here. The real reason I used my shadow sight was to examine the trace signatures of spellcraft that remained. Fingerprints of the Intrinsics, the energy building-blocks of the universe, and a hard requirement for magic.

  A soft glow coalesced on the floor where the pentagram had once existed. CSI ain't got nothing on me.

  Ten years is a long time, and usually there'd be little evidence left. But rituals ground magic in time and place, especially when they rely on the environment like circles do. The more powerful the magic, the longer the aftereffect, and whatever happened in here had been a doozy.

  A five-pointed star glowed within a circle. I would've been placed on top of it, probably already bound or unconscious. The pentacle wouldn't have nullified my powers as much as weakened them, drawing the Intrinsics away from my center and unfocusing me. The circle was for containment.

  The illuminated image was like a fuzzy hologram seen through sleepy eyes. It was old. Hard to make out. Hard to glean useful information from. I only knew what it was because of the photograph I compared it to.

  More traces of Intrinsic energy coalesced. A long gray shape crossed over the circle. Again, I needed to work off known assumptions to realize this mass was probably myself. Or not me, exactly, but the spellcraft that had been worked over me, into me. The one that had enthralled me into an undead servant.

  The gray hex wasn't voodoo. And it wasn't my brand of shadow magic, either. It was something foreign, cast either by an animist I hadn't met yet, or a power innate to the West African vampire I'd killed. Based on my limited knowledge, I began to suspect the latter. Vampire compul
sions could be extremely persuasive.

  As I studied the power signatures, a blackness slowly emerged in the center. At first it was a faint shadow, difficult to notice, but it grew as I focused on it, sinking deeper and deeper out of color until it was a dark void even my enhanced eyes couldn't crack.

  That bothered me. Shadow charming was my specialty, and this new signature was both familiar and unlike anything I'd ever seen.

  A third spell.

  The red circle of binding. The gray decay of death. And the black spot of...

  A new minute, a new mystery. This was my life now.

  I rubbed my eyes wearily. In the past week that I'd been myself again, I hadn't gotten a lot of rest. I'd thought things would calm down after my brush with the vampire, Tunji Malu, but who could relax with so many unanswered questions?

  Something scraped the tile floor behind me. I spun around and the lights flicked on. And I'm not just talking about the reading lamp on the floor in the corner. I mean that, and the overhead light, and the track lighting in the adjoining hallway, and the fluorescents in the kitchen—all the lights in the house simultaneously flared into being.

  I squinted and covered my sensitive eyes. The sudden illumination was blinding. I shook away black tears and let the charm melt away. The scraping sound grew louder, and I looked up just in time to see the extra-tall stainless-steel refrigerator sliding toward me.

  Then the lights went out again.

  The massive object slammed the air from my chest and shoved me backward. It didn't stop either. Someone continued pushing it against me. I breathed between coughs and tried to brace myself, but I wasn't stopping. Between the lights flashing on and off, I realized I was on a collision course with the far wall.

  Rock, meet hard place. I'm sorry, is that Cisco Suarez in the middle? Don't worry. You won't feel a thing.

  The whole thing happened fast. It took me by surprise. But I wasn't about to get done in by a luxury appliance. With all the lights on, there wasn't a lot of shadow to work with. As soon as they shut off again, it was a different story. Right before I became a deluxe refrigerator magnet, I phased into the shadow and slipped from the trap.

  My shadow form protects me from physical dangers. Not intangible so much as able to slip under and past most things. I become a darkness. Malleable.

  The stainless steel slammed a hole into the drywall and the room shook. The lights came on again and my shadow disappeared—forcing me to materialize a few yards away, unharmed. I turned from the collision to the kitchen to face my foe.

  No one was there.

  I scanned the room, searching for my attacker. No signs of anyone. Except the lights still cycled on and off, all at once, in impossible coordination.

  This wasn't some practical joker flipping the switches. There was a strange presence here.

  As my mind worked out the puzzle, the lighting shifted. On, still, but changing position. My weak shadow on the floor shortened. That meant one of the lights was moving. I turned to see the table lamp from the corner floating in the air, still attached to the wall by its power cable.

  Oh. That explained it. Nothing to worry about here except your garden-variety poltergeist.

  Chapter 2

  You might assume I've seen a lot of ghosts, being a necromancer and all. I won't hold it against you. It's a common misconception.

  Sure, I received classical training in voodoo, but the majority of the discipline focuses on the body rather than the spirit. Besides, I've long moved away from the Haitian art to (even older) Taíno spellcraft. Same island, different Caribbean.

  Opiyel the Shadow Dog focuses on enlightenment through darkness. And yes, aspects of the spirit. But I don't go around conjuring them (if I can help it).

  Then there's the fact that ghosts don't just appear out of thin air like a genie freed from its lamp. They're usually more subtle than that. An uncertain feeling of dread. The hairs on your neck standing on edge.

  Fine. Yes. And sometimes, quarter-ton kitchen appliances.

  What's important here is that ghosts exist in another world. The Murk. A dead reflection of ours. And they can only temporarily visit us by inhabiting something physical.

  So no floating white bedsheets.

  Speaking of something physical, the table lamp hovering before me yanked its power cord from the wall and darted at my face.

  It was too solid, too large, for my magical shield to work against it, and despite its bulb going out, the rest of the house had power. Without enough shadow, my options were limited. So I did what any other red-blooded American would do when faced with such an obstacle.

  I punched it.

  The ceramic lamp shattered to pieces. So did the bones in my hand for all I knew, but my cut-up skin held them together. I screamed and shook the pain away, ready for my next target.

  Apparently I underestimated the tenacity of table lamps.

  The power cable wrapped around my aching arm, twisting and tightening and pulling me down. I fought against it enough to stay on my feet. With my free hand, I unzipped my belt pouch (no, it's not a fanny pack—I keep it on my side). I produced a ceremonial bronze knife—small, curved blade, etched with runes—and sliced the power cable to bits. Talk about a multi-tool. Great for obscure voodoo rituals and fighting off errant poltergeists.

  Even after all the pieces dropped to the carpet, I found anything larger than a fist and stomped it to oblivion with my red alligator-hide cowboy boots.

  I did call myself a red-blooded American, right? I know the boots are a bit much. Most second-generation Cubans wouldn't touch the things. What can I say? They've grown on me.

  Suddenly, all the lights cut out again.

  Constantly altering my vision was more than an annoyance. The poltergeist was using the effect as a tool for intimidation and distraction. It was kinda working.

  I invoked my shadow sight again, this time only in my right eye.

  Fun fact: Many pirates wore eye patches even though they had two eyes. During attacks in the middle of the night, they'd often find themselves bursting indoors and out quickly, so they kept one eye accustomed to the light and one the dark. Depending on their environment they would flip the eye patch. So I did how they did and cupped my hand over my left eye.

  In the darkness, I saw the faded pentagram again. I also saw a faint glow coming from the kitchen. When the lights returned, I swapped eyes. Now the kitchenette chairs wobbled.

  Without skipping a beat, I snatched a sofa cushion as the objects careened my way. I deflected them like a dad pillow-fighting a toddler. The lightweight chairs tumbled uselessly to the floor. Then the table itself lifted into the air.

  "Uh oh."

  I dropped the cushion and charged the table, clamping onto it and attempting to hold it down. Poltergeists are inhumanly strong, it turns out. My boots skidded across the tiles as I pushed against the floating table. It flipped upside down and pressured me down, forcing me to my knees. There I was, between the counters, winking one eye shut, when I noticed the floor.

  The upside-down table cast a neat shadow over me.

  Like a spring, the shadow uncoiled. The table shot up and smashed through the drop ceiling. Tiles of plastic rained down as the fluorescent lights exploded. My own little Fourth of July. The table swung back and forth, caught in the ceiling frame. Even better, the kitchen went dark.

  I smiled. Marching into the living room, I hefted one of the chairs and threw it into the overhead light. It smashed to pieces. Though there was plenty of incidental lighting around, there was now enough shadow to work with indefinitely, and I no longer had to worry about being blinded.

  Once again I turned in place, checking for the ghost. I could've chased it around the house, but I preferred to stay in my bubble of darkness. The spirit would come to me, and I was okay with that.

  Poltergeists aren't exactly formidable. They're like toddlers throwing a fit, picking up whatever's in reach and going berserk. I was just lucky the house was in foreclosure
and devoid of valuables like large-screen TVs and fancy Japanese knife sets.

  The oven door opened. I raised my eyebrow as the shelf launched from within. I phased into the shadow and the grill passed through me and embedded into the wall. Then the freaking little plates that sat around the stove-top burners came at me. More swings and misses.

  As I solidified, I shook my head. Pathetic. This thing was just getting desperate now.

  That's when I heard it. A heavy clunking sound coming from outside. It sounded like a washing machine running a single-shoe load. Wobbly. Uneven. Unnaturally scary.

  My first thought was washing machine. Except it was coming from outside. I approached the sliding glass doors slowly. The perfect view of the Bay was sullied by an above-ground hot tub hopping towards me. Waves of rank water flopped over the edges with each bounce.

  How in the ever...

  Chapter 3

  I ran back to the center of the living room, fumbling in my pouch until I pulled out a giant stick of orange Crayola sidewalk chalk. It's thick and silly and shaped like a crayon. Made for kids, yes, but it's chalk that doesn't leave dust all over my fingers. How cool is that?

  I kneeled in the old circle of energy that still lingered. My work would be faster if I could hijack the Intrinsics already grounded into place. The hot tub crashed through the glass as I frantically scratched a circle onto the tile. I traced a full rotation as the sofa was shoved aside by a brand-new indoor pool. It lunged at me, but I closed the circle just in time for it to crash into an invisible wall. Even the water that poured from the tub ran down the side of air as if hitting a solid column.

  Usually there's a little more to constructing circles than what I'd just done, but I was piggy-backing off the lingering ritual magic. Good thing too because, from my limited experience, I didn't find possessed hot tubs to be very patient.