Shadows in Light

The bus ride to Seattle was full of talking, people chattering between themselves over the explosion. No one bothered to talk to me about it though, perhaps because I was overall, ignorable. It wasn’t a bad thing in this case. I didn’t fancy trying to lie about not being involved or having a clue what happened.

I could see police lights heading up I5 from Seattle, likely heading to Everett to help. Arriving in Seattle, I could see that police were starting to come out and cover places, just in case. People were a little panicky. With the current climate of terrorist attacks, I can’t say I blamed them.

I did feel a little guilty for being the cause of this panic, however I did what I had to do to survive, and no one was hurt. Hopefully, insurance companies would cover the damage done.

I took myself home, carefully keeping an eye out as I went, but my instincts didn’t kick in.

I entered my home and locked up the doors, sighing and I turned on the lights. Picking up a mirror I looked at myself in it. I had a cuts and bruises on my face, and a few other places. I spent half an hour cleaning them up.

I took an ice-cold shower and tossed my dirty clothing into my wash bag. I should have slept, but I was too hyper to do anything. My mind and body were wide awake, and I felt like I could run a couple of marathons and still have the energy left to build a house at the end of it.

Whatever that stuff was that Bianca gave me, it was like no energy drink I’d ever had. Truthfully, I didn’t want to sleep right now anyways, I had too many questions ringing around my head. So rather than just sit there, I decided to be useful.

I sorted out my gun and hid it away, unloaded my bag, and took out the money I had on me, along with the lock box I hid behind a loose brick in the wall. All together I was doing better and felt quite pleased by that. I counted it all out, and then locked it away, making sure it was hidden again.

Sadly, that hadn’t taken me nearly as long as I wanted to do. I considered rolling around in my money for a moment but decided to make better use of my time instead. I started to clean, it’s a task that, let’s be honest, we all hate. It’s never fun. And even with a small place and not a lot of stuff, it still takes some time. But it does give you some time, and lets you think while you do it.

Eli was after me. Alice was missing. The group who had Alice had someone that was, and I’m not going to be dumb here, much like Eli. That might well mean the two incidents were linked. Which could mean that they were after something Alice had.

Too soon my cleaning was done and got out the bag Vance had given me. There was a report from Vance included in it, giving details of what he had seen, including an accurate description of Eli. I put that to one side, starting that as my evidence of Eli hunting me. Next up was the knife that had been embedded in my gut.

Just looking at it, it was clear to see it was wickedly sharp. The blade had a gleam to it that you can get when they’re properly sharp. I was, however, stupid, and ran my finger across it. The blade split open my finger with the barest of touches, all the way to the bone, causing a mass of blood to start pouring out even as I yanked my hand back.

Now a cut like this is painful, I’ve done similar things when I was younger. But this was far more painful than that. The pain went all the way up my arm into my very brain, and then out into all the places that hurt, even those that had been dulled by my early medical work. Perhaps this explained why this knife had hurt so much in my stomach. I grabbed my med kit, again, and had to clean and wrap my finger up tightly.

Looking at the knife, it had a golden handle, with a shiny silvery blade that seemed to shimmer in the light. On the blade there was a weird script engraved into that I couldn’t understand, running along the sharpened blade from handle to tip.

Considering things for a moment, I tried opening my Sight to it, and the blade went beyond shimmering, and started to glow and pulse. The blade gave off that sadly familiar white Light that was becoming increasingly common to me, while the writing on it changed to a reddish color. Interestingly to me, I realized that where my blood was on the blade, I could see it bubbling and giving off a faint green haze.

I leaned closer watching it, and sure enough, in a few minutes the blade was completely clean again. I tried out some water on it, but that didn’t do anything. Nor did a bit of beef blood I took from the hamburger I had stored in my fridge.

I grabbed a digital camera I had stored around and took some photos of it. I was careful to make sure to take some photos of the writing just in case. Then, feeling clever, I took out some paper and carefully took a rubbing of the text, before adding that into my storage boxes with a note of what it was.

I wrapped the knife up in a towel and slipped it into a zip lock bag of my own. Realizing I needed context for it, I took some photos of the police report too, and then stapled the original to the bag. I had no way to get a good copy that, but I knew I might need it for my case.

Taking out the next item in Vance’s bag, I found it to be my formally lovely coat. It was wrapped up in plastic, and when I unwrapped it, I discovered the damn thing was pretty much ruined. There were rip marks on it where I’d gone stumbling over it, and a hole where the bullet had come out. Damn. I stuck it into one of my storage boxes after pulling out the remains of change that I’d gotten hidden in the depths of the inside pockets.

With Vance’s stuff done, I moved onto the bag of drugs that I’d taken off from the guy in the Underground. Looking at them, they were simple looking pills with a cartoon like logo on them. I wasn’t familiar enough with drugs to put any name to them, and nothing I found online could tell me anything about them. Apparently, they were new, or exclusive to Seattle. Either was a possibility. I was about to flush them, and then decided at the last minute to keep them, just in case.

I finished up by putting Bianca’s cookies into a cupboard in my kitchen and snacked on the microwaved remains of the Irish breakfast and cookies, mixed with a cup of coffee before I pulled out my cellphone. It was working again, waiting for me to input my passwords. I got it unlocked and stepped outside, taking a fold up chair with me to sit in, and dialed Joseph’s number.

It took four or five rings before that gruff voice answered “Speak.”

“This is Ryan Vaughan; I’m calling to report an incident. It’s important I speak only to Mr. Ortiz regarding it.”

“Hold.” was all that was said, before the line started playing hold music. He clearly wasn’t at all upset at being made to do something.

I’ll admit it, I got bored rather quickly first started dancing away to the hold music, before I soon got bored of that and sat in my chair sipping my coffee, waiting for Joseph to answer. I was on hold for about ten minutes before the music finally stopped

“Ryan. Lee said you wanted to speak to me about an incident?” Josephs’ business voice was on, and while he was being short with me, possibly from being bothered so late, he was still at least pretending to be pleasant.

“I am afraid I have to report I was in part involved in the explosions in Everett. The person known as Eli Grace was hunting me through there, he was the one responsible for the explosions while chasing me. I can gather proof but need time to do so.” I said without pausing.

Joseph made a ‘hrmm’ noise, and silence came on the line. There was an awkward silence between us, and with no idea what else to do I spoke again.

“The Laws give me forty-eight hours to gather it from my understanding?”

“Someone’s been ensuring you’re aware of things. Good, it’s pleasing to see you have at least some interest in learning these things. You’re right, if what you say is true, and you can gather the evidence to prove it, no crime will be leveled against you by our Laws. But if you’re lying, or fail to gather sufficient evidence, I’ll personally see to it you’re executed for it.” His voice hardened in pure threat and warning.

“I’m not, I can and I am. Forty-eight hours is all I need. Once I have it, I come to see you then?”

Joseph took his time to respond, and I could hear paperwork being shifted in the background. “So long as you contact me in advance, and before the end of your forty-eight-hour period, I will make time for you. But Ryan, should I be regretting my decision to let you into this City? You have barely been here five minutes and already you’re saying you’re being hunted through the outskirts by one of the enemy’s assassins. In the last ten years he hasn’t been here hunting. And I’m supposed to believe a mere newborn survived him? And that you’ve done nothing to warrant this? What’s going on that’s caused Eli to hunt you?”

I considered that for a moment, I knew I was lucky overall. Eli was a bit overconfident, and I did some good tricks to win. But I had no clues for the questions as to why what looked like an angel was hunting me across Seattle.

“I have no idea Mr. Ortiz. I’ve never met him nor anything like him before I bumped into him the day after seeing you. I have no idea why he is and was hunting me.”

Joseph gave a faintly frustrated growl, blowing into the phone for a moment before he spoke.

“Make sure you’re in contact with me before the forty-eight hours are up, or I will send my own people out to hunt you down.”

That was easy to do, although I could have done without the additional threat. But it wouldn’t take me long on Saturday to pick up the pictures from Malcolm, then I could go straight there with them and sort this out.

“It won’t be an issue Mr. Ortiz.”

He gave a little mirthless chuckle at that “Good to hear Ryan. See you soon then.” He hung up without any further warning. Guess Joseph did like his moniker to be Mr. Ortiz then. Seemed to cheer him up somewhat. But I still felt like I was in for trouble unless Malcolm came through for me.

I entered my home again, dropping the chair back into its corner, bolting the doors shut once more, and tried to figure out what to do. I still had too much energy to go to sleep. And it was probably too late to be bothering Malcolm.

But maybe?

Maybe it was a good time to finally get to scope out Danielle’s and Rachel’s home? It was night after all. Perfect time for sneaking around.

I switched my phone batteries for one of the spares I kept, planted the other one to charge, and got my bag. Gun was a bad idea for this, so that got left here, even if was handy.

I pulled out a few bills from my lock box and left the rest behind secure in its hiding place and went into Seattle.

Seattle on Friday night is chaotic. People are out, drinking, partying and getting everywhere. Moving around is difficult on the streets with people staggering and singing. It was nice to see, people enjoying themselves. It wasn’t dampened by the police on the streets, keeping an eye out for something suspicious, although how they know what’s suspicious when surrounded by people is beyond me.

I kept a headphone in my ear as I went along, watching the people as I walked through the streets, whole groups of people split apart and walked around me like I was a rock in a river. They didn’t see me, instead focused on their own lives and worlds. It was a little disheartening to happen, but it wasn’t their fault. It was me. This was probably going to be my life from now on. And that was somewhat more depressing.

Then during that thought, it came to me that I had some people finally remembering me, beyond my boss, and I felt uplifted by that fact.

Getting over to the apartment complex they lived in wasn’t too difficult, just a walk and a couple of bus rides. It took a couple of hours though, making it close to midnight when I finally arrived. The apartment complex had a few places that had lights on behind the curtains, overall, however many of them were darkened and the occupants probably asleep.

The place was dark, with almost everything but the faint street lights off, leaving me to rely on my Sight to see around as I walked around the place, trying to find where Danielle and Rachel lived. Turning one corner, I found myself looking down the street at a coyote, who stared back at me.

I’d never seen a wild coyote, it was a sleek wolf like animal, although the size of a dog. Neither of us feared the other, and after a few moments, he went off to search through garbage the apartment complex had left lying around.

It was a surreal and bizarre experience to happen in the middle of a huge City really.

A few minutes later I finally found their place, sat on the ground floor towards the middle of the complex away from the streets. It likely had given an element of safety for the girls as it wasn’t likely to have random strangers wandering in. Sadly, that safety was apparently missing as it hadn’t stopped them from being kidnapped from here. Looking at their place, I couldn’t see any sign of forced entry, nor was there any kind of police tape.

The area around the building was filled with plants that were hibernating for winter, and a whole lot of grass. Rummaging around in the flower bed it took a few minutes checking out the stones, but I found a surprisingly light stone, containing a hidden hollow section in it.

Inside sat a key twinkling in my sight, they hadn’t used this to get in either.

The door unlocked without a sound, but after a few inches it got stuck on something, it took me a few shoves to get it open enough to get in, and find out what the problem is, but once I got inside the problem was readily apparent. The apartment had been absolutely shredded, everything in it had been thrown around in a mass of searching and probable hunting for something. The hallway had all the pictures ripped off the walls and shredded, carpets were torn up.

I moved carefully down into the living area to find couches and chairs obliterated into a pile of wood and fluffy things. Books had been thrown off the cupboards onto the floor, the nearby kitchen had doors ripped off the cupboards and cans of food had been smashed open. I couldn’t find a single thing that had survived the maniac search, even the TV laid in a corner of electronics destroyed, broken into four pieces.

This place looked like it had been lived in for a few years without any problems, and they had plenty of stuff. And now everything was ripped up, broken down and destroyed. Someone had to have been looking here and had plenty of time to do so without any interference. But how had they managed to do all this damage and not alert the neighbors? This would have taken time too.

And yet, no forced entry. No police. This was looking like it was my side of things, the weird side.

But what were they searching for? They had Alice. And what could a club girl have that was worth all this work and energy? I was missing something still, here amongst the chaos that was going on in my life nowadays. I rubbed my face thinking, trying to decide what to do.

Once more I decided to do a stupid thing, and rather than getting out of here, I started to look around. Even after all this destruction, my instincts where telling me there was something here.

Hey, they’d done well so far.

So, I looked through piles of rubbish and mess carefully in the darkness, peering into closets in the bedrooms, under chest of drawers, minus the drawers. It took me twenty minutes or so of careful searching, but I found what I felt was something.

It was just a simple thin metal black ring, hiding under a mass of rubbish that was once the bed. It wasn’t special to look at it, but when I touched it, it stuck to my hand. Pulling my hand back to look at it, I saw it shudder in my hand, while it gave off a weird midnight blue glow before it stopped.

It wasn’t a jackpot, but I felt that it was something important. Why I couldn’t tell you, any more than I can tell you how I know how to throw balls of Shadow at people. Or see in perfect darkness. But the result was, I knew.

I pulled out my wallet which I kept a chain on to my keys and clipped it on to my keyring trigger snap, making sure it was safe. As I was about to leave, I heard something at the door. I turned in time to see the door that I’d stupidly left partial open, smash fully open and a couple of beams of torchlight hit me full on in the face as voices yelled at me.

“Police! Hands in the air!”

Well. Good to see my luck is back on track. I put my hands up. I was in an enclosed space, with two sets of guns pointing at me, and I did not want to get shot again.

I was kept covered by one person, and as another moved behind me, helping me drop the bag and cuff me, giving me my Miranda rights as they searched me over. I decided to exercise my right to keep quiet. I felt it was the smartest thing to do in this situation.

They led me outside to the car, asking me questions while a mass of people was peering out at their windows and doors at us, some even came out onto the street to watch. I kept silent, even as they asked me where the girls were. Or how long I’d clearly been there to do that much damage.

Nothing I could tell them would help them, and it wouldn’t help me except to get put into a lunatic asylum.

A few minutes later I was being bundled into a police car and enjoying my first ride in one. They’re not comfortable by the way. And this one smelt vaguely of vomit.

Joy.