Shadows in Light

I came too still in the chair with Dave sat opposite me in his chair, reading a book. The collar around my neck snapped open and dropped to the floor with a solid thunk, making him jump in surprise.

“You’re awake.”

“Yes. I am.” My wrists were, likewise, free now, and I rubbed at them.

“And as the collar is gone you now believe?”

“I would say I believe in who and what I am, maybe not so much about everyone else.”

Dave chuckled deeply, “Excellent. And congratulations, I knew you could do it.”

I got up and stretched. My muscles ached for a moment, but then it was gone. “I had to go over things with myself apparently.”

“Not as unusual as it sounds Ryan.”

“Can I ask something?”

“If it’s about the Priestess, she’s fine. She sends her utter apologies for it and offers a favor for messing up your Path.”

I nodded a little, it wasn’t her fault, so I wasn’t going to hold it against her. But a favor might prove useful. “If I don’t tell anyone about it?”

“If you don’t tell anyone about it.” he confirmed.

“I can agree to that. Are favors a big thing then with us?”

“Demons?” he asked with a grin, stroking his beard

I might have rolled my eyes “Yes with Demons.”

“That they are. And other supernatural’s. Good easy method of payment for things. Repaying slights, someone helping you out, promising to do something.”

“Something to remember I guess.” I paused considering that. “Can I ask questions and get actual answers now?”

Dave considered it for a moment. “Probably?”

“Okay. Let’s ask the first one: Why do people forget me?”

“It’s just part of what we are, they forget the supernatural that they see. No one knows why, perhaps it’s because we’re more than they’re able to handle. Perhaps it’s curse that’s been set upon us all.”

“No one knows?”

“That surprises you doesn’t it?”

“Yes! How can no one know?”

Dave shrugged a little “We accepted it as part of our life. And I can foresee your next question: Why do some remember?” I gave a nod, “Supernatural’s don’t get tagged by whatever it is. Anyone with any level of power can remember.”

“But what about mortals?”

“Some mortals have special connections with you. Love, saving their life will allow them to remember you. And then some just remember one person because of reasons we don’t understand. No power, or real link. But something about the conversation, or whatever you’re doing just resonates with them and they remember. Finally, some people are just special enough to see the real world. It’s always interesting to us.”

This explained why Gordon remembered me then. Maybe I got as lucky as he did that day.

Dave smiled as I opened my mouth to ask the Big Question, “How does one become a Demon?”

“You’re born one. Couldn’t be your parents were Demons as you’re all alone in this, so it’s likely that somewhere along your family gene pool, a Demon had a child with a mortal. It can lay dormant for generations before a Demon happens. It just comes out at the First Death.”

Guess that meant my dream Demon self wasn’t lying. I leaned back thinking about it all, as Dave watched me.

“What are you going to do today then? It’s around ten am on Sunday by the way.”

“I need to go home, think things through”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No, not yet. I’m missing something right now and I need to think it all through”

“Always a wise idea to think things through properly. If you want anything, you can ask. Although I can’t leave here for the time being.”

“I’ll call if I want something. If you can give, you can give, if not.” I grabbed my stuff, checking everything was there. My gun had been moved to my bag, and I double checked despite Dave saying everything was there.

“Am I free to leave?”

Dave nodded to me, getting up and giving me another escort to the elevator.

“Keep yourself safe Ryan.” Dave said to me as the elevator pinged open.

“Certainly, going to try.”

The journey home left me time to think on questions Dave wouldn’t likely know the answers to. Why had Eli started chasing me around the place? Come to think of it, how had he found me? There felt like a lot of puzzle pieces, but I had no clue how they went together, nor what the resulting picture was.

I unlocked my home and entered it, bolting it all shut behind me. I gave into eating, staring at the wall thinking, but all I got was a settled stomach at the end.

I gave up and started searching through my place, looking in every nook and cranny that was there, seeing if I could find anything that didn’t belong. I hunted through my trunks and boxes, removing everything and checking inside anything that opened. My cupboards were cleaned out, and I looked through my chairs and bed area.

By the end, my place was a mess, and I was frustrated. I stood there thinking about what she’d done when she came in when it hit me. She’d come in, I’d bandaged her up then I sent her into the bathroom.

I went into it and looked about the room. It was a small room overall, I had one cupboard with bathroom products in it, and that was quickly determined to have nothing other than my stuff in it. No hidden nooks and crannies though.

Except the toilet cistern.

I opened it up, and there at the bottom of the tank was a plastic wrapped item. It was about if my forearm whatever it was, and I knew it wasn’t there before. I reached into the cold water and pulled it out, drying the plastic off before I moved back into the living area, putting it on a table and carefully unwrapped it.

It was a metal pole? I picked it up and looked at over. It was an inch thick, round, and made of metal. It didn’t look special, but I could feel that it had something on it. It took me a few goes before I managed to blink and get the Sight in.

There on the metal was some symbols that looked like they were carved or pounded into the metal, glowing red to my Sight. While I might have no clue what they meant, this had to be what they were after? It was obviously from the supernatural side of things.

So, Alice had this on her, the angels wanted it, chased her. She got into here and I chased off angels. She hid it while she was in the bathroom, possibly meaning to come back for it later.

It all made sense to me, as I went over that whole event. I’d gone outside. I found her purse and something else. I knew there was something else, but I couldn’t remember it at first. I had to go through the entire alley walk a few times before it hit me.

I went to my bag and opened it up, rummaging through it for a moment and found it.

The coin. It was still in my bag, hiding in that pocket, glimmering and glistening.

I’d completely forgotten about it, and as I looked at it with my Sight, I could see an incredibly soft level of Light being rolling off it. What were the odds this was how Eli was finding me?

I flicked the coin into the air and caught it smiling. It’s nice to start seeing the trees hiding in the forest.

Picking up the bag of drugs I’d claimed off the Angel in the Underground, I laid them out on the table, then used my Sight to look at them.

The drugs changed under my Sight, same as the Coin did. Unlike the Coin however, they didn’t glow with Light. They did pulse with a mix of black and purple. Reaching down and running my hand over them, I could feel the same feeling I had when I pulled that Thing out of my drug using Club goer in the jail. Less than what was in him, but it felt evil. Each one a tiny bit of that evil, but the more and more of it someone took, the bigger that Thing would become.

People go to the Club, got this in them. And this was probably linked to how people were ending up dead in the Underground. I was starting to feel like a smart investigator type, when my cell rang, and I was greeted with the lovely lilting voice of Bianca’s

“Hey Ryan.”

“Oh hi. Is something up?”

“No. Just calling up to check everything is okay for you?”

“Of course? Why wouldn’t it be? Have I missed something?”

She whispered down the phone, “I’m good friends with Dave.”

“Oh. He’s spoken to you today then?”

“Yuh huh, hence ringing you up. You handling it all?”

“I think I’m adjusting to it.”

“You sound concerned? Are you?”

I looked over everything on my table “I’m trying to work out something. All this weird stuff that’s been going on the last week or so?”

“You want to talk about it?”

I considered it for a moment, but I didn’t have enough of a clue to ask her the right questions right now. Shooting around in the dark just wouldn’t benefit me, Alice, or Bianca. I didn’t want to waste time doing that.

“I think I need to look around at something first. Once I’ve done that, I might have some questions for you if you’re willing to answer them over the phone?”

“I’ve got a few bits I need to do, but you should be able to get hold of me without too much effort.”

“I appreciate it.” I paused for a moment. “Did you just call up to check up on me?”

She went silent for several moments before she replied softly “No. Look, just be careful? I know you did a job for my ‘guest’.”

“He offered me good money for a simple task.”

“Course he did, that’s what he does. Just please be careful okay?” She honestly sounded worried for me, and I had no idea why.

“I’ll do what I can Bianca,”

“Hope to hear from you soon Ryan.” She said softly before she hung up.

I put my phone away, a little confused by it all. There obviously was even more going on than I had thought possibly, but right now I didn’t have time to worry about that. I needed to help Alice.

I got myself a fresh coffee and cleaned up the mess I’d made, before deciding that it all came back to Essence. All three girls were there that night, my jailbird friend was there, the dead bodies were likely from there. I gave it up, packing up my bag, and getting my gun out.

My journey into Seattle was quick and easy. In part due to it being a Sunday, and due to Essence not being close to Freemont Market were most people and the tourists were going.

The club itself was closed, which was half a blessing and half a curse considering I wanted information on it, leaving me to look elsewhere for it.

I moved around the block it was on carefully, checking it out from all angles. While I probably didn’t need to be so careful, it was also entirely possible that there were people watching it who had knowledge of me.

At night Essence and the surrounding area felt full of energy and life, but now in the brighter daylight I could see the area was extremely downtrodden. I felt a little surprised that I hadn’t noticed this when I went there, but not surprised at the fact that it was.

Most of the shops in the area around it were closed, and almost all the buildings had boarded up windows and doors. The surviving shops were clearly struggling, and the owners were likely pumping every cent into it just to stay open.

It was almost like the underground had replicated itself up here, and the people were losing the battle.

Something about this area just felt like it was encouraging people to stay away, at least during the day. Perhaps whenever Essence wasn’t open?

Looking over the shops, I could see one was due to open today, so I passed the time with a coffee, watching the street. I could see a few people walking through the street, but all of them ignored the shops, instead going to Essence’s doors to check if it were open. They seemed disappointed when they learned it wasn’t.

Once I got into the shop, which didn’t have a visible sign due to the boarded-up windows, I was greeted by a worn-out middle-aged man, dressed in business casual that looked a little tattered. He didn’t even give me chance to speak once he’d looked me over, “No, I don’t know what time Essence will open today.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask.” I looked back at the boarded-up window where Essence would have been visible, “Do people really ask that?” I asked him looking back to him.

He squinted at me, looking me over again, “Well yes. Often. And they look a little like you, although maybe a bit more dressed up. Coat fits in though.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should be offended by that or not, so I moved on.

“In truth, I’m not interested in getting into Essence, although I am interested in it.”

His gaze took on a more suspicious look, “Why?”

I walked around the shop, considering my words carefully. Apparently, this shop dealt with cellphone and laptop repair judging from the parts around the shop. And a mass of other things that seemed unrelated. It felt like they were hopeful to get any business at all and trying to sell whatever they could.

“I’ve been in there,” I told him as I came to the counter, spotting a name tag on him that read ‘Philip’, “It’s like a haven for drug dealers Philip.”

He grunted in agreement, relaxing. “My son went in there once. Told me the same thing. Thankfully, he’s never gone again.”

“Probably a good thing. It’s bad in there. Place is packed with drug using people. Dealers aren’t even trying to hide that they’re selling drugs in there.”

Philip grunted again. “I’ve tried calling up the cops about it, but nothing happened. Figure they’ve got people paid off.” He took a deep chug of coffee. “Place used to be great, brought in people, had the occasional problem mind, but it wasn’t bad. Then the management changed, place started getting crazy. Kids coming out and trashing things. Used to be loads of shops, but they either went bankrupt, or moved.” He pointed to the boarded-up window, “Got shattered couple of nights ago, can’t afford to replace it anymore.”

I looked to the window, then back at Philip who shrugged, “I got everything in this place. If I lose here, I lose everything. I should have moved when it all started, but rent was cheap.”

He gave a dejected chuckle. I felt sorry for the guy. Wasn’t his fault.

“You said management changed?”

He nodded, taking a seat behind the counter. “Yeah, ten years or so. Old girl that ran it was wonderful. Used to make sure the bouncers were on the streets to stop any damage. If any happened, she’d make sure either the kids were caught, or she’d personally repay for the damage. Ran if for twenty years before that.”

He fiddled a coffee cup, “But the new guy took it over and it all changed. Instead of being a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night club, it turned into every night club. Then it started to open earlier and earlier. These days its opening at six pm and staying open till six am. Kids pouring in and out all the time, we tried complaining but it did nothing. So, people just left, and no one would move in after a while.”

“The place is open at six pm. I’ve never heard of a club staying open for twelve hours.”

“Me either. Hell, I’m not even sure it’s legal. But like I said, cops won’t do nothing. Complaints to the City members gets no results other than letters that say useless things like ‘we’ll look into it’ for all the good that did. Maybe they investigated it and got paid off. Part of me wishes I could get paid off and move the hell out of this place before I go bankrupt, or someone just pay for the goddamn damage.”

He slammed his cup down on the glass angrily, then gave a growl of annoyance as his coffee sprayed all over the counter. He got himself a towel and cleaned it up as best as he could while he calmed down before he looked up at me.

“Worst of all was I finally talked to the owner. Took me ages to do it, but the bastard was destroying my business without a care. He told me I had nothing to worry about, and that he would deal with all the issues I had. And nothing happened at all!”

“You spoke to the guy who runs the place?”

“Hell yeah, asshole was laughing at me too. Got me angry enough to yell at him. Kept saying I’d forget all this. Ha! Like I’d forget a tall bastard like him.”

“He was tall?”

“Yeah, tall. Like seven foot tall. Bald, with scars over his head. And one of those gold teeth! Who the hell could forget that?”

John. A Demon was running the club?

The blood must have run from my face or something because Philip was looking at me in concern “Hey, you okay buddy?”

“Oh yes. Look, thank you. That’s exactly what I needed. I gotta get going.”

Philip nodded, “Come back anytime soon if you need a computer? If I’m still open of course.”

I hurried out onto the street, taking a deep breath. Hell, if John was involved, did that mean he was working with the Angels?

I needed to talk to Bianca, so I was about to get my phone out and call her up, but then that feeling ran down my spine.

Eli was here.

And coming for me.