Shadows in Light

The next day started off on a lazy note, with me sleeping in till after lunch, and then headed over to the address Joseph gave me once I’d eaten something. Feeling lazy, a little bit rich, and having a little bit of a headache from my drinking last night, I decided to get a cab to the address.

It was an old stone house in one of the suburbs of Seattle. The roof was a little rundown, and the windows were tinted, which was faintly odd to see on an urban home. The door was a solid metal door, mounted into a serious looking frame, frankly it looked like it would be easier to go through the wall than the door.

I rang the bell, and after a couple of minutes I was face to face with a very grumpy looking man wearing large glasses. He had thin lips that seemed to be permanently pulled back into a frown, and a bald head except for a few bits of hair sticking up all over the place that must have somehow survived. He had bags under his eyes and then again under his glasses, and his face had lines that showed he was extremely old. He held a metal cane as he stood there looking at me but wasn’t using it for any support at the moment. He felt like the type of person who would be grumpy to a waitress who was trying to serve him because she was too happy.

I offered the envelope over to him, “Mr. Ortiz sent me here with this?”

He looked at it for a moment, then permitted me entry into the house, sealing up the door behind me, locking it with many locks and a couple of bolts. A mirror sat near the door, but he didn’t even give it a glance as we passed by it. I did, however, and saw the quasi-image of me was there again for a moment as I stepped into the house.

He greeted me with a grumble “Malcolm.” by way of introducing himself, before he grabbed the envelope off me, checking the wax seal on it, then opened it up and read the paper inside it. The contents made him frown some more and then he moved down the hallway, using the cane a little to help himself balance.

The house wasn’t well cared for with paint coming off the walls and holes here and there in the plaster. The floorboards creaked several times, and the thud of Malcolm’s cane caused dust to come down more than once as we headed down a long hallway. A set of stairs was midway down the hallway, leading up to a closed door. We must have walked the length of the house before he turned, and we went into the only door on this level of the corridor.

Unlike the rest of the place that I’d seen, this room was well maintained, covered the entire length of the house, at both ends of the room were windows, showing the front and back of the house. Despite the external tinting, you could see outside without any trouble. The walls along the room were filled with a mass of TV screens, computer monitors, noticeboards filled with papers, pin boards with maps, and shelving containing books. The floor had some filing cabinets here and there. Dominating the center of the room was a huge table that was as large as some conference tables, with yet more piles of paperwork all over it.

Up against one of the walls facing the door sat a huge desk that you would think belonged in a building’s reception area. Another mass of screens was set to one side and a huge amount of paperwork was put to one side. He took up a seat behind the desk, motioning to a chair on the other side taking another look at the envelope before he looked at me. He peered at me with a faintly questioning expression on his face before he asked me with a faint tone of surprise “You’re a newborn?”

I nodded in reply and he grumbled to himself, first going over things on his computer, then starting to gather things from his desk, putting them into a folder. It took a few minutes before I got annoyed at being ignored and I coughed to get his attention.

He glared at me, “What?”

“Why am I here?” I asked him, managing to keep my annoyance to a minimum.

He blinked at me behind those glasses, I honestly don’t think he expected me to ask this question in any form. It took him a few moments to figure out how to respond.

“You’ve been declared Free by Mr. Ortiz. As you live outside of anyone’s declared territory, or at least I assume you do, you get to declare your own territory. A couple of blocks or so, but possibly more depending on where you live. That’s up to me to decide in the end. But it’s considered yours to look after and control. You must obey City Law and what not. Congratulations?” He paused looking at me and leaned on his desk, “Didn’t Mr. Ortiz explain all this to you?”

I shook my head as he looked at me with a troubled expression, before he got up and walked over to the large table that was taking up a good portion of the room, motioning me to follow him. A huge chunk of the table had a map of Seattle set up over it, most of central Seattle had sections of it divided up with hand drawn lines in different colors. Around the edges of Seattle were there was mostly private homes, there was some more sections.

Many of the major business areas had been drawn over, with some areas were small, only a building or so by my guess, but others were several blocks in size. No names were attached to the map, so I guess he understood what belonged to whom.

“Okay kid, this is Seattle by territories. Dividing it up means the head guy doesn’t have to do all the work on making sure the laws are kept, keeping people in line. Anyone that steps out of line can lose their territory. It also gives them an area to invest in, make money through whatever means they want. Well so long as they obey the rules. It saves time, money and effort for everyone, and is Mr. Ortiz’s preferred method of running things.”

“A new person, in our experience, generally turns up in a claimed area. Either they come to our attention there, or they move in there.” He looked at me curiously for a few moments “You, according to Mr. Ortiz’s email, have been living here for some years now, and no one has seen you before, which means you would have to be living outside of these areas.” He nodded down to the map and after looking to where I lived, I gave a short nod of agreement.

“So, what you can do is either claim an area that’s unclaimed where you live, or another area where you want to make some money or something like that.” He looked at me for a moment, his expression faintly quizzical, “None of this has been told to you has it?”

“Not a single thing, and I feel like I’m being set up for something.” I stared at the map thinking. My instincts were going off right now, and they were telling me I was getting into something here, and it wasn’t something I wanted to be part of, at least not yet.

Malcolm looked at me, taking out an honest to god tobacco pipe and lit it, looking at me before he finally asked me in a hushed voice. “Did you piss him off?”

I considered the question, then shook my head, “Well at least I don’t think so?” It was a good question. Truthfully, I didn’t feel the meeting with Joseph had gone well, I mean who can blame me in the end?

Malcolm moved closer to me and said quietly “Look I... I heard from someone that you can use Shadow. Is that true?” I stared at him for a moment before he clarified. “It’s like summoning Darkness?” I nodded at that point, now I understood. He joined in with the nodding.

“I see your problem then. Shadow is... rare these days. We’ve lost most of the ability to cast it, so it’s difficult for anyone to cast it well. Anyone casting it without training is... it’s supposed to be impossible; you need years tutoring in it. If what I heard is right, you aren’t that bad at it already. That might make him suspicious of you, don’t mean he has to be an asshole to you mind.”

His expression had softened, a little, losing just a hint of his grumpiness he spoke to me “Look, it’s unusual to do but you can decide not to claim any area for now, so long as your home isn’t in any of these areas, you don’t have to declare it. What you do need to do, is sort yourself out a Post Office box, which you can do if you go to the addresses in that folder. Helps you get some notices and mail.” He shuffled back over to his desk and handed me the folder he’d been making up “When you do, send the letter back to me with the address, I’ve included our address we use in that folder.”

“Why are you helping me like this?” I asked him, which got a little smile on his grumpy face “I feel like you’re going beyond what you should be.”

“I am yes,” he replied, still smiling, “And before you ask, no, I won’t tell you why. You might find out one day.” He paused for a moment and glanced around suspiciously as if someone might be watching him, “I don’t think I need to say this, but let’s keep this between us, yes?”

I thought about this and nodded to him, slipping the folder into my bag, “You have my thanks Malcolm. I think I’ll take your advice and not declare any territory. For now, maybe one day in the future.”

Malcolm smirked a little, and took the envelope I had given him, writing my name on it before pinning it to one of his noticeboards. He took out a letter, signed and dated it before it got folded into an envelope, sealing it with an old-fashioned wax stamp and passed to me “This is a receipt of your declining territory for now. As a note by the way, if you go out of Seattle, you can generally negotiate for more territory. No one’s got any interest in the towns out there, no real profit in them for most.”

Malcolm escorted me out and shook my hand before he opened the door. I felt like on that day, I had gained... well if not a friend, at least a comrade. Someone I could perhaps trust? Only time would tell for me on that front.

While I’d treated myself to a cab to get here, a cab back would cost more than I wanted to spend, so I started the walk to the nearest bus stop to get back. It meant I had to walk to there with an overcast sky ready to burst, and an extremely cold wind that blew my leather coat all over the place, as well as my hair, but that didn’t bother me.

As I started off on my walk, I took my phone out, doing a check on the local bus routes, and soon realized that I could do a short walk, and get a bus into Seattle, then switch to go home. Or if I walked about a mile or so, I could just get on a bus that would take me directly to back to my place with any changing

I decided to walk the mile, rather than walk through Seattle itself during busy time. Seattle during peak time can be harder to get through than Mordor.

The area I had to walk through, sadly, had fallen to decay in places. Rundown buildings with boarded up windows, or metal grating to protect the occupants. Most of the windows that remained had been at least cracked, and too many of them had holes in them. Some places didn’t even have doors that closed properly, and once or twice I saw places without any door at all.

The people moving around these areas inspired less than savory thoughts as well, I suspected they were either drug dealers or perhaps gang members, possibly both. Some of them watched me as I went by, thankfully however none of them seemed interested in bothering me. I was glad I decided to wait until daytime to go here, at night I was sure I would have had a problem.

But as I walked along, my instincts started to kick up and alert me to something. It took me a couple of blocks before I twigged onto what was going on: Despite it all, I was being followed by someone. I was sure it wasn’t a gang member, or a drug dealer, it was something else, and it wasn’t friendly.

I probably should have run. Gone and hidden somewhere with lots of people, something clever like that. But I didn’t, I was tired of feeling small and tiny in this world, and having people push me around. Instead, I went down an alley and waited for whoever or whatever it was. I wasn’t waiting long either, within a minute or two, a man appeared at the entrance, walking down to within speaking distance.

“You didn’t run?” He asked me as he stopped, seeming amused by this.

The easiest thing to say about this man was this: He felt frightening to me, like a someone who has spent a lifetime being a bully does. Someone who is used to picking on those weaker than himself. And he thought everyone was weaker than he was. He wasn’t muscular though, nor was he hugely tall, but he managed to radiated confidence in tons. He was dressed in an extremely casual jeans and shirt he was wearing, ignoring the cold weather, and his brown hair was slicked back, with blond highlights running through it. He looked me over lazily.

“Why should I run?” I asked, gritting my teeth to avoid showing any fear.

“We’re not exactly on friendly terms you know?” He said, a hint of mocking to his tone. A bully then. Great. “I am Eli Grace. And you are?”

“Ryan.” For some reason it seemed rude to not give my name. I still wasn’t a fighter, despite the stabbing. It was possibly I could talk my way out of this, and his confidence was cutting through the bravado I had been feeling when I stopped in this alley. I was regretting that decision.

“Does that name come with a surname?” He asked, his tone mocking and somehow playful at the same time. I was getting the impression of a cat playing with its food, this wasn’t a good place to be.

“Vaughan.”

He gave me a lazy look, then without any warning he hissed something and flicked his hand at me. I had no chance to react to it, and the world erupted into pain as first I was hit by a freight train, then I went flying into a brick wall. I’m not sure what went exactly happened when I hit it, except there was a lot of noise, and dust went flying everywhere. From my point of view, I almost passed out from the pain as my back, chest and neck hurt.

I dropped down to my feet, barely able to stay standing, but that was all I had the energy to do in that moment. That was all that Eli apparently needed, as I blinked, and he was in front of me before I had a chance to think. I felt a familiar pain as a knife pushed into my diaphragm, and then went up under my rib cage, while his other hand covered my mouth to silence my cries.

And I did cry out in pain, but at the same time I tried to punch him. My blows didn’t have any effect on him as he took the blows easily, his eyes watching mine, his face smiling with sadistic delight at my pain. I tried punching him some more, adding in some kicks, watching as his eyes started shifting to a golden color.

It became clear to me, that if I didn’t do something, I was going to die in this alley, at the hands of a madman with a knife. Again.

And that.

Made.

Me.

Angry.

That feeling of Darkness came to me, Shadow obeying my call, and I lashed it out at him, hitting him with it as best as I could with all the pain and anger. I don’t think it was a powerful blow, but there was a burst of Light and Darkness and a screech like metal grinding against metal. To my shock, and delight, Eli was thrown backwards tumbling through the air for a moment.

Somehow though he managed to right himself in midair and landed on his feet like some impossible nimble bird, however that confidence he gave off had faltered, and I moved away from the wall ready for a fight. There was still a pain in my stomach and as I wrapped an arm protectively around me, I realized I still had his knife stuck in my stomach. Not really knowing what else to do, I grabbed it, and held it in place.

I saw Eli look at me holding the knife, then back up to my face, and his confidence returned a little at that and my... Foe raised his hand again. I felt it coming, knew what to do, and I met it with my own raised hand, sending forth Shadow that was twisting and rolling around on the edge of my vision. Light poured out of his hand and smashed into my Shadow. In the narrow confines of the alley, they met.

There was a boom of pressure, almost like a sonic boom. Shadow and Light sprayed out, and then gushed back to try and wrap around each other. It burnt the eyes to see them meet and push against each other. Nevertheless, they kept intertwining, shifting and fighting, trying to overcome one another, but neither seemed able to gain an upper hand.

As angry as I was, I could feel myself weakening. The first attack and knife had done enough to me already, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up. At the same time, I knew that if I stopped, I was going to die. I had open option though, so I kept up my stream of Shadow to push against his beam of Light and moved myself into a position to run towards the open entrance.

I’ll be damned if I was going die in another alley. twice would be embarrassing.

The sky opened, and we were being bombarded by a torrent of rain, the day growing darker as it did, and I heard a hiss from Eli before my Shadow was charging forward into Eli. It clipped him, causing a howl of pain, almost drowned out by that metal-like screech. He tumbled and rolled, and I took advantage of this, dropping my hand, and bolted towards the entrance as fast as I could while trying to keep the knife as still as possible. In theory keeping it there was better for me.

I got really close to the alley entrance before a loud noise happened, then I was on the ground looking up at the sky. I could hear a commotion going on above me, managing to lift my head for a moment I could see Eli bearing down on me, aiming a gun at me.

But then more loud noises happened, and he was going the other way in a hurry.

Dropping my head to the floor I tried to breathe, but it wasn’t easy. Everything was officially hurting now. Another look confirmed what I thought.

I can now cross ‘Get shot’ off my bucket list.

I saw someone else appear above me, it took me a moment to figure out what I was seeing. I almost panicked thinking it was Eli, instead it was a police officer appearing above me like a guardian angel. He crouched over me, using his radio to garble something into it as he looked me over, then he leaned closer.

“Stay with me, buddy.”

I gave a brief nod even as it hurt to move or breathe.

He looked over me again, and I could see it in his eyes: He didn’t rate my chances that high. I guess I would have agreed with him, had I not already been in a similar situation before.

“Officer... Where did that asshole go?” I garbled at him, he glanced up the alley for a moment, and some more worry crossed his face.

“Ran. My partners trying to see if he can see where he went, but I... Well, you were down.” He gave me a look, which I guess he thought it was reassuring, but there was a lot of worry on his face.

I wanted to say something reassuring back to him, but at this point I coughed, and a lot of blood came out of my mouth. Well crap, that wasn’t good. Nor was the wave of pain that came with it, or the fact I was struggling to catch my breath. Apparently, that was still something I wanted, or needed. Whatever.

Lights started to flash in my vision, causing me to wonder for a moment what the hell it was. Then emergency medic type people were in my field of vision, poking and prodding at me, before starting to do various things to me that hurt. Including shoving something down my throat.

I tried to weakly struggle because let’s be honest, having something shoved down your throat isn’t fun. But I was out of energy. I don’t think I could have beaten a fluffy kitten right now.

And the lights were kind of pretty. Except for all that darkness. Wait.

Oh. That again.