Renata was scowling. “Once they realized they were caught, one of them downed a vial. He’s as strong as a half-form were and fast as a vampire, and he’s got a hostage. One of the security people.”
“Let me help,” she said. This was something she could do.
Travis motioned for her to follow, so the three of them went charging through the bar, through another door and into what looked like a holding cell. A single light swung overhead, making the room seem even more ominous by casting shadows in the corners. There was also a drain in the middle of the floor. Shamira didn’t want to think about that.
The security forces were backed up against one wall; one perpetrator sat cowering in a corner, and the other held a young woman by the throat.
“Don’t come any damn closer!” the man said, snarling like an animal. His eyes were as red as a sunset and his face had lost all vestiges of humanity. “Clear the damn way! I’m taking her and leaving. Anyone tries to stop me and she dies, along with the would-be hero. Got that?”
Travis motioned for Renata and Shamira to move back. They weren’t official staff.
Shamira’s mind was going a mile a minute as she pushed her way back into the shadows in the corner of the room. She couldn’t let the man leave. Never let a psychopath leave with a hostage. He’d kill her. She knew in her heart of hearts that this poor woman would die if he got outside with her. He was a creature of ill intent, mad with the power of a godling. She looked at the shadows in the room, then closed her eyes for a moment while wondering if she could scoot around the edges —
Then, her mind showed her the real shadows. It was almost as if the rest of the world dropped away and the only things that existed were blinding whiteness and the black of night, just light and shadows. She saw the shadows of the room, and even the shadows cast by the people in the room, or at least those in a position to cast a shadow. But she didn’t see the people themselves. It was like a Rorschach inkblot test come to life and gone insane.
She wanted to get behind the man, to get into his shadow. She saw something that looked like two figures struggling. She saw the shadows of the corner of the room behind him. That’s where she wanted to be. She could stop him if she could just . . . Her mind reached out and touched those shadows, and the world shifted. Suddenly, she was looking at the same scene but from a different perspective. She opened her eyes. She was behind him! She didn’t know how that had happened, but somehow she had appeared in the darkness behind the crazed druggie.
She knew she had to stop him. And she knew what would happen to the girl if she gave him any quarter. She stepped out of the shadows, grabbed the unsuspecting man’s neck, and broke it like a twig.
The body fell to the ground and the girl charged forward, clutched in the protective arms of a comrade. Now it was Shamira who stood in the light of that single overhead bulb, and everyone was staring at her. Not staring like Clara and Henry had stared at their victim or like Shane had stared at Renata, this was not lust or desire. This was fear and awe. That’s when it hit her.
“I killed him,” she whispered. In all her time on the force, she’d never even shot someone much less killed them. Now this man lay at her feet, his body facing downward while his eyes stared up at her, that snarl still stuck on his lips. He was very dead. It was Shamira’s fault. She stared at her hands, and they began to tremble.
“What did you do?” Renata asked. She realized too late that what she had meant to be a question about Shamira’s apparent teleportation sounded like incredulity. The muscular newcomer’s face went blank, then she charged blindly through the crowd which parted before her. Renata tried to give chase, but she had to struggle past people just to get to the door. “Shamira!” she called out, but the girl was running too quickly. She hurried after her, encountering an emerging Henry and Clara along the way. Apparently, playtime was over.
“What’s going on?” Clara asked.
“Can’t explain right now,” came the reply as the Brazilian woman hurried past. “Shamira just did something and now she’s freaked.” She ran to the door, which the front guard was in the process of closing. He’d had no reason to detain Shamira, so he’d let her through. Renata emerged into the dark alley, looking both ways. Nothing. Shamira had vanished.
————- ——————-
Hours later . . .
————- ——————-
Shamira wasn’t used to being undead, so being a ghost was almost overwhelming. But that’s what she was, a ghost in the house she had called home less than a week earlier. She stood on bare feet in her parents’ house in Kennesaw. Her brother, her sister, and her two young nephews were still there, having come into town for Shamira’s funeral.
She walked around in absolute silence, all noise absorbed by the darkness. Her brother Stan was crashed in the guest room, while her sister Samantha was on the pull-out sofa with Shamira’s brother-in-law Patrick. Their two children, John and Craig, were asleep on an inflatable mattress nearby. And as usual, Shamira’s father was asleep in his recliner because of his bad back while her mother was in their bedroom. It would have been perfect, if it weren’t for the fact that they were mourning the loss of someone standing in their very midst.
Shamira had snuck into the house utilizing the shadows, and she was looking down on each member of her family, one at a time. Even in sleep, they looked haunted.
‘Aren’t they?’ she thought. ‘Aren’t I haunting them right now?’ She wanted to scream. She wanted to wake them all up and tell them she was okay. Tell them everything was fine. Tell them she was coming home and wouldn’t ever leave them again. Lie to them. She was dead, and she didn’t even know what that meant for her. She knew she shouldn’t be there, but she didn’t know where else to go.
The worst by far for her to look on was her sister. Samantha was more than Shamira’s blood, she was her best friend. When the boys mocked her or broke Shamira’s heart, it was Samantha who had been there, threatening violence against anyone who hurt her baby sister. Samantha had shown up to Shamira’s competitions when her mother called them indecent. Apparently, women weren’t supposed to be muscular and parade around in bikinis while waiting to be judged. Who knew? When Samantha had gone off to college, they had talked on the phone often. Sometimes, Samantha had just known when Shamira needed to talk, even from hundreds of miles away.
Now, her far-too-pretty sister lay turned on her side, her husband’s arm around her as they spooned. She looked safe and protected, but also sad. Next to her, on the arm of the sofa, was Shamira’s lucky hat. The black Stetson been a gift to Shamira from her sister before a Georgia regional competition, which turned out to be the younger sister’s first major win. Ever since, that hat had brought Shamira luck.
‘If I’d been wearing you the other night, would my luck have held?’ She touched the brim, comforting and worn. ‘Would I be talking to my sister on the phone instead of staring up at her from the grave? Would I be a murderer in that world?’
Samantha stirred, and Shamira leaned over, kissing her sister on the top of the head.
Samantha Kingsley opened her eyes, feeling something wasn’t quite right, or maybe it was too right. “Shamira?” she asked of the darkness. On the razor thin edge of sleep that she’d been balancing on since she’d heard the horrible news, she’d felt a distinct pull. It had felt like resolution of a tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, suddenly remembering something that should have always been in her mind. Shamira had been such a force in her life, including looking after an ailing father and mother in denial when Samantha herself was simply unable to. For a moment, Samantha could have sworn that she felt that force again.
She picked her head up and looked around, tears coming to her eyes when they fell on that damn hat she’d bought to cheer her sister up. She missed her sister so much it hurt, and it felt like it would never stop hurting. She didn’t see the eyes looking at her from the shadows in the corner of the room, and she certainly didn’t notice when those eyes slipped away.
Outside, Shamira appeared in the shadows of a tree lining the road in that quiet little suburban neighborhood. She leaned in and put her head against the tree, her eyes aching with a need to cry that her pride denied. She could have stayed and told her sister everything. She could have had that one person back in her life. But she had chickened out. She didn’t think she could handle Samantha seeing the monster that she’d become.
Glancing down the street, she saw a car that was a bit too ritzy for the suburbs of Kennesaw. It was a Porsche of some kind, and Shane Stapleton was leaning against the door. Suddenly, Shamira wanted to hit someone, and that someone had just made himself available. She strode down to the aged vampire with ill intent clearly decorating her face. Shane stood up and away from the car, not backing down and not looking particularly afraid. He looked sad.