Whisper of Shadow: A Mirus Short Story

  ~*~

  Drip. Drip.

  Maria hadn’t turned the shower all the way off again.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  The monotonous sound dragged her relentlessly from the depths of sleep.

  She was all set to blast her roommate with a lecture about common courtesy, when she realized her hands and feet were bound. Something was across her eyes. A mask? A blindfold? Wiggling her fingers just a little, Emily could feel a rough, uneven surface behind her. Brick? It was faintly damp. She was slumped against a wall, legs stretched out in front. As she rose fully to consciousness, she could feel the burn of abrasions along the backs of her legs. Her arms ached from where she’d been grabbed. Bruised, probably.

  Kidnapped.

  Though she fought to control the whip of shock and realization, a nearby voice was already chuckling.

  “Well, well. Looks like our little guest is awake.”

  Hands jerked her upright, half supporting, half dragging her a dozen or more feet before dumping her into a chair. Her knuckles cracked painfully against the back, but Emily didn’t make a sound.

  “Now don’t be rough,” the voice chastised. “We don’t want to damage our bargaining chip.”

  At least two of them. Then her brain zeroed in on what he’d said. Bargaining chip. The only possible person she could be used as leverage against was Rab.

  Her blood turned to ice, colder even than the wraithfrost.

  “What do you want?” she demanded. Her voice came out forceful instead of terrified. She didn’t know how long that was going to last.

  “We want many things.” The way he said it was somehow wrong, but Emily couldn’t put her finger on why.

  “Who are you?” If I can split and manifest somewhere they can’t see me, I can get a look at how many I’m dealing with. Emily didn’t know what good that was going to do, but she had to try.

  Heat pooled in her belly, power ready to be unleashed. But when she tried to release it, nothing happened.

  “We are businessmen.” He seemed to trip over the s sounds, almost like a lisp, but not quite. “You won’t be able to use your abilities, by the way. You’re bound with suppressor cable. The finest the Fae has to offer. We couldn’t have part of you sneaking out to get help.”

  Emily stilled. Without the ability to split, she was nothing but a fifteen year old girl. She didn’t have Rab’s extra abilities. She was in deep, deep trouble. So she did what any self-respecting teenage girl would do in this situation. She brass-balled it.

  "Any businessman worth his salt knows how to negotiate, so let’s get to it” she said. “Keeping me tied to a chair is hardly a productive use of any of our time, and I’ve got a term paper to write this weekend.” Show no fear.

  There was a beat of silence before the spokesman began to laugh. “The girl hasss sssspirit! I like that. Certainly more personality than her brother.”

  It was all the rolled S’s that tipped her off. He was a Sugea, a snake shifter. Emily could practically feel her skin shrink in revulsion. Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

  “Tell me, little spitfire, does your brother give you everything you want?”

  Emily snorted at that. “Hardly. I’ve been asking for years, and I still don’t have a pony.”

  Someone invaded her space. She had an impression of bulk, a sensation of heat before she felt the kiss of a blade just under her jawbone. It pricked her skin as she hissed in an involuntary breath.

  “Perhaps I asked the wrong question,” hissed the spokesman in her ear, drawing the cool blade down the column of her throat, not pressing quite hard enough to draw blood. “Does he do anything you want?”

  Emily wanted to whimper and throw herself away from the blade, from this man who spoke in sibilant tones. But her brother had raised no coward. “Why do I get the impression that the question is more, can I get him to do what you want?”

  At her throat the blade hesitated. She could feel her captor shift slightly, as if looking at someone across the room. “Very good,” he said. “That is, indeed, the issue at hand.”

  “Why do you need me at all? No one goes through me to book jobs. He has his own contacts.” Emily’s mind spun, finding the answer before the man could speak. “Unless you already approached him and he said no.”

  “You have a lovely quick brain in that pretty head of yours. It would be a shame to destroy it.”

  That was as close to a confirmation as she was going to get. If Rab had said no to the job, either there was a scheduling conflict or, more likely, they’d asked him to cross one of his personal lines.

  “You want him to kill someone,” she guessed.

  “Give the girl a prizzzzzze.”

  “Seems like an awful lot of trouble considering you’re venomous enough yourself.”

  “Oh very good. A plusssss.” He shifted and suddenly the blindfold was ripped away.

  Emily squinched her eyes shut against the bright lights. Weren’t skeezy hideouts supposed be dark? Maybe her captors had watched too many cop shows about interrogation.

  A body shifted, blocking the direct light. She blinked, staring up at the broad shoulders of the Sugea. Those bulges along his thick neck would flare out to make a full cobra hood when he was riled. For now they stayed tucked neatly away. But she could still see signs of the snake in his face, in the slitted amber eyes and the peek of fangs curving past his lower lip. Unlike vampires, Sugea fangs didn’t retract, a fact which made them the object of ridicule among some segments of Mirus society. Emily doubted anyone had made the insult in the presence of said fangs.

  “This will be very sssssimple. You will contact your brother. He will perform the required assassination or we will assassinate you. An even trade.”

  Mariana Trench deep kinda trouble. Emily’s hands began to sweat. She had the emergency beacon, but she didn’t dare use it. For all she knew, she’d be luring her brother into a trap. No, she needed to rely on her own wits to get her out of this. “Tiny problem with that scenario,” she pointed out, concentrating on keeping her voice from trembling.

  “And what issss that?”

  “I can’t contact him.”

  He was back in her face before she could draw breath, moving so fast she expected the air to snap. “You will contact him, or you will die.”

  Emily stared into those pitiless pools of black. “Take out your phone and dial this number.”

  The shifter blinked, then tugged a phone out of his pocket, finger hovering to input the digits as she called them out.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Put it on speaker.”

  He did.

  “We’re sorry. The number you have reached is no longer in service.”

  The hood flared. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He’s gone totally under for this mission. No phone calls, no emails, not even a freaking tweet. I don’t have any way to get in touch with him until he turns back up after it’s over. So you see, there’s nothing I can do to help you.”