Here’s a sneak peek into Living in the Shadows, book 2:
Lillie let out a frustrated sigh as she failed for the fourth time in a row to grab her history book from her locker. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath in and out, and concentrated on her hand. Stay solid for once, she begged, and tried again to grab her history book. Fifth time’s a charm, she thought bitterly as she tucked her book inside her bag. She slung the bag over her shoulder and trudged out to the bus stop.
She managed to get on the bus without tripping, which happened less often than she’d like to admit, and got off on the last stop. Walking the eight blocks to the apartment building, she snuck around the back and through the construction, and made her way up the stairs to the apartment she had claimed as her own. She dropped her bag next to the door, made her way back to the bedroom, and was about to let herself float down to the air mattress set up on the floor when suddenly she got that chilly feeling in her core that she got when she passed through something solid.
Before her sprawled on the floor laid a tall, dark blonde-haired man. She drop kicked him – successfully, she added to herself with satisfaction – and he let out a small “oof.”
“Get out of my house,” Lillie snarled as the mysterious young man slowly got on his hands and knees.
He finally stood up all the way, smoothed out the front of his shirt (which was silk, Lillie noted – how tacky), and blinked in disbelief a couple of times as he looked at her.
“Huh. You’re actually pretty cute. Wasn’t expecting that. You’re certainly preferable to the hobo I was expecting,” he said, Lillie noting his British accent. Without warning, the young man launched at Lillie, this time with a hiss. Are those… fangs? Lillie wondered, as again she let him pass harmlessly through her body. He hit his head with a loud crack on the wall behind her, and as he cradled his head she noted with displeasure that he had left a big dent in the wall, plaster flaking down onto the floor.
The young man got up again with a little hop, trying a little too hard not to appear fazed by what had just happened and turned to face Lillie. “You aren’t a meat creature, are you?” He asked casually.
Lillie just shrugged. “You done attacking me?”
“Yeah. I’ll get out of your hair now. See ya.” The young man slid his hands into his pockets, jerked his head in a goodbye as he walked out the bedroom door, and let himself out of the apartment.
What swag, Lillie thought sarcastically as she took off her shoes, belt and cardigan and finally let herself float down to the air mattress. She never quite made contact, instead hovering a few inches above the blankets. No point in pretending to be human tonight, she thought. Not when there’s some psycho trying to eat me. She let herself drift to sleep without another thought of the incident.
Lillie grabbed her cell phone and checked the time when she woke up. One o’clock a.m., just like every other day. Apparently normal humans only needed a maximum of eight hours of sleep every night, but Lillie managed to clock in a solid ten every day. As she started to rise to her feet she froze. The blonde-haired man from earlier was leaning against the window sill, and though it was pitch black she could see him with absolute clarity. He had a smug smirk on his face, his arms crossed. Lillie wanted to punch that expression off his face, then maybe knee him in a particularly sensitive spot for good measure.
“In case you didn’t get the message earlier, I don’t appreciate trespassers. Please leave.” Lillie said as she straightened.
“I don’t think I will. You’re way too interesting for that.” The mysterious person in front of her stated.
Lillie thought this over. “You’re really not going to leave?” He shook his head. She sighed and said, “I’m hungry. You can have whatever mac and cheese I don’t eat.”
“My, my! What hospitality!” The man said as he followed Lillie to the kitchen.
“Do you need the light on?” Lillie asked as she got a pot out of the cupboard.
“No, I’m good,” blondie replied as he wandered around the living room area, looking out the windows. He made his way back to the kitchen and leaned against the fridge. “So I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind for the past few hours,” he said.
“Charming,” Lillie muttered under her breath.
“I am, aren’t I?” He replied. “And while I can’t get that pretty face out of my mind, mostly I’ve been puzzling over what you could possibly be. You smell so deliciously human, yet you so obviously aren’t. ‘What could she be?’ I asked myself. Ghost was my first thought, but I’ve never known a ghost to be tied to an apartment like this, nor one that wears real clothes and uses an air mattress to hover over. You also completely debunked that theory when you started making food. My next thought was that with your white, wispy hair you must be a white lady, but no white lady wanders alone – there’s usually another one or two in the immediate vicinity. I scoured the entire building, and not only is there no one on this floor or the next one down, but once you do hit occupied units you get nothing but humans. Well, one shape shifter as well, but I’m sure you knew that.” Lillie didn’t, but tried not to show her surprise. “So that leaves me with one last viable option. You’re a poltergeist! And I must say, you are the sweetest-smelling, cutest poltergeist I’ve ever seen!”
“I need to grab the milk. It’s from a powdered mix, I hope you don’t mind.” Lillie said, tapping her foot impatiently.
“All tastes the same when it’s mixed in to the pasta, babe,” the increasingly irritating guest said as he slid away from the fridge.
Lillie was silent as she mixed the powdered cheese and milk in to the pasta, then spooned well over half of it in to a bowl. She put the spoon back into the pot and handed it to her guest. “I only have one bowl,” Lillie explained as she grabbed a fork for herself and a couple of cups. She poured the cups halfway full with some of the milk and placed one on the counter next to the stranger.
They ate in silence for several long, uncomfortable minutes. The young man was done in a few seconds, though Lillie didn’t see him take more than a couple of bites. She decided to take her time and was only a third of the way done before she decided to say anything.
“So what’s a vampire doing trying to prey on squatters in a near-failed apartment project?” She asked.
“I suppose for the same reasons a poltergeist would settle in to said apartment.”
“I never said I was a poltergeist.”
“I never said I was a vampire.”
Lillie nearly slammed her bowl on to the counter and started grinding her teeth in frustration, though otherwise she refrained from showing any emotion. “Remember that time when you tried to eat me? You know, way back when at three o’clock in the afternoon yesterday? You did a pretty shitty job of hiding your fangs. And while I know you don’t think that window would cast a reflection without any light, I have excellent night vision. You definitely did not have a reflection. You made a point of telling me I smell like a human, which tells me that you have a very refined sense of smell, which is common in vampires. Do I need to keep going?”
He held his hands up and said, “All right, all right, you’ve got me. Clearly we’ve started off on the wrong foot. Let me introduce myself – I am Kyrin, vampire misfit. And who may my incredibly generous hostess be?”
Lillie picked her bowl of pasta back up. “Name’s Lillie. I suppose misfit would be a good word to describe me, too, though probably not in the anarchist-type way you’re thinking of.”
“Misfit what, may I ask?”
“Human.”
“Oh, come now. I thought we were going to start over! Starting off with a lie is a terrible way to make an acquaintance.”
Lillie shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me. I wouldn’t believe me, either. Heck, I don’t really want to believe it much at all myself, but I’ve been assured that I really am human. Now, I have errands to run.
I’d appreciate it if you left so I can get on with my morning.”
Kyrin pouted comically. “That’s it? You don’t have any questions for me, nor are you going to let me ask any questions about you?”
“That’s correct. Deal with it.”
“Huh. Pity. Two incredibly interesting beings such as us simply beg to be explored.” He wagged his eyebrows suggestively.
“Out. Now.”
“Fine! Fine. I can tell when I’m unwanted.” Kyrin let himself out, but before letting the door close all the way behind him he poked his head back in the apartment and said, “Well, I’d be a terrible guest if I didn’t offer you over for dinner in return for the hospitality you’ve shown me. May I treat you to hot dogs sometime in the near future?”
“I cannot stress enough how much I want you to leave.”
“I’ll take that as a maybe. See ya!”
Before Lillie could say another word he shut the door. She rolled her eyes and started cleaning up the dishes from breakfast.
Lillie went back to her room and fished through her bag for a fresh change of clothes. She got her toiletries out of the cupboards, showered, brushed her hair, and put her clothes on. Her wardrobe didn't vary much - when her family told her to set out on her own, they told her to study what the average woman was wearing and buy clothes to reflect that. Look good, but don't stand out, she was told. She ended up getting two pairs of jeans - one skinny, one boot cut - and some dress pants that she ended up never wearing. She owned a few plain tees and tank tops as well as some cardigans, and besides a couple of belts to wear around her waist over the cardigans (which she never understood - why do jeans have belt loops if that's not where it's fashionable to wear them?) that was the extent of her wardrobe.
She carefully wiped the bathtub and sink dry and pushed the air mattress into the closet - who knows how much noise Kyrin had made while he was wandering around on this level. Normally security checks rarely made it to the top, unoccupied level of the apartment building, and when they did they rarely checked beyond the kitchen and living room - but still, always better to be safe than sorry. She just hoped that the dent in her wall wouldn’t cause too much of a problem, if it was noticed.
Before leaving Lillie double checked the lock. She had no idea how Kyrin could possibly have gotten the door unlocked, which only made her more aggravated at him. She didn't have a key, naturally, but since she could materialize herself through solid objects it wasn't an issue.
She carefully made her way down the six flights of stairs. Not that she ever made any noise, but there were still some younger people living in the apartments that stayed up all hours of the night, and Lillie never knew when they were going to leave or come back, creating the risk of her being spotted. Thankfully all was still, and she made her way through the back of the building, climbing over the construction zone in the process.
The cemetery was a full sixteen blocks away, but Lillie had no problem walking that distance. It was almost four in the morning by the time she reached the cemetery and pulled herself over the fence. Picking her way through the headstones, she made her way to the large marble angel watching over a family plot. It's unusually quiet tonight, she thought to herself as she leaned against a nearby monolith, waiting for her friend to arrive.
Five o'clock hit and Lillie started to get worried. While Hector had, on occasion, arrived later than she had to their normal meeting place, it was normally on days where she was either particularly early or had skipped sleeping at her place and gone straight to the graveyard to spend the night.
Finally she made the decision to do something that was considered incredibly rude - she grabbed a glass vial from one of the outside pockets of her backpack that held dozens of tiny, pure white, dried flower petals. She tapped no more than four or five on top of the headstone that read Hector Lewis and waited patiently. Lillie counted the minutes, getting more and more distressed as the third, then the fourth minute passed by. At five minutes at twenty-seven seconds Hector finally appeared.
"Really? Really?! Virgin's tears? What on earth would compel you to go so far as to summon me with virgin's tears?! It didn't occur to you that maybe I had something important on my plate for once?" The ghost of Hector Lewis stepped out of the statue of the angel. Even though he had died around the age of thirty, he was one of Lillie's best friends while she was growing up. Usually nothing but kind and soft-spoken, his harsh words stung.
"Sorry. I got worried. We haven't missed a night ever since I left..." Lillie trailed off.
Hector softened a little when he saw her embarrassment. "I see. I apologize. It's been a stressful night for ghosts everywhere for the last week."
"Why? What happened?"
"Well... it was just a rumor at first... but yesterday we heard from somewhere else the same thing... apparently an angel has been spotted."
Lillie could feel her heart beat faster, though she couldn't decide if it was out of dread or out of hope. "An angel? But... they've been gone for thousands of years! Are you sure it wasn't a fallen angel?" Fallen angels were not common, but it never surprised anyone if one revealed itself to be as such.
"Pretty sure, though until I see it for myself I can't give a solid answer. Apparently it was fully decked out - wings, halo, the whole shebang. I'm sure you can imagine how we ghosts are reacting to this."
Lillie could clearly imagine the uproar the ghost community was in. Ghosts were the souls of people who were either too scared to move on or of people who adamantly didn't believe in an afterlife. It didn't take long for these souls to realize that hanging around on earth was the least desirable of all options, and almost all ghosts had regrets of not moving on. No ghost would ever go on the record of saying so, but many whispered about how angels had the ability to provide another chance to move on. It was why there weren't any ghosts older than a couple thousand years old - that was the last time any angel had visited earth.
So for an angel to be spotted was a huge deal - perhaps, if it could be found, it could help so many souls move on. It could very well help my parents, too, Lillie added to herself.
As though he could read her mind, Hector said, "I've been trying to confirm the rumor for myself, which is why I failed to show up today. I was hoping you'd understand, seeing as how I'd love nothing more than to be able to ask about your mother and father."
Lillie almost cracked a rare smile at that. "Of course. Hector, you're the most selfless soul I know." Hector truly was a humanitarian. He didn't talk much about his life, but apparently he was hugely invested in charity work. Naturally he had a one-way ticket to heaven when he died, but he declined - not out of fear or disbelief, but he caught a glimpse of all the souls that had made the mistake of staying on earth and decided to help them instead. He insisted that there was no better way to show love to God than to show love to his fellow ghosts, which made him one of about a dozen ghosts on the whole face of the planet that preferred earth to heaven.
Lillie checked her watch. "Thanks so much, Hector. I'd love to hang around, but the store is opening in a couple hours and I need to grab some stuff before employees get too alert."
"I understand. I'll keep you updated, and I promise I'll remember to come by tomorrow."
Lillie waved goodbye and headed out of the graveyard. She made her way to the nearest big box retailer that wasn't open 24/7. There were more and more of these stores opting to be closed at night - the economy made it difficult enough to keep the store fully staffed during the day, so keeping it open at night was becoming more and more counterintuitive.
She focused on making herself invisible as she approached the parking lot. She'd slipped up a couple of times before, getting caught for a few seconds on the cameras, but since she didn't really exist on paper it was too difficult for the police to find her. Besides, the worst that could happen was that she'd be charged with trespassing, since she was super careful not to be visi
ble while she was taking items off the shelf.
Going in a couple of hours before the store opened was the perfect time of day to steal what she needed, Lillie had discovered. There were usually one or two assistant managers there, as well as some bakers and clothing specialists and other employees that needed to get their jobs done early on in the day, but beyond that there were very few people who would be wandering the aisles. There usually weren't even security guards there until the store actually opened.
She took only what she needed for the next week, and only high-volume items that could be written off as having been damaged, lost or miscounted during the shipping process. Apples and oranges, a couple of cucumbers, Mac and cheese, a variety of yogurt, store-brand bread and cereal, tortillas, some canned beans and other vegetables, and a block of cheese. She had little variety in her diet, but it was enough to get her by. She also grabbed some travel size shampoo, conditioner, and soap, since she was constantly running out of the tiny portions.
She glanced at her watch - it was nearing seven o'clock. The bus to get her to school came by at seven thirty. If she ran she might have enough time to get back to the apartment on her way to the bus stop.
She couldn't focus much on her classes that day, mind mostly on the idea of finding that angel. Hector hadn't mentioned where it was rumored to have been seen. Was it close by? Was it all the way on the other coast? Was it traveling? If she were an angel, she'd choose to live in Massachusetts. Not only was it a smaller state, but it was one of the more densely populated states in the entire US. After all, that's why she had chosen to stay there. Well, that, plus the strong connection it has to the afterlife.
She wondered if it could disguise itself. Fallen angels did, she knew that. But if it could disguise itself, why would it let itself be seen in its celestial form? And if it was in disguise, what was its mission? Legend was that the last time angels visited earth, it was to banish darkness. Being raised the way she was, Lillie didn't exactly have an objective opinion on whether or not the world was being thrown into darkness again, but then again she wasn't exactly keen on paying attention to what happened on earth.
She gave up on going to class and instead wandered around campus. It was early spring and starting to warm up to a temperature she wasn't comfortable with. She dreaded the upcoming summer, unsure whether or not she'd be able to stand the temperatures or if she'd end up migrating north once the semester ended.
People stared at her as she walked toward the library, which she was getting used to. It was hard to miss her - she had white hair and extremely pale skin, and at 5'10" she was taller than most other girls on campus. She was also incredibly skinny, which of all things made her the most self-conscious, but she was starting to put on a little weight with her diet of mostly boxed and canned foods.
She made it to the library with no interruptions and made the long journey to the furthest possible wing and went down the stairs to the mythology section. She had already read through all of the books that even touched on communicating with the dead, and all the books written on the lifestyles and habits of ghosts were horribly misguided. So the only thing to do from there was, well, read every single book on the paranormal and mythological. Lillie had already made her way through all the authors whose last names started with "A", and she was only a book away from finishing the "B"s.
The book she had picked up was simply called "Myth's Origins", by Phillip Bowen. It had a section about ghosts that Lillie had already read through, but it wasn't like it was going to hurt reading through the rest of it. It was formatted like an encyclopedia, and ironically enough the first entry was on Angels. The opening paragraph read:
Angels are one of the few creatures throughout history that have separate origins in several, unrelated cultures' histories, leading some scholars to believe that they may, in fact, exist in some capacity. Physically they are usually described as radiant, ethereal, wearing anything from the most elaborate robes to nothing at all. The most well-known images give angels feathered wings and halos. Their function is most often that as a messenger or guide, though there are several myths that give angels a militant or a guardian role.
From there the entry separated into different cultures and how angels were portrayed in each one. It was informative, but Lillie knew that she had to take it all with a grain of salt, seeing as how the first thing that the book had to say about ghosts was that they were the souls of people who had "unfinished business" or "regrets" and said nothing about how it was possible that the souls simply didn't want to move on, which she knew first hand was not the case. She sighed, realizing that she wasn't really any closer to knowing anything about angels than she was when she opened the book. Not only did it not mention the myth that angels could help "restless" souls move on, but the only thing mentioned that she hadn't heard before was that angels could choose to become mortal for no apparent reason at all. Not even fallen angels became mortal. Who would want to be a mortal, roaming this mess of a planet as a fragile being?
The thought disgusted her enough that she cut her research short and put the book back, deciding to give doing genealogical research another chance. Of course, just like when she first started researching her parents, it was too difficult to find anything beyond birthdates and maybe a wedding photo of the average, un-extraordinary couple before the year 1920. She had sifted through almost all the microfilm the university had dating the thirty years before 1925, and there was still nothing to give her a lead as to what her parents had been doing before they disappeared off the face of the planet.
It was almost two by the time she gave up, which was just enough time for her to get to the bus stop and get home.
Even though she had been going through a bit of stress over the last 24 hours, she wasn't as tired as she normally was by the time three o'clock rolled around. She didn't have anything to do but read from the textbooks for her classes, so she dragged her air mattress out to the bare living room, opened the blinds to create a greater sense of openness, lay on her stomach, and started reading.
A couple of hours passed by when suddenly there was a knock on her door.
"Shit", she swore under her breath as she lost her concentration and let the book she was holding pass through her fingers and make a huge thud as it hit the ground. She quickly picked it back up and concentrated on making herself, the mattress, and the book invisible. She just knew that Kyrin had made too much noise, and now management was probably making checks on all the empty apartments to make sure no squatters had settled in to any of the units.
Another knock on the door. Lillie stood up and started making her way to the bedroom to grab her bag. She was disappointed that she was going to have to move - it was the perfect place for her to stay, so she had actually started settling in to it. Damn that vampire for his noise.
"Hey! It's me! I know you're there! I wanted to give you something!" the person on the other side of the door said. Oh no. She knew that voice. She dropped the things she was holding and floated over to the door. She stuck her head out, still invisible, and found Kyrin standing there, holding a couple of plastic grocery bags.
"What do you want?" She asked, being careful to still keep herself unseen.
"I'm being a good neighbor and brought housewarming gifts over! He said cheerfully, looking at the area her voice had come from.
"I don't want anything."
"Doesn't matter. Human tradition says that you need to accept the casserole and beer I got for you."
See what happens in January 2013
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About the Author:
August lives with her husband and his goldfish along the Rocky Mountains in central Utah. When she’s not writing, she spends her time making and decorating a variety of baked goods or spending time at the local game store, which she affectionately calls the nerd hole.
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