A Shade of Doubt

  “Yes,” she breathed. “Now, we see through Silas’ eyes.”

  Chapter 6: Csilla

  As our view left Mona’s bedroom and glided down the stairs, toward the exit of the building, I couldn’t shake the worry that Silas might mess up.

  Yes, we had access to his vision the whole time, but we were powerless to ensure that he actually obeyed the plan we’d discussed with him earlier. If he decided to be disobedient, we’d have to watch weeks of planning go to waste. My mother seemed to sense my nervousness.

  “Silas would be a fool to fail this task. This is his last assignment. After this, his bond to us is broken and he is a free spirit.”

  I breathed a little easier hearing this assurance from her. If she was not worried, I shouldn’t be either.

  She was right of course. Silas would be a fool. I sat back on my chair and tried to relax a little more as Silas began zooming along a beach. Two thick hands pressed against his eyelids, blurring our vision for a moment, to wipe away the rain that was bucketing down.

  His speed soon found us entering a dense forest. Silas raised his head upward, scanning the treetops.

  “Good,” my mother muttered. “He remembers where to look first. We need not worry, Csilla. It’s in his interest as much as ours to complete this task successfully.”

  I began to wonder how he wasn’t bashing into things since his focus was on the treetops the whole time and he never seemed to be looking where he was going. Although ghouls like Silas were subtle beings—they could fold into impossibly small spaces and manifest themselves at will—when they did manifest, as Silas had now, they were flesh and bone. I supposed he had extrasensory abilities, since he didn’t once smash into a tree. It helped that he was floating too—he didn’t need to look at the ground.

  “He’s going too fast,” I murmured. “He’s going to miss—”

  My mother looked up, throwing me a glare. “Calm yourself, girl, or your nerves will drive me insane. Have some faith in him. He will not do wrong by us.”

  I bit my lip, and averted my eyes back to the ghoul’s vision.

  My mother squeezed my knee as the ghoul stopped short suddenly at the foot of a tree. “See? Up there. Those are the Residences. He’s spotted them now.”

  My stomach clenched as Silas rushed toward a tree and began zooming upward with breathtaking speed. I began to feel dizzy just witnessing it. When he arrived at the top, he cast his eyes about. He was on a wide veranda with flower pots and ivy growing up the sides of the walls of a magnificent treehouse. Silas scanned the building and then, on spotting an open window, he lurched toward it. Two pale hands with sharp black nails reached out and pried the window open wider before he floated inside it.

  Now we found ourselves looking around a living area of sorts—comfortable seating and various types of human technology, which led through to an open kitchen area.

  I wondered whose penthouse we had entered first. I was relieved that he’d found the Residences so effortlessly. I doubted by the size and lavishness of the penthouses that they could be anything but housing for the royalty of the island. Now, we just needed to find our targets.

  Silas drifted quickly from room to room. I had to keep my eyes peeled. He moved so fast it felt like I might miss something if I blinked.

  Finally, after what felt like the sixth room, Silas exited the corridor by drifting through another wooden door and this time we appeared in the largest bedroom we’d seen so far.

  A dark-haired vampire lay in the center of the bed with a beautiful red-haired woman in his arms, sheets wrapped loosely around their bare bodies. They both slept soundly.

  I wasn’t sure what Silas was so interested in. I didn’t know who this man and woman were. It looked like the woman was a witch, but I didn’t recognize her. As for the vampire, I wasn’t sure who he was. But neither of these people were our targets, so I didn’t understand why Silas was bothering to linger so long in this room.

  “Why doesn’t he leave?” I whispered.

  My mother leaned forward, watching intently, as I did. To my surprise, he reached out his gnarled hands and their solidity began to fade until they became almost invisible. His black nails made it easier to locate their shape as they lowered toward the man’s head. I shivered as his ghostly hands sank right into the vampire’s skull. The vampire didn’t stir at all. Of course, he wouldn’t feel a thing—perhaps a faint breeze, a chill around his head. For Silas’ hands were now transparent, thin and light as air.

  Silas was leaving his mark in this vampire’s mind, and I didn’t understand why. It seemed to me like he was wasting time tagging others when he should have been focusing on our targets.

  My mother didn’t answer for several moments as she stared, her lips parted, barely breathing. Then they formed a small, knowing smile. “Silas is just having some fun.”

  “What do you mean?”

  My mother looked at me, now smiling more fully. “It’s harmless. As long as he doesn’t wait too long to reach our targets, we have nothing to worry about.”

  Two minutes later, Silas lifted his hands away from the vampire—still sleeping—and exited the room. We headed straight out of the apartment and rushed back down to the forest ground. Even though I was sitting solidly in my seat, my stomach lurched at the thought of traveling that fast down those enormous trees.

  I was expecting him to immediately move onto the next treehouse, a few meters away, and continue his search. Instead he hurtled forward along the forest path, whipping through the trees, now in his subtle form again. I wanted to ask my mother what he was doing now, but she seemed to have had enough of my incessant questioning so I remained silent.

  It was only once the trees disappeared and a clearing came into view that I couldn’t hold in my gasp. I didn’t need to have lived in The Shade to realize that he had strayed away from the vampires’ residential quarters and entered the humans’.

  “He’s straying from his course already?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. He’d only just exited the jewelry box and already he was straying from my mother’s explicit orders.

  My mother ignored me, her face serious as she focused all her attention on the window. Her face was expressionless—it was impossible to tell whether she was disturbed by Silas’ conduct or approved of it.

  Silas headed straight for the nearest townhouse. No windows were open, but none were needed. There was blackness suddenly as he seeped through the stone wall and emerged again on the inside of the building. A spacious hallway, decorated with soft carpets and paintings on the walls. A cozy home—and so typically human.

  The stairs flew away beneath Silas as he ascended the staircase. Once again he drifted through a wall and appeared in another bedroom. A human couple slept in a bed. As Silas passed a long mirror fixed to a closet, he stopped and stared into it. I shivered. Even though I’d seen him before in the flesh, catching this unexpected glimpse of him in the darkness—his amber eyes glowing—made my heart hammer against my chest. His skeletal body was covered with thin, translucent skin that revealed the cold blue veins beneath it. He had jagged, shark-like teeth and tufts of long black hair hung from the base of his otherwise bald skull.

  As he left the mirror and continued moving through the room, I wasn’t sure I could stomach the scene I was about to witness. But, like watching a trainwreck, I found my eyes glued to the scene.

  Gliding around the edge of the bed, he extended his hands toward the man and woman. They barely had a chance to open their eyes, much less scream, as the ghoul’s black nails dug into their throats and punctured their arteries. As blood began to ooze from their necks, soaking the bedsheets, and Silas pulled away the sheets covering them, I could no longer look. I knew what was coming next.

  Human flesh was a sweet delicacy ghouls didn’t often have the opportunity to taste. My mother had often tasked me with feeding Silas back in The Sanctuary. He devoured all humans the same way—after tearing their throats out, he dug into their stomachs and ate their gu
ts, swallowing the intestines whole, last. Instead of witnessing this nightmarish scene, I fixed my eyes on my mother who remained watching, still unflinching.

  It seemed unlike my mother. I had seen how harsh she could be with Silas during training. She wouldn’t let him stray even an inch from her instructions. To watch her so calmly witnessing Silas violating the very first rule we gave him was bewildering to me.

  “Mother, what are you thinking? Didn’t we feed him enough before we left? I thought the plan was to fill his stomach to last him at least a few days, so he wouldn’t have to risk killing.”

  She didn’t answer me for several more moments as she continued watching Silas’ gruesome feast. Finally, she cleared her throat. “I’m not happy with the attention this is going to cause. If he was here with me now, I would punish him. But it seems he couldn’t help himself. He knows once he has completed his task, he will be closer to freedom and there’s no saying when he will taste human flesh again after that. As long as he’s careful to hide his tracks, we have nothing to fear.” She looked at me pointedly. “You can look now, he’s finished his meal.”

  I looked down at the bed to see it soaked with blood, the corpses split open, fragments of their stomachs strewn about the bedroom.

  Wrapping two strong arms around the corpses, he lifted them up over his shoulders and drifted out of the room. Since he carried these physical bodies with him, he had to open the door in order to exit. I winced, hoping nobody else was in the house who might notice. And then he was rushing back into the woods, as fast as the wind, gripping the bodies. He soon reached the beach and, hovering over a cluster of boulders, he shifted one aside and stuffed the corpses into a crack.

  I was glad that at least he had the sense to dispose of the bodies rather than leave them on the bed. Neither my mother nor I knew how much experience Mona had with ghouls, or if she’d even encountered one before. We didn’t know whether she’d be smart enough to detect a ghoul attack by examining a body. But we couldn’t afford to take that risk. The moment she suspected a ghoul was present on the island, she would suspect us… and the box. Witches of The Sanctuary were known for the pacts they entered into with ghouls.

  Silas had to keep himself hidden or our whole plan would come crashing down. I just hoped that Silas wouldn’t slip up if he was to make feeding on humans a regular habit.

  My mother seemed to sense my fear.

  “We need not worry too much,” she said. “All that flesh he’s just consumed will keep his stomach filled for at least two days…”

  Chapter 7: Rose

  I’d lost track of how much time had passed since Annora left the control room. But, despite the anxiety gnawing away at me, I could no longer ignore my hunger and thirst. It had been a long time since I’d last eaten, and I’d swallowed too much salt water when Caleb had kept ducking me underwater during our escape from Julisse and Arielle.

  I got out of bed and walked to the door. Opening it, I looked out into the corridor. All seemed quiet. No voices. I wondered if Caleb had even left the control cabin, and where Annora was.

  But my first priority was finding water and something to eat. I was beginning to feel a migraine coming on from dehydration. I walked from cabin to cabin, looking for some kind of kitchen area. There had to be a galley here. Annora had said that she had survived on this submarine for days already as she waited for Caleb to arrive.

  Most doors were open already and I could peer in easily. I stopped short at the end of the corridor, just before the last cabin to my left. I heard the rustling of a plastic bag. My heart leapt as I wondered if it could be Caleb.

  It wasn’t.

  I turned the corner to see Annora sitting atop a cupboard filled with dried snacks and a stash of water bottles.

  Her eyes shot toward me, and I stood staring at her, speechless. There was a coldness in her gaze as she looked me over from head to foot, as though she was sizing me up.

  She was sitting right on top of the food cabinet, her legs hanging down over the door. The only way I could gain access to the food would be by asking her.

  I realized I’d rather put up with my migraine than ask any favor of her. Breaking eye contact, I turned around and headed back to my room, cursing beneath my breath. I’ll have to try again later when hopefully she will be gone…

  I looked back over my shoulder to be sure she wasn’t looking after me. I almost walked right into Caleb. I stepped back in shock.

  “Sorry,” he murmured.

  I remained where I was, blocking the narrow corridor, staring at him. I was expecting him to say something else. He didn’t. His eyes remained on the floor, his expression stony as ever.

  I stepped aside and was about to lock myself back in my cabin when he reached out and gripped my arm. He was still avoiding direct eye contact, but his eyes lowered to my cracked lips.

  “You’re dehydrated.”

  Not waiting for my response, he let go of me and walked in the direction of the kitchen. I remained where I was. As Caleb’s footsteps approached the kitchen, I heard Annora murmuring something to him, though I couldn’t make out what. Whatever it was, it was cut short as Caleb exited the kitchen and made his way back to me.

  He was carrying a bottle of water and several packets of oatcakes. He placed them in my hands and stepped back. “If that’s not enough, there’s plenty more in the kitchen.”

  He kept his eyes on the floor as he continued walking down the corridor back to the control cabin. I stood staring after him as he closed the door.

  I looked down at the food and water he’d just given me. At that moment, I felt I would have preferred him to just look me in the eyes. I would have given anything to know what was going through his head.

  I wondered if he was perhaps still in shock about the whole thing. Maybe this was his way of dealing with it—to retreat into himself. I took comfort in the fact that he seemed to be avoiding Annora too, not just me.

  Heaving a sigh, I retreated into my room and sat down on my bed. I ripped open the oatcakes and began chugging down the water. The cakes were bland, but filling. I finished all three packs and realized I was satisfied. I didn’t need to make another trip to the kitchen for now.

  As I was swallowing the last of the water, I almost choked as there was a rapping on my door. Discarding the water bottle, I leapt up and opened it. This was to be the second time in thirty minutes I was disappointed to see Annora’s face instead of Caleb’s.

  She’d ignored me since I arrived on this submarine. As much as I hated her, I couldn’t help but feel curious as to why she was knocking on my door. That was the only reason I didn’t slam it shut in her face.

  I raised a brow, staring at her icily.

  She looked down at her feet and clasped her pale hands together.

  “I thought we ought to talk,” she said.

  “About what?”

  She looked toward the direction of the cabin Caleb was locked in. “May I come in?”

  I was reluctant to let her into my personal space, but I did. I was sure to leave the door ajar in case I had to make a quick escape. I still didn’t trust this girl one bit.

  She walked over to the end of my room and leaned against the heater, still staring down at her feet. Finally she looked up at me. “Since we’re stuck on this submarine together, we might as well be straight with each other. Firstly, I can’t blame you or Caleb for striking up a… friendship.”

  Her choice of word prickled me. I walked over to her, looking her right in the eye, and stopped two feet away. I was almost as tall as her, and now that she seemed to be devoid of powers, there was nothing that intimidated me about this young woman.

  “Firstly,” I said, “I place the blame entirely on you for the broken man Caleb has become. Secondly, what Caleb and I share is more than friendship. The sooner you accept that, the better off we’ll all be.”

  Her jaw tensed.

  I was breathing heavily as I looked at her, my lower lip trembling with anger and frus
tration. I wanted to wring the neck of this little wench and throw her off the submarine so Caleb and I could continue with our story. Her expression told me that she felt no different about me.

  She drew in a sharp breath, obviously attempting to reel in her temper as I was mine. When she spoke again, her voice was higher pitched.

  “Pray tell then, what exactly do you and Caleb share?” She was attempting to maintain a civil tone with me, but each word she uttered was dripping with jealousy.

  Her question made me stumble. What do we share? Though I’d not yet said it aloud to him, I knew that I loved Caleb. All his actions up until we met Annora had indicated that he felt strongly for me too. The way he’d risked his life to protect me. His agreement to return with me to The Shade even though I knew it made him uncomfortable.

  But I was suddenly struggling to articulate to Annora exactly what it was. Love somehow felt too strong of a word, since Caleb hadn’t yet professed it to me.

  “We care deeply for one another,” I said, wincing even as I said the words. It felt like such an understatement.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, frowning at me. “Would you like to know what Caleb and I share?”

  “I already know what you shared.”

  She glared at me, then shoved her right hand in my face, brandishing the ring on her finger.

  “His engagement ring still sits on my finger. I don’t see one on yours.”

  “An old band of metal means little against actions,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “Back in the cave, he discarded you for me.”

  “I’ve changed, Rose. I’m no longer the person Caleb discarded. I’ve returned as the person Caleb swore undying love to… many, many years before he met you.”

  “If you had even an ounce of love for Caleb, you’d realize you’ve done enough damage already and stay out of his life.” I narrowed my eyes on her. “You don’t deserve him.”

  She looked like she was about to slap me. Taking a deep breath, she stepped back, trying to assume a calmer expression.