Daniel delivered the biggest, most bald-faced lie he could think of.
“I’ve got a girlfriend,” he said.
It had the desired effect. His father looked like he was going to say something, but his mouth just opened and closed without any sound coming out. It was as if he’d forgotten the important part of talking. Daniel’s mother looked equally shocked, but she handled herself much better. She hadn’t lost the ability to produce language.
“Oh,” she said. “Well … what’s her name?”
Her name? Now it was Daniel’s turn to be speechless. He hadn’t thought it through that far. Should he make up a name? He quickly scanned his brain for every girl’s name he could think of, but his mind was a blank. What were girls called? All he needed was a name! Why was that so hard?
“Louisa,” he said. He blurted out the word so quickly that he even surprised himself, but the minute he said it, there was a muffled little squeal from the empty air. Daniel bit his lip so hard, he brought tears to his eyes.
“What was that?” his father asked.
“I didn’t hear anything,” answered Daniel quickly.
“Louisa,” said his mother. “That’s that nice girl with the little sister? Rosie, right?”
“Rose,” Daniel said, correcting her before the empty air had a chance to. “But yeah, Louisa’s my … girlfriend. We were hanging out with Rohan and Mollie and everyone, and I guess we all lost track of time. When we got back, it was already dark and the lights were out everywhere, so I walked her and Rose home.”
Daniel put on what he hoped was his most earnest, truly repentant face. “I knew I was late, so I snuck in the back. I’m really sorry.”
“And who were you talking to?” asked his father. “I heard voices.”
“That was … Louisa.”
“Louisa?” said his mother. “I thought you said you walked her home.”
“I did. Then she walked me home. I mean, we both walked her little sister home, then Louisa walked with me back here—”
“Daniel,” said his mother, standing over him with her hands on her hips. “Did you let that nice young girl walk home alone? In the dark?”
“Uh,” said Daniel.
Daniel’s torture was then interrupted as the room lit up with the bright glare of a car’s headlights pulling into their driveway. Peeking through the window, Daniel recognized the sleek sports-car silhouette.
Theo.
Daniel’s mother beat Daniel to the front door.
“Wait, Mom!” Daniel said. “It’s my friend Theo.”
“Theo?” asked his mom. “The boy from the car accident? But there were headlights.… Did he drive here?”
Daniel stopped in midstep. Even in the darkened house, Daniel recognized that look as her shoulders stiffened. This was bad.
“Did he drive over here? Did he dare drive over here in a car?”
“Mom …” Daniel tried to think up an excuse, but his voice sounded weak and pathetic in his own ears. How could Theo have been so stupid as to park in their driveway?
There was a knock on the door.
His mom unlocked the door and swung it open.
“How dare you,” she began. “… Oh!”
It wasn’t Theo at all. Involuntarily, Daniel took a step backward, clutching the backpack close to his chest. Standing in the doorway was Herman Plunkett, looking considerably healthier than before. He was straight-backed, and his mean eyes shone in the dark. The green glowing pendant still hung about his neck, letting off trailing wisps of light.
At his feet were the limp bodies of Eric and Rohan.
“Mrs. Corrigan,” said Plunkett, “I’ve come for Daniel. He has something that belongs to me, and I’d appreciate it if you’d kindly step aside and allow me to reclaim what is mine. I’d hate to see anyone else get hurt.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Shroud
Herman Plunkett. The Shroud. Daniel had turned his back on him, again. He’d underestimated him, believed the old man was as weak as he looked. And now Daniel was paying for it. His friends, and now his family, were in danger because he’d let the snake slither free.
“I should have left you in that cave,” Daniel said. “I should have left you there.”
“Ah, but you couldn’t, could you?” said Plunkett. “You don’t have the stuff. I was wrong about you, Daniel. You are not the one to follow me. You aren’t strong enough to keep this world safe. If you’d shown half the backbone I thought you had, I could’ve expired in peace. But you’re weak-livered, Daniel, and so it’s left to me.”
“Daniel, who is this man and what’s he talking about?” asked Daniel’s mother. She’d put her body in between Daniel and the door. She was being protective, instinctual. She didn’t have any idea who she was facing.
“Mom, get back! Don’t—”
It was too late. Herman flicked his wrist, and a tendril of shadow lashed out at her from the pendant, wrapping itself around her throat and forcing her to her knees.
Daniel’s father came running in from the living room, but he barely had time to process what he saw there, because no sooner had he entered the hall than Herman swallowed him up in a cloud of blackness. Daniel’s father disappeared behind a wall of dark mist, but Daniel could still hear him gasping and gagging on the noxious stuff.
His mother’s face, meanwhile, was turning blue.
“Now, isn’t there a baby brother somewhere?” said Herman. “What shall we do to him?”
“Stop it!” cried Daniel, running forward. He reached for the glowing pendant, but it was useless. Herman was ready for him and pinned him beneath a slithering tendril of Shade.
“This gives me no pleasure, Daniel.”
The old man leered as he plucked the backpack from Daniel’s fingers. Plunkett was stronger than before, and the source of his new power was obvious. Eric lay on the floor next to Rohan. Neither stirred. Plunkett was wounded, his weapon damaged, but he’d managed to overpower Daniel’s friends. There was a cost, however. His face betrayed the strain. Even now, Plunkett’s stolen power was leaking away; through the crack in the pendant it spilled out and vanished into nothing. That was why he needed the undamaged black ring.
Plunkett kept Daniel pinned on the floor even as he released Daniel’s mother and father. But neither of them moved.
“They’re not dead,” said Plunkett, seeing the worry in Daniel’s eyes. “Though I would have killed them if necessary, it’s not something I wanted to do. I have no wish to wipe out your grandmother’s bloodline. She was special to me.
“But I have too many secrets that need protecting. It’s bad enough what’s happening out there tonight. It’s going to be years before I can calm this town’s nerves and make them forget the things they’ve seen. But your parents, at least, won’t remember any of this, I’ll see to that.”
Herman yanked open the backpack, wincing at the effort. His forehead was beaded with sweat, but he maintained his hold on Daniel, pressing him tight to the floor. Plunkett’s face broke into a pleased grin when he opened the pack and gazed upon what was hidden in there.
“Your parents won’t even remember what happened to you, their oldest son,” Plunkett said, still staring at the ring. “I really am sorry, Daniel, but you’ve had me in your mind for too long, it seems, and you’ve built up something of a resistance to my mental powers. I can’t erase your memories, not permanently at any rate. Therefore there’s really only one way to deal with you. I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Plunkett didn’t look at Daniel. Perhaps he couldn’t. The old man was a villain and a thief, but he was no murderer. Daniel would be his first. The black tendril began to snake its way around his throat.
“Momma? Daddy?” Georgie wobbled into the room looking frightened and small. “I’m scared of the dark.…”
When he saw Herman, he started to cry.
Plunkett reached out with another tendril of blackness. It split off the one pinning Daniel, like a vine creeping across
the floor.
“Time to sleep, little baby,” Herman said. “You don’t need to see this.”
Then Rose appeared in the tendril’s path, materializing in front of Georgie and shielding him from Plunkett. She could have stayed hidden. She probably should have.
“You leave us alone!” she shouted at Herman, and for a moment he did. He was so surprised by her sudden appearance that his concentration slipped for just a second, and Daniel felt the weakening of his power. The tendril coiled about his throat loosened, allowing him a bit of air.
With all his strength, Daniel pulled, but it still wasn’t enough. Without the ring he was just ordinary Daniel, and all he could do was watch as Herman reached for his baby brother.
“Run, Rose!” Daniel managed to gasp between stolen breaths. “Get Georgie out of here!”
But Rose didn’t have a chance, as Herman’s shadow tendril swatted her to the ground and wrapped itself around Georgie.
Georgie cried as he watched the black thing slither along his body.
“Stop it,” Georgie cried. “STOP IT!”
Georgie’s voice rose into a high shriek, a wailing panic, even as his face turned a bright, angry red.
Georgie launched into a full tantrum brought on by fear, and he grabbed the tendril of shadow with both of his chubby three-year-old hands and yanked. Hard.
The tendril went taut for an instant before snapping entirely. Plunkett stumbled backward as his grip on Daniel loosened. The Shroud’s shadow creations were harder than steel, and Georgie had just torn one of them apart.
Plunkett looked shocked, but not half as shocked as Daniel.
“Run,” Daniel shouted. “Run, Georgie, run!”
His baby brother was crying again, scared of what he’d just done. Daniel shouted to him, but his words were lost in the sound of a distant whistle getting louder. Something was approaching the house—the terrifying sound of a bomb being dropped.
A bomb named Mollie Lee. She crashed in through the front door and hit Plunkett with something solid—a baseball bat, judging by the shower of splinters—and sent the old villain flying. But Mollie didn’t let up. She kept hitting him, driving him through the house. Their fight tumbled out of the living room and down the hall, ending in a crash of shattered glass.
Daniel pulled himself to his feet. It was hard to breathe and it felt like his chest had been slammed with a hundred-pound weight. Rose and Georgie ran up and hugged him. He caught his little brother in his arms as Rose wrapped herself around his waist.
“Georgie, are you okay?”
“I pulled hard!” Georgie said between sobs.
“You sure did, buddy,” said Daniel. “You sure did.”
It still hurt to breathe, never mind carry Georgie, but his brother wouldn’t let go. Together they went to his mother’s unmoving form.
“Momma!” cried Georgie.
Daniel leaned in close and saw that she was breathing. She was even snoring, very softly.
“She’s sleeping, Georgie,” Daniel said, squeezing his brother’s hand. “Mom and Dad are just sleeping.”
“Wake her up!” said Georgie, but Daniel doubted that would be possible. Whatever Plunkett had done to them, he’d made sure they’d stay that way for a while.
Mollie reappeared in the hallway, looking beat-up and ragged. There was little light to see by, just the glow of his mother’s flashlight, which had fallen on the ground. But even in the dark Daniel could see that Mollie was in rough shape. Her clothes were torn and filthy, and she had a nasty-looking cut across her chin. But worst of all was the look in her eyes. Distant, unfocused. She bent down over Eric and Rohan and talked to Daniel even as she held their unmoving hands.
“Herman surprised us,” she said. “The Shades came after us over by the Madisons’ house. You know Mr. Madison, the fire chief? He must’ve been a Super once, because there was a Shade that looked just like him, only younger and skinnier.…”
“Mollie,” said Daniel.
“Theo pulled up in his car. I think he really wanted to help, Daniel. I think you were right about him. But Herman surprised us all. We were distracted, and while we were focused on the Shades … he got Rohan. First Rohan, then Eric. Then he came here after you.”
“What happened to them?” asked Daniel, but he was afraid he already knew the answer.
“He took their powers, but worse …” Mollie blinked, fighting back tears. “Right before he blacked out, Eric looked right at me. And he asked who I was. I think Herman erased them.”
Eric and Rohan were gone. For all intents and purposes, it was like they’d never known them. But there wasn’t time to dwell on their losses now. The whole town was in trouble.
“Where’s Herman now?” Daniel asked.
“I knocked him out the back window.”
“Did you see the ring? It was in the backpack. He was holding it when you started hitting him.”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel set Georgie down as he picked up his mother’s flashlight. Georgie held on tight to Daniel’s leg.
“Help me look for it,” Daniel said as he scanned the hallway floor with the flashlight. “But if you see it, don’t touch it!”
They looked through the scattered debris, but it was hard to see much of anything, even with the flashlight. As they searched, they began to hear sounds coming from outside—shuffling scraping sounds at the windows, the door. Mollie looked out the front window and sped away in a flash.
“Shades!” she said. “They’re here, Daniel! Surrounding the house!”
“Rose!” said Daniel, looking at the fragile windows. Shapes were gliding back and forth outside, some already pressing against the glass. It wouldn’t be long now. “Can you get Georgie out of here? Take him downstairs and find a safe place to hide.”
“I can disappear him!” she said.
“What? Are you sure?”
“I make my clothes disappear with me whenever I do it, so if I touch him, I can make him disappear too,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. In fact, Daniel thought, it probably was.
She put her arms around Georgie, and both of them vanished.
“Daniel?” said Georgie’s worried voice. It had to be frightening when you could no longer see your own shoes.
“It’s okay, Georgie,” said Daniel. “Go with Rose. Hide and seek!”
Daniel turned to Mollie. “They’ve come for Herman. Maybe the Shades will leave us alone if they get him.”
“Oh, but they won’t get me. You, on the other hand …”
Daniel froze. He knew that voice. It was the whispery, throaty growl that had haunted his nightmares for months.
The glow of his flashlight seemed to weaken as the room was overtaken by the enormous shadow that had drifted in. It filled the space from floor to ceiling, a billowing undulating blackness far stronger than any mere Shade. At its center still pulsed the weak greenish glow of Plunkett’s ruined pendant, but one hand, clothed in shadow, held a ball of bright green fire. The ring burned like a hungry star in the Shroud’s void. The shadow threw back its head and laughed as Daniel heard the sound of glass breaking behind him.
“Come, my children,” it shouted. “Bow down before me once more! Bow before the Shroud!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Ghosts That Haunt Us
Herman had the ring. He’d managed to keep hold of it even as Mollie knocked him through a window. With it, he was no longer bleeding power. Worse, Daniel could tell from the way the ring flared and burned that it was hungry for more. The green flames spread out before it, licking the air. It was happening all over again. The Shroud was reborn.
“What to do first?” said the Shroud. “Shall I gather up my Shades, my wayward children, or should I deal with the last of my foes?”
“You always sound like a bad comic book,” said Mollie, sticking her chin out in defiance, but she looked tired and afraid. She’d given her all in that last attack, and she was exhausted no
w. Daniel could see it in her face. If there was to be another fight, it would be a short one.
The cracking of glass behind them gave way to shattering, and Daniel watched helplessly as a Shade forced its way inside the house. The shadow creature stretched itself toward Daniel, readying itself to pounce.
The Shroud laughed. “Of course! I’ll let my Shades have a little fun with you first. Let one problem solve another. Eh, Daniel?”
Beneath the veil of shadow Daniel could see this Shade’s face. It was the little girl with ringlet hair he’d caught a glimpse of back in the cave, her child’s features made gruesome with loathing. Despite the monstrous appearance, there was something familiar about her. A blurry photograph on the edge of Daniel’s memory.
“No,” said Herman suddenly as the Shade turned its face toward him. “Not you!”
That was the old man’s voice, not the crackling whisper of the Shroud. He’d dropped part of his own shadowy disguise, and Herman’s own face was now visible beneath the folds of blackness. He recognized the little girl too.
“Eileen,” Herman whispered.
Eileen Stewart. In Gram’s scrapbook he’d seen a photograph, blurry with age, of the original orphans of St. Alban’s, standing outside the charred ruins of their orphanage home. Among those grimy faces had been young Herman Plunkett, looking so frightened. And standing next to him, her hands resting protectively on his shoulders, had been the little girl with her hair done up in ringlets. Eileen Stewart, Daniel’s grandmother.
Daniel was only dimly aware of the sounds of chaos outside—the not-so-distant roar of a fire-engine siren, someone shouting even closer by—but inside here everything went as quiet as a breath. Gram was dead, but here was something left of her, a twisted Shade of the little girl she once had been at the exact instant Herman had stolen her away. Of all the countless faces of all the countless victims, this was the one Herman would have avoided. Of all of them, she might awaken something resembling guilt in the old man’s leathery heart. And she’d found him again.
The attack was sudden and savage. Gram had been a gentle soul right up to the day she’d passed away, but this thing that the Shroud had created was more animal than person. He’d said that the Shades were drawn to their former selves or to pieces of their long-gone lives. Gram’s Shade had come back to the house she’d been raised in, only to find it occupied by the object of all her pent-up hate, her escaped tormentor and her former master.