The Shadow Thieves
That’s when he heard the scream.
Zee whirled around and ran back around the corner. And then he froze.
The boy was no longer alone. Two men, or something very like men, were with him. The man-like men were extremely tall, extremely thin, and extremely pale. They were wearing old-fashioned tuxedos, and their skin looked like dirty plaster. One of the man-like men was holding the boy, the other was reaching into the boy’s chest, which was giving way like jelly. The boy was screaming. Zee stood, absolutely unable to move, while the second man-like man started pulling out something long and black and flimsy from the boy’s chest. And then the boy stopped screaming and seemed to collapse on the spot. The second man-like man took the black thing and folded it up like fabric, while the first picked up a shiny black physician’s bag and held it open with an accommodating nod. The second smiled graciously and carefully tucked the black thing away, while the first tapped the boy on the forehead three times. The second took the bag, latched it, and gave his partner a satisfied nod, and they both brushed off their hands. Then the first one noticed Zee. He nudged his friend and pointed, and the two ran off.
Zee still stood in his spot, staring at the crumpled heap of boy. The boy weakly lifted his head, stood up, and stumbled around, and still Zee stared. The sun seemed to illuminate the boy, and that’s when Zee noticed.
The boy had no shadow.
Zee exploded into a run. He ran and ran, he ran all the way home, and then he did not leave his house until his parents put him on a plane headed out of England.
CHAPTER 12
The Footmen
PHILONECRON HAD PLACED A DISCREET ORDER WITH the Underworld’s best tailor. It cost him an arm and a leg (though not his), and Charon required his usual “service fee” for smuggling messages and goods back and forth from Exile. But Philonecron was not afraid to pay for quality, and he would have only the best for his Footmen—for that’s what he had decided to call his new servants. He believed excellence inspired further excellence, and his would not be some hastily stitched, poly-blend, puckery-seamed, one-size-fits-all coup; no, no—Philonecron’s revolution would be pearl buttoned, satin trimmed, and completely pucker-free.
This particular tailor had a reputation for working quite swiftly, as you might if you had two dozen arms (and were ambidextrous to boot), and in just two days Philonecron found on his doorstep (or what would have been his doorstep if he hadn’t been exiled and weren’t living in a godsforsaken cave—but, you know, stiff upper lip and all that) twelve promising-looking packages wrapped up in the tailor’s own freshly shedded skin.
At the sight of the packages Philonecron let out what can only be called a squeal—as if he were a young girl on Christmas morning rushing to the tree to find a golden-haired puppy while a hush of snow fell over the world. A squeal is not a sound one might associate with an evil genius, but evil geniuses are people too (or in this case, not really), and they experience involuntary vocalizations just like you or I.
Philonecron squealed, and his squeal reverberated through Exile. The ground shivered, the stalagmites rattled, the stalactites trembled, the Unburied quavered, and the twelve buck-naked Footmen stood up as one and moved to attend to their master—who was more than a little moved by the gesture. He watched, marveling, as they lined up in a careful arc in front of him, precise and proud.
Philonecron sighed with pleasure. The men regarded him blankly, faces etched out of shadow and clay. He smiled munificently back at them and gestured to the packages. “Hold out your arms!” he sang, and, like that, twelve long, spindly pairs of arms dutifully shot out, ready to receive whatever burden he might bestow on them.
“Close your eyes!” he trilled, and twelve pairs of yellow eyes disappeared behind twelve pairs of heavy gray-white lids.
“Are they closed?…Good! Don’t open them until I tell you to!” With great ceremony Philonecron walked down the line, one by one putting a package in a pair of arms. The Footmen did not move. When he was done, he took his place in front of them. “Right, now open your eyes!”
The Footmen were not very experienced at this sort of thing, and anyway, they tended to take their orders quite literally. So it took some coaching for Philonecron to get them to look down at the bundles their gray-white arms were embracing.
“Yes! Yes!” He held his arms out magnanimously. “They’re for you, my children! Go on! Go on! Put them on!”
It wasn’t for several more minutes that Philonecron was able to get the Footmen to unwrap their packages, examine the garments, and then put them on. He never would have believed it before, but inbred, mindless loyalty does have its drawbacks.
But Philonecron’s spirits were not to be dampened, and he in turn closed his eyes while his men dressed, and did not open them again until they were all lined up in their new finery.
And what he beheld made it all worthwhile. When his eyes opened, he let out a gasp. He shook his head. He clasped his hands together. His eyes moistened.
“Why,” he exclaimed, “you’re all just so…beautiful!”
The Footmen were wearing exquisitely crafted tuxedos with jet-black jackets trimmed with silk, impeccably tailored to the angular contours of their wearers. They wore white ties, white gloves, with crisply starched snow-white shirts, white silk waistcoats, and impeccably folded white silk handkerchiefs poking out of the breast pockets. Philonecron could practically see his reflection in their shoes.
Something happened to the Footmen when they put on their finery. They altered, grew into their sartorial molds—almost as if they were made out of clay. Which, in fact, they were. The transformation was not physical, exactly; they had been blank, mindless automatons, and they had become, well, still mindless, but possessed of dignity, elegance, and grace.
“Exquisite,” he breathed. “Just exquisite!”
The Footmen all smiled their very first smiles and bowed their heads graciously one by one.
“My goodness,” Philonecron enthused. “You’re all so…well bred!”
Well, really, it was only natural. They were made with his blood, after all.
“Now,” he said. “Come close, my beautiful darlings, and I will tell you what we are going to do.”
It had all begun with the boy. You know. The Death. The old English woman. The family tableau. The man, the woman, and the boy. Something about the boy. His shadow. His shadow was loose!
Right then Philonecron knew that all of his problems had been solved. But he did not know quite how yet.
He stared at the boy and he thought. He thought hard.
And then he came up with a plan.
A delicious, delightful, delovely plan.
A lesser evil genius would have taken the boy’s shadow right away. But not Philonecron. One shadow does not an army make. He would leave the boy’s shadow, but he would take his blood.
Just a little. Not enough to kill him or anything; Philonecron had a feeling he would need the boy later on, and anyway, he seemed like such a nice boy. The boy would be fine—woozy for a while, but fine. Children are awfully resilient.
He couldn’t take the blood right then, of course, with the boy conscious and his parents right there. Yes, denizens from the Underworld can walk around the Upperworld unseen, but it’s fairly hard to take blood from someone without his noticing. Philonecron didn’t want anyone to start getting suspicious and behaving rashly. He would have to wait until the boy was sleeping.
It was all right. He had plenty to do before then.
Philonecron spent four hours wandering the city, studying people and their shadows and the connections thereof. In the past he had regarded trips to the Upperworld as a necessary evil (that’s evil in a bad way, nothing at all like evil genius, which is a wonderful thing)—you couldn’t be a blood smuggler without visiting the realm of the Living. But he had always found these sojourns unpleasant—and it had little to do with all one had to endure just to come and go thanks to Hades’s precious Security Decree. The Upperworld had beco
me so uncivilized. The way people dress …
But on this day Philonecron felt nothing but joy as he orbited as far from the scene of the Death as he could. He loved the people, with their exposed legs and artificial fibers and white socks and vulgar shoes, for they were going to save him.
Since his first trip to the Upperworld Philonecron had always been fascinated by shadows. There was no such thing in the Underworld; shadows were a peculiar product of Life—something about the reaction between light and the Life Essence that allowed people and animals and things to exist in the Upperworld. (One of these days Philonecron would figure out what that Essence was so he could wander around the Upperworld unchecked, but that would be another evil plan for another day.)
But for some reason he’d never paid any attention to children before. Perhaps it was because they were loud and too full of Life, or perhaps it was simply because one did not tend to find children around scenes of Death. Or perhaps he simply had never before been looking for an army.
On this day, though, Philonecron sought out as many children as he could find, Life Essence and all. Much to his delight, he learned that the boy, whom he had begun to think of affectionately as Patient Zero, was no aberration. If shadows were caused by the interplay between light and Life, a child’s was still forming. An adult’s was inextricably bound to his body, but a child had a tenuous relationship to his own permanence, and thus, his own shadow.
And so the shadow could be taken.
It would take a little work, a good spell or two, and he might have to materialize to carry it off. He might need to do a quick time spell or freezing spell, since children tended to congregate in groups and there was no sense in scaring the little dears off before they did their service to his cause, was there? But none of that would be difficult. In fact, right over there, look! Two children of just the right age. Let’s give it the old college try. Be careful now. Approach them softly. Mutter a few words. They’re frozen now, they won’t notice a thing. Reach into their bodies…. And there you go. Handle the shadows carefully, you don’t want them to rip. That’s right. Now, fold them up and put them safely in your breast pocket. Tonight you will experiment.
Philonecron patted the samples in his pocket with glee. It was a good start. There would be much left for him to do, of course. He would have to figure out how to enchant the shadows, how to turn them into soldiers. He would probably need to find a way to replicate them, for shadow collecting would be time consuming. And being around children tired him easily—now he was already beginning to feel the familiar stretching of his skin that meant he had stayed in the Upperworld too long, that this world of light and breath and time was beginning to wear on him. He would need some help. Some servants to help him gather the shadows. He would so like to have servants.
His skin was beginning to look rashy, his inner organs felt like someone was tugging on them, and his mind was filling with clouds. But he had one more errand to run.
He went back to the scene of the Death—already that made him feel a little better—and found the boy’s room. There was a nice chair in the corner, so he sat and waited. Darkness spread over the room, and soon the door opened and Zero came in and got into the bed. Philonecron wanted to hug him, to cradle him, to sing him to sleep—you wonderful boy, you have changed the world. But instead he just sat and watched as the boy’s breathing became long and steady. His chest heaved up and down so peacefully, and Philonecron took a moment to think of the great beauty of childhood and of the fragility of Life. Really, he thought, nothing is more precious than watching a child sleep. Then he got up, picked up the boy’s arm, and drained some blood.
Mission accomplished, he headed to the nearest door to wait for the Messenger.
Philonecron had given the Footmen careful instructions on how to navigate the Upperworld. In a way, he hated to send them up there; they were such precious, pure creatures, and he was loath to corrupt them with the world of Life. But that’s what they were for, there was no getting around it. And they proved quick and willing studies, eager to sip from his font of knowledge, to strive to improve themselves, to work to be the best they could be. They reminded Philonecron so much of himself.
He taught them a few spells, enough for shadow stealing, stealth, protection, and minor time manipulation. But he had no idea what it would be like for them up there. Would they be seen? How long could they stay? Would they be frightened? All he could do was give them as many tools as he could and then send them out into the world, heart in his throat.
His last gift to them, before their first journey, was a small vial of Zero’s blood.
“Keep this close to you at all times,” he said. “When you go into the Upperworld, you will find yourself drawn toward the site of a Death. Resist. Take out this vial of blood. Smell it. Then pick out the scent in the air and follow it. It will lead you to a boy. His name is Zero. When you find Zero, follow him. He will lead you to your shadows.”
Sometimes Philonecron was stunned by his own genius. He could have sent his men out willy-nilly, but that would just waste time. Death so often led to blood, but rarely to children. Children, on the other hand, inevitably led to more of the little rascals. Of this he was certain.
He sent out two of the Footmen on the first day with an impassioned “Go out, my darlings, go out and conquer.” He spent the next several hours pacing back and forth in his cave, unable to do anything either evil or genius.
But then there they were, at the mouth of the cave, with their cracking, flaky mouths set in satisfied grins. Philonecron stopped his pacing and stared at them. One by one they unfolded shadows—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven! Seven shadows for a few hours’ work. The shadows were in perfect condition, not a tear in the bunch. And the two Footmen, the two glorious Footmen, bowed from the waist and left Philonecron to his shadows.
The game was on.
Philonecron set up a little evil laboratory in a spacious cave nearby where he could experiment on the shadows. He found he could replicate them, but only about a hundred per shadow before the original became worn.
It took some doing to enchant the shadows, and even when he did, they tended to float around like specters, not behave like good little soldiers. That would take some doing. Zero’s blood proved essential for everything. He should have known—well, he did know. That’s the sort of evil genius he was. Every single shadow got a drop of the boy’s blood. Certainly any human blood would have sufficed to give them Life, but by giving them the blood from the same person—well, did he mention he was a genius? You’ll see why later.
The Footmen all had their different methods of shadow stealing. Beta, Zeta, Lambda, and Mu liked to stop time before the children saw them, freezing the creatures in the most delightful positions, reaching in and grabbing the shadows, then leaving the children frozen until the spell wore off. Kappa, Alpha, and Theta chose to let themselves be seen, then freeze the children in their postures of horror, whereas Delta, Epsilon, Iota, Gamma, and Eta preferred not to stop time at all, letting the children scream through the whole process until they passed out. Variety being the spice of life.
During the day the Footmen went out, and Philonecron experimented on the shadows. At night they gathered in Philonecron’s cave and he read to them, or played music, or lectured on philosophy or history or fine wine. Then the Footmen slept—they slept standing up, like little wax statues. They were so adorable.
And every day the pile of shadows grew.
Zero was proving extremely cooperative, too. Just when the Footmen had collected almost all the shadows from the town that they possibly could, the boy left. It didn’t take long to find him, and when they did—oh, what a day! He had gone to London. London! They would never have to worry about running out of shadows now, as long as the boy wasn’t some sort of housebound misfit. Which he wasn’t. He was intelligent, social, athletic, involved, handsome! He was wonderful, he was perfect, he was something, he was Philonecron’s little Zero. Philonecron had chos
en perfectly, perfectly—how his shadows would be inspired by the boy’s commands!
(Oops. Well, he let that slip, didn’t he? Philonecron never could keep a secret. But he had learned from his weeks of shadow work that the final step in bringing the shadows to Life would be the commands of the human whose blood they had been enchanted with. That being Zero. He’d have to find a way to convince the boy to speak the words, but that shouldn’t be a problem. He’d spent enough time with the boy’s blood that he wouldn’t have too much trouble with the mind control, and he’d already begun working on luring Zero down to the Underworld.)
Philonecron didn’t even notice when things went terribly wrong; he was too busy working in his laboratory training the shadows to become ethereal when attacked. But for four days the Footmen came back empty-handed. At night on the fifth day the captain of the Footmen appeared in the doorway of Philonecron’s cave. Philonecron could tell just by looking at him that something was amiss—not that the Footman betrayed any emotion, but a good father always knows.
“My Lord. I am sorry to disturb you. But…”
Alpha was the only one of the Footmen who had speech. Philonecron did not think it necessary for them all to talk. He did so detest noise, and after all, what would they say? One would be just fine; Alpha could speak for all of them. Alpha’s voice was barely even a voice; it was as if he moved air around to form syllables, as if the wind itself whispered in Philonecron’s ear. Really, it was quite pleasant.
“My dear. Come in. What’s bothering you?”
Alpha bowed in response. “My Lord. There is a problem.”
Philonecron put his arm around his servant. “Well then, we’ll fix it. Tell me everything.”