Shadow Man

  I start the motion, even as I’m thinking it. The gun barrel rises, and I know that it’s lined up right, know it in a visceral place. I know on a less-than-conscious level how many pounds of pressure will be required to pull the trigger. I know how many inches I’ll have to move the barrel after the first shot in order to shoot out the other knee. This is all non-thought, unconscious advanced calculus.

  Except that it’s not.

  Because the hand that grips the gun…trembles.

  And then it doesn’t just tremble—it shakes.

  I close my eyes and lower my hand. Peter laughs out loud.

  “Smoky! Perhaps I spoke too soon! Perhaps we have therapy to do yet.”

  I feel panic coming. It’s riding in, slow, like a dark wave on some night beach. I glance at Bonnie’s face and am startled to see that she is looking right at me. Her eyes are filled with trust.

  I blink, and her face blurs. Blink again. She becomes Alexa.

  Angry eyes. No trust there.

  Alexa knows better, after all.

  My ears are filled with a faint ringing.

  Ringing? No…I cock my head, listening. It’s a voice. Too far away and faint to make out.

  “Smoky? Are you with us?”

  Hillstead’s voice brings back Bonnie’s face.

  I realize with a shock that I am losing my mind. Right here, right now. Right when I’m needed most.

  Dear God.

  I clear my throat and force myself to speak. “You—you said you wanted to talk. So talk, then.” It doesn’t sound convincing, but at least it sounds sane.

  I’m drenched in sweat.

  He pauses. “Do you think,” he starts, “that I regret the situation I find myself in? If you do, then you’d be wrong. My father, he taught me to hold to a standard. One of his favorite sayings was: ‘It’s not how long you live—it’s how excellently you killed while you were alive.’” He squints at me. “Do you understand? Being true to my heritage, to the example of the Shadow Man, is not just about killing whores and taunting the FBI. It’s about a certain…flair. It’s about the character of murder, not just the act.” His voice is proud. “We cut you with the finest silver and drink your blood from designer crystal. We strangle you with silk while dressed in Armani.” He peeks out from behind Bonnie. “Any fool can murder. My ancestors and myself? We make history. We become immortal.”

  Buy time, I think. Because I hear that faint voice in my head again, and I know—I know—that whatever it’s saying is important.

  “You don’t have any children,” I say. “So it stops with you. So much for immortality.”

  He shrugs. “These genes will surface again. Who’s to say that he didn’t cast his seed in other places? Who’s to say I didn’t?” He smiles. “I was not the first, I doubt I’ll be the last. Our race will survive.”

  A single, terrible thought occurs to me. Is it possible that I don’t want to save Bonnie? That some part of me thinks that that wouldn’t be fair to Alexa?

  My hand shakes in my lap, spasms around the gun butt.

  The voice in my head is still faint but has become more urgent.

  I frown at Hillstead. “Race? What race?”

  “The original hunters. The predators who walk on two legs.”

  “Ah, right. That bullshit.”

  I miss a breath as his knuckles tighten on the knife at Bonnie’s throat. But then they relax and he chuckles.

  “The point of it all, Smoky-mine, is this: It doesn’t matter that you caught me. In the end, I was true. That’s all that counts. Far truer than my father—he never found his Abberline. And my acolytes?” I get the sense of a bird preening, self-satisfied. “That is a definite original.” He peeks at me again. “Besides, I have an offer or two to make you. A little bit of final fun.”

  For the first time since my gun hand shook, the voice in my head goes quiet. Unease creeps in. “What kind of offer?”

  “Some scars for a life, Smoky. I want to leave my mark on you and give you something in return.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “If I were to tell you, take your gun and shoot yourself and I’ll let Bonnie and Elaina go, would you believe me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Yes. But—if I were to tell you, take a knife and cut your face and I’ll let Elaina go…?”

  My unease increases. I start to sweat again.

  “Ahhhhh…see? That’s the fun part of dealing in these kinds of stakes, Smoky. You’d have to think about it, wouldn’t you?” He laughs. “The possibilities abound. Do nothing, continue as we are, perhaps you get them out of this, perhaps they both die. Cut yourself, perhaps I’m lying and we continue as we are…but then you’ll only have cut yourself trying. Not exactly death, now, is it? Or cut yourself, and perhaps I do let her go—and the very chance of this happening means scenario number two is worth considering. Worse still, for you, it is possible that I’m telling the truth. It’s believable that I’d trade Elaina for the joy of making you scar yourself further, isn’t it? Particularly when I keep this little cutie as a shield?”

  I still haven’t replied. The unease has become nausea, a greasy roiling in my stomach. He’s not wrong. I would think about it. Hillstead’s made the stakes horrible but bearable. As with any gamble, I could lose, but the prize if I won…worth rolling the dice?

  Probably, yeah.

  No, no, no! the dragon cries. Crunch his bones!

  Shut up, I say.

  The other voice remains quiet. It’s still there, it’s just silent. Waiting.

  “Are you making that offer, Peter?” I ask.

  “Of course I am. There’s a knife between the cushion and arm of the chair.”

  I transfer the gun to my lap and reach with my fingers along the side of the cushion. I feel it. Cold steel. I fumble until I find the handle, grab it, and draw the knife out.

  “Look at it.”

  I do. It’s a hunting knife. Made to cut flesh.

  “Scars,” Hillstead murmurs. “Reminders. Like…rings on a tree, marking times gone by.” One eye peeks out from behind Bonnie’s head and fixes on me. I see it moving, can almost feel it on my face. Like soft hands tracing my scars. Loving them, in a way, I realize. “I want to put my mark on you, my Abberline. I want you to see me when you look in the mirror. Forever.”

  “And if I do?”

  “Then I will let you use that knife to cut Elaina free. Whatever else happens, she will walk out of here, alive and well.”

  Elaina is trying to talk through her gag. I look over at her. She is shaking her head. No, her eyes are saying. No, no, no…

  I look at the knife. Think about my face, the road map of pain it’s become. It’s meant the loss of everything. That’s what my scars have been reminders of. Perhaps the scar he wants will be a reminder of saving Elaina. Perhaps it will just be another scar. Perhaps we’ll all die here and I’ll be buried with it as an unhealed wound.

  Perhaps I’ll put the gun to my own head and pull the trigger. Would my hand shake then? If it was me I was shooting at?

  The world spins, Bonnie becomes Alexa, Alexa becomes Bonnie, and oceans roar inside my head. I feel both peaceful and terrified.

  Losing my mind, yes, sir. No bout adout it.

  I turn away from Elaina’s eyes.

  “Where?” I ask.

  That peeking eye widens. I see the edge of it crinkle. He’s smiling.

  “A simple request, Smoky-mine. We’ll keep the one side free of scars. I like to think of you as beauty in one profile, beast in the other. So, on the left. One single line, from below your eye to the corner of that beautiful mouth.”

  “And if I do this, then I get to cut Elaina free?”

  “So I’ve said.” He shrugs. “I could be lying, of course.”

  I hesitate, and then I bring up the knife. There was never any question. Why delay?

  Don’t delay, do it today! the crazy-me cackles. Cut yourself now, and we’ll throw in an Easy
-Bake oven—free!

  I put the tip under my left eye, feel its coldness. Funny, I think. Nothing feels quite as cold, quite as unfeeling as a knife when its edge is against your flesh. A knife is the ultimate soldier, it will follow any order and doesn’t care what use it’s put to so long as it gets to cut.

  “Make sure it’s deep,” Hillstead says. “I want to see bone when you’re done.”

  Joseph Sands wanted me to touch his face. Peter Hillstead wants me to touch my own, and I am, I am cutting, deep and decisive. The pain is exquisite. The blade is razor-sharp; it slices me open with a yawn, bored, no heavy lifting involved. The line is long and there is blood, lots of it, running down my face. A rivulet runs over my lips. I taste the fine wine of me.

  The dragon screams.

  Hillstead is captivated. That one eye is wide. Taking it all in, drinking it down. Feeding his needs.

  I give him a moment to appreciate it.

  I point the knife at him. “So? Can I cut Elaina loose?”

  His eye is still wide. Blood drips from my chin and the eye follows it.

  “So beautiful…” he breathes.

  Drip, drip, drip. He’s captivated by my blood-brook.

  “Peter.” The eye pulls itself away from my gore, reluctant. “Can I cut her loose?”

  A crinkle. He’s smiling again. “Well…” he says, drawing it out. “No. I don’t think so. No.”

  I fill with despair and contempt at the same time. “So predictable,” I say. “If you were going to be original, you would have let Elaina go. Not doing it—that’s what I’d expect.”

  He shrugs. “Can’t please everyone.”

  “You can still please me.”

  “How?”

  “By dying, Peter. By dying.”

  Bold words, I think, but I’m still afraid of my gun.

  He laughs. “Fair enough, Smoky. Now we will truly get down to it.” One hand grips the back of Bonnie’s neck. The other has the knife, still at her throat. “You gave me what I wanted. Time to end this.”

  I drop the knife. He follows it as it falls to the floor, clattering.

  I follow it too, mesmerized by the shine of it, by the slick of my blood on its oh-so-keen edge.

  I squint. Cock my head. The voice in my head is back, and it’s nearer.

  I don’t look at him as I answer. “How is this going to end, Peter?”

  “Why, the only way it can, Smoky. One way, or the other.”

  I glance at him. I exist on two levels. One part of me looks at Hillstead, listens to him, responds. The other strains, strains, strains to hear the voice.

  “What does that mean, ‘One way, or the other’?”

  The eye crinkles.

  “I’m going to cut Bonnie’s throat, Smoky. I’m going to count to ten, and then I’m going to slice her from ear to ear, give her a wide, wet, weeping grin. Unless you kill me first, of course.” The knife wiggles. “Whatever happens, in the end, I feel certain you’ll shoot me and I will die. So, ‘one way’? You shoot me before I get to ten, Bonnie lives. ‘Or the other’?” He glances at my gun hand. “Alexa all over again. Bonnie dies, another daughter lost. You still kill me…but too late, too late.”

  And now I hear the voice.

  Mommy.

  “All you have to do, Smoky-mine…” His head appears. He’s grinning. “Is let me help you one last time.”

  Listen to me, Mommy. You can do it. It’s okay.

  I am emptying out inside. Becoming still, still, still.

  “Fuck you.”

  “I don’t think so.” He smiles even wider. “Make no mistake about it, Smoky. I’m going to give you ten seconds, and then I’m going to kill her. I’m going to take my knife and slice her pretty little throat wide open. The only chance she has is you taking your shot. Of course, you might miss and kill her, just as you did with Alexa. You might murder another child with your gun.”

  Blood drips from my face. Bonnie’s eyes fill my mind.

  But it’s Alexa who fills my soul.

  Everything beautiful about her comes to me. All at once. Every moment of seeing her smile, holding her close, smelling her hair. Every tear I ever wiped away, every angel kiss she ever gave me. Memories of her have been coming back to me lately, it’s true. But these are ten thousand times more vivid. Ten million times stronger.

  All gone, gone forever.

  “Come on, Special Agent Barrett. I’m counting the seconds down now.”

  I am swimming in an ocean of tears, and it has no horizon.

  So, the question once again: Will my hand shake if I point the gun at myself? I could end it that way. Quick. Easy.

  An end to the memories. I want that more than anything—to unknow my past.

  “You were my Abberline, Smoky. You should be happy—you are the best of the best. No one has caught any of us, dating all the way back to my ancestor. I applaud your ploy with the flesh in the jar. An obvious lie, but I will admit—you made me angry. And catching Robert, well…he was sloppy, so I won’t call it genius on your part. But you are gifted, Smoky-mine. So very gifted.”

  I can barely hear him. There is a roaring in my ears, threatening to drown out the world. It’s me, pounding my fists against myself until they’re bloody. Me, screaming forever. Me, howling and crusing and dying and—

  Mommy!

  The roaring stops.

  Silence.

  I see her out of the corner of my eye. But I cannot look at her. No.

  I’m too ashamed.

  It’s okay, Mommy. It’s okay. You just need to remember the important thing.

  What? That I failed you? That I killed you? That I lived and you didn’t? That—worst of all—life went on?

  Shame fills me, roots its snout into every part of me. Burrows down into the depths of me.

  This is pain, absolute and infinite.

  Here we are, I think. Finality. The place where I lose for good. Fade to black.

  I begin to pass out.

  Before I can, Alexa smiles.

  It is a blazing sun. A golden juggernaut of light.

  No, Mommy. Remember the love.

  It’s as if someone hit a pause button. All the pain, all the shame, stops. Suspends.

  Now there is stillness.

  A moment of time is passing, and I’m watching it go by. Lub, my heart begins to say, and then, a dub, it finishes, a single beat.

  Standing there, right in front of me, is Alexa. No longer blurred, a shadow, or a brief moment in a dream.

  My beautiful Alexa, shimmering.

  “Hi, Mommy,” she says.

  “Hi, baby,” I whisper.

  I know she is not really there. I also know she is as there as there can be.

  “You have to choose, Mommy,” she says, her voice soft. “Once and for all.”

  “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

  She leans forward and grabs my hands in hers. Tenderness washes off her, rolls over me. So beautiful it makes me wince.

  “To live, Mommy.”

  Truth, in my experience, arrives without fanfare, but it arrives in an instant and changes everything forever. Real truth is always simple.

  This truth is no different.

  A choice between life or death is a choice between Alexa and Hillstead.

  Between Matt and Sands.

  Alexa smiles, nods…and disappears.

  And just like that, from one heartbeat to the next, I’m sane. With that truth, my madness leaves me.

  Time begins again.

  Hillstead is still jabbering away, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I feel as though I am in a chamber of silence. A world where everything else moves at its regular rate but my own thoughts are dreamy, like doing tai chi at the bottom of a swimming pool.

  Bonnie’s eyes have not left mine from the moment I entered the room. Full of terror, full of trust. I look at her now, now that I am sane. I really see her.

  She’s beautiful, Mommy.

  “Yes, she is, honey,” I murm
ur.

  Hillstead’s eyes narrow. This time I can hear him. “Who are you talking to, Smoky-mine? Losing it for good now? Better pull it together. Just three more seconds before little Bonnie starts smiling below the chin.”

  This shot I must make to save her, it will be difficult. Approximately one quarter of Hillstead’s head is visible. The rest is hidden behind Bonnie.

  The calculations begin whirring away inside me, spinning slow at first, then picking up speed.

  The dragon senses her time is coming and she purrs.

  The voice of Alexa comes to me again, fitting the rhythm of the whirring like wind fits a rainstorm. Don’t worry, Mommy. Just feel it. It’s in you, you just have to trust in it.

  “I don’t know, Alexa,” I tell her. “Two inches, an inch and a half. I just don’t know. I could kill her.”

  I feel her ghost arms wrap around my waist from behind. One hand reaches up to touch my heart. It’s there, Mommy. You stopped trusting it, but she needs you now. And I don’t mind that you need her. You asked me that in your dream, but you woke up before I could answer you. Love her, Mommy. I don’t mind. Alexa’s face appears in my mind; Matt’s brown eyes, pixie smile, mailman’s dimples. I’m not afraid to look at her now. The hands pull away and I feel her receding behind me. Before she goes, she whispers one final thing: Don’t you understand, Mommy? You’re not perfect. Do what you feel, and it’ll be the best you can do. Your best is all you’ll ever have to give.

  The dragon snarls, and the whirring becomes a scream, building in me like a hummingbird aflame, growing into a hawk, and then an eagle, and—

  My hand stops shaking.

  I raise the gun and pull the trigger without thinking about doing it.

  I don’t hear the crack of the shot. It is all visual for me. I see Bonnie’s face jerk back as Hillstead’s head explodes and the knife falls from his hands, and I know that I have killed her with him.

  I feel a scream begin to build in me, my hands go to my head, but then Bonnie is moving toward me, hobbling with her bound feet.

  She turns her left cheek to me and I see Hillstead on the floor, a bullet hole through one eye, and I understand.

  I had made the shot. It was close, my bullet had grazed Bonnie’s cheek, but it had found its mark. She was fine. He was dead.