Shadows in the Grey

Chapter 7 The Devils Red Head

Mack had little trouble following the bumbling red head as she careened through the city on her bicycle. Fueled by righteous rage adrenaline he transmuted, what mundanes call teleportation, from shadow to shadow after her. He had to deal with her. No, he had to discover what she and her cohorts were up to and then he would deal with her. These bastards responded to only one sort of communication, the final kind that found one six feet underground. The irony of that thought did not escape him as he followed her to the gates of a cemetery. The clatter of a metal trash can banging to the gravel hurt his ears which he had magically enhanced to eavesdrop on the girl in case she was communicating with someone. He flinched and rubbed his ears as the sound ricocheted through his skull, looking through slitted eyes he saw the trash can fly nearly ten feet and into a pillar causing another bang to reverberate his brain. She was talking but the noise made it hard to clearly make out what she was saying and to who. The girl motioned with her hands and the gates flew open, she paused, admiring her handiwork no doubt, and then stepped through the gates and disappeared up the path. He knew it. He knew that bitch was something, and from the speed at which those gates swung, she was a powerful something. She was magical, a Shadow, and she was working for them. She had turned against her own kind. A traitor. A fucking traitor. He didn’t think it was possible but he was even more pissed.

   There was a faction of Shadows that thought all they needed to do was educate the other side. That all the death and despair that spanned centuries was just due to ignorance and could be easily rectified with a simple chat over tea. They even succeeded in setting up a meet between the factions. At said meet, the Shadows were slaughtered. They wasn’t even enough left of them for the search party to scrape together for one coffin. It was told to every Shadow as a child to serve as a warning to never trust anyone who wasn’t a Shadow. That was rule one. The fact that mundanes remembered Shadows as nothing more than an odd sense of deja vu made it easy. It was hard to get close enough to trust someone if they all but forgot about you the second they turned away. Mack didn’t understand why mundanes couldn’t remember him but there were those that wanted to kill him. He once asked his stepdad about it and received a shrug in response. Turns out no one was quite sure what the Enemy was or why they wanted Shadows exterminated. The war was so old it’s origins were now legends, no Shadow knew why it started exactly, only myths and lore gave any sort of a hint and Mack doubted any of the Enemy knew either.

   Mack continued to transmute from the shadows of tombstones and trees. They passed through the old part of the cemetery and into the new, here he only had the shadows of the trees to dart between. The new area of the cemetery lacked the large statues and memorials of the old. He spared a moment of sadness at that, sadness that remembering and honoring the dead with permanent, public displays had become taboo. Now people were expected to internalize their grief to make others comfortable and to make it easier for groundskeepers to mow the grass. The red head had stopped at two fresh plots in the shade of a large oak tree. The tree provided the best cover so he transmuted there and watched as the girl talked seemingly to no one. She was getting agitated and began gesturing. A moment later lightning struck and thunder roared as the earth rumbled. A feeling of foreboding settled over Mack. This was dark and unnatural. He had to stop this and he had to stop it now. Pulling his wand from its pocket inside his sleeve, he stepped out from the cover of the oak tree.

   “Whatever it is you’re doing you need to stop it, right now,” he said, hoping he sounded commanding. The adrenaline from his righteous fury was dissipating as he was faced with something completely unknown to him. While impulsive, Mack rarely went into a situation without thorough research. Which he should have done this time but he let his emotions overpower his logic. It was a good way to get dead quick.

    “What? What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow me?” She said, her voice a mixture of confusion and anger.

    “Whatever you and those assholes you’re working with are trying to do we will stop it and put an end to you. Tell me what your plan is and I’ll kill you quickly,” he said.