Shadowman, page 23
part #1 of The Valiant Universe Series
Helena started moving to the sink to wash her hands. “Sounds like you bamboozlin’ yourself into a wild-goose chase that won’t prosper none,” she said. “You tryin’ to be Merlin when that ain’t your style. From now on, stay in your lane. Whatever’s workin’, that’s your lane.” She gripped the faucet and turned toward her son. “Don’t get all defensive now.”
Jack smiled resignedly, his demeanor devoid of any snark or insincerity. “I’m not, Mom. I knew you were right back at the part about investing in inferior options or something. Yeah, you win.”
“That’s my special boy,” Helena replied with a nod. She faced forward and turned the faucet. “Stick with what you know. I just want you to be wise for yourself, is all. The same way a dog be on his squeaky toy, that’s how you gotta be from here on out. Oftentimes, it be our reliance on the things we know that put us on to the things we don’t.”
Jack’s shoulders began to quake from his sudden amusement, mirroring Bossu’s chuckles that had been sounding in his head.
Helena spoke over her shoulder as she rubbed her hands underneath the water. “What’s so funny?”
“Yes, do tell!” Bossu said.
At first, Jack intended to just deflect the question, but his Lwa’s statement made him decide otherwise. “I honestly don’t know how you’ll take it,” he began, “but since you asked, I figure I might as well.” Having shut off the water, Helena grabbed a towel to dry her hands and turned around to listen to her son. “So yeah, it’s just that Bossu gave me advice crazy similar to what you just said.”
Jack looked up to see his mother patting her hands dry, staring down at him, before immediately setting his sights on his plate to resume eating.
“I’m touched, whelp.”
Jack ignored his Lwa as he addressed his mother. “It’s just funny to me, Mom.”
Helena let out a sigh before responding. “Well, if the monster is giving you advice on par with your mother’s, then I guess he ain’t all bad.”
“How insightful she is today!”
Jack had been rolling his eyes at Bossu’s statement when his mother suddenly held the sides of his head with her slightly uncomfortable, cold, and wet hands. “Can he hear me?” she asked.
Jack nodded, unable to hide his confusion as she spoke. “Motherly advice be damned, when dealing with him . . .” Helena paused to lean in toward her son’s face and although this movement was not overly dramatic, her countenance had shifted to one of utmost seriousness. “Be circumspect.”
The sun was just beginning to rise by the time Jack left home. Seeing as he had nothing better to do, he returned to the Deadside, much to the dismay of its inhabitants.
Jack kept his eyes on the now-fleeing monsters. “I guess I should stop beating around the bush and pay a visit to Samedi.”
“Still?” Bossu replied teasingly. “Hm hm, why?”
Jack folded his arms while still gazing into the distance. “You know why,” he said. “These are all fodder and I need some of the brute class to get stronger.”
“Brute class?” he began. “To what end, Jack?”
“For practice, duh.”
The Lwa performed his gravelly titter before addressing his host’s statement. “Hm hm hm . . . you got it all wrong,” he said. “Practice, you say?” He tittered twice before clearing his throat. “No, whelp, that kind of thinking will not do.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is no practice for you, for us. That is for petty disputes and competitions when it is understood that both sides will live afterward. The intent to kill operates differently, it is not improved by the practice you speak of.”
Jack began walking to another vantage point. “Eh?” he voiced. “I don’t get it.”
“In essence, you are a terrible fighter. That is why you seek conflict in order to prepare for true battle. The trade-off is that you may prove to be an excellent killer, but there is a problem that I sense may become a severe weakness if we fail to cast it out.”
“And that is?”
“You are thinking too much.” Jack stopped moving. “Violence is about instinct, feeling, discernment. Remember what you said about inconvenient bodies? That is obvious in creatures such as these, but recognizing such inherent vulnerabilities in all opponents, that is violence.”
Jack sensed validity in Bossu’s words, and if the Lwa’s analysis was accurate, he would be a fool to not take heed. “So what’s the solution?” he asked. “I’m only human after all.”
“You have to let your old self die.”
“I have.”
“No, you have not, Jack.”
The young host cast his gaze downward. “After everything?” he asked. “How are you so sure?”
Bossu’s analysis was deft, cutting through any distractive sinew in order to highlight the evidence of his claim without fostering any emotional pushback. “You fight in the same manner you used to think. Your old paradigm is still unchanged, which is proof that you have yet to be born again. You rely on what you think you know rather than examining it to confirm it can serve as a support first.”
Despite the Lwa’s best efforts to avoid emotional backlash, it failed. “I am examining it!” Jack protested. “That’s why I said I need more.”
Bossu paused as if astonished.
“Hello?”
“Did you mean what you said?” Bossu asked. “At your mother’s, I mean. The excrement you were spewing about wanting more powers.”
Jack hesitated before responding, unsure of the truth. “Honestly,” he replied, “I’m not sure. I guess I had to be on some level.”
“Fate has a funny way with you,” the Lwa said. “Your mother, although her words of encouragement were based on your deceitful deflection, they were, nevertheless, on the mark.”
Jack folded his arms again, appearing to be unconvinced. “In what way?”
“In essence, she was stating that what you know or what is inherent to you will always prove to be a more reliable resource. At least in the context of defeating your enemies, and by proxy, attaining the experience Samedi commanded of you.”
“And that’s because?”
“The thought that you need more is based on a supposition you have deluded yourself into accepting as knowledge. As usual, relying on what you think you know.”
Jack’s forearms remained interlocked across his chest as he shrugged impatiently.
The Lwa let out his gravelly sigh. “What more do you want?”
“Duh, more powers.”
“Whose powers?”
“Yours!!” Jack exclaimed. “The shadow!”
“Very well, now hear my words.” Bossu paused again, this time as if to take a breath. “Why do you ascribe the void to my self?”
“Who else should I ascribe it to, man?! You’re the Shadow Lwa!”
“Am I?”
Jack’s mind began to race as he felt the familiar discomfort that usually preceded a humbling experience. His tone changed as he began to sense that he may have missed something. “Well, I guess technically . . .”
“Who told you I’m the Shadow Lwa?” Bossu asked.
“Umm . . .”
“Don’t you see? No examination.”
Jack remained silent, unable to think up a defense before his Lwa’s voice suddenly boomed in his head.
“I am not the Shadow Lwa,” he roared in anger. “I am Bossu Koblamin . . . the Lwa killer!”
Having capitalized on the perfect moment to shock his host with this otherwise obvious revelation, Bossu returned his voice to normal. “I would have thought you figured this out already. After all, you were able to notice the incongruity between my purported identity and my presence in the void all by yourself.”
Jack was confused by the sudden sensation forming at the corners of his mouth. It compelled him to smile as the Lwa spoke on.
“Where do you believe that anger you choose to resist comes from? You are admittedly proficient with the void but you took no notice of my true nature, the one I’ve freely given.”
The young host stayed silent, smiling with charged excitement as Bossu ensured he was paying attention. “Jack?”
Though he intended to respond mentally to his Lwa, Jack spoke his reply aloud. “Yesssss.”
This was it; the little detail that he had been missing the whole time.
Bossu Koblamin.
“What am I?” the Lwa asked, invitingly.
Wildness, strength, and—
“You must remember,” Bossu interrupted, his voice humming with anticipation, “for it is the key forged for you at last.”
Jack thought back to when he was reading the final aspect of his godhood. He could recall being struck by how out of place it seemed for the characterization of something like a god. How could he have forgotten?
“It is the missing piece that will create me anew . . . in yo—”
Unable to control his excitement, Jack mentally recited the word as it was retrieved by his mind, unintentionally interrupting his Lwa. “Violence.”
CHAPTER 16
Since the conversation with Bossu, Jack had undergone yet another shift in perspective. Not only did it grant him a unique sense of appreciation for his role as Shadowman, but, like the revelations surrounding Josiah, it also created a newfound respect for his Lwa.
It was only due to his father’s foresight and meticulous planning that the terrifying Lwa had taken a liking to Jack. Bossu had made it a point to mention this quite often but, like a child too ignorant to fear a fall from a great height, the lad would routinely blow him off. But upon learning the unspoken truth about Bossu, Jack was permanently changed.
The young host was the only person to ever be given the revelation regarding Bossu’s banishment. The pantheon kept it secret out of pride, and Bossu would not tell simply because of his contempt for all.
To Jack, this could only mean the pantheon was just a bunch of fakers. Seeing as they all knew the Truth but ensured no one else in the universe did, this conspiracy permitted them to pretend to be things they were not.
It was all just a massive hoax as usual.
Jack’s sudden lack of respect for the pantheon made it all too easy to abandon his obligations to them. If not for the fact that he truly desired to elevate his skills to the uppermost, he felt certain Samedi would not see him for a very long time.
However, he also deduced how critically important it was that he took this Truth to the grave. A secret hidden this well for this long was sure to be a death warrant for anyone deemed unfit to know it.
So, although Jack had been completely changed, Dox and Alyssa knew nothing. He resolved that it would be this way for anyone he came into contact with, mortal or otherwise.
Presently, the trio remained on standby in an area where the blights proved wont to manifest. Despite the forecast promising a clear night, it was starting to drizzle.
“Don’t lie, guys,” Jack said, slapping a mosquito dead against his neck. “You wish the blights were in the city.”
“No bugs in the city, I suppose?” Alyssa asked.
“Of course there are, they’re just not to the degree of a freaking swamp.”
This particular hotspot was located within Bayou Boeuf, and was the only one that seemed to get invaded at around the same time on a consistent basis.
“Less likely to get nabbed by a gator too, I suppose.” Dox was smoking a cigar while making his way to his car idling nearby. “You kids keep an eye out, all right?”
“Found one!”
While Jack had been mentally alerted to the presence of a breach, he barely had to move to ascertain its location. The telltale scent of the Deadside had only just begun to leak through the developing tear, but he was able to feel the blight before he smelled it.
Unbeknownst to the others, he had cast his sixth sense far and wide, furiously weaving it across the area like the rotor blade of a helicopter. The radar-like appendage detected the blight’s spatial displacement slightly before it took shape.
Indiscernible at first, the blight formed a curtain of space-time that appeared to be drawn open by the putrid invaders slowly making their way in.
Dox put his phone away and hurriedly waved the lingering cloud of smoke from his face. “Thought you were talking gators.”
Alyssa started looking over her shoulder at Jack while securing her body cam. Her glance was prolonged because he was in plain clothes, casually leaning against a tree.
About to comment on his showing off, she blinked, only to see him clad in his void material suit the next instant.
Jack was staring at the blight, his night vision enabling him to number the arriving undead with ease. “Three, aaaand . . . that’s four.” He quickly pushed himself off the tree and made his approach toward the visitors before suddenly stopping short.
Bossu, he began, what’s going on?
“The escalation we have been preparing for,” the Lwa replied.
Jack watched in confusion as the blight remained open, his eyes capable of distinguishing between the general darkness of the surrounding area and the newly exposed deep black of the Deadside from which several more monsters emerged.
Unable to see exactly what was happening, thanks to the dark and dense foliage surrounding them, Dox and Alyssa found Jack’s uncharacteristic behavior somewhat disconcerting. “What is it, kid?”
Alyssa immediately took out her flashlight in an attempt to illuminate the area but was beaten by a bolt of lightning. The sudden flash revealed what Jack had been looking at.
A group of eight devourers stood in a seeming daze, stunned by the change in their appearance. They swayed like drunkards, each one eyeing the other as the interdimensional breach began sealing itself like a zipper behind them. Jack caught a glimpse of the countless eyes glowing within the deep blackness just as the portal closed.
Dox began speaking again, keeping his cool. “I’m counting seven, am I seeing this right?”
“No,” Jack replied, summoning the sengese to his hand. “There’s eight.”
He casually swept it across his front despite being well out of melee range, and for a moment, its upper portion remained unseen as if becoming temporarily sheathed.
The unmistakable sounds of tearing flesh briefly ripped through the air one after the other as Jack’s swing followed through. His subsequent flourishes revealed the weapon to have been made whole, its sickle portion glinting amidst the twirls as a weighty tumbling could be heard along the ground.
Alyssa’s flashlight followed the decapitated bodies as they collapsed and caught sight of their severed heads rolling toward them.
“Damn, kid,” Dox said. “That’s a neat trick.”
Jack punted the head of one of the undead just as the audible bubbling of their liquefaction started. “Yeah, thanks.”
Dox continued, attempting to keep the mood light. “I don’t know what’s more deserving of my attention, that or the amount of visitors who just walked through that blight.”
Ignoring the light that Alyssa currently had fixed upon him, Jack repeatedly clenched his jaw while staring silently into the dark. Why the change?
“It could be many things,” Bossu replied.
Jack was not concerned about demons, undead, Samedi, or pretty much anything at this point. So what’s with this feeling?
The sound of drizzle intensified into an unexpected downpour.
“Eight demons?” Alyssa asked, raising her voice over the rain crashing into the leafy canopy above their heads. “Was that a fluke or what?”
“I’m gonna check on my mom, guys,” Jack said. “Give me a moment.”
The mention of Helena caused a shift in Dox’s voice. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, just doing this for peace of mind.”
“Okay, kiddo, we’ll keep watch.”
Jack sat on the ground, leaning his back against the car’s exterior, and prepared himself to link with the crow stationed at the house.
The crows were inconvenient in that they required his full attention when being controlled, which was very different from his sixth sense. The appendage communicated through mental signals and passive feedback loops, adjusting itself based on past experience so as to place little burden on Jack’s mental real estate. Conversely, the crow on standby had to actively be put into position at his house every night.
Additionally, in order to determine if anything eventful was occurring in its eyesight, Jack would have to view it from the crow’s perspective. This meant he had to stop whatever he was doing and take direct control of it, inconveniently blocking his own vision and replacing it with that of the distant creature.
“All right,” Jack announced, “I’m gonna check now.”
“Copy.”
Alyssa and Dox watched as his eyes adopted the electric purple hue of the crow he was remotely viewing through. He performed a quick sweep of his surroundings and could see the barrier over his mother’s house was still intact.
“Looks all good here,” Jack said aloud. “I just had a bad—”
Just as he was about to sever the telepathic link, something farther down the block caught his eye. He willed the bird to take off from the trees lining his mother’s front yard and began flying it toward the area in question.
“What did you see?” Alyssa asked.
“I’m not sure, it looked like a big ass water balloon exploded or some—”
Having controlled the crow to the area, Jack’s vision caught the gruesome sight of intense slaughter, causing him to momentarily fall silent.
Dox could immediately tell something bad was happening.
Apparently steeling himself against whatever he was watching, Jack’s face was taut with a wince so strained that his visible teeth extended past the fang-like extensions of his mask.
“No!” he screamed.
Dox tugged at his arm. “You’re all right, Jack, we’re h—”
“It’s not all right!” The electric purple of the young host’s eyes flickered away as the connection ended. “There’s a werewolf slaughtering my neighborhood!”
