Shadowman, page 24
part #1 of The Valiant Universe Series
“What?!” Alyssa shrieked. “A werewolf?”
Jack scanned the shocked faces staring at him and quickly realized they were unable to help. How am I gonna get there?
At this thought, he felt the appendage tugging against the void, creating sensory feedback he was immediately able to identify.
The amulet, he thought. Of course it shares an affinity with you.
“Bossu,” Jack said, “they’re gonna have to see it.”
“Go, whelp.”
Visualizing his mother’s house, Jack reflexively conjured an aperture within the void, its terminal point forming at the front door.
Clutching the amulet with his appendage to confirm its stability, Jack pulled himself through and disappeared in a shadowy wisp.
Reappearing in the midst of the downpour, he landed silently in front of his mother’s house. Jack inspected the barrier with a quick once-over while simultaneously swinging the appendage in wide arcs, his mind instantly registering the numerous corpses just before perceiving the beast responsible.
It rested on its haunches, eating with its hands. Jack felt the wolf’s physical appearance in detail. Its razor-sharp claws fingered their way through the gristle of a corpse. Exceedingly sensitive to movement, its ears flapped independently from one another, causing the monster to aggressively turn its head one way and then the other for its next potential victim.
The werewolf stopped playing with its food and did a double take to see Jack staring down at him, having utilized the beast’s shadow to teleport into position. It remained still for a moment, holding a piece of human flesh in front of its mouth.
It suddenly went on the attack, springing forth from its hunched position.
With a swiftness too fast to see, Jack summoned his sengese, and grabbing it by the handle, pulled it through the leaping lupine with a downward stroke.
“You should not have killed it so quickly,” Bossu said.
Jack stepped back as the split beast landed with a thud. “For what?” he asked. “Did you want me to interrogate or something?”
Examining the houses on the street, he expected to see their front doors destroyed and their windows smashed, but to his surprise, none were damaged.
It didn’t enter anyone’s house? Jack said silently. Why?
“You should not have killed it so quickly,” Bossu repeated. “Nevertheless, I presume it came here for Helena.”
Yeah, I figured that, but still.
Jack resumed sweeping his appendage across the strewn bodies, swiftly examining them in detail. Corpses with faces that seemed to have been chewed through and dismembered limbs that appeared to result from a machine accident more than anything else, the state of these corpses would be difficult to explain away by the authorities or media.
Regardless, the fact these people were torn to pieces while their neighbors remained totally oblivious, pouring rain or not, was something the neighborhood of Black Pearl would be unable to recover from.
Jack pursed his lips together behind his mask. If I leave the bodies, there’s no telling the kind of trauma it would cause once everyone else comes outside. But to just dispose of them in the void or Deadside seems too callous, evil almost.
“This is crazy,” he whispered.
“What are you going to do, Jack?”
His appendage still weaving about the vicinity, Jack paid careful attention to the location of all the corpses and far-flung limbs before quickly vanishing to commence his grim work.
Immediately swiping several oversized tarps from an Army Corps building nearby, Jack hurriedly warped through the affected area of Black Pearl. Bit by bit, he gathered the remains of his neighbors and began securing them in neatly covered groups. He would arrange them along the main road in a steady fashion before proceeding to gather the rest.
“Dammit!” Jack hissed his pain away with a forceful grimace upon warping to a corpse he immediately recognized to be Jester. “Oh fuck!”
Unable to look away, Jack began stammering as he took in the young man’s final state, memorialized in a wide-eyed expression of horror. “This-this—This can’t be happening!”
“Gird yourself, Jack,” Bossu stated sternly. “This is only the beginning.” The Lwa’s voice was without condescension or impatience, merely matter-of-fact.
“Y-yes,” Jack replied, “I understand.”
He noticed the light from Jester’s phone shining through his pocket and retrieved it. Jack looked at the screen and saw it was all set and ready to upload a recorded video to Jester’s social media.
The sneaky bastard managed to capture it? Jack thought.
He activated the displayed video and saw that Jester had, indeed, recorded some moments of the werewolf.
Fuck yeah, Jester! This is gonna change everything!
With all the necessary sign-ins and passwords set to automatically fill upon logging in, Jack hurriedly uploaded the video to Jester’s social media, weakly thanking his young friend for his absentmindedness. Upon completion, Jack returned the phone to the pocket and transported Jester’s corpse to the remaining piles.
Unwilling to be discovered in the midst of this act and deemed responsible, Jack continued gathering the rest of the bodies until it was over. The two pieces of the werewolf, however, were left untouched.
Now holding his own phone, Jack reappeared on his mother’s front lawn and called the house.
“Please leave your message for—”
Jack abruptly pulled the phone away from his head upon hearing the impersonal voicemail that in no way belonged to his mother’s thirty-year-old landline.
“Mom?” he called, having teleported inside.
Most of the lights were on and he could hear his dad’s saxophone mixtape playing over the sound system he had bought them a few years back.
“Jack?” Helena replied, sounding pleasantly surprised.
Seeing his mother’s happy expression as she peered into the hallway, Jack shifted off his mask and emitted a groan of relief.
Helena’s look fell to one of concern as she watched her son take deep, meditative breaths. “What happened?” He looked at her in silence, unsure what to say. “Jack?”
“Does the phone work, Mom?” he asked, walking over to it.
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t.”
Dropping his phone on the table, Jack held the landline’s receiver to his ear and began dialing his phone number. He heard the voicemail prompt immediately but with no sign of an incoming call on his phone. “Please lea—”
Jack placed his mother’s phone down gingerly, struggling against frustration already brimming.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
Jack pursed his lips into what he thought was an encouraging smile.
Seeing her son look as though he had been forced to chew a lemon, Helena suddenly began to scold him. “Boy, you think I’m new to this or something?!” Jack dropped the strained expression and stared at her. “I asked what’s wrong!”
Suddenly remembering his mother was married to the last Shadowman, Jack blurted out his response. “There was a werewolf attack outside.”
“Is that all?”
Jack moved to walk away, unamused by her reply. “Mom, stop.”
Helena playfully blocked his exit with a raised arm swiftly repurposed into a hug. “I’m sorry, my special boy,” she said. “Forgive your callous mother, I’ve been doin’ this since before I birthed you.”
Jack stared down at her, incredulous yet frustrated by the smirk threatening to appear on his face. “People died!” he said. “Jester, our neighbors . . . they all got eaten!”
Helena’s countenance switched to solemnity as she began to approach one of the windows. “So what are you goin’ to do?”
The tickle of amusement at the corners of his mouth rightfully dissipated as a plan took form in his mind. “Go after the person responsible.”
CHAPTER 17
Jack appeared at the Manse Ghede, this time letting himself in.
“Where is this freaking guy?” he said, noticing the empty wingback.
Jack turned around and began marching away to search elsewhere but immediately heard Samedi’s voice behind him. “You don’t know how to knock?”
Samedi was suddenly seated in the wingback with his praying hands positioned in front of his face and legs crossed.
Jack was nevertheless unmoved. “Where do I find her?”
“You’re gonna have to explain,” Samedi breathed, visibly annoyed.
“The bird woman with the RBF.”
“RBF?” The skeleton paused for a moment before his bones began rocking with tempered humor. “Ha-ha-ha hmmm”
Jack remained silent as he stared at the Ghede lord.
“Ohhhh, Jack boy,” he murmured. The skeleton paused once more to look up at Jack before shaking his head. “Marinette.”
“Yeah her,” Jack hurriedly replied.
“What seems to be the issue?”
“Her werewolves.”
Samedi did not immediately respond, choosing to gaze at his agent who seemed to be vibrating in place. “What exactly is your plan?”
“I’m going to kill her,” Jack replied.
“Hm hm hm.”
Jack ignored Bossu’s chuckles as he continued to stare expectantly at Samedi.
Although the Ghede lord carried himself like a man in his early forties, he was staring in a manner Jack had always associated with old people. Glasses set low, gaze aimed high, the skeleton accentuated a particular type of silence that never failed to make him feel self-conscious.
Jack stared back at the eye sockets, and as expected, could make out the green of the skeleton’s irises positioned above the upper rim of his sunglasses, pointing directly at him.
Samedi stood to his feet. “Let me give you a glimpse of what you’re asking for.”
With the wave of his ivory hand, Samedi opened a portal.
Jack was about to dart inside with reckless abandon but was held back by a swift raise of Samedi’s arm. Peering through, Jack saw a castle covered in something that looked like blood.
“That’s her abode, called the Bloody Palace for obvious reasons—” The skeleton paused to observe the young host preparing to enter.
“Unfortunately,” he said, snapping the portal closed, “I’m not convinced you’re ready for that place.”
Jack willed his indignation down with a forceful swallow. “I am.”
“Well, seeing that you are my agent, I can’t just take you at your word and go sending you to pursue personal vendettas in the domains of my brethren. The kind of foes you’ll find in the Bloody Palace aren’t the ones you’re used to.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jack replied. “You think I’m confident because I’ve been wrecking bottom-feeders?”
Samedi curled a bony index around his chin. “Hmm.”
Jack patiently paced about the room, eyeing the various artifacts decorating the walls while waiting for the skeleton to complete his impromptu ponderings.
“I know!” Samedi said with a snap of his fingers, the piercing clack summoning a portal behind him. “Follow me.”
Entering the portal first this time, Jack was transported to an area engulfed in what appeared to be daylight and instantly recognized it as one of the places he had seen from afar when first arriving to the Deadside. His intake of the scenery fostered within him a state of whimsy that replaced his vengeful state of mind.
Immediately, his eyes set on the structure looming before him.
A suspension bridge, Jack began, his gaze darting throughout its design, contrived by a mad person.
Instead of stretching parallel toward their respective towers, the structure’s main cables crossed each other’s path to reach their opposite posts; the point of their intersection coincided with their sag.
The pattern was weaved continuously between the unending rows of towers lining the abnormally long road, stretching across the immediate landscape.
Trying to recreate the I-10 High Rise. Ha-ha.
Averting his gaze from the preposterous replica, Jack continued his inspection of the region. Scattered throughout, he spied various mobs of monsters that were undoubtedly much more capable than the bottom-feeders.
The excitement for violence welling within was immediately dampened by an unexplainable discomfort set within his body, and he felt compelled to look skyward. Colored a uniform orange, the resulting pseudo-daylight was not as affecting as that of the Liveside but still took a toll.
“Damn.”
Jack observed the vicinity again as he carefully considered his chances of success. Reaching out to his side, he summoned the sengese.
Disturbed by the unprecedented delay, Jack turned to look at his still-empty hand just before the weapon warped in. He let out a low exhale in response to the winded sensation that briefly bloomed in his chest and continued staring at his outstretched hand.
For the first time, the sengese felt off-center within his grip.
Struggling to find its center, Jack watched as the Ghede lord corrected the teetering weapon with a gentle nudge as he walked past.
Samedi spun on his heel to face the unsettled youth, setting himself before the otherworldly spectacle in the background. He returned his index finger to his chin before flinching a resolute nod.
“You are brazen enough to think yourself capable of surviving the Bloody Palace,” he continued, almost scolding. “You don’t realize you’ve been slicing and dicing to your heart’s content only because Fate determined you to be a bit above average Shadowman fresh out of the box?” The skeleton god set his sights forward, eyes now ablaze. He was wearing a grin so wide it repositioned his cheekbones. “Why not succeed at something worth giving a shit about?”
Staring speechless at the emerald flame glowing behind the Lwa’s shades, Jack’s bewildered expression calmed into the slightest beginnings of a smile. The tempest of an invisible aura emanating from the Ghede lord contained an excitement he had perceived only once before.
The window for consideration having ended, Samedi’s gaze intimated the intense seriousness within the measured cadence of his speech. “Are. You. Ready?”
Jack gestured in the affirmative, the pace of his nods deliberately mirroring Samedi’s delivery.
The skeleton’s enthusiasm rose all the more. “If defeat draws uncomfortably close, you’re free to leave.” While the words themselves seemed encouraging, they could not overcome the portentous quality of the tone with which they were wrapped. “Just remember when you do, you receive an F.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, the Ghede lord appeared in front of the nearest cluster of monsters that were congregating near the edges of the flatland below.
CRACKK!!
Arms swung to his front, the landscape seemed to vibrate with the echoes of the baron’s fearsome clap.
Though he had managed to rouse the attention of those relatively far off, the monsters directly at his back were immediately annihilated. Their chunks were streaked into the distance as if blown away by a mighty fart.
Samedi’s ivory hands, still pressed together, gestured toward Jack with his thumbs and forefingers. “Tear him limb from limb!”
Bossu’s gentlemanly chuckle was audible just beneath the war cry of countless monstrosities, electrified by the sudden presence of their supreme overlord.
Undeterred, Jack ran out to meet them.
He was forced to halt his advance, however, reacting to the fast-approaching Chiclet teeth of the frog-like demon opportunistically lunging for his head. He held the sengese out to his front, bracing its staff against the ground like a flag as the demon unwittingly dove into the blade.
For a moment, its face and protruding incisors appeared to fit neatly into the sickle’s inward curve until a split-second nudge by Jack forced the blade through the monster’s teeth.
The momentum of the demon’s body bifurcated it into ribbons that peeled forth against the blade’s cutting edge.
They’re definitely spirited, Jack thought, spinning his sengese free from the entrails before taking off.
The enemies proved to be little else as he began slaughtering them with ease. Just like his first outing, there was no need for him to engage his sixth sense. Counterstriking using only his sight and instincts produced mounds of demonic corpses in his wake.
And as much as Jack had been looking forward to the brutes, they were not challenging either. He managed to kill several before feeling the need to catch his breath.
Jack rotated the sengese to block the headbutt of a rhinoceros-faced demon. Calmly maintaining the staff’s horizontal position, he kept the horned creature at bay and thought about his present dissatisfaction.
These guys are the most formidable I’ve faced so far.
As the ferocious monster continued pressing its face against the staff, Jack spied another fiend conspicuously separating itself from the nearest horde. Poised for an opening, the demon swayed its prehensile tail from side to side, displaying its countless needlelike projections. These loosely attached spikes formed a precarious-looking halo at the tip of its tail, resembling a giant dandelion.
But I feel like I’d have a harder time facing a horde of demon cops. Even though they were technically weaker, they had supernatural levels of coordinated tactics.
With the stampede of monsters now only seconds away, Jack glimpsed at the dandelion demon as it flexed its tail. Moving with blinding speed, he suddenly shoved the rhinoceros off the staff before thrusting the blunt end through one of its still-glaring eyes.
Jack withdrew the weapon before the skewered demon collapsed, and turned just in time to see the dandelion demon jettison countless needles with a sadistic flick of its tail.
These guys don’t have that, though.
Although the sheer volume of projectiles produced by the halo was far more than he expected, Jack remained calm. He began twirling the sengese in his front before dexterously utilizing his invisible appendage to accelerate the weapon’s rotations, like hand propping a plane.
Successively deflecting the shower of projectiles with his furious twirling, Jack redirected them into the horde now at point-blank range. Spinning the staff relentlessly, he riddled the demonic throng with the copious spray of needles, killing them many times over.
