Shadow Animals Page 3

  Saul stepped up to the statue. It was of a tall man standing in the dramatic pose of a war hero, humbled of detail through the years by the weather and lack of care, now indistinct stone. About its base, there was a plaque on which raised lettering had been rubbed to near illegibility, like those on an ancient headstone:

  Luto Alexandero

  The Great Architect

  “All man needs is shelter.”

  “Welcome to the city of freedom!”

  Saul turned to see Koryn shaking her head in disgust. “He built this place?” he asked her.

  “Designed it. Slaves built it. Come on. We better go.” She pointed to a dark opening like a subterranean tunnel across the courtyard Saul had failed to notice.

  Koryn whisked forward. Saul followed, this passageway narrower than the last. He stepped in something soggy that seemed to move under his foot and he stumbled. He hurried on.

  To Saul, the space around him seemed vaguely like a prison, or like the slums he’d seen in movies; it was like a drawing M. C. Escher might scribble in a nightmare. The entire compound seemed made from blocks lifted and suspended on strings, dangling over their heads and connected by crisscrossing bridges so numerous they blocked out the sun.

  They came out into a small alleyway clearing, several passages branching from it in various directions. Three ragged men stood from where they’d been crouching against the wall by a single light from one of the tunnels and shambled toward them. Koryn turned to them and flashed something from inside her cloak. The men stopped and whispered amongst themselves. The men slunk back into the shadows and slumped against the wall, sinking into their coats that seemed to writhe about them like living membranes.

  “We have to hurry,” Koryn said.

  “Why?”

  “Because they know we’re here.”

  Saul felt his heart lurch in his chest.

  In a dream I watched:

  “No, Ja, I want it now.”

  “You’ll just be hungry again in a moment, I’m afraid, Ji. Hold still. We’re waiting for our call.”

  “But look at it, Ja. So pretty. A pretty kitty. Come here pretty kitty—” A hand reaches out, large and pale, with smooth, many-jointed fingers like emaciated arthritic snakes. The tiny furred animal trapped in the corner of the room shakes with terror, liquid silver eyes darting and rolling.

  Ja pulls the hand back. “You fool. That’s no kitty. That’s a kylix.”

  Ji’s round, unblinking eyes widen. “Ooo, a kylix.”

  The phone fills the tiny room with its blaring. Ja picks the red plastic receiver from its wall mount with his smaller, more human-looking hand, and places it near his face. “Yes?”

  After a moment listening he says, “Excellent. We’ll be right there.” He replaces the phone on its hook. Tendrils of shadow shift like living nightmares from beneath his immaculate bowler hat. “They’re going exactly where we thought they’d go. They’re meeting Galen in Luto’s Court.”

  “Here kitty, kitty,” Ji says, stretching toward the kylix. “Here pretty kitty. Come here.”

  “We’ll come up right beneath them.” Ja pushes some buttons on the control panel, then taps the ‘up’ key. There is a ping sound, and the screech of old wires and gears; the elevator begins reluctantly to crawl upward.

  Ji’s hand reaches for the kylix.

  “It’s a pity these animals think they’re safe to nest down here,” Ja says.

  The kylix makes a desperate leap, but Ji’s hand is almost supernaturally fast, snatching the animal from the air. The kylix swings its tail, impaling Ji’s arm with needle-sharp spines. Ji’s large slobbering mouth grins, unmindful of the animal’s attacks on his arm. There is snapping, and wet plopping sounds. Ji lifts the furry corpse toward his hole of teeth already gnashing in anticipation.

  “As always, if you must.” Ja turns his attention away.

  The gears squeal and crunch as the elevator grinds steadily upward.

  Luto’s Court was unlike anywhere Saul had ever been. Crooked streets wound in every direction, disappearing into alleyways ending in dark, seedy taverns or unwelcoming shops with simple names like Apothecary, or Drexel’s, or The Bottling Yard. Through the labyrinthine passages, Saul saw a tired warren of cramped streets and buildings that leaned like misaligned teeth, tiny frosted portal windows and narrow doors, obscured faces that peeked mistrustfully over balconies. Crumbled carts of moldering hay lay amongst battered tin trash cans and discarded detritus smashed beyond recognition. Clothing drooped over lines strung between buildings like shuddering phantoms. Wet trash lay kicked and trampled about their feet. Neon signs glowed feebly in the gloom: Live Show and Chester’s Place and Girls-Girls-Girls.

  Ahead of them, a woman leaned over an unstable railing and overturned a bucket. Slimy drippings seemed to evaporate before they struck the street. A man with his face shadowed under what looked to Saul like a sombrero passed by riding a forlorn beast with long tangled hair that grew down over its body and dragged behind it through the streets like a dirty dish rag. A woman with straight black hair tugged a child by a rope down one of the dark passageways and then they were gone.

  “You have to be careful,” Koryn said. “Most of the street signs are missing.” She stopped for a moment. “Over there’s Carmen Avenue. And that’s...okay, let’s go this way.

  They turned down a wider lane of muddled stones. A burbling stream ran down the center of the street. The interconnected buildings were raised here on mossy stones, built from scrappy wooden paneling painted in a thick darkening gloss, with windows like rampart slits. A group of dirty children ran past them, bare feet splashing in the water. A musty fog hung in the air: the visible odor of garbage and feces.

  Koryn jumped across the stream and led Saul to a set of jagged stairs. She paused at a platform that branched to either side, took the more well-lighted of the two paths. She scurried down a corridor hung with threads of dank miasma like spider’s webs. Another dark corridor gaped to their left and Koryn quickened her pace to reach the next set of stairs, a rickety-looking spiral staircase speckled with rust.

  “They’ll never find us up here,” Koryn mumbled, mostly to herself.

  “What do these people do?” Saul whispered.

  “They sell things. Scavenged from the dumping grounds mostly. A few are really good at fixing things up. Or they just sell drugs.”

  Saul nodded.

  “My mother always told me only scum lived in Luto’s Court,” Koryn said. “But you think they choose to live this way? Well...maybe, if you need a good place to hide...”

  They came out on a walkway of wooden slats secured to a metal frame along a wall of doors spread every few feet. Leaning against the railing watching them was a man smoking a cigarette through a wooden cigarette holder. The man wore a trench coat several sizes too large for his hunched frame. His face was a mosaic of scars and lines that seemed to fill with the muggy smoke that hung about his face.

  The man’s slanted eyes watched them.

  “Galen?” Koryn said.

  The man flinched. Then he looked at Koryn more closely. “Koryn? What?” He looked at Saul, efficiently appraising his appearance. He bit down on his cigarette holder so the cigarette jittered dramatically. He nodded his head toward the nearest door. “You better step inside.”

  “Ja?”

  “What, Ji?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I knew you would be.”

  At one time the elevator had gone all the way to the top level but now leaves them still several levels beneath the surface, rumbling to a shuddering halt, dumping them in a corridor almost completely bereft of lighting. A strained electrical wire fizzes briefly, then leaves them in the dark. They grope up the spiraling stairwell.

  “I believe it is the third ground level we’re looking for. Keep an eye out, will you, Ji?”

  “I’m so hungry I could eat a finger.”

  “Don’t do that again, Ji. We’ll reach our destination soon enough.”

  A faint square of light grows larger as they waddle up the creaking steps as fast as they can.

  “Will there be things to eat, Ja?”

  Ja smiles, showing his teeth to the gloom. “Oh, yes. I believe there will be. Plenty for us both.”

  The dream fades and is forgotten...

  “So you’re looking for your son?”

  Saul nodded.

  They sat on the floor in what appeared to be a tiny motel room. A small table lay pushed against one wall, a forlorn dresser against another. In the far corner—the room’s only chair—was a collapsed recliner, an ugly green color scuffed with grime. A thin, door-less opening looked into a tiny bathroom saturated in moldy yellow tones.

  “Have you seen him?” Saul asked. “My son? I’ve come a long way to find him.”

  Galen gave him a careful look. “Perhaps.”

  His heart was beating very quickly. “What do you know?” Saul asked.

  “First, tell me—you come from downriver?”

  “Yes.”

  Galen glanced sharply at Koryn, who nodded. He turned back to Saul. He sighed. “I don’t know much. All I can tell you is that I’ve seen him, I think. Young. Light hair. Maybe seven or eight years old.”

  “He’s nine.”

  “Yes, okay. The boy I saw could have been nine. But what struck me as odd, what makes me think he was your son, is the clothing he wore. A black t-shirt with an unusual print on the front of it, animals parading—”

  “Yes!”

  Galen shook his head. “I’ve dreamed about him then too. A small boy, wreathed in darkness.”

  Saul leaned forward, eager and restless. “Where did you see him?”

  “In the heart of the city, with the shadow animals. They were taking him
to the Theatre Verrata.”

  Koryn groaned.

  “I’m sorry,” Galen said.

  Saul looked from Koryn then back to Galen. “How can I get him? Who are the shadow animals? The theatre what? How can I take him back home?”

  Galen looked intently at his hands, silent for a time, until Saul was just about to say something, and he spoke. “It may be too late.”

  “Too late?” Saul said. “Too late for what?”

  Koryn said, “There’s only one reason your son would be in the Theatre Verrata.” She looked saddened.

  Galen nodded. “It’s too bad.”

  Saul put his hands up. “Wait a minute. What are you saying? Just show me where my son is so I can take him back. I’ll use this if I have to,” he said, raising the rifle. “Just tell me where to go.”

  Koryn turned to Saul, put her hands on his shoulders, and fixed her liquid-brown eyes on his. “It’s impossible. You can’t get into that place.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?”

  There was a crash as the door split open. A hulking form hunched in the doorway. “You come with us, pretty-kitty.”

  “Yes, Ji, I believe that’s right. It would be best if you came with us, sir. It would be best, most assuredly, for everyone, if you came quietly.”

  Saul gaped from the floor; they were talking to him he realized. Koryn was on her feet in an instant. Galen began to stand.

  The form was bulbous and asymmetrical. It stood on bare muscular legs, with a broad hunchbacked abdomen draped in tattered scraps of clothing, from which protruded one human-looking arm and one oversized appendage like a writhing, many-jointed spider. A huge, slobbering mouth with teeth and twitching lips formed a parody of a smile from the center of the form’s stomach. An elongated neck jutted from the top, with round and colorless eyes shining from within a substance like dark mist, an immaculately polished bowler hat floating atop, which the human arm lifted to Saul in an ironic gentleman’s gesture.

  “He looks tasty, Ja. All of them look soooo good.”

  “Not this gentleman, Ji. He must arrive unspoiled.” The normal arm reached out, beckoning to Saul. “If you’d come with us, please, sir.”

  Saul stared. “What? I—”

  “He’s not going anywhere.” Koryn, in an instant taking a fighting stance, came forward. She held—flashing into her fingers from the fold of her coat—what appeared to Saul to be a pair of metallic chopsticks in each hand, their four points glistening wickedly in the yellow glow from the open bathroom.

  Saul felt numb, as if mired in a dream.

  Ja and Ji stepped into the room, almost casually. Koryn dove, skidding easily beneath Ji’s clumsy swing, her needles stabbing, then rending flesh in a rusty spray across the floor. She spun, came around; the needle weapons flashed again and dark holes of brimming blood opened along the back of Ja’s shoulder and down his spine.

  Koryn crouched by the collapsed recliner, her weapons at the ready for another strike. “That’s poison,” she said.

  Ja and Ji turned to face her. “We know.”

  “I can feel it! I can feel it!” Ji said.

  Blood dribbled as the brothers smiled.

  Galen took a step forward. “Wait, Koryn, don’t—”

  Koryn came again, taking a low stance; her needles flashed, opening more holes in the brothers flank, but Ji’s hand was fast this time, striking like a snake, catching Koryn about the neck, lifting her, drawing her in. Koryn thrashed, her face already an ugly purple. She drove her needles, with all her strength, into Ji’s flesh. The needles sunk into the soft muscle like cheese. Ji never flinched.

  Koryn sputtered, her arms dropped; she sagged.

  Galen pushed Saul toward the bathroom, began to back away.

  Ji’s mouth gibbered with anticipation. He lifted Koryn, and there was a snap, as he took her leg in his mouth, and began to crunch and mumble. “Mm...sooooo good...”

  Galen was screaming something, but Saul was fascinated, couldn’t tear his horrified eyes away.

  Blood sprayed in a brownish geyser, as Ji reached Koryn’s abdomen. There was a horrible hissing noise, as organs were loosened and separated from their functioning locations, flesh pulled from bone, and the farting sound of escaping gases, as the stomach was forced out, ugly and wet, between the splitting rib cage.

  “Now, Mr. Saul, please. Come with me,” Ja said, even as Ji continued to eat.

  With a wet, smacking sound, a heavy string of viscera tumbled to the floor all at once.

  Galen yelled in his ear. Ja stepped toward him. Ji dropped the half-consumed Koryn to the floor reluctantly, his tongue flopping out of his mouth and reaching for the remains with longing as his brother pulled him toward Saul.

  Ja stared at him intently, continuing to talk. “He’ll come with us now, Ji.”

  “But I’m still hungry, Ja.”

  “I know, Ji. I know.”

  Saul felt something at his back: the crumbling wall. He was trembling. The only place left to go was into the cramped bathroom.

  Galen came forward, putting himself between Saul and the brothers.

  “This is not your concern, Galen,” Ja said. “Please step aside.”

  “Go, Saul,” Galen said, turning his head, his cigarette holder still clenched between his teeth, cigarette still smoldering.

  Saul looked into the tiny bathroom. “Where?”

  The brothers crossed the room. Ji smiled hungrily at Galen. Ja’s eyes sparkled.

  “In the back. Go!” Galen shoved him and Saul fell against the toilet. He groped his hands over the wall, lifting himself. He could feel his fingers being cut on the flaking paint.

  “You better come with us too, Galen. You’re an exiled criminal.”

  Galen shoved him again and the wall gave beneath Saul’s shoulders. Saul reeled into a dark corridor.

  “Go! Go!” Galen said.

  Saul ran down the thin, single-file corridor, Galen breathing right behind him. They came to a rickety set of spiraling stairs. Saul glanced back. Ja and Ji stood in the bathroom at the end of the corridor, too large to squeeze through, Ja’s darkness writhing and Ji licking his lips. In the pale yellow light of the bathroom, they looked ghostly and dead. Then the brothers turned to find another way around, and disappeared from view.

  * * *

  Galen flicked a match to light. They were somewhere dark, subterranean.

  “She helped me...she...”

  “Quiet, Saul. You have to be quiet. I’ll tell you when you can talk.”

  Saul followed the pinpoint flame, a flickering sprite dancing ahead in the total dark. When he glanced away, faded copies of the sprite cavorted before his eyes.

  The flame stopped. Saul could just make out the side of Galen’s face, his concave eye, his scar-crossed cheek. The strange man was passing the flame over something on the wall. He brushed cobwebs and grime from the face of a control panel of some sort. He looked carefully for a minute or two.

  “Where are we going?”

  Galen shushed him, and then pulled something on the wall. Saul heard the dull hum of electricity being generated and there was the squealing sound of old machinery shuddering to life. Galen waited. The machinery crunched, then ceased. The electrical hum continued.

  “Damn.” Galen began to pound his fists lightly over the wall. The flame sprite went out. Saul could hear Galen struggling, breathing heavily, pushing his weight against the wall. Then, there was a rusty scraping noise, and the panel of a door slid open, revealing a faint glow of orange light. Saul felt a hand wrap his jacket, and pull him forward.

  Inside, there was a cramped space, a tiny square room. In one corner there was a moldering heap of blankets. A few flies buzzed lethargically in the rotten heat. A lone chicken leg with a single bite torn from it lay near the door. Somewhere distantly above, whined an electric light.

  Galen slid the door closed and tried the control panel next to it. At first he pushed the buttons lightly, but then began to mash them with his fists. When nothing happened, he stopped.

  “We’ll wait here,” Galen said. “I was hoping this shaft still worked, but...” He shrugged. “There’s another way, but it’s too dangerous right now. They’ll be looking for us.”

  “They killed her,” Saul said, his voice shaking.