Shade City (3 page)

I shook my head and leaned my side against the back wall. From my pocket I pulled out a box of smokes and produced a black cigarette. It was a clove, but it wasn't a normal one. It had a bit of my homemade flair to it. I lit up and inhaled the spice blend deeply. It tasted different from pure tobacco. The cloves and the sweet paper did a good job of mystifying the flavor. I found they masked my recipe the best.

"No. Not in here," said the old man, stomping towards me.

I pulled out a twenty and placed it firmly against his chest.

"It'll just be a minute," I promised. "Take a break."

The man was both outraged and excited at the same time. He made much more than that in a night, but it wasn't often he got a tip that large at once. I thought of it as paying for his lost time. If he was at all offended by it, he decided to back off. The old man picked up his tip jar and walked out of the bathroom. I snapped the door closed behind him, flipped the deadbolt, and turned around.

Alone at last.

I pulled out my pocket watch. It was 1:52 a.m. I was cutting it close with the train, but I could pull this off quickly. I returned the watch to my jeans to free up my hands.

Soren emerged from the stall, eyes wide at the fact that I had gotten the attendant outside. "You sure you don't want any, Dante?" he asked, flapping the small bag back and forth. "I owe you a drink. Take one bump, at least."

The constant pounding of the trance music was muffled in the enclosed space. This was as private as we would get in a club this big. I took a long drag at my clove and shrugged.

"Why not?" I stepped forward and offered him my cigarette. "Can you hold this?"

He traded it for the bag and didn't think twice before putting it to his lips. As he smoked, I put my fingers around the baggy and zipped the seal closed. I stared at the drugs in my hand.

"It must be fun to pretend you're something you're not."

Soren coughed and looked at the black cigarette in his hands. "What the hell is this? It's not pot but it's not just tobacco either."

I put the cocaine into my back pocket and smiled at his confusion. "You don't like it? It's perfectly natural. Illegal in the US now, even though it's not more harmful than a regular cigarette."

His face fixed to a weird expression. I couldn't pin it down. Some kind of mix of pain and pleasure. He inhaled the gray smoke that rose from the tip as if he could discern the ingredients.

"Well, that's not exactly true," I added. "The effects are quite disagreeable for those hiding in another's skin."

As I spoke those words something clicked in him. He experienced a moment of clarity and realized many things at once. He knew that his secret was known by another. He knew that I knew he was a shade. Not Soren, but inside him. The life of another, abusing the body to experience worldly pleasures that were otherwise out of his reach. He stared at me and realized that, not only did I know about him, but I intended to expel him back to his own world. To flush him from his host. It was time for Soren, the old Soren, to return and patch up any damage that had been done to his life.

The shade stared at me with coherent eyes. His tongue drooped out of his mouth, extended just past the bottom of his chin, and held in place. Blood from the cut on his head again flowed down his face. He raised my clove, the one I had sprinkled with white sage, and put the fire to his tongue. It sizzled and he grimaced slightly.

Something was wrong. He should have been dizzy by now. I had felt his second shadow; he was no different than the others. A common fiend. Not malevolent or evil incarnate. Just a weak, desperate shadow of a man that once was. His vice was loading himself with chemicals and pleasure, anything that could make him feel again. And as high as he was, with the herb being absorbed into his lungs and blood, he should have been overloaded and collapsing, abandoning his host for good. Instead, he was somehow resistant. And angry.

"How are you fighting that?" I demanded.

He threw the extinguished clove to the floor and sucked his tongue back between his grinning teeth. Soren took a step towards me.

"Listen," I said quickly, perhaps with a tinge of panic, "if you just relax I won't hurt you."

The broad guy laughed and I suddenly regretted mixing up the Long Islands. I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on the mistake because Soren charged forward and planted his fist in my chest. I flew backwards in the air and collided with the wall, right next to the closed door. I slid to the floor and landed on my hands and knees.

He was stronger than the others, somehow. Different.

Soren ran straight at me, looking to crush me into the wall, but I wasn't helpless. I leapt straight up into the air and planted my feet against the wall behind me, then launched forward, over the head of my wild opponent. I hooked my arms and tried to catch his neck as I flew above, but he ducked ahead and slammed into the wall. I flipped around from the light contact and landed hard on my feet and waited to see if Soren would get back up.

Unfortunately, he didn't knock himself out. Soren picked up his wide frame and turned around. A trickle of dark red ran down the side of his face as if from a leaky faucet.

"You're just going to hurt yourself here," I said, holding my arms up to show that I meant him no harm. "Have a smoke and let's talk for a second."

He approached me again, this time with more measure. I searched the stash of products the bathroom attendant had lined up on the counter. I picked up a pack of Kools and lightly tossed it to Soren. He batted it away with his hand.

"Not a menthol guy?"

"Who are you?" he demanded, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "What do you care if I drink and smoke and fuck in this world?"

"Soren might care."

"I am Soren now. I deserve to live just as much as he does. Even more, since he is unwilling to fight for his place."

The shade advanced slowly, content to talk. He didn't care about the bathroom attendant outside. Or the bouncers. Or the police. In this bathroom, it was just him and me. And he was blocking the exit. I kept my distance by stepping backwards. It was a short-term solution.

"Why doesn't the sage affect you?" I asked. "You're nothing special, just a common shade."

Soren chuckled as he advanced but did not answer. My back hit the wall.

"What gives you the power to defy me?" I insisted.

"Defiance is power," he replied, then spread his arms and grabbed me in a bear hug. He clamped down hard and had both of my arms pinned. I wiggled to the side but he wasn't weak and had leverage. I pushed off the back wall but he spun me around. My hip skipped against top of the sink. "Who are you?" he repeated.

I was in an awkward position. My ass was in the bowl of the sink and the faucet was pressing into the small of my back. To add insult to injury, the motion-activated water cycled on and off sporadically. Both my arms were being held down and the wide frame of Soren was almost smothering me as my legs straddled his chest. The only thing I had going for me was that my recessed position had forced him to lean forward and stand off balance.

My right hand was almost loose. I tried to swing my knees into his shoulders to slip his grip. He held strong and stared at me with frantic eyes, face awash in red.

I thrust my head forward and crashed it against his, near the same spot he had slammed into the wall. Pain flashed behind my eyes. His shoulders buckled. Soren released me and wobbled backwards for just a second.

In that single unassaulted moment, I drew my knees to my ears and rocketed both of my feet out, extending my legs as far as they would go. Soren was caught square in the chest and propelled backwards. He slammed through the door of the middle stall and tripped onto the toilet, hitting his head on the metal pipe behind it as he fell in a daze.

I rolled off the sink and rubbed my aching back as I kneeled on the floor. Soren was quietly groaning but remained still. I hoped he wasn't hurt too badly.

It wasn't supposed to go this way. Shades weren't overly aggressive. They shied away from pain. It hurt them just as much as it hurt anyone, even if it wasn't really their body. The mix of chemical stimulation and the threat of force was enough to put them on their heels. If they didn't abandon the world of the living that easily, exsufflation with white sage always did the trick. I was a fighter from my days in Miami, but it wasn't something I relished when my opponent didn't know any better. Now I had to hope that Soren wasn't seriously harmed in this melee.

I plucked the half-smoked clove from the floor and returned it to my lips. It was wet. Probably piss and dirt, but I didn't care. I pulled out my lighter and worked the cigarette to give it new life. Then I stood up to face the wounded man on the toilet.

"How are you resisting the sage?"

I closed in and towered over his crumpled form. I repeated the question and he finally swayed his head to the side in an attempt to lift it.

"Who are you?"

I shook my head. He didn't want to tell me anything. I grabbed his face with my left hand and pried one of his eyes open. With my right hand, I brought the burning cigarette to within inches of his pupil.

"If you don't talk to me, you're really not going to like this next part."

He was trembling but his silence was resolute. The truth was that I didn't like the idea of the next part. I didn't have it in me.

Someone pounded at the bathroom door. Shit. It was locked but there was a key somewhere. Someone had it. This incident had probably caused enough of a scene by now. That settled it. If my privacy wasn't long for this world, then the shade wouldn't be either.

"Okay buddy," I said as I put the clove back in my mouth. I leaned Soren forward onto me and wrapped my arm around his neck.

"...Who are you?" he asked futilely.

I pressed my arm into the back of his neck, constricting his air supply against the headlock.

White sage is usually enough for shades. The less coherent they are, the better. That's why I work clubs. Usually, half the job is done for me. They're already high out of their minds and exhausted. But not all shades are created equal. Some are stronger than others. Or smarter. And sometimes I have to mix it up. Still, no matter how much strength they have, if they're asleep or unconscious and have the sage in their system, they have no recourse. No defense.

Soren didn't fight much. He knew he was beaten. His grip at my arms weakened. His fists relaxed and he dropped his hands to his side. I heard a loud clanking of metal as something bounced on the tiles. I held strong and waited until he fell limp. Then, with a slow breath, I carefully let him go and rested his back against the wall.

"I'm Dante Butcher," I answered softly.

I opened his mouth and blew a plume of smoke into his face. It lingered and rolled with unpredictable activity until he sucked some of it in. I exhaled some more sage and he took it in and out in ragged gasps. Soon, he was breathing evenly again. As I laid my hand onto his bloody forehead, I felt the second shadow leave him. Soren would have a headache when he woke up, but he'd be okay. He'd be himself again. What's more, he wouldn't remember any of this.

It wasn't a black hole—he would still remember most of what he'd done for the past two months—but he would have no recollection of being possessed by something that wasn't him. He would learn to rationalize some of the things he did that were beyond his control. He would need to apologize profusely and build his life back up, but at least he had his life again.

But these last few minutes, the fight, the banishment—completely gone. Expulsion overloaded the senses in a way quite similar to blacking out.

Still, as I tossed the spent cigarette into the toilet between his legs, several things concerned me about Soren. He was taken for much longer than average. Shades weren't precise creatures. The bindings to their hosts were brittle and difficult to maintain. Fiends got tired or bored and often slipped out after a few weeks. Not Soren. Even more troubling: when confronted, he didn't run. He'd stood his ground and acted like he had a right to this world.

I stepped out of the stall and was surprised at my reflection in the mirror. There was a scrape of blood on my forehead. I wiped it with my hand and drew a line of red across my face. That's when I noticed my hands were bloody, too. It was all from the gash on Soren's head.

I rinsed off in the sink and reveled as the cool water hit my face. It was refreshing. I grabbed a mint and popped it in my mouth. Since I was there, I sprayed myself with some Hugo Boss cologne for good measure. The attendant could take it out of the twenty.

Banging on the door startled me out of my calm. I jumped away from the sink and my foot kicked something on the floor. The small piece of metal slid along the tile and into the locked door. I sighed as the incessant knocking continued. Before I abandoned the sink, I spit the mint into it. Soren was right. These mints did suck.

I went over to the door and saw that the object I'd kicked was Soren's oversized ring. It must have fallen off when I choked him out. I picked it up, then clicked the deadbolt open. The old black man shoved his way in.

"Break's over!" he said, sharpening his eyes into a menacing mask.

I patted the bathroom attendant on the shoulder. "I got rid of him," I said, and walked into the hallway. He stuttered as he pointed to the feet sticking out of the middle stall but I just kept going.

In the empty hall, I pulled out my pocket watch and flipped open the cover.

"I had it under control," I said. "Besides, they're getting stronger. You should see that more than anybody."

She was moody tonight, but at least she was talking to me again.

I passed by Pam. One of her girlfriends was already sitting with her trying to rouse her. My job here was done. I made my way down the stairs and walked out of Avalon with every intention of calling it an early night. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned.