Pouring Shadows (Chapter 8)

Iris was too hungry to move any further. She had snacked on mangoes in the morning. It was hard to aim at the branches when her head was spinning but she’d managed to cut off two fresh mangoes using her power. Of course, she had known that wouldn’t keep her alive all day. She needed to eat and by eat she meant real food with meat in it. She desperately needed to eat meet.

Iris forced her legs to move a little bit further. The sun had almost set and her legs were full of scrapes and bruises that she’d gotten all day. Her clothes were dirty, mud stains were visible at places and her injured arm had started to bleed once again. The crystal shards were no longer glowing and she had to relive the pain that had vanished the day before.

Pushing the leaves out of the way with her scratched hands she marched towards a dirt road. This was where she’d sensed that last crystal shard. Her throat itched as her gaze lingered towards the small house with the sign Food Point engraved on the wood. The shard was no longer here. In fact, she could barely sense it, it was too far away. For a second there, she thought of giving up. She hadn’t had anything to drink all day. The rain had been the only source of water for her in the afternoon.

‘The third eye is going to close completely if I don’t find that shard quick.’

Iris sniffed the air and caught the scent of deliciously cooked meet coming from the house. Her aching body somehow began to move towards it, crossing the dirt road. However, instead of entering through the front door, Iris’s nose led her to the back of the house where there was an open window. That was where the smell had been coming from.

She saw chefs working on the stove, on the cutting board; one was even tasting a dish. Saliva welled up in her mouth as she watched this while staying hidden in the shadows. The sun was going down fast. She needed to use the limited amount of power she had left to somehow get her hands on some food. She tried to push a few metal spoons from the wooden slab to the floor but her vision was getting blurry. She was already too tired to aim correctly. Her vibes attacked the man tasting the soup from a big pot.

Her head throbbed suddenly and she held it while ducking. There was a crash from inside the kitchen. Iris, mind on red alert, lifted her head to see the mess she’d accidentally managed to create. The chef fell onto the big pot of soup, smearing it onto the good floor. Her mind was fogged. Everyone was rushing towards the man to help him up. Nobody was guarding the food. She quickly tried to levitate a tasty looking dish with meat loaf and gravy on it. Held her hands out and grabbed it before anyone could see.

She ducked down again and started gulping everything down. After she was done, she had enough power restored to levitate a glass of water towards her. She focused on the glass. Frail things would usually break under her gaze. The glass shattered, spilling water everywhere. A man in a suit came rushing inside demanding why the kitchen staff was being careless today.

Iris tried a metal bowl and brought it under the water cooler. While the staff was busy trying to explain everything, she filled it with water.

‘Hey!’ The man in the suit called out.

It took a second for her to realize he was talking to her. She quickly ducked and started crawling away as fast as she could. She let the bowl of water drop and heard a thud. She realized the water might have made somebody fall. Iris could hear the staff asking the man if he was okay.

‘Find that kid!! There will be nobody snooping around here.’

Irisheard the hammering of her heart as she got out of the back. A black car stood in front of her. She didn’t care whose it was as she tried the passenger door which sprung open, to her relief. She climbed in and hid underneath the back seat, closing the door behind her. Her heart didn’t slow down until a few minutes had passed. She lifted her head just a little bit to see that the coast was clear outside the restaurant.

The sun had completely set by now and she needed to start moving towards the shard. She stretched her hand, about to reach for the door when she heard the driver’s door open. She quickly ducked back down again and clapped a hand on her mouth. Her breathing was too uneven to keep clamped behind her hands. The engine started.

The person pressed on the accelerator and the car started moving. For a while Iris just lay there with her hands glued to her mouth in fear of being heard. The driver turned on the radio. There was a soothing music being played without any vocals. It was too strong for Iris to fight off. She put her hands over her ears in an attempt to block it out. However, with the slow rumblingof the car, her body was slightly vibrating. She felt at ease and the music won in the end. Sleep slowly took over.

**************************************

‘Why are you sitting so far away from me?’ Cheryl asked.

We had been in the car for a couple of hours and Ricky kept telling us that the next town was our stop. My hands were itching to grab the door handle and jump out of the car as soon as we got there.

‘I want to look out the window. Why do you keep asking me that?’ I answered.

‘Because you’re sitting at the very edge of the seat. Are you avoiding me by any chance?’

I heard Ricky chuckle in the front seat.

‘No, just leave me alone.’ The words came out a little too harsher than I’d intended them to.

Luckily, Cheryl didn’t speak to me after that, and for some reason, that made me feel even worse. With my head turned toward the window, I closed my eyes and let my mind wander off to the time when everything was just starting to look fine.

A couple of days ago I came home tired, my body aching all over as it did after every duty. I could barely walk to my room. That’s when I saw it for the first time. The light shone so bright that night, a pink light. Everybody besides me in the town always remembers to keep their window shutters down. Nobody could have seen it happen. I just stood there in front of my window and watched in silence.

A dark silhouette made its way across the building by jumping over the window sills one by one. He was small but fast. I could just make out the person jumping higher and higher from one window to the other. No ordinary person could have been able to climb a building just by jumping like that so fast. I exhaled deeply. I wasn’t on duty anymore but I couldn’t just let this guy roam around like a monkey all over town.

I put my foot on the windowsill of my room and climbed onto it. My bones clicked at the joints as I stood up. Something ran past my vision. My head turned up and my eyes gripped the sight far up on the building in front of me. All I thought was, ‘this guy’s not alone’.

My shadow slipped into me, disappearing from where I stood, and reappeared, shaped as dark wings on my back. I jumped and they flapped themselves automatically, taking me high up into the air, above the buildings and onto the roof of my flat. From there I stood and watched the dark figure desperately jump from the upper windows to the lower ones, and then back up again.

I frowned at him. He seemed to be lost. Not too far away from him, though, I saw what I’d suspected earlier through my window to be hiding in the shadows everywhere. Catters. Could it be that they are after him? The thought didn’t leave my mind after that as I silently flew down a few floors. The moon shone dimly that night, hidden behind clouds.

I flew through shadows only and was very good at being invisible at that moment. The dark hunched figure found an open window and let himself slip in silently. I noticed faint flashes of metallic claws in the dark, creeping closer. I crept closer myself. From where I hid, I could see clearly everything that was going on inside the room. I recognized that room. It belonged to the Casto, the person in charge of taking care of this area of the town.

I could see the lump on the blankets which was the Casto himself, snoozing peacefully. The dark silhouette moved quickly. The pink light was very dim now but my eyes followed it to the place he hid it. After that, he jumped out the window and I remember seeing him fall and disappear into the shadows. Whoever or whatever that guy was, he had surely intrigued me. Because the Catters did not chase after him, it became evident that they were here for that glowing object.

I wasted no time in revealing myself to them as I hovered over to the window and entered it. At that moment, the thoughts just came to me in a rush.

Can anyone tell me what I’m doing is wrong?

Can anyone say that it is despicable, inconceivable, and yet I’m still doing it? Does anyone dare to confront me at all?

I had uncovered the tiny glowing thing, which no longer glowed the second I grabbed it. I flipped it over in my hand. The thing was the size of a die. I looked out the window with eyes filled with determination, and held up the cubic box. The Catters saw me but did not move in to attack.

I thought so. All of them cowards. Can’t even stop me from taking the golden box from the Casto’s room. That old geezer might never even notice it’s missing. Or that it had ever been there in the first place.

I stood on the metal window sill, looking down from several floors above. The flats were all adjoined, running along a line from one corner of the street to the other. Parallel lines of flats, connected by metal stairs that zigzagged in between them, were occupied by tons of people. Each of them had their window shutters down by nightfall as they had no desire for falling into the hands of trouble. Trouble that I usually brought with me, they said, while doing my night duties. Not that they knew it was me.

Trouble… it was something I’d long since stopped worrying about. I had other important things to do now. For example, at the moment, I was surrounded by the night creatures who were all here for the small golden cube in my hand. Vicious, lime yellow eyes glowed in the dark, fixed at the box. I gripped it hard, the corner of my mouth turning upwards in a half smile.

‘Hmp!’

Their pointed, cat-like black ears twitched at the sound of my voice. I put my right leg forward and let myself fall. My smile broadened as the little black creatures all dived in after me. The wind thrashed at my face but I kept my eyes open. It was as if all the windows of the flats were running upwards past me rapidly. I swooped past the metal stairs one by one, counting them… 9, 8, 7, 6, 5….

The third was my stop. Still clutching the box, I stretched my arms out in time to grab the metal railing and swung myself onto the steps. I looked up; the creatures were already sitting on the 4th set of staircase and the window sills all around. I grinned.

I knew it. They know better than to attack me head on. Clever… but still cowardly.

It was darker down there as the moonlight seldom reached the lowest floors. I slowly tiptoed towards the metal door that would lead me inside the flat. However, that was not how I got around in this place. With one hand on the railing, I lifted myself onto it; my feet perfectly balanced. I glanced up one last time to make sure the creatures kept their distance. They hadn’t moved an inch closer, to my content. Then I pushed the railing with my feet hard enough to send me flying a few feet away and onto a very old, rusted windowsill; my windowsill. I slipped in.

A loud bang burst through the silence, kicking me out of my thoughts. I glanced at Cheryl and then at Ricky’s surprised eyes in the rearview mirror. He was looking at something behind us. I quickly turned in my seat, the seat belt twisting around me, and saw the cause of the bang. Two headlights followed close behind in the dark.

‘We’re under attack!’ I shouted.

‘I know,’ Ricky replied just as loudly.

‘Why are we under attack? I thought we escaped without anyone finding out.’

‘I never said that. I just told you the instant your friend Jon sent that text message. There’s no guarantee who he actually told. I only had a track on his cell phone.’

Another gunshot was heard just as soon as there was a thud on the back window of the car. My vision was all obscured by the cracks that followed as the bullet dug itself into the glass.

‘It’s bulletproof,’ Ricky briefed, ‘for now.’

Another shot hit the previous bullet, sending both crashing into the car.

‘Cheryl, duck!’ I yelled.

She ducked just in time to avoid getting stabbed by the shards of the broken window that were scattered all over the seats in less than 2 seconds.

‘We have to lose him somehow!’

‘We can’t. There won’t be a turning for miles,’ Ricky answered.

‘Shoot!’ Cheryl suddenly spoke.

I looked at her and followed her gaze to my pocket. My eyes went wide. I had completely forgotten about the shard. It had stopped glowing several hours ago but right now, it seemed like it would burn through my clothes. I tucked my hand inside my pocket where my fingers made contact with the hot metal case.

‘Ow!’ I withdrew my hand quickly. There was no way I could grab it and the case had already tore a hole in my favorite black jacket pocket. Cheryl looked just as shaken as I did. More shots were heard, followed by the silence in the back seat where we sat.

‘What’s going on back there? What’s wrong?’ Ricky asked all of a sudden.

Cheryl and I glanced at each other.