Return to the Shadows (Shadows #2) Page 20

  ***

  We had been climbing for days and I was beginning to have serious doubts about the wisdom of our latest task. Okay, so maybe “doubt” was not technically an accurate description of my feelings. In fact, several more accurate and colorfully descriptive words came to mind. Stupid. Foolish. Dumb-assed—

  “Do you need to break?”

  “Break what?” I tried not to look as hopeful as I felt.

  “No, I meant do you need a break?”

  “As in rest?”

  “Yes, as in rest, Claire.” Aries was looking down, a wry smile touching her lips.

  “You’re trying not to laugh at me, aren’t you?” I pointed an accusing finger at her.

  “Who, me? Nope, I wouldn’t dream of laughing at you.”

  “Liar.”

  “Here, let’s sit for a while.”

  “Are we safe here?”

  She scanned our surroundings with a watchful eye before dropping down to a ledge that jutted from the side of the mountain. “We should be safe enough. But we need to get moving again soon.”

  “Great,” I muttered, taking a seat beside her. The rock was cold and sharp, even through the thick denim I was wearing. The heavy cloth had been a major hindrance during the first day of our travels. The temperature below the mountain was a balmy seventy-three degrees and the thick material had slowed us down. At least it had slowed me down. Aries appeared to have been largely unaffected by the heat and exertion.

  “How are you doing that?”

  “How am I doing what?”

  “This.” I waved my arms in front of us. “All of this. You never sit. You don’t get cold or tired.

  What’s your secret?”

  “I get tired,” she protested.

  “Well, you can’t prove it by me.” I thought of how she had lit up the trees in her forest and how one touch, one breath from her and the other nymphs had given me strength, and figured her super human stamina must have had something to do with it. I couldn’t begin to break that down into scientific terms so I didn’t even try. People were just different here, I acknowledged.

  “Drink this.” Aries waved a silver flask in front of my face and flashed an indulgent smile.

  “Is it a magic potion?”

  “No, it’s just plain water.”

  “Then I don’t want it.”

  “Claire—”

  “Oh fine, you’re right,” I sighed as I took the drink she offered and gulped it down. It was good and cold, if nothing else.

  “You’re nervous about seeing Mark again, aren’t you?”

  I thought about the question for several moments, unsure how I felt about seeing him again. And it was not for lack of trying. The best way that I could hope to explain it was confusion, which was a word that I loathed, by the way. It was so indecisive; it told you nothing. But every time I had pictured seeing Mark again, I felt something different. In the days immediately following my return home, I felt like I was still with him. Like he had gone to the store and would return at any moment, almost as if I were in denial about leaving him in Terlain. As crazy as that sounded, I felt as though my return home was little more than a weekend trip, that I would be back soon. When had I begun thinking of Grandview as home? I couldn’t say, yet there it was. It felt good to be back, if not a tad unsettling. Life had a way of going on whether you’re there or not, and a lot had changed in Terlain. I had my work cut out for me. I was determined to find out why the fences were failing, and also to try to get a search and rescue started for the missing townspeople that encompassed an area the size of the Western hemisphere. I had to find the Warrior of the Ruins, who, in all likelihood, was Mark. I had to accomplish all of this while taking care of Ashley. Most important of all, I had to ensure the child’s safety…meaning I had to go about all of the above and stay alive while doing it. A pretty tall order when one thought about all the ways to get killed in Terlain, which I personally did not care to ponder. Suffice it to say, I had to stay alert at all times. Alert and armed.

  Once again, I second-guessed my decision to bring my daughter with me to Terlain. If I had taken her with me out of some selfish need to keep her with me… No, I decided, my actions were strictly focused on what was best for Ashley. Nothing more. Except that I loved her. She loved me too, and I was all that she had. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t technically true anymore. She had my parents, her uncle Mike, and her aunt Megan. She had her new uncle, and soon she would have a brand new baby cousin. But I was her mother now. The only mother she could remember, I silently amended. The child’s memory loss still bothered me, but that was another matter.

  “Claire?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was thinking about…a lot actually.” I laughed nervously.

  “I noticed.”

  “I might be a bit unsettled about seeing Mark again. We have a history. A very short one, but a history nonetheless.”

  “I assumed as much from your conversation with Bob and Marta. And from Marta’s general disposition.”

  “She certainly knows how to grumble, doesn’t she?”

  “Right up there with the best of them,” Aries heartily agreed. “So am I to assume that things ended badly with Mark?”

  “You could say that. But if you asked Mark, he would likely say that things never ended at all. And, no, that does not mean there is anything between us now. He has probably forgotten all about me by now.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “No. At least, I hope not.” I wiped damp hands over my jeans and stood up to pace. “You know, I must have gone over that day a hundred times. At first I told myself that I did what I had to do. I didn’t have a choice. I had to save Mike and Ashley. Especially Ashley,” I added gently.

  “What happened that day? The day you left Terlain.”

  “It was early in the day. I had spent the night with Mark and, well, I won’t go into detail about that, but—”

  “Oh, don’t leave anything out on my account. Self-expression, you know.” She winked and studied her nails.

  “Aries!”

  “Sorry,” she grinned, looking anything but. “Go on with your story.”

  “As. I. Was. Saying. The next morning, we had planned to divide our time. Mark was going out to see what he could find about Kahn and about my brother’s disappearance. I was going to finish going over the books in the library. The plan was to meet up at home later that evening. Bob and Marta’s house. We were going to compare notes and decide what to do. We knew we had to move quick and…”

  “And?” my companion prompted.

  “I was going to wait for him. I really was, Aries. Marta called me into the kitchen sometime after he had gone. She needed help getting a heavy box down from a shelf in the pantry. When I set the box onto the table, I noticed the information printed on the box flaps. It was a company called Triniti Supply, and it gave an address.”

  “Triniti Supply? Never heard of it.”

  “Not many people have. The company used to be a big deal. It was located in a small village called Keogh. What’s left of it anyway. The place became a ghost town years ago, from what I could tell. Marta told me some of the town’s history on my way out the door.”

  “You went to Keogh alone?”

  “Yes. You know the town?”

  “I know of the town. It’s one of the main guard stations now.”

  “Yes,” I confirmed.

  “But why did you want to go there?”

  “I had a hunch that I would find Kahn there.” I bit my lip and considered how much to tell her. Even though Aries was my friend, I hesitated to tell her about the vision in the Bellevue library, and the Shadow Man that led me to Triniti Supply, and Keogh, in the first place. For some reason, I thought it sounded crazy.

  “Anyway, I figured that where I found Kahn, I would find my brother. Before I saw that box, all I had to go on was the name of the company—Triniti Supply. So you can imagine how excite
d I was to find an address.”

  “I’m still not sure I follow, but go on.”

  “I was going to wait for Mark. I wanted to wait for him before I checked out my new lead, but I only had so many hours of daylight left and, at that point, I was too excited to sit and read in the library. My plan was to go to Keogh and simply take a look around, from the safety of Haelport’s fences.”

  “But that’s not what happened?”

  “No,” I sighed. “It didn’t work out quite like that. I found Ashley that day.”

  “Wait, I thought you said you adopted her.”

  “I did adopt her. But first I found her. She was wandering the streets at the edge of the fence.”

  “At the Haelport/Keogh border?”

  “Yes. But then she left the fence and went into the woods, into unprotected territory. I called to her, told her to stop and come back. But she didn’t hear me, so I followed her down this path.” I still shuddered at the memory.

  “What is it?”

  “The path I followed her down….”

  “What about it?”

  “There were ghosts there. Ghost girls. They lined the path on both sides. I’ve never seen anything like it.” I shook my head to clear away the memory.

  “The dolls,” Aries breathed. “You’ve seen the dolls.”

  “Other people have seen them too?” That was a relief.

  “Yes. The woods of Keogh are believed by many to be haunted by the spirits of the children who died there. Or were taken from there.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There was an orphanage in Haelport years ago. It used to sit on the edge of town.”

  “Where I found Ashley?”

  “Sounds about right, yes. The children in the orphanage began to come up missing. The sad truth is, at first, no one thought much of the disappearances. It was not uncommon for orphans to run away, or to wander off. The children’s homes are not the best places to live, and as a rule, they aren’t very well staffed. But more and more children began to disappear. Sometimes as many as two or three in a week’s time.”

  “Where did they all go?” My heart was thudding painfully against my rib cage as I waited for the answer.

  “Well, it was never officially confirmed, but there was talk of the brothel owner, Lydia, and her girls, luring the children into that forest. The girls went to work in her brothel. The boys were delivered to Kahn to build his army.”

  “Oh Lord.”

  “The ghost girls are believed to haunt the forest there to warn people away from the woods. And from Lydia and the Lauhuel.”

  “The Lahuel? Who are they?”

  “You mean what is it?” Aries shivered in the cool breeze of the mountain. “The Lahuel was a demon warrior who was in charge of delivering souls to Kahn. He was often portrayed as a god of war. But most of the people in the villages just called him the Shadow Man.”

  My head snapped up at that last part. “The Shadow Man? Why do they call him that?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know. Maybe because of his appearance. Maybe because he operated in secret, in the shadows. Who knows?” Aries eyed me cautiously. “The point is, he’s bad news.”

  “I see.” I swallowed hard and made a mental note to find out everything I could on the Lahuel as soon as we returned to Grandview.

  “So what happened after you saw the dolls?”

  “Why do they call them that?” I murmured, looking up to the clear sky above.

  Aries shrugged. “Something about their clothing making them look like dolls. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason, I guess. Where was I?”

  “You met the dolls on the path.”

  “Oh, right.” I nodded. “I followed Ashley down the path and into the woods. She was still just sort of wandering aimlessly. I saw a group of guards not far from us. It’s a miracle they didn’t spot us.” I pushed a lock of hair from my eyes. “My brother was with the guards. They had him tied in the center of their makeshift camp, in a small clearing. When they slipped up and left him unguarded for a few moments, I hid Ashley in some bushes nearby and slipped into the camp to rescue him. For the most part, he was unharmed. We left the woods and drove to Lerna, where Mike had buried his key in the woods…the spot where both of us had crossed over into Terlain from our own world. That’s when everything went bad, so to speak. We were ambushed in those woods, right after we retrieved his key. The guards had us surrounded and we had no weapons, no help…no one even knew where we were to start looking for us. So we crossed back to our own world. And we took Ashley with us,” I finished. Aries was still regarding me in absolute silence.

  “I know we shouldn’t have taken her. The original plan was only to bring her back to Bob and Marta. To leave her with them so that they could locate her parents, or at least find her a safe place to stay. I thought about taking her back to Haelport, but I didn’t want her to wander off again. Not to mention, I hadn’t a clue where she belonged. That’s why we decided to take her to Bob and Marta. Then the guards found us.”

  “You couldn’t leave her in the woods with them,” Aries agreed in a comforting tone.

  “No, we couldn’t. It would have been a death sentence, or worse.”

  I was relieved that Aries understood why we had taken Ashley home with us. The first several weeks after we had returned home, while Mike and I were deciding what to do, I had lived in a constant fear of being arrested on kidnapping charges. Which was, of course, ridiculous. But still, the decision to keep her was not one that I took lightly. “Right after we left Terlain, I had planned to take her back, the first chance I could. But then, we noticed the bruises all over her, and she confessed that her parents were dead. Killed by people she called ‘the bad men.’”

  “The guards?”

  “I’m assuming so, yes. So that’s when Mike decided it was best that we destroy our keys and I adopted her.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t destroy your key, Claire.”

  “So am I. I just…couldn’t bring myself to do it. I should have come back before now, though. I never said goodbye to Mark, or anyone else.”

  “I’m sure he will understand. More than that, I’m sure he will be glad to see you.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Of course. You heard what Bob and Marta said. He practically tore the lands apart looking for you. He was grief-stricken.”

  “Grief-stricken enough to take to the ruins in the mountains and start his own army?”

  “I think so. Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I nodded decisively. “Yes, I do. The timing, the description, everything matches up and points to Mark.”

  “Right. So don’t be nervous. Are you rested enough to go on now?”

  I stood to follow her up the craggy mountain path, my energy restored for the moment. “Let’s do it.”