Shadows (Ultrahumans Book 2) (32 page)

‘What’s that?’ Andrea asked. ‘That’ was a box, sitting on the roof. Not a large box, but that was the kind of thing you got wary of.

Slipping her sword from its scabbard, Twilight stepped closer and teased the top open. ‘Nothing’s exploded. No sudden rush of demonic doom.’

‘So what’s in it?’

‘It’s… a DVD?’

‘They’re leaving us videos now? Somehow I don’t see this as a good sign.’

Twilight stepped forward and picked the DVD case out of the box, turning it over as she did so. ‘Nope,’ she said, ‘probably not good.’

On the back of the case was a note which read ‘Tell no one about this.’

~~~

The man on the video looked the part of dark, shadowy conspiracy figure: tall, dark, a finely crafted beard, quite good-looking in a saturnine way. He waited a beat to let the view sink in before speaking, as though something about his appearance might spark something in her. Andrea had no idea what.

‘Good evening, Miss Morgan. My name is Durant, David Lazlo Durant, Grand Master of the Shadow Court. I have been trying to meet with you for some time now and have decided to expedite things. I believe you are acquainted with Miss Lena Tonaldo.’ The camera scanned left to show Lena sitting in a chair, tied down and gagged, and then it scanned back. ‘If you wish to spare her a fate far worse than that her father suffered, you will contact the number which will appear at the end of this recording. Arrangements will be made for you to come to us. You have twelve hours. If you have not made contact by then, Miss Tonaldo will regret it.’

Andrea noted the number down, but her mind was working over the facts.

They had grabbed Lena to persuade her to go to them. That likely meant they were in Italy, because that was where Lena had gone. Andrea remembered the story her mother had told her about some castle in Italy. The coincidence seemed a little too much.

‘Talk to Mom in the morning?’ Twilight suggested.

‘Uh-huh. Then them. I’m betting we’re going to that castle, and I want an independent route there rather than having them taking us.’

‘Then play the video again. I want to see the room they were in. I
think
if we know where we’re going, it
might
be enough.’

‘That’s really risky…’

‘Riskier than letting them lead us right into whatever trap they have for us?’

‘No… not really.’ Andrea reached out to play the video once more, wondering how she was going to do this without telling her partner.

Schatten Schloss, Italy, 24
^th
June.

The door of the room Lena had woken up in opened. She was not entirely sure what to expect, but it was not a girl in a rather frumpy maid’s uniform. Quite a pretty girl, quite dark: black hair, dark eyes, and there was something about her which reminded Lena of Andrea.

‘Good… morning,’ the girl said, her accent quite thick. ‘I hope you have… rested well.’

‘I speak Italian,’ Lena replied, in Italian.

‘Oh good,’ the girl said with the kind of relieved smile you saw on someone who had been expecting a real chore and was suddenly relieved of it. ‘They told me you were American.’

‘I am, but my family was big on “the Old Country.” Where am I?’

‘You are in Shadow Castle. I am Mia, Mia Nerone. I am the housekeeper here and will be looking after you.’

‘Uh… right. Look, um, I was kind of kidnapped, and–’

‘They did not tell me anything about why you are here. Only that you are to stay until a girl comes from America. They have been trying to get her here for some time. The thing in the cellar wants her.’

Lena sighed. ‘Not cryptic at all. What thing in the cellar?’

‘The Shadow. The thing which hides in the darkness. It has
always
hidden in the darkness. When you say you are afraid of the dark,
this
is what you are afraid of.’

‘Andrea,’ Lena whispered, suddenly connecting the dots. ‘They want Andrea. She wouldn’t come here to save me… I don’t think…’

Mia frowned. ‘I hope that she does. For your sake.’

Boston, MA.

Audrey Morgan frowned as she heard someone moving in the shop. It was still early, they were closed, and she had heard no one enter. She almost jumped when Andrea walked through into the kitchen.

‘Andrea! You gave me a shock. How did–’

‘I can walk between shadows. Across a
lot
of distance if I know where I’m going. Mom, I need to talk to you about that place in Italy you mentioned last time.’

‘Schatten Schloss?’

‘Yeah. That’s the place. Shadow Castle, right?’

‘Yes.’ Audrey frowned. ‘Why?’

Andrea sat down with a sigh. ‘I think the people who… own the place have kidnapped a friend and taken her there. I think they want to take me there.’

‘That place has been nothing but trouble to my family for centuries. You don’t want to go there.’

‘Don’t have much choice, but I can make it more on my terms. Where did you say it was?’

‘Above Lago di Molveno, in the Alps.’ She paused. ‘The stories go back beyond Frederico. They say that people from my family have been called to that place… Well, for so many generations it’s more like a legend. They say it happens once in every few hundred years; one of us is born to go to the castle.’

‘Looks like it’s my turn,’ Andrea replied. ‘I don’t think it’s gone the way they expect it to this time. Somehow it seems like they’re going to a lot of effort to get me there.’

Audrey looked at her, lips pursed. ‘Then perhaps this time the castle has met its match, but you be careful. I know I can’t stop you going. You’re a hero now and there’s someone for you to save. This is what you do. But I can be worried, and I can tell you to be careful.’

Andrea smiled. ‘I can accept that. I
am
actually pretty careful most of the time.’

‘Good. But be
more
careful this time.’

New Millennium City, MD.

‘Are you okay?’ Cygnus asked, her eyes narrowing as she peered at her masked partner.

‘Fine,’ Twilight replied. ‘I’m fine. Bit bored. Things are kind of quiet.’

‘Yeah. True. Even your shadowy friends seem to have vanished.’

‘Shadows never vanish. They’re always there, hiding, waiting for it to get darker. Like… There’s this place my mother told me about. In Italy. She said some ancient relative of mine went there and then spent as much effort as he could getting away from the place. It’s why her family moved to America. Shadow Castle, they called the place.’

‘Shadow Castle? Sounds like a real tourist attraction. It should have vampires. At the very least there should be a crypt.’

Twilight gave her a grin. ‘I’m going to take a run through Deale and Churchton again. I’d swear I spotted
something
which made me think there was stuff starting. Maybe I can pin it down.’

‘Okay. I’ll take the southern end and see what’s happening there.’

‘Good luck.’ And the black-clad figure vanished into darkness.

25
^th
June.

‘I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,’ Jacob said as he walked into his lounge to find Andrea curled up on the couch, still in costume but without the mask.

‘I felt like dropping by. I’m going to be busy for a few days and I might not get to see you.’

He gave a shrug. ‘We’re generally pretty irregular. And I’m on nights from Friday.’

‘Yeah, true. I know you are. I just wanted to see you.’

‘You are acting… a little weird.’

‘Just wait until we go to bed and I want to cuddle before we fuck.’

‘That,’ Jacob said firmly, ‘sounds
very
serious.’

She grinned. ‘It won’t seem so bad once you’re inside me, and I doubt I’ll be able to hold it off for too long.’

~~~

Andrea stepped up to the gate desk and handed over her ticket and the fake passport. The woman behind the desk looked at both and then smiled. ‘Miss Nerone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you for flying with us today. We’ll be boarding in forty minutes.’

‘Thanks.’ Andrea took her boarding pass and passport back, checking the slip without appearing to check it. The Court was not bothering to spare the expenses; she was in first class on a night flight to Venice. The passport was a very good forgery in the name of Maria Nerone, who was blonde and blind. The wig and dark glasses covered her identity nicely, and she would have priority treatment getting on and off the aircraft. There was even a cover story for her trip: she was visiting a relative, Mia Nerone, who was sick.

The complexity of the whole thing had her a little worried. Everything had been very carefully planned. She knew the Court had a lot of resources and was good at working behind the scenes, but they had obviously been setting this up for a lot longer than she had been trying to double-cross them.

Settling down on a seat to wait, she sighed. Really, the biggest ace she had up her sleeve was something she had
not
done. She had not told Penny that she was going away, because the Court had said she should say nothing. She was hoping that, if the shit really hit the air conditioning, there was going to be a white-clad heroine, possibly with some heavy-duty backup, coming in to save the day.

Venice, Italy, 26
^th
June.

There were two men in dark clothing waiting for ‘Maria Nerone’ when she walked out into the international arrivals area. She recognised neither of them, but she
did
recognise the touch of shadow about them. Still pretending to be a blind girl, she ignored them as she moved forward, sweeping a cane in front of her. They moved in to flank her as she walked into the space the waiting crowd opened for her.

‘You will come with us, Miss Nerone,’ one of them said, his accent suggesting German, or maybe Eastern European.

‘Thank you,’ Andrea replied, allowing them to lead her out of the concourse to where a car was waiting outside with a third man at the wheel.

She waited until they were out of the general area of the airport and heading west toward Padua, according to the road signs, before she took off her glasses and pulled off the wig.

‘Three of you to look after little me?’ she said. No one spoke so she tried again. ‘How long until we get there?’

‘About three hours,’ the driver said. ‘Two and a half to the lake, a little more to get up to the castle.’

‘Schatten Schloss?’ No answer again. ‘You might as well talk. The place is part of family legend. Frederico Neroni went there and got so scared that he fled the country, more or less.’ Still more silence: just the facts, no opinions; do not engage the girl in conversation. ‘Fair enough. This is going to be a really boring trip with a bad ending.’

New Millennium City, MD.

Penny peered into Andrea’s room, looking over the bed, which had not been slept in, and the open drawer in one of the dressers. She walked in and checked: as she had suspected, it was the underwear drawer and it was missing enough items to suggest that Andrea had packed to go somewhere. Further investigation showed her Twilight costume and sword in a cupboard, though the mask was missing. Frowning, Penny made her way back to the lounge.

‘No sign of her?’ June asked.

‘She hasn’t been back here, but she
has
gone
somewhere
of her own volition. She packed.’

‘You still look worried.’

‘She didn’t take her sword. Viviane said it was important.’

‘Then maybe you should call the sorceress.’

Penny’s frown deepened. ‘Yeah. It feels like I’m telling tales, but… I’ll call.’

Molveno, Italy.

Andrea was not sure of the time when they arrived in the picturesque little village on the shores of the lake. Sometime in the early afternoon, she thought. There had been traffic on the A22, and some arguments between the driver and the man sitting beside him. Apparently they should have expected traffic there, though that was gathered mainly from context; they were arguing in what sounded like French and her Italian was barely viable for conversation never mind any other languages.

Either way, they pulled to a stop in a car park and one of the men went to the back of the car to get her case while the others opened up a four-wheel drive vehicle which they had parked beside.

‘Now?’ Twilight asked.

‘About now,’ Andrea replied, walking around to the back and popping open the folding cane which they had never bothered to check, or take off her. She put a lot of frustrated annoyance into it as she snapped the weapon across the back of her guard’s skull and he bounced his head off the edge of the trunk as he went down. Pulling her case out, she started toward the nearby buildings with a purposeful stride. Behind her she heard voices, but they were not concerned voices yet. She would have several seconds before they realised she was walking away from them, hidden by the big car.

‘And now we need somewhere to hide for a while,’ Twilight said. ‘They’ll be out looking soon.’

‘I know. You’re sure you can get us to that room in the video?’

‘As long as it’s in shadow. We may have to wait.’

‘Yeah,’ Andrea replied, quickening her pace. There were now shouts coming from behind her. ‘Yeah, we might, but I’m hoping we can move quickly.’

New Millennium City, MD.

Viviane appeared in the lounge in a blaze of light with a look of profound concern on her face. ‘Tell me
everything
,’ she said while Penny and June blinked at her, trying to clear the flare from their vision.

‘She was acting a bit funny,’ June said. ‘Like she was waiting for something to happen.’

‘And now she’s missing,’ Penny added. ‘She took a few clothes, black stuff, but not her costume. She did take her mask.’

‘But not her sword?’ Viviane asked, though she seemed to know the answer.

‘That’s still here.’

The sorceress nodded, turned on the spot as though unsure of where she needed to be, and then marched over to slump down beside June. ‘It will be the new moon tomorrow night. I suspect the Shadow Court has arranged for her to be somewhere for that event. The issue is… where?’