Smoke & Mirrors

  Nite Fire

  Smoke & Mirrors

  C. L. Schneider

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you

  © 2018 C. L. Schneider All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781095152317

  LCCN: 2019905176

  Formatted by Dragon Realm Press

  Https://DragonRealmPress.com/

  To my big sister, Kim:

  my first, little-girl glimpse of a strong woman.

  Prologue

  There’s no such thing as monsters. There’s no such thing as monsters.

  With each silent affirmation, William Buntly ran faster.

  There’s no such thing as monsters.

  Mom said. She promised, he thought, every night when he was little. And he believed her. For twelve years, he believed her. Until they moved here. Here, in Sentinel City, monsters were everywhere. They skulked in the alleys and the school hallways, waiting to trip you. They lurked in the locker room to hide your clothes, waited in the cafeteria to steal your lunch. Sometimes, they lingered outside the library to slash the tires on your bike.

  William tried not to look back. He didn’t want to see their red eyes behind him, glowing in the fading light. Halloween was still a week away. They were only wearing the masks to scare him. More than anything, William wished it wasn’t working.

  Daring a glance, his eyes widened. The monsters were closing in, riding down the center of the dark street. He couldn’t outrun them on foot. And they wouldn’t give up. The four had set their sights on William his first day, calling him names, knocking his books off his desk.

  He hated it here; his stupid new school, his mom’s stupid new job, his new home with the creaky old floors—two blocks from the Murder House. She said, “give it time”, but it had been three weeks, and every day it got worse.

  “Billy! Billy!” one of the boys hollered. “Where ya goin’, Billy Buttly?”

  Recognizing Gary’s voice behind one of the masks, William glanced back again, shouting, “It’s William, asshole! William Buntly!”

  “What did you call me?” Gary thundered.

  Another boy chimed in, laughing. “Hey, guys, little Billy knows a curse word! Where’d you learn that Buttly? Babies don’t know curse words!”

  Exhausted, his legs trembling, William couldn’t run any faster. He needed to get off the street, somewhere their bikes couldn’t follow. He needed a place to hide.

  Jumping a hedge, he pushed through dripping bushes, crossed a shadowy backyard, and ran through another. Sliding on wet leaves, sinking in puddles up to his ankles, by the time William wound his way back out to the street, he was soaked. Everything was soaked. Storms had pounded the city for days. This afternoon, when the rain finally died into a fine mist, William had grabbed his bike and headed to the library. Many of the streets were still flooded. Limbs and power lines were down. He had to ride four blocks out of his way. But the library was the only sanctuary he’d found in this horrible place. It was worth getting wet for.

  William turned a corner into the cul de sac. Ahead, behind a white fence, was the house all the kids talked about. Legend said, over the summer, a cult of devil worshippers killed the family that lived there, nailing their bodies to the floor in the shape of a pentagram. Sometimes, on a quiet night, you could hear them screaming.

  Everyone was afraid of the Murder House.

  But William’s greatest fear was behind him, not in front.

  Even if the windows did stare back at him like wide, dark eyes.

  Out of breath, his stomach aching as he coughed on the chilly evening air, he eyed the house again. Chloe Tompkins said the killers were still there, hiding in the basement, with the demon they summoned the night the Chandler family died. Noah Bailey claimed his older brother knew someone, who knew someone, who broke in to see if it was true—and never came home. Lucia, who sat behind him in math, insisted the place was haunted by the little girl who’d lived there.

  The Murder House was just one of the crazy stories William had heard. A kid in gym had a picture he claimed was of a mutant trashing his neighbor’s car. Even his history teacher said the urban legends here were more than legends. William wasn’t sure he believed it, but he did know one thing. No one would look for him in the Murder House. Not even Gary.

  William pushed open the gate. It swung closed behind him, and he started up the walk. Halfway to the porch, he stopped, sucking in a gulp of air. “No way…”

  The front door was ajar.

  William stared at it, heart pounding. He looked back at the street. It was quiet. There was no sign of Gary and his friends. Maybe they were still looking, or they were trying to beat him home. Either way, he didn’t have to go in. But if he did, if he survived the Murder House, it would change everything. No one would tease him anymore.

  Bolting up the walkway, he took the steps two at a time, and slipped inside.

  The dark was thick and quiet. The air was freezing, colder even than outside. It smelled. “Ewww…” William covered his nose against the sour stench

  Is this what murder smells like?

  Wanting light, he reached for his cellphone, but his pockets were empty. Panic swept a chill up his arms as William remembered where it was. Like always, he’d turned his phone off and put it away when he got to the library. The boys had been hiding across the street, waiting for him to come out and see his busted tires. When they started throwing rocks, he ran the other way—leaving his backpack, with his phone inside, on the ground beside his bike.

  He didn’t like the dark, but William was more worried about proving he was here. If he couldn’t take a picture, he’d have to take something else; a toy, a family photo.

  Putting a hand on the wall, he felt his way through the vacant house. William didn’t believe there was a cult or a demon in the basement. It was far too quiet for that. But ghosts… William knew those were real. His mom hated when he said so, but he felt things. He always had. Like when his grandma came to visit from time to time. William never saw her. She passed away when he was three. But he knew when she was there. He smelled chocolate chip cookies baking when the oven wasn’t on. He sensed the warmth of her presence, even though he hardly knew her before she died. And, if he stood real still, William could feel her arms wrap around him in a hug.

  He’d sensed ghosts in other places, too. But this house was different. Whatever was here, it wasn’t interested in hugs.

  There were so many shadows. So many shapes he couldn’t identify.

  A hint of light caught his eye. Hurrying toward it, William’s gait slowed at the threshold of the living room. The odor was worse here, like something was rotting.

  This is where they died.

  He found the light. Street lamps were coming on o
utside. Their glow was leaking in through the blinds in the picture window. It was faint, but it softened the pinch in his stomach. Another light came on. Another glow. Better, he thought.

  If only he wasn’t so wet and cold.

  Teeth chattering, barely able to work the zipper, William took off his coat to let it dry. His waterlogged shoes and socks came off next. As he dropped them to the floor, he noticed a shape in the center of the room. It was lumpy, like a pile of blankets. The hope of warmth coaxing him in, he wavered at the pattern of dark splotches on the carpet.

  William had never seen blood stains before.

  Staring at the spots—one for the mother, one for the boy, and one for the little girl—William followed the curves. Imagining them as dried puddles of spilled juice on the pale rug, his throat clogged. The house wasn’t just scary. It was sad.

  There were other, blacker stains, on the floor and creeping up the walls. Noah said the bodies were burned, but William had seen scorch marks last year, when a house caught fire in his neighborhood. They had no depth. These did. Uneven, thick and jagged, they were shaped more like the molds and fungus they studied in science class.

  Still shivering, he eyed the lump in the center.

  It didn’t look like blankets anymore.

  William glanced back into the hall. He wanted to leave. Screw Gary. The room felt like winter and smelled of month-old garbage. But…

  If it wasn’t blankets on the floor, what was it?

  Curiosity pulled him closer. The floor creaked beneath his bare feet. Boards groaned, like a tired old man, as William stepped around the wide patches of mold. There was more than he realized. Probably, more than he could see, with the heavy shadows still in the room. He jumped to a clean area. Landing, the carpet dipped under his weight, as if the boards were soggy underneath. William teetered as he squatted beside his find.

  “Gross,” he whispered.

  It was a dead animal. Half of one, at least. The body, lying on its side, was the right size for a fox or a medium-sized dog. But it wasn’t either. The long front legs were decayed down to bone. The chest and stomach were open and empty, with nothing inside but thick layers of the same black gunk layering the carpet. Something had stripped the hide and fur from the animal’s head, exposing the wide skull underneath. The eye sockets were barely slits, sitting over a slender snout. Tusks curled off the ends. William had never seen anything like it.

  “Awesome,” he muttered. Then, with more worry, “What are you?”

  Black pieces of something were spinning over the back half. They shimmered a bit, like glass, obscuring the weird animal’s hind legs in shadow. The darkness was so thick, it was like the limbs weren’t even there. Like they’d disappeared. Like they were… Invisible?

  It can’t be.

  William had read about things like the Dover Demon, Mothman, and Chupacabra. If the legends in Sentinel City were true, maybe he’d found something like that. But he didn’t remember reading about any creatures that turned invisible.

  Extending a trembling hand over the body, as he reached the dark, spinning objects, his hand passed through a breath of frigid air—and vanished. William jerked back with an excited, “Whoa!” Enthralled, the pulse pounding in his ears, he thrust his hand in a second time. Extending it further, he felt around. His fingers brushed the animal’s boney, back legs.

  There was something under it, something that didn’t feel like carpet.

  A sharp, icy tingle nipped at his hand. William pulled his arm back, and the breath dried in his throat. Even in the faint light, the black was visible on his fingers. The same moldy stuff on the carpet, and the creature’s body, was on him now.

  He tried to shake it off, but it was burning. Crawling.

  Spreading.

  Pain wormed in under his skin. Crying out, scrambling back, William lost balance and tumbled over into the coffee table. His head struck the edge. A crushing wave of hot pain rippled out, dulling the cold as he fell.

  Lying in the black, vision graying, his hand burning, the echo of a little girl’s laughter zipped past William’s ear. The rotting stench in the room waned, replaced by the sweet aroma of bubble gum. He breathed it in gratefully as he closed his eyes, cradled in the warmth of his own blood as it puddled out to join the stains on the carpet.

  One

  “Dahlia! This way!” Boots splashing ahead on the waterlogged street, my eager sidekick reached the head of the alley. Overshooting it, he turned back and skidded to a stop. The yellow of his flashlight disappeared, as Casey Evans aimed the wide beam into the darkened corridor.

  He took a step.

  “Don’t even think about it.” I shined my light over the rooftops. Making sure nothing was dropping down from above, I ran to catch up. Commercial buildings lined most of the block, but the streets were nearly deserted with the late hour and the aftermath of the most recent storm. Power was out all over the city. Roads were closed. Muck and debris were piled into corners and drains, swept in after days of overflowing sewers and flooded streets. The damp stench masked the scent of what else might be nearby, making tracking our prey difficult.

  I pushed my lyrriken senses out into the night, trying to confirm a location.

  Red braids whipping, I shook my head. “I’m not getting anything. Are you sure?”

  Evans gestured into the dark. “I’m sure! I saw her turn in here!”

  I grabbed his arm and spun him around to face me. Whispering, hoping he might get the hint, I said, “Why the hell are you shouting?”

  Evans tapped the side of his head. “Industrial strength earplugs!” He pulled one out and shoved it in his pocket. “You told me to buy them, remember?” he said, his voice dropping. “I don’t have super healing powers.”

  A piercing wail blew through the passage. Crumbled papers and plastic cups tumbled out over the sidewalk, accompanied by the ripe odor of banshee.

  “Oh…” Evans moaned, plugging his nose. “Why does it seem like our world is the only one to invent showers?”

  As the shrill sound faded, I studied the corridor. Even without shifting, my half-dragon eyesight was superior to humans. It lightened the shapes, telling me none of them were humanoid—and there were far more hiding places than I liked. The alley was wide, cluttered with parked cars and multiple dumpsters lining its length.

  I frowned at the opening on the other side. “Wasn’t this a dead end?”

  “Maybe at the turn of the century. Oww,” he winced, as I elbowed him in the ribs. “There’s a street light.” Evans pointed to the end of the alley and a visible patch of wet pavement glistening under a faraway glow. “If she’d gone out, I would have seen her.”

  “What’s here? Anything with customers?”

  Evans slapped a hand on the wall of the brick building to his left. “Gas station and repair garage stretches from this block to the next. Other side has some vacant stores. A hair salon. A laundromat. A shoe store, I think. And a bank?” he squinted in thought. “Anyway, at midnight on a Sunday, everything should be closed. Except the laundromat. Even in a hurricane people need clean clothes.”

  “It wasn’t a hurricane,” I reminded him, rolling my eyes at the last in a long line of dramatic descriptors Evans had attached to the recent string of bad weather. “It wasn’t a typhoon, or a Storm of the Century, or an apocalyptic flood, bombogenesis, or a shark—”

  “Whatever,” he cut in. “All I know is, I was about a day away from building an ark. And that damn banshee, wasn’t coming on board.”

  “Good to know. Why don’t you and your level head circle around the block to the other end. If she gets by me, keep her contained. There’s a reason she’s here. On this block. In this alley. If we don’t stop her from reaching that reason, she’ll get stronger and faster, and catching her will get a lot harder than it already is.”

  “When you say ‘catch’, do you mean catch and send her home, or…?”

  “Sending this one home isn’t an option. Banshees are inherently ir
rational. They’re obsessive. They have no remorse, no conscience. ‘Pretty-please’ won’t get you anywhere. She’d rather die than be caught alive. If we lose her now, it could take days to find her again.”

  Evans gave me a one-fingered salute, “I’m on it,” and jogged away.

  I studied the shapes a second time as I entered the alley. Banshees were slippery. She was strong, too, based on her stint of recent meals. Her kind had an inconvenient way of temporarily diffusing the light that reminded me too much of the creatures I feared more than any other: the nageun. The uncanny way they shifted into shadow—and stripped the meat from your bones in seconds—made a horde of nageun a dragon’s only natural predator.

  Shifting my eyes, pupils, sockets, and color altered. The night lightened further, to a dull, greenish-gray, and I put my flashlight away. I scanned both sides of the corridor as I walked. The garage doors were closed, the cars empty. All visible windows were dark. There was no movement, no silhouettes. No witnesses. I glanced up the sides of the buildings.

  No security cameras.

  I scaled the rest of my exposed skin. “Must be my lucky night.”

  Even better: in the few seconds I took my eye off the alley, the outline of one of the dumpsters had changed. Something was there that hadn’t been a moment ago.

  Beckoning fire into my palms, the dark flared bright. “This is why banshees suck at hide and seek.” I stared over the flickering curls at the figure poking out from behind the garbage bin. “No patience.”