Shadowborn Read online

  Copyright © 2021 by Maren Alder

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed “Attention: Permissions ” at [email protected]

  Paradigm Publishing

  www.paradigmpublishing.info

  Ordering Information:

  For details, contact [email protected]

  Print ISBN: 978-1-7368432-2-2

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-7368432-1-5

  Printed in the United States of America on SFI Certified paper.

  First Edition

  Typesetting by Crystal Peake Type

  To my wonderful husband, Greg. Without you this book would have never seen the light of day.

  Chapter 1

  I was born on Friday the thirteenth on the wrong side of the bed, and it just went downhill from there. It shouldn’t have surprised me when my day ended with my probable death, but bad luck isn’t something you ever really get used to.

  Butchering my audition was just the precursor to the worst day of my life. Now there was the rain, the hard kind that bounced when it hit the pavement and stung my skin.

  The blouse I’d handpicked for the casting session clung to me in a damp embrace as I pushed the twenty-dollar bike I’d purchased from Goodwill at a frantic clip. The tire had gone flat and the chain now dragged on the ground somewhere next to my soul.

  I glanced at my cellphone for the hundredth time, insides sinking a little at the lack of missed calls. Mom was probably too hung-over to even notice that her precious seventeen-year-old daughter had gone AWOL. I scoffed at myself. From the way I was acting, you’d almost think I cared.

  To my right, several balconies stuffed with trash clung to an endless row of apartment buildings. The windows all had bars on the outside that dripped with the unseasonable moisture. My GPS app told me that I was still a good four miles from the dumpy hostel I’d been staying in since arriving in LA a week and a half ago. I took a deep breath, inhaling rain as well as the wet strands of hair that insisted on sticking to my face. I’d better get on with it.

  Picking up my pace, I lifted my chin in an attempt to look determined and—

  Slammed into something.

  Both my bike and myself went sprawling in different directions, while my poor cellphone flew in a perfect arc, straight into a puddle. I pulled myself off the sidewalk and looked around, heart thudding behind my ribcage. There was nothing but another mile or so of warped sidewalk in front of me. What could I have possibly hit? That’s when I noticed the rain next to my fallen bike. As it neared the ground it flared out as if it were falling over something. Something I couldn’t see.

  I bit the inside of my cheek and reached my trembling hand forward. My fingers made contact, and what I saw made me scream. A boy materialized beneath my touch. He might have been a couple years younger than me but had hair as silver as a quarter. His startled blue eyes were the only splash of color in this rainy afternoon world.

  I drew back from him, another scream lodged in my throat as he faded in and out of sight like a flickering light bulb. Slowly, he rose to his feet, clutching something to his chest. He limped a few paces, then gained momentum and ran.

  The world seemed to sway around me. A ghost, he had to be a ghost. But as I looked down at the sidewalk, I noticed a thin trail of red soaking into the already wet cement. Could ghosts bleed?

  Trembling, I lunged for my submerged cellphone. The cheap screen had blacked out. Too bad I had never saved enough money to purchase a waterproof one. I shoved the useless device into my back pocket and picked up my ruined bike. Surely by now I was too old to just start having paranormal experiences. Maybe all the disappointments of the last week and a half were driving me crazy instead. With my mom’s track record of manic depression and alcoholism, it’s not like mental illness didn’t run in the family.

  I closed my eyes like I always did when I needed a break from reality, and searched my mind for a character I could inhabit until I was back in control. I thought of the monologue I’d performed at the audition just fifteen minutes earlier, and suddenly, I was no longer Teylin Walker. I was Kathy from Singin’ in the Rain, which was only appropriate considering the current weather conditions. I began to recite the lines of Kathy’s unconventional meeting with Don Lockwood, trying to make up for the fact that I’d massacred them at the audition. My free hand gesticulated to thin air and my voice gained volume as I continued my trek down the sidewalk.

  A hand on my shoulder snapped me back into myself. Gasping in surprise, I spun around and came face to face with a tall African American woman.

  “’Scuse me, hon,” she said. “Did you see a boy come this way?”

  Heat filled my cheeks as I struggled to form words. “H-huh?”

  Next to the woman, a Hispanic man dressed in an unbuttoned suit cleared his throat. “He’d be sorta odd-looking,” he said. “Very thin. Hair, this color.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small handful of nickels and dimes.

  “Why are you looking for him?” I asked.

  The woman gave me a tight smile. Probably in her late twenties, her black tank top showed off the sculpted muscles of her arms. “The dear little waif is in trouble. If we don’t find him, he could injure himself worse.”

  I nodded and took a breath. “I did see someone like that. This is going to sound crazy, but he…” My voice cracked.

  The woman leaned forward. “It’s OK, hon. You can tell us.” She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

  “He sort of vanished. Like a ghost or something.” I twisted a strand of my long wet hair around my index finger. “Sorry. Been a rough day. I’m probably just seeing things.”

  Neither of them laughed at me. “Not a ghost,” said the man. “But he’s going to be soon if we don’t find him. Which way did he go?”

  I pointed.

  He wiped the rain out of his eyes and nodded. “Thanks. You should ride on home before this weather turns into a real storm.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Working on that.” Never mind that my real home was over a thousand miles away, and my current residence happened to be a dingy hostel I could barely afford to stay in anymore. I glanced down at my flattened bike tire.

  The woman grabbed the man’s arm before he could take off. “Ricky, that was insensitive. She’s got a flat.” She gave him an intense look.

  He glanced at my bike, then at me. “Sorry ‘bout that. Need some money for a cab?”

  With my track record of failed auditions, money was exactly what I needed, but what kind of person accepted it from a random stranger? “Oh no, that’s OK,” I said. “I’m from Washington—near the coast—so I’m used to this weather.”

  “Good luck, then,” the man called Ricky said. He patted my shoulder and turned away. “Let’s go, Nina.”

  Nina turned to give me one last glance as the pair of them took off down the sidewalk. Before long, they were lost from my view.

  Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

  My bike seemed abnormally loud after the strange encounter, and all my senses were on full alert. I kept pushing robotically, but my eyes were on the shiny trail of blood that the rain was quickly dissolving on the sidewalk. If the boy wasn’t a ghost, then how could he vanish like that?

  I was so lost in thought that I was nearly run over by an SUV before I realized that t
he sidewalk had ended and I was now walking in the middle of the road. After several angry honks, I sprinted back to the safety of the curb and tried to get my bearings. Nothing looked familiar, and, with my phone dead, I had no GPS to guide me back.

  A distant sound sent chills up my spine. At first, I thought it was the wind, but the air was too still for that to be true. Someone was screaming.

  The only human visible was an old homeless man standing under an overpass, and the haunting voice didn’t match his grizzled exterior. I heard it again, and this time, I was able to locate where it came from. There was a narrow space between two apartment complexes around the corner. I jogged to it. With a pounding heart, I peered around the edge and looked into the darkness.

  Nina and Ricky were there, and they’d cornered the strange boy I’d seen earlier. He cowered against the bricks of the complex, clutching a cloth sack to his chest.

  “How long did you think you could last out here?” asked Nina. “You have no chance away from the islands without us. Your ability barely works anymore.”

  Ricky took the boy by the chin and examined his face. “He’s already got the shakes. Soon, the symptoms will hit hard.” He leaned forward to be eye level with the boy. “You’re lucky we found you in time.”

  The boy struggled out of Ricky’s grip. He tried to run but Nina blocked his way and shoved him back against the wall. I gasped as Ricky’s fist slammed into his stomach. The boy dropped to the ground and the sack fell from his hands. Large silvery rocks spilled into the muddy alleyway.

  “Well look here,” said Nina. “Our runaway is a thief as well.”

  Ricky kicked him in the ribs and the boy writhed in the mud. “Think you would get away with stealing from me? Huh?” He kicked him again. “Do you know how much money I paid for you?”

  Nina scooped the rocks back into the sack and held them at arm’s length like the contents were repulsive. “Enough, Ricky. Let’s get him back to the warehouse before he’s too damaged to work.”

  “He won’t be working for me anymore,” said Ricky. “When you go back to Los Sueños you’re taking him with you and handing him over to Antonio. He’ll knock some sense into this disobedient waif.”

  “Fine, just get him up.” She glanced back in my direction and I quickly withdrew, hoping she hadn’t seen me watching. “Let’s get outa here.”

  I heard a sharp cry as Ricky dragged the boy to his feet and then footsteps coming toward me. I abandoned my bike against the wall and made a run for it. I had just ducked around the next corner when they emerged from the alley, hauling the boy between them.

  Breathing hard, I watched as they walked in the direction I had come. My head was a wasp’s nest of questions. What was going to happen to that boy? And how could he…do what he did? I squeezed my eyes shut as premature regret slithered into me.

  This is wrong, Tey. You’re just going to get yourself in more trouble.

  But I had to know.

  Leaving my bike where it was, I found myself following Nina and Ricky and their mysterious captive as if I thought I were Nancy Drew.

  They didn’t go far. After a few blocks, the row of buildings tapered off into a spacious industrial area next to a large transit garage. The sidewalk was replaced by wet gravel that slipped under the boy’s feet as he continued to struggle in Nina and Ricky’s grip. I walked as quietly as I could and kept myself in the shadow of the garage’s wall.

  This was only going to end badly. Everything I did ended badly, and yet, I still couldn’t stop myself.

  Ricky approached a warehouse riddled with No Trespassing signs. He looked in both directions then dialed something into a keypad on the side of a wide metal door. The door slid open to reveal a dimly lit interior, and the look of horror on the boy’s face made me bite my tongue. Ricky and Nina forced the boy through the opening and I stood, frozen, as the door began to automatically shut behind them.

  I had seconds to make a decision. I didn’t see another way into the building, so I dashed forward and slipped through the crack, just before the electric door closed all the way.

  A wave of pressure washed over me, halting me in my tracks. Nina and Ricky were too preoccupied with the boy to notice my entrance, and I immediately ducked behind a rusty generator.

  Sweat beaded on my forehead. The air in the warehouse felt too thick to breathe, and the floor seemed to tip back and forth in dizzying waves.

  Through squinted eyes, I examined my new surroundings. Flickering lights hung low to illuminate what looked like a small factory. Vats of silvery liquid sat on large burners. They glowed so bright they hurt my eyes if I looked too long.

  Next to the vats stood a dozen children, all with silver hair and sky blue eyes like the boy who could turn invisible. My heart gave a little stutter when I noticed the chains around their ankles. The metal clinked as they worked to extract the glowing liquid and distribute it into tubes, which flowed into a large machine in the center of the room. The tubular mechanism reminded me a little of the enormous telescope I’d seen at the Griffith Park Observatory (one of the only touristy places I’d visited since coming to LA).

  The longer I stared at it, the less benign it appeared. Electric wires connected to it, sparking whenever one of the strange children got too near. It suddenly occurred to me that this could be some kind of radioactive weapons manufacturing plant. I had to get out of here; tell the police.

  I stood up, but the movement was too fast. My brain felt like a lemon in a vise as the pressure in the room squeezed the blood from it. I teetered forward and fell with a crash, knocking over a barrel filled with the same type of silvery rocks the boy had been carrying.

  Nina and Ricky spun around and I knew it was too late to run.

  “How did you get in here?” asked Nina. Her face was soaked in sweat, like the pressure of the room was getting to her too, but strangely none of the children appeared affected. Nina let go of the boy and stumbled over to me.

  I tried to crawl backward to get to the door and run, but my limbs trembled and gave out. “Sorry,” I grunted. I didn’t know what else to say.

  Nina turned to Ricky. “She followed us.”

  Ricky cursed and lowered the boy against the wall, then came and squatted next to me. His oily black hair fell into his eyes as he peered down. “Just what were you thinking? This place is dangerous. Did you want to get yourself killed?”

  Nausea gripped my stomach as the reality of my situation overwhelmed me. “N-no,” I said, but it was pointless. I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to see. Now I would pay for it.

  Ricky looked at Nina with a resolved expression. “You know what we have to do.”

  “But she’s just a teenager.”

  “Would you rather go to prison? Or get this whole place shut down? Get her up.”

  Nina pulled me to my feet.

  Black spots obscured my vision and I swayed, seconds from passing out. “Are you going to kill me?” I croaked.

  “It’s nothing personal, hon,” she said with a tight frown.

  “I suppose promising not to tell won’t do any good at this point,” I said, too sick and disoriented to feel the fear that should have gripped my heart. But with my eyes, I still searched desperately for a way out.

  “What good’s a promise from a stranger?” said Ricky.

  Nina held me at arm’s length. “Seems kinda a waste,” she said to Ricky. “A healthy girl like her. And she’s got a nice look to her. Could be worth somethin’.”

  Ricky pulled a pistol from the inside pocket of his suit coat. “That means nothing if it’s at our own expense. Now, hold her still.”

  Despite the strange pressure in the room, my instinct for self-preservation kicked in. I jerked to my right and twisted out of Nina’s grasp. I dashed to the door and pawed at the keypad that operated it, but it was useless without a code. I banged against the doo
r and scrambled for a handhold.

  The silver-haired children stood frozen, staring at me like a herd of deer in an open field. Even if I could convince them to help me, they wouldn’t be able to do much with chained feet. I looked toward the boy from earlier, but he had toppled over on the floor, unconscious.

  Ricky raised his gun and fired. The bullet dented the metal of the door half an inch from my shoulder. I dove behind another barrel of the weird rocks and crouched low. My breath heaved like no matter how much oxygen I sucked in, it would never be enough. Peering, around the side, I searched for another way out.

  The warehouse was windowless and I didn’t see any other doors. I stood on shaking legs and reached into the barrel. My hand connected with one of the rocks and I felt a little shock, like a spark of static electricity.

  Ricky advanced on me, finger still on the trigger. I hefted the rock behind my shoulder and threw it toward him with all my remaining strength. He easily dodged to the side, and my rock went spiraling behind him, right into the machine in the center of the room.

  Both Ricky and Nina gasped, and then there was a sound like a small explosion as the rock tore through some of the wiring. The pressure in the room suddenly became a tourniquet around my whole body. I saw a white light, brighter than anything I’d ever seen before. It came from the end of the telescope-like tube that I now was certain was a weapon. And it headed straight for me.

  My senses were too foggy to react fast enough. There was the sensation of burning pain as it struck my chest, and then darkness so complete I was sure I’d never wake again.

  Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse.

  Chapter 2

  I wasn’t dead.

  I became more and more aware of that fact the longer I felt the wild throb in my chest and the burn of acid at my throat. Around me, the world swayed in an unnatural rhythm, insisting that something was wrong. I struggled to open my eyes, but it was like two weights hung from my lids.