Anne Ursu - The Shadow Thieves

Zee closed his eyes and he pictured his grandmother. He remembered the floury, talcum powdery, lotiony scent of her, he held it in his mind, he breathed it in.

Then suddenly he sensed something in the cave with him. Something small and not quite human. He'd seen enough creatures that day to know they tended to pop up everywhere in the Underworld-and it wouldn't do him any good to be killed by a vampiric lizard right now so he opened his eyes, expecting to see such a beast, or maybe a four-headed rat or a mucus-spewing mole.

But what he saw was a cat.

Not a demon cat. Or a skeleton cat. A regular cat. Almost, well, a kitten.

The cat had darted into the cave and was making its way slowly toward him, eyes set on him. Zee stared. Upon looking closer at the cat, he thought it looked a great deal like Charlotte's cat, Mew.

In fact, Zee couldn't be sure, but if he had to bet, well, he'd bet the cat was Mew.

"Mew?" he whispered.

The cat leaped toward him and frantically rubbed against his legs. Zee felt tears springing to his eyes; he couldn't help it. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?" He picked up Mew and squeezed her. "You really are an extraordinary cat."

He shot a glance at the doorway, but the Footmen didn't seem to have noticed a thing. They were standing a few feet away from the door, stock-still now- they looked like wax statues.

Mew bonked her head against his a few times, then leaped out of his arms and dashed to the left wall of the cave.

"What is it?" Zee asked.

Mew began to scratch violently against the wall. Zee got up. "What are you doing?" he whispered, walking over to her. He stood between Mew and the doorway and stared at her. She looked at him and kept scratching.

Zee examined the wall. It didn't look different from any of the others-ragged, with bits of rock jutting out…

Oh!

Zee put his hands on two of the rocks and pulled down. Nothing. He tried two more. And then he saw a small, round rock just to the right of his head. He put his hand on it, pressed down-and the wall evaporated.

In front of him was a slightly larger room, maybe four times the size of the little cave. It was quite clearly a laboratory- Philonecron's laboratory. It was filled with test tubes, beakers, strange contraptions, and jars of unidentifiable substances. Cabinets and shelves lined the walls. Hanging against one wall was a very long white lab coat, and there was a bookshelf filled with quite ancient-looking texts, and on top, a box of scrolls. And there was a whole wall containing small jars of what looked very, very much like blood. The markings on them were in Greek, and so Zee couldn't tell which jar was which, but he knew his blood was somewhere in there. He grimaced.

Mew had run over to a corner and was squawking madly at Zee. He got the point. She was standing right in front of what looked like a trash bin, and Zee hurried over, raised the lid, and gasped.

The bin was filled with shadows.

They were piled on top of one another carelessly, like old towels. They looked thin, used, torn. Zee tried to pick one up, but he couldn't get hold of it-his hands just passed right through.

Zee looked at Mew, who stared pointedly back at him.

"I have to enchant these, don't I?" he said.

Mew simply looked at him.

"Then they can take care of the Footmen, and I can get to Philonecron."

Mew stared.

"I should hurry, shouldn't I?"

More staring.

"All right, then."

Zee knew what he had to do. He went over to Philonecron's cupboards and searched until he found what he needed. With a deep breath he went back over to the shadow bin and stood over it.

"Here goes…" He took the knife and sliced open his arm. Pain shot through him, and he winced. He felt tears leap to his eyes, and he exhaled deeply, then held his arm over the pile of shadows and squeezed, watching the blood as it dripped down.

He nodded at Mew, then toward the doorway. "Go check on them, will you? I'm going to make some noise."

Mew turned her head toward the door and crept off.

He closed his eyes. He had no idea if this would work. His words were supposed to be the final step, so whatever needed to be done to these shadows, he hoped Philonecron had already done it.

And the words-Zee had repeated them over and over again earlier today. Did he still know them? He exhaled and tried to clear his head.

Ek..

Ek skotou…

Yes, that was it. Ek skotou es to phaos! That was the first sentence. Ek skotou es to phaos! The next was much the same.

Ek thanatou…

Ek thanatou es to…

Es to what? Si something. Si something?

Argh!

Ek skotou es to phaos. Ek thanatou es to…

Es to…

Sden!

Zee leaned into the bin of shadows and whispered,

"Ek skotou es to phaos, ek thanatou es to sden! Ek skotou es to

phaos, ek thanatou es to sden! Ek skotou es to phaos, ek thana-

tou es to sden!"

There was movement in the bin. A stirring. The shadows were coming alive.

"Ek skotou es to phaos, ek thanatou es to sden!"

The pile began to thicken, the shadows were growing. The pile wrenched and pulsed, and then a shadow jumped from the bin and stretched its arms out. Then another. Then another.

"Ek skotou es to phaos, ek thanatou es to sden!"

The shadows were leaping out-or were being tossed out by the other shadows. Some lay limp on the ground, others stretched and writhed until they, too, popped up and stood in front of Zee.

He had two dozen, then three, standing at attention in front of him. A few others roamed around the room aimlessly, and others still lay lifeless in the bin.

He stared warily at his strange new soldiers, these spirits cut out of darkness. They twitched and shimmered as they stood, seemingly eager to try out the profits of life. Would they really obey? Would they turn on him? How alive were they-did they think, did they want? They were smoky and indistinct, vague creatures with stumps for arms, and they looked as if they could haunt Zee for the rest of time. There was something so… negative about them; they seemed to be cast from Nothing, like animate black holes, and Zee could not help but feel that if they got too close to him, they would take his soul.

He had to command them now. He had to be strong and sure. If only he were Charlotte, he could do this. But he wasn't. So he had to channel all the Charlotteness inside him. Zee took a deep breath.

Suddenly he heard a loud squawk behind him. Mew! He whirled around. The Footmen were approaching the lab, grinning broadly and viciously, Mew running behind them. Mew leaped from the ground and began clawing feverishly at one of the Footmen's thighs, and he reached down and threw her aside. She hit the ground and yelped.

"Shadows!" Zee yelled. "Attack them!"

His heart went into his throat. He had no idea what would happen-it all had been a good plan in theory, but in theory shadows could not come to life.

The shadows flickered, expanded into the air, stretched up and out as if they were letting out a silent roar.

Zee stepped back. The Footmen sneered and took long, sure steps toward Zee. He suddenly doubted Philonecron, doubted the shadows, doubted the whole plan, doubted everything but the Footmen, who were going to tear him to pieces.

And then the shadows sprang. They moved like shot fire, hurling through the air, trailing darkness behind them. They were on the Footmen in a blink, swarming over them, and the Footmen seemed swallowed by darkness.

They didn't have a chance. Some shadows stretched out like snakes and slithered over them, cutting swaths through their bodies. Others grew themselves long legs, which they used to wrap around the Footmen's waists, and long arms, which they used to pull the Footmen's arms from their shoulders and smash them to the ground. Others wrapped themselves around the Footmen's legs and squeezed until the legs fell off. The Footmen flailed around, trying to toss shadows aside, but they couldn't get hold of them. Some of the shadows dived right into the Footmen and then burst out again, spewing dust everywhere as Zee watched, wide-eyed, shuddering. Still the Footmen struggled and flailed, large bits missing from their bodies, while their body parts fell off and shattered on the ground. Their heads toppled and fell, eerie grins frozen on their faces, then smashed against the ground too. Soon there was nothing left of them but shredded tuxedo and chunks of clay.