Erin Kellison - Shadow Bound

For all his resources, Adam had done little better. He reached beyond the campus to a statewide and then national missing-persons search for both Talia and Melanie. He looked at government institutions, cults, organized crime, calling in favors and motivating the flow of information with the flow of cash. He’d covered the Internet as well, his people insinuating themselves onto message boards, friendship lists, as well as public and private forums. Disturbing forums.

And he’d been inundated with hits:

“Hooked up with the hot one with the short hair in a bar in Chicago…”

“The woman with the long hair looks exactly like my sister’s kid’s preschool teacher…”

“The blonde chick lives in the basement of a campus library. Fifty bucks, and I’ll tell you which one…”

Another dead end? Not acceptable. Talia O’Brien was the only person in his six years of searching to use the name Shadowman in any kind of context that would help his brother. If she still lived, he was going to find her.

Adam forced himself to speak in the present tense. “Talia O’Brien is dependable, steady, and reliable. Predictable. She’s been in school all her life. I’ll bet she feels most comfortable near a campus. If one kid has seen her, others will have, too. I want to ask around.”

“I get why she’d choose Arizona in the winter when it’s warm, but why the summer when it’s hot as hell?” Custo merged the car onto a freeway marked 101. Traffic ran fast and free down lanes burned almost white and radiating heat in upward waves.

“If she’s here, she has a reason.”

Adam knew Talia, had studied her the way she had studied her academic subjects. One of the first things he did was contact the university to get his hands on her work. Her papers were creative, twisting logic, but she supported her conclusions with an abundance of data. Her life was ordered and planned with study time and classes blocked out in her planner for the semester she had never completed. Her books were even tabbed with color-coded stickies, a system it had taken him two frustrating days to decode. Talia O’Brien liked control. He doubted very much she was a strung-out prostitute. It was simply not in her nature to succumb to that degree of chaos.

They exited the freeway at University Drive and trolled a palm tree– lined street along the outer perimeter of campus. Two kids lounged in a boxy shadow made by the setting sun ducking behind a building.

Custo slowed to a stop. Adam hopped out, Talia’s picture in hand. The heat outside immediately leeched fluid from his body, drying him from the inside out.

One kid shook his head. The other’s gaze flicked up at the photo and back down to his iPhone. “Haven’t seen her.”

Four blocks later, a thicker group gathered in the parking lot of an old 7-Eleven. Dark, short men, brims of baseball caps pulled down over their eyes.

“No la ví.” Haven’t seen her.

Another group—older teens mixed with university bums this time—swelled in a parking lot in front of an old strip mall. Their attention was trained on a young man, a Caucasian with dreadlocks, holding court from a tall concrete wall that separated the parking lot from the adjacent business.

Adam tried a kid first, maybe fifteen. He held out Talia’s picture.

“Nah. Haven’t seen her.” The kid popped his skateboard. His shirt was salt-stained from perspiration.

Adam’s own charcoal-green polo had dampened on his back. He held up a twenty-dollar bill. “Can you tell me where she might hang out?”

“You her old man?” Gaze appraising, the boy spoke with a cynical maturity beyond his years.

“Brother,” Adam corrected. Brother was the most important relationship in his life. It did him good to remind himself of the bond every chance he got.

The kid snatched the twenty. “She might hang out under the overpass at Dobson and Granite Reef, but I doubt she’d be there now. Night’s coming on.”

“Oi!” shouted the man with dreadlocks from the wall.

Adam ignored him, addressing the crowd. “All I want is to take my sister home. Get her the help that she needs. I am willing to pay anything to get her back.”

The boy slid his gaze over to Dreadlocks, waiting.

“Do you know how much anything is?” Adam pressed. “Enough to buy a comfortable life for each one of you.”

Come on, give me something.

The group hesitated on the edge of interest. Even to Ad-am’s ears, a big cash outlay sounded like a false promise, but he meant every word. Whoever helped him find Talia O’Brien would be set for life. Based on appearances, these kids had nothing to lose.

Dreadlocks jumped off the concrete wall and sauntered over to Adam. Dirty jeans. Limp black T-shirt. Flip-flops. Braided hemp cord knotted around his thin wrist.

He glanced at the picture. “Yeah, I’ve seen her.”

“Where? I’m going to need specific information.” Adam didn’t have time to waste here. Police might have a better handle on university sublife. Local hangouts. Ideal abandoned buildings.

Dreadlocks looked over at the sun, now dipping below the tree line, and frowned. “Come back tomorrow. Sun sets and the beasties come out. I got to get my people inside.”

Adam’s attention arrested. “The beasties?”

“Demons. It’s the end of the world, man, but no one can see it except us. End of the world.” He gestured to the blaze growing on the horizon. “Sun sets fast here and the beasties come out. You ever heard of Sweet Drink?”

“No.”

“It’s a band, man. Their music tells how it’s gonna be. How it is. End of the world. End of death. It’s coming with the setting sun. Listen up: Demons walk and demons feed. Take away all human need. Join the army. Break the curse. The human race to crush Death first. ”

“I don’t understand,” Adam said, but the lyrics still sent chills across his hot back and reminded him somehow of Jacob.

Dreadlocks cocked his head. “You musta inherited that money then, ’cause I’m saying it as plain as I can, and you just don’t get it. I’m saying the sun is setting, and if your sister has any brains at all she is going inside somewhere or she will be the demons’ feed.”

“Where inside?” Adam pulled out a hundred, held it up.

Dreadlocks waved the bill away with a grimace of disdain. “End of the world, man. What the fuck is that paper going to do for me? For any of us?”

“It’ll get you off the street.” Just tell me where.

“ I can get me off the street. I’m here by choice. I’m here because here is real. It’s you and your fancy shirt that are shit, man. You live in the dark; you just don’t know it.”

Adam kept his voice calm, his expression controlled even though he wanted to grab the punk by the throat. “I want to see, too. Help me see so I can find her.”

“If she’s here, she’s inside. Or she should be. Tally likes to live dangerously. Doesn’t trust anybody. I offered her a place in my family, but she refused. Where she’s got to now, I don’t know.”

Adam’s chest burned, an emotion he couldn’t name breaching containment. He glanced down at the photograph in his hand. “I never said her name.”

“Well, I told you I’d seen her. You didn’t believe me?” Dreadlocks grinned, spreading his arms wide to invite a laugh at Adam’s expense from his crew. The group tittered on cue.

Adam didn’t care as long as he got information.

“Well then, maybe now you’ll believe me about the demon night,” Dreadlocks said.

Adam already believed. “Where inside?” Please.

Dreadlocks sighed. “Try Priest, man. North of Santa Maria. Mountainside.”