In Gathering Shade

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

 "I am told that a Shade has no soul and cannot be saved, however, my superiors have instructed me to extract information from you, so that more of your kind can be hunted and killed before they can corrupt those whom God loves."

The colonel liked to hear himself talk, Mason had learned, but when he was talking, Mason was less likely to be beaten, forced to swallow salt, or any of the other torments they had laid on him in the days he'd been their prisoner. Mason was once again in the center of the cell and under artificial UV light, his arms up over his head so that he was swinging from his chained wrists.

"Today we are going to explore your healing more." He held up a knife and Mason swallowed. Up until now his injuries were largely superficial, at least the external ones were.  Internally, he wasn’t as sure.  The prisoner called Alaric had used his fingers to make him to throw up the salt each time that Shallon forced it into him, but his stomach was starting to feel like it was ripped to shreds.  His ribs were painful and the little bit of self-assessment he’d managed in the dark between torture sessions told him that it wouldn’t take much to make the cracked ribs into true breaks.

His shoulders screamed and his wrists were bloody, and the amount of water he’d been given was barely enough to keep him alive, even if Alaric had tried to supplement it with his own water and, at least once, blood.  It was probably wrong to wish the bastard tormenting him would just cut him too much, too deep, and spill all the precious blood in his body into the dirt and let him slide into the dark.

Instead, the cut was shallow along his collarbone, just enough to make him bleed. Mason hissed, closing his eyes against the new stinging pain.  "There now, that seems a simple enough matter.  Show me this healing."

His blood was thick and slow, hot against his skin.  Mason licked dry lips with a drier tongue.  "Can't."

"Come now, I'm told--"

"Colonel."

Shallon turned away from Mason to the soldier in Battalion blues at the door, dipping his head to listen as the man whispered in his ear. He looked up sharply, snapping at his men, and they all left the cell without another word.

Alaric was at his side instantly, hands sliding up Mason's arms and fumbling with the bindings that held his hands.

"Leave him." Bryan said, pushing past them to the door. He pushed on it, but it didn't budge. "Riley will be here any minute."

Alaric pulled on the chains holding him without responding. Mason closed his eyes and tried not to move.

"Alaric, we have to go now."

Mason opened his eyes. Alaric's blond hair was tickling his cheek and suddenly his hands fell free and his body crashed to the ground. The door was open and for a long moment, Mason couldn't understand why.

Being deprived of darkness and liquids had taken a toll on him, and his brain was sluggish, slow to realize what was going on. Unless he got some darkness and some water soon, he would not be able to recover.

"Can you stand?" Alaric's voice was strained, and he could hear the fear and the tension in his tone. In the hall beyond Mason could hear men moving and Bryan was gone, leaving the cell was empty now but for the two of them.

"I... maybe." He offered his hand for help up and Alaric took it, hefting as Mason pushed off the floor.

"Lean on me. I'll get you some cover soon, but we have to move." Alaric's arm slid around his waist, tugging Mason’s body close as Mason managed to make his feet move.

Mason tried to focus as they went, but everything was moving very quickly around him. They followed Bryan's back and after a few minutes, Alaric ducked them into a blessedly dark room.

"Stay here. I'll be right back." Alaric pushed Mason up against a wall and was gone.

In the distance thunder rumbled… or maybe it was an explosion. Men were shouting, and there was a spattering of gunfire before Alaric was back. "Here, put these on." He shoved clothes at Mason, peeking out the door. "It's daylight outside. You need to cover up."

Alaric helped him figure his way into the clothes, belting the too-big pants tight and shoving his feet into boots that weren't too bad, if a little tight. "We have to hurry. Bryan and Riley are making sure our path out is clear. Take this." He shoved a canteen into his hands. "It isn't much. I'll try to get us more before we're outside."

Mason tilted back his head and poured the water into his mouth as Alaric checked the hallway again. "Okay, come on."

Mason stumbled as they hit a set of stairs, but Alaric hauled him back to his feet. Bryan was above them, telling them to hurry. "Out the door, to your right, Riley's holding the fence. East and then north."

Bryan shoved another canteen at him and Alaric tugged Mason out the door. They made the fence, where a grinning young man with spiky white-blond hair was holding open a cutaway piece of the fence and a big automatic gun. "Let's move, Cassandra’s illusions aren’t going to keep them busy for much longer."

Alaric pushed Mason through the fence first, then followed. They started running once they were out, or as close to running as Mason was capable of. Bryan and Riley caught up, and Mason thought there were other people around them as well. The sun beat down on them without mercy and the ground was baked sand and rock, radiating the heat and light back up at him. Mason guzzled water from the first canteen, dropping it when it was empty and he tried to keep from falling.

He didn't know how or why, but it was pretty clear that this was an escape orchestrated with outside help, and for whatever reason Alaric had inexplicably chosen to take Mason with them. He wasn't about to complain.  Even dying all dry and burnt out in the desert was a better way to go than in the hands of a man like Shallon.

They ran across the barren landscape with little for cover, and he was sure they would be recaptured.  He stumbled as he tried to look back over his shoulder, nearly going down before Alaric’s hand fisted in the loose fabric of his stolen shirt and hauled him up again.  “Don’t worry about behind us,” Alaric said.  “Just focus on moving.”

Mason clung to Alaric, fairly certain he wouldn't survive this mad race from captivity, but not quite ready to let go of the hope that he might. The desert sun was no place for Mason, and he knew Alaric felt guilty for dragging him through the daylight, could feel the guilt in the air around them, but Mason wouldn't have survived had he been left behind.

So, they ran. Alaric pulled him down into a ditch of some kind, offering him the meager shade cast by the opposite wall.  Mason couldn’t slow his breathing and his skin was hot and dry.

Alaric leaned in, his hand on Mason’s face.  “You still with me?”

Mason nodded, lifting the last canteen with shaking hands. “Need liquid, dark.”

“I know. Catch your breath.  I’ll be right back.”

Alaric disappeared and for a long moment, Mason wondered if he would bother coming back.  He gulped at the water, but it wasn’t enough to make a big difference. He dropped the canteen from numb fingers when it was empty, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall of the ditch.

 His breathing was slowing down, his racing heart calming some.  Alaric reappeared, ducking down so that his blond head wasn’t visible over the top of the ditch. He held up another canteen, pouring its contents over Mason's head and shoulders in an attempt to cool his already burning skin, which absorbed the water almost immediately.

"You have to keep moving." Alaric said.  Mason nodded, though for the life of him he didn't think he could.   “The others have bought us some time, but eventually those guards will figure it out and head back this way.” Alaric tugged on his arm and got him standing again, but Mason’s knees buckled and he went down again.  Alaric went one knee beside him. "We aren’t far from a series of caves where we can rest out of the sun."

Mason's skin was red and had that clammy feeling that comes of too much light and not enough water. But they were out of water. He couldn't figure out why Alaric was still with him. Mason made a show of trying to push him away.  "Go with your friends."

He shook his head with a sad sort of smile. "I could help you." Alaric offered tentatively, holding up a knife he must have stolen in their escape.

Mason's hand stopped him. "No." He shook his head. His mouth was dry and his hands were trembling. He squinted up at the sun. He knew he was well over half way to sun-shock, and soon, he would no longer be able to move.

"You need fluid." Alaric insisted, the knife in his hands, the blade on his skin. "And blood is all the fluid that I have to offer."

Mason closed his eyes and fell back against the hot sand wall. "Save yourself." No matter what help blood would be, it wouldn't be enough, not without darkness and water.

Alaric only responded by slicing into the meat of his palm and holding his hand to Mason's mouth.

Mason couldn't, he pulled away, shaking his head. He'd never taken blood that way, never tasted any but his own, but his body craved sustenance and the blood was wet on his lips.  He licked his lips and when Alaric pushed the hand back to his lips he couldn't stop himself. He raised a hand to cradle Alaric's and held it still as Mason sat up, his eyes fluttering open to meet Alaric's, vulnerable and ashamed as he drank.

The taste of it was familiar and he flushed with memory of blood in his mouth in the dark cell.  Alaric had done this before.  Mason closed his eyes and pushed his hand away.  It wasn’t enough, but he wouldn’t take more.

Mason's breathing was rapid, echoing the sped-up beat of Alaric's heart. "Let's get you to shelter." Alaric said, standing. He helped Mason up, let him lean into his side.

"You shouldn't have done that." Mason whispered, his voice ravaged and raw.

Alaric smiled and brushed dirty hair out of his face. "I know. But my grandmother told me it was bad luck to let a Shade die in the sun. She'd skin me alive if I left you here just to save my own skin."

Mason looked up at him, his eyes an impossibly blue reflection of the sky above them. He forced himself to smile, remembering his own Nana. She'd never abide him leaving someone behind to die either. "Can't have none of that then." Mason's head dropped onto Alaric's shoulder, letting his concentration fall on keeping his feet moving toward the shelter Alaric told him was ahead of them.

It seemed to take forever, the dry ground and glaring sun making it difficult for him to judge distances, but then Alaric turned them and set Mason's hand against a rock while he ducked in under an overhang to make sure it was safe. Mason groaned with relief as Alaric guided him in, bending him and holding him to get into the shallow cave made by large boulders that seemed to make a wall.

With the dark, his body began to cool almost immediately. The cave was just enough to get them out of the sun, to let the dark sooth his skin, and with that something of the pain would start to drain away, or so he hoped.  He'd never been in this kind of dry before.  It was bad, and he knew it.

His lips were cracked open and his flesh was red. There wasn't a spot on his body that didn't hurt.  Mason closed his eyes and willed the pain to subside.  He didn’t dare expend the energy to attempt to heal.  As his breathing calmed and his skin cooled, he could sense beyond himself.  There was water nearby. It called to him and he knew he only had to wait for the sun to go down before he could search it out and let it restore him to something closer to himself.

Alaric's body blocked more of the sun near the entrance to their hiding place. Mason hadn't even realized that he hadn't come inside with him. "Bryan and Riley sent a signal. They made it into the car, they should be safe enough to make it the rest of the way."

Mason didn't ask how they signaled or what car, just nodded, fighting back the grimace of pain as his ribs shifted and his sun-burnt skin cracked. He swallowed around the dry, raw feeling in his throat and told himself it would only be a few hours at most.

A deeper shadow fell across him and he looked up to see Alaric sliding to his knees beside him. Alaric held up his hand with its barely scabbed over cut, and the knife.

"No." Mason pushed his hand away and tried to sit up more. "Save your strength." His voice was a rasp of heated sand on stone.

"Let me help you," Alaric said almost urgently.

"You should go be with your friends. I'll be fine. Just got to make it to dark."

Alaric looked at him like he didn't believe him, like he knew that it was mostly false bravado talking. "You'll die if you don't get some more fluid. What you took before was nowhere near enough."

He sliced over the old wound and there was sand in the bright crimson of the blood, but Mason almost couldn't help the way he licked his lips. He could almost feel the ease of pain that would come with the blood, nutrient rich and wet. "No." He shook his head. "I swore...never..." It was a promise he'd made to himself, made to his Nana. A Shade could live richly on the blood of others, and the old lore told stories of a time when Shades did just that, surviving on blood and water.  It was what his body needed.

He closed his eyes and turned his head away, but the smell of the blood followed him and there was a warm wetness on his lips. "Please let me help you." Alaric whispered.

He couldn't breathe for the scent of it, his body seizing with the need for it and though he was sure he meant not to, Mason opened his mouth and took it in. Alaric's heartbeat roared into his head, his life, his breath filled his senses. Mason was aware of all of him.  He could sense worry and taste pain… from the cut, from being manhandled by the men who captured him and… something more, something… Mason forced himself to pull back, licking his lips and thanking Alaric with a nod of his head.

Alaric smiled at him and moved to sit beside him.  It was too close in the small space, but Mason just closed his eyes, determined to get what rest he could because he knew the dark would mean more running.

He slept fitfully through the afternoon, chasing and being chased through dreams of people he couldn't fully see, and he woke with a start, unsure of where he was for a moment. His head was on Alaric's shoulder, Alaric's arm around him, holding him, his body protecting Mason's from the mouth of the cave.

Over Alaric's arm, Mason could see that the sun was well on its way to down. He could feel the pull of the water even more strongly. He stirred, tried to figure out how to get up without waking Alaric, but before he'd moved more than an inch or two, Alaric's blue eyes were staring at him. "Going somewhere?"

"Sun's down." Mason rasped. "Water."

Alaric nodded. "You know where it is?"

"North." Mason pointed as Alaric sat up.

"You were going to go without me." It wasn't a question. Alaric pushed himself up, keeping his head bent as he moved to the mouth of the cave.

"Don't need me slowing you down." Mason followed him out of the cave.

"In the dark, I'm going to be the one slowing you down." Alaric said. He slipped his arm around Mason’s shoulders to support him and started them walking in the direction Mason pointed.

The night was cloudy, blocking out the soothing touch of the moon, but Mason followed the pull of water. They kept the wall of boulders between them and the facility they had escaped from.  By the time they had reached a dirt road that ran alongside a hill, it was little more than dark spots on the horizon.

Even with the sun down, Mason’s skin was uncomfortably warm. He had no idea where they were, or where they were headed, aside from the fact that there was water within reach.

He pointed into the trees and Alaric helped him climb the incline, pausing to rest when Mason’s body screamed at him.  “Any idea how far this water is?” Alaric asked, holding up the canteen he had apparently kept.

Mason pointed and pushed off the tree.  He stumbled a little and Alaric was right there, keeping him upright and moving.  Eventually, they found a small stream. It wasn't much, but Mason was tugging at his clothes and wading in as quickly as he could.

It was only knee deep, but cold, and running at a decent current. He went to his knees, then lowered as much of himself as he could into the water. Alaric picked up the clothes Mason had dropped, folding them and setting them near the stream on a rock. "I'm going to have a look around."