Out of the Light Read online

  She stared at him then shook her head and sighed. “Twenty minutes, no more.” She sat down, arms folded.

  An hour later, Jan sat back, having summarized his life story. He had left out the part about Stasia. Kate looked hard at him. “Jan, I’m certain you believe every word you just said. I also know it can’t possibly be true.”

  “Does it matter? The Star wouldn’t print it anyway.”

  She groaned. “Okay, so Garos thinks we have a were-beast in Toronto. Because of this corpse decay, right?”

  “Plus the time of the murders. Most shifters assume animal form only at night, to hide in the dark. Out of the light. But actually, beyond that, I don’t think it fits with a shifter.”

  “You mean you don’t believe Garos, either? Why not?”

  “Shifters live where their animal form is common. Then if seen, they aren’t viewed as anything unusual. So were-tigers live in areas with tigers, were-wolves with real wolves.”

  “So?”

  “So what animals are common in downtown Toronto?”

  “Dogs and cats, for starters.”

  “Yeah, but not running free, which they’d need to be.”

  “How about birds? Maybe it’s a were-pigeon,” she said.

  “Very funny. Too small. So are raccoons from the ravines.”

  “What’s size got to do with it?”

  “Mass-energy conservation. It has to be as big as us.”

  “Sounds like we’ve run out of animals,” she said.

  “That’s what I think. No such beast.”

  “So what about the corpse decay?”

  Jan frowned. “I don’t know. I can’t explain that.” He looked at her. “It almost sounds as if you believe me now.”

  Kate shrugged. “I’ve heard worse. You meet all sorts of weirdos on these streets.”

  “Thanks, I love being tolerated.”

  She grinned at him. “You want to stay for dinner?”

  He looked outside. The sun had set and streetlights were winking into life. He should leave. But the area was well lit. Lots of neon. And Kate was smiling at him. “I’d like that,” he said. He just wished she didn’t remind him so much of Stasia.

  ~~~

  Thirty-two years old. Sunday. A small church outside Budapest. Stasia, tall and fair beside him, a hunter for a year now. At the altar in the otherwise empty church stood Father Karman. Their prey. “His parish suspects,” Jan whispered.

  Stasia nodded. “But simple tourists like us don’t, right?”

  The priest turned from the altar and noticed them. He smiled. “Are you here for Mass?” he called.

  Jan hesitated. His Catholic upbringing made this hard. A priest in a church. He could at least let the man hold a last mass. They should be safe. Karman needed either time or the taste of blood to shift. Jan nodded. Stasia looked at him, puzzled. “After Mass, outside the church,” he whispered.

  During the Liturgy of the Word, Jan felt in his jacket for his gun. Stasia’s presence at a capture still made him uneasy. As they approached the altar for Communion, Karman stared hard at Jan. He turned his back to pour the wine. The communion began.

  After the ceremony, Karman took the cup from them and turned back to the altar. Only then did Jan notice another cup on the altar. The one from which the priest had drunk. Jan’s eyes froze on a drop of liquid hanging red and thick on its lip.

  Thick as blood.

  Jan struggled to his feet, but the room swam. He fell, panic rising in him. The wine. Stasia screamed his name. A face loomed before him, cruel, already bestial, the reek of blood on its foul breath. Jan fumbled for his gun, but the beast struck him hard on the temple. Darkness took him.

  ~~~

  As Harry brought Kate and Jan their dinners, Jan noticed an old man sitting in the back, out of the light. He wouldn’t have seen him except that the man gestured to Jan with a jerky motion of a stiffened hand. Jan turned to Harry. “Who’s that?”

  Harry looked over. “Solly? Street person. Comes in sometimes. I’ll give him a coffee, sandwich maybe. Don’t know how he stays alive. He’s usually in the shelter by now. Doesn’t like the streets after dark. Last time he stayed late, I had to walk him there after we closed. Only way I could get him out.”

  Jan stood up. “I’m going to see what he wants.”

  Solly was a small round man. Round bald pate ringed by grey scraggly hair. Circle of a face under stubble and dirt. Rounded shoulders under a filthy coat, once an actual colour, now unknowable. Round balls of hands, fingers twisted in, peeking surprisingly clean from tattered sleeves, guarding an empty coffee cup. Jan smiled then struggled to maintain it as he caught the smell. Solly waved at a chair across from him.

  Jan sat down. “Harry says your name is Solly.”

  One eye was almost shut. The other pinned Jan, then darted over the room. “Harry’s is a good place. Stays the same, you know? S’important, you know? Some places—change. Don’t like that. Can’t tell if they’re just different, or...” He fixed Jan with that eye again. “Heard you talking.” Jan glanced back to where Kate chatted to Harry. Not a word reached Jan. Solly glared as if he read Jan’s mind. “Heard you!” He pounded the table with a crippled hand. “Solly’s seen things,” he rasped. “Seen things.” He looked around again, then lowered his head.

  Jan waited, but Solly said no more. Standing, Jan started to walk away when a wheezy whisper stopped him.

  “...out of the light. Gotta know the signs.”

  Jan turned back to the old man. “What did you say?”

  Solly’s head was still down. “Remember. S’important.” Hunched over his empty cup, he sat muttering to himself.

  Kate looked up when Jan returned. “What’d he want?”

  Jan shrugged. “You’ve got me. Buy him a coffee on my tab, will you, Harry?” Harry nodded and left.

  They ate and talked. “So if you hunt shifters,” Kate said, “and they don’t come to the city, why do you live here?”

  Jan looked out to where the gathering dark fed on a dying day. “I live here because they don’t. I don’t hunt them anymore. I got someone killed, Kate. Someone who trusted me.”

  She bit her lip. “I’m sorry,” she said. They sat silent for a moment, then she gave a small smile. “Anybody could understand why you’d want to get away from those things.”

  He looked back to her. “I wonder if I have.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Every civilization has had shapeshifter legends. I’ve always wondered why no such myth exists for our modern cities.”

  “Why would such creatures live in a city? Why not stay in the wild? Less chance of being seen,” she said.

  “Also less food. They’re predators who prefer human flesh.” He shuddered, remembering. “There’s more of that in a city.”

  “Sure, but you eliminated all the animal options.”

  He stared out at the night. “This is a different jungle. Maybe we’ve created a new niche, supporting a different predator. Convergent evolution. Its other form may not be animal at all.”

  “If it’s not an animal, what would it be?”

  “Don’t know, but it’s more likely to be seen in a crowded city, so its other shape would need to be downright mundane.”

  “But what?” she repeated.

  Jan looked out to where shadows fought pale neon. He wanted to say that it would be a thing at home with concrete and glass as a wolf was with earth and forest. A thing that breathed ozone like a summer breeze and held metal in its heart and electricity in its veins. A thing that not only lived in this realm of the lonely but fed on it. But he just said, “I don’t know.”

  Kate shook her head then checked the time. “Oops. I’ve got to go. There was another witness last night—a hooker. She won’t talk to the cops but she’s meeting me at midnight.” She looked at Jan and bit her lip again.

  “Why don’t I come with you?” he asked.

  She broke into a huge smile. “Great!” She put on her coat whil
e Jan wondered what he had just done. Solly shuffled over. “I also told Harry I’d walk Solly to the shelter,” she said.

  Solly peered outside. “We take Talbot?”

  Talbot was little more than an alley, with no lights. Jan shivered. “Let’s keep to well-lit streets. We’ll use Richmond.” As Solly started to argue, Harry called Jan to the phone.

  It was Garos. “Janoslav? Did you meet Kate Lockridge?”

  “Yeah. I think she’s on the level, but she’s a reporter. She, uh, knows about the corpse decay and the other victims.”

  Garos swore. “We checked her description of last night’s suspect.” He paused. “Jan, it matches a prior victim.”

  Jan felt a sudden coldness in his gut. “Victim? That doesn’t make sense. How could it be a dead guy?”

  “Jan, she was at the scene of the most recent killing and described a victim from another. Now you say she has further knowledge of these deaths. We’ll be talking to her again. In the meantime, be careful around her.” Garos hung up.

  Jan stared at the neon signs over the bar, trying to lose himself in their coloured swirls. A hand touched his shoulder. He jumped and turned to find Kate, Solly in tow. Jan’s face must have betrayed something. She looked puzzled. “Something wrong?”

  Jan shook his head. “No. Nothing,” he lied. “Let’s go.”

  Waving good-bye to Harry, they stepped out onto Richmond and turned east. The snow had stopped, and the sidewalks were slushy. “We take Talbot?” Solly asked again.

  “Richmond, Solly, or you go alone,” Jan said. Solly glared but fell silent, hanging by the curb and scanning the street as they walked. Jan kept thinking of Garos’s call. They reached Jarvis. A young blond woman stepped from a doorway, long white coat over a short red leather skirt, black stockings and boots.

  “There’s Carla,” Kate said and started toward the girl.

  A shout made them turn. Solly was backing away, wide-eyed and pointing a shaking hand to something above their heads. “No! Solly knows the signs. You won’t get Solly!” Terror on his face, he ran onto the street. Jan spun back. Above the doorway where Carla stood open-mouthed, a neon sign glared “Franny’s Tavern.” The first word was red, the second blue.

  The blue one was moving.

  In an eye-blink, the letters slid down the wall to form a glowing pool on the sidewalk. In another blink, a humanoid shape rose radiant white from the pool—female torso, face, hair, the shape of clothing, then colours, facial details.

  The face of the murder victim from last night.

  “Carla! Behind you!” Kate yelled.

  A spear of light stabbed from the creature’s hand, striking Kate full in the chest and Jan in the shoulder. Electricity flamed into him. Numbed, he collapsed to watch as the thing grabbed Carla by the throat and lifted her into the air.

  Slush seeping into his clothes, choking on ozone, Jan tried to move. A violent tremor shook Carla. Jan’s arms twitched. The creature held Carla higher, its glow brightening, colours cycling. Jan could feel his legs again. Carla fell limp, and the thing slapped her down like a wet towel. It turned to Kate.

  Gasping, Jan heaved himself to his knees and lunged forward. Somehow he got his hands under Kate’s armpits and dragged her just out of reach. “Get up!” he cried.

  “Can’t...move,” she gasped. He pulled her to her knees. The thing’s colours were fading, its features melting back into a smooth humanoid shape. It shimmered and changed again. And became Carla. The Carla-thing smiled. It stepped toward them.

  Inches from its outstretched arms, Jan hauled Kate up, and they lurched into the road. Stumbling but with returning strength, Jan scanned the street. From a dark alley across the road, a small round figure waved, a jerky motion from a stiff arm.

  Half dragging Kate, Jan struggled toward Solly. Footsteps sounded behind them. The back of his neck tingled as if an electrical charge was building at his back. He pushed Kate into the alley as something brushed his coat. Shoving a trash can behind him, he heard a thud and a sound no human throat ever made. The alley was dark, and Jan’s eyes still burned from the electrical flash. Ahead, Solly’s grey form disappeared to the right. Jan moved along the wall, Kate’s hand in his.

  “Now that thing looks like Carla!” she panted.

  “It takes the form of what it kills,” Jan gasped. That was why her description of the suspect had matched an earlier victim.

  A hand grabbed Jan from the darkness and yanked them both sideways. He could see nothing but he knew the smell. Solly pulled them along. Jan could feel walls to either side. They stopped. Jan reached ahead in the dark and touched another wall.

  Solly had led them into a dead end.

  “No!” Jan screamed. His nightmare seized him. Trapped in the dark with a monster. And with a woman who trusted him.

  ~~~

  Thirty-two. In a church basement outside Budapest. Waiting to die. Total darkness. Lying on damp earth, bound hand and foot. Stale smell of mildew stinging his throat. As he fought to awaken, a scream sliced the black, clearing the flames of pain in his head like a bucket of ice water. Stasia.

  He raged against his bonds. She screamed again. “Jan! Oh God, no! No! Help me!” Jan threw himself forward and managed to roll once. Her cries were clearer. But so was another sound.

  The sound of something feeding.

  Jan threw himself again but something held him fast. He could do nothing but lie in the dark, listening to the beast feed on the still-living Stasia. Praying in the dark for her screams to cease. Praying in the dark for her to die.

  An eternity passed. Then only the grunts of the beast remained. The stench of rotting meat grew strong as a huge shape moved closer in the darkness. Jan screamed.

  Blinding light suddenly flooded the room, and the roar of the were-wolf echoed in the roar of gunshots. Blood, thick and black and hot, struck Jan’s face as Garos shouted his name.

  ~~~

  In the dark alley, Jan shoved Solly away and turned to run back. Solly grabbed him, holding on with surprising strength. “No! Stay here. Out of the light. Solly knows!”

  A glow began at the entrance to the dead-end, but Jan still couldn’t see. Kate’s hand found his. “Jan?” she said.

  Hearing her fear, his panic fled, replaced by a feeling of resolve he had almost forgotten. He squeezed her hand. She would not die. “Solly, talk to me. Tell me what you know!”

  Solly’s voice quavered. “It don’t like the dark. We’re safe here. Right?” At this, Kate groaned.

  Jan swore, his mind racing. Light was the key. “It must feed off electricity, hiding as part of signs. When you chased it last night, it joined with the sign in the alley.”

  “That’s why the alley was brighter last night,” Kate said.

  “Sunlight must sustain it in the day, plus electricity. But when night comes...” Jan stopped. When night comes, it needed more. It needed its real food: human life force.

  The light at the entrance grew, and the glowing form of Carla appeared. “I thought it doesn’t like the dark,” Kate whispered.

  Jan swore. “It must still be hungry and figures we’re worth the risk. Solly, how long can it go without light?”

  “Five minutes,” he whined, “but a lot more if it just ate.”

  “Wonderful,” Kate said.

  Twenty paces away now, the thing lit the entire area. Its glow was dimmer, but Jan doubted that would save them. At least now he could see. He looked around, and his heart leapt. The wall behind them and the walls on either side each held a door.

  Jan grabbed the door handle behind them. Locked. So was the one to their right. He tried the last one. The handle turned a bit. He leaned on it and heard a click. He threw his weight against the door, and it squealed open with rusty protests.

  “Inside!” Kate cried, rushing forward, Solly in hand.

  “No!” Jan grabbed her, an idea forming. The thing was ten paces away. Pulling out his flashlight, he stepped into the room and flashed the beam around. The s
tock room of a store, twenty feet square. Not much space to manoeuvre. Could he do it? Could he finally face his darkness? By walking into it? He turned back. The thing was five paces away. He aimed his light at it.

  “No!” Solly cried. “It eats light!”

  Jan ignored him. “Kate, take Solly into the corner. After I lead it inside, close the door and don’t open it.” Kate turned pale but nodded and pulled Solly back. Jan stepped up, playing his beam over the creature. It turned to him. Keeping his light on it, he backed into the room. Darkness closed in on him and with it his fear. What had he done?

  The thing stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind it.

  It stopped and looked back. Its mouth opened, and a sound like fingers tapping fine crystal, filled the room. And somehow, in that sound Jan heard its hunger and its pain. A wave of empathy flooded him. They were alike. Hunters. Hiding their true shape. Fearing the night. The creature reached for him. I’m sorry, Jan thought. He turned off his light.

  The thing trembled, and its aura dimmed. But then Carla’s features and clothing faded, seeming to melt back into its body. A featureless human form remained, glowing blue-white.

  It’s conserving energy, Jan thought. It no longer needed to pretend to be human. He swallowed. How intelligent was it?

  A deadly game of tag began—the thing pursuing with the same plodding step—Jan retreating, avoiding corners, always leaving two paths of escape. With each passing minute, the thing’s aura dimmed, fading to blue, then yellow, then red.

  Finally it stopped, arms drooping. Jan sighed and relaxed. He noticed too late that the arms weren’t just drooping.

  They were growing.

  Both arms flashed out, three times normal length, easily covering the space between the thing and Jan. Taken by surprise, Jan dove aside, but a hand brushed his thigh. Electricity numbed his leg. He fell. Looming over him, the thing reached down.

  And stopped. Its colours cycled the spectrum then faded to grey. A sound like breaking glass fled a suddenly grotesque mouth. Its feet melted into a pool. The arms flowed back into a shrinking torso. Soon only the pool remained, faintly glowing.