Soren stood quietly in his apartment while Ken kept apologizing to Sara. He wasn’t interested in the two of them, but kept his eyes focused on Alex. The boy was ostensibly playing with the zipper on his jacket, but Soren could tell he was listening to every word.
He wished he had some games or books to give the kid, but Soren didn’t even own a TV. His interest in that world had gone up in smoke seven years ago.
“I’m sorry,” Ken said. “I looked away for a moment…”
“A moment was all it took,” Sara replied.
Soren had heard this conversation twice already, and he imagined Alex had listened to it several more times. He looked at Ken and Sara on the couch and resisted the urge to hit the two of them.
“You’re both to blame,” he said out loud. “Can we please move on to something important?”
All three of his guests looked at him in surprise.
“Wait a minute,” Ken said. “Sara wasn’t at fault. It was my resp...”
“You made her feel safe,” Soren said. “So she relaxed a little. She stopped watching Alex as closely as she should.”
“Listen buddy, I don’t care how far back you go with her...” Ken said.
Soren looked at Sara and saw the hurt and indignation on her face. But he also saw her acceptance.
“He’s right,” she said.
“Great,” Soren said. “So that’s settled. Let’s get back to business.”
“No, I want to...” Ken said.
“I don’t give a shit what you want,” Soren said. “Your guilt is completely irrelevant to me. You both had a job to do, which was to keep Alex away from this creature. You failed. The good news is that Alex is still here, so we don’t need to sit here trading accusations and apologies while he listens in. We need to get to the bottom of this fast.”
Ken was opening his mouth to speak again, his face flushed with anger, but Sara put a hand on his arm. She nodded briefly toward Alex, who watched his mother with wide eyes.
“Drop it,” Sara said.
Soren remembered that tone of voice from when they were kids. Both John and he had learned quickly to obey her when she spoke like that, or suffer unpleasant repercussions. Apparently Ken had as well, because he shut his mouth.
“Good,” Soren said. “Because I want to get back to what the shade told you.”
Soren had filled them in on his conversation with Terry, though he wasn’t sure how much attention they’d given it. He paused now and waited for one of them to ask him what a shade was, but that part appeared to have gotten through.
“He said he wasn’t trying to harm Alex; he was trying to save him,” Sara said.
“Do you believe him?” Soren asked.
Sara looked flustered.
“No,” she said. “He was obviously trying to kidnap Alex.”
“Okay, sure,” Soren said. “But when he spoke those words, did you think he was telling the truth? Was he trying to take Alex because he wanted to protect him from something?”
Sara stared at him for a long moment.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Of course he wasn’t telling the truth,” Ken said. “He shoved me out of the way like I was paper. He was going to forcibly grab Alex if Sara hadn’t gotten there.”
“That’s an interesting point actually,” Soren said. “If the shade can throw you around like that, why stop when Sara grabbed Alex? Surely if he could take down a trained police officer, he could take out Sara.”
“He threw you around too, as I remember it,” Ken said.
Soren threw his hands into the air in frustration.
“This isn’t a pissing contest!” he said.
“Soren!” Sara said, looking in Alex’s direction. The boy glanced at Soren, clearly puzzled.
“Yes, the shade can defeat me too,” Soren said. “So the point is, why does he stop when Sara shows up? You two need to focus.”
“You aren’t exactly making this easy, Soren,” Sara said, giving him another look he’d seen often when they were kids. She usually reserved it for when she was sick of him fooling around.
He put his hand through his hair. He was mad at Sara for letting Alex almost get taken, but was that it? He looked at Ken and Sara again. Clearly the two of them were dating, or at least had dated. Soren wasn’t sure exactly which.
“Undoubtedly true,” Soren said. “But we are collectively making it easy on the shade, and we need to stop. Alex isn’t alone at all from here on out, understand? No more distractions. I don’t know how many more chances we’re going to get.”
Soren noticed that Alex was raising his hand. For a moment, he was tempted to laugh, but he didn’t want to hurt the boy’s feelings.
“What’s on your mind, son?” Soren asked.
“I do,” Alex said.
Soren was confused.
“You do what?”
“I believe him,” Alex said. “The shade. I know you guys keep telling me he’s trying to hurt me, but when he talks to me... it doesn’t feel that way. He’s very...”
Alex seemed to be searching for a word.
“Comforting?” Sara offered, taking his hand into hers.
Alex nodded.
“You said these things could hypnotize people?” Ken asked. “Maybe this is part of that. He’s trying to hypnotize Sara and Alex into thinking he doesn’t want to hurt them.”
Soren shook his head. What Ken was saying was a possibility, but for some reason he doubted it. On two occasions, the shade had attacked men nearby, but he hadn’t gone after Sara either time he encountered her. It might mean he was telling the truth.
“Let’s say he is trying to save Alex,” Sara said. “What is he trying to save him from? He wasn’t in any danger before the shade showed up.”
“That we know of,” Soren said. “He told you that Alex was ‘next.’ We thought he was referring to something he was going to do, but what if he wasn’t? The one thing we know about shades is that they are powerful psychics. It’s possible this thing can see the future and knows Alex is in trouble.”
But if that were true, Soren thought Alex was in even more danger than he suspected. The shade might know something else was hunting Alex. The thought made Soren anxious. It could mean it was a normal human or another supernatural creature. He had no idea what they might be facing.
Soren began pacing the room, walking between his living room and dining room. He kept turning over the shade’s behavior in his mind. The shade had been angry about Alastair. He’d come right at Soren when he mentioned the boy’s name. A disturbing thought entered Soren’s head. What if the shade hadn’t kidnapped Alastair, but something else had? What if the monster had been trying to “save” Alastair too, but failed? It would explain the shade’s fury, at least. If he had succeeded in taking the other boy, it didn’t make sense that he would still be angry about it.
He ran his theory past Ken and Sara. While the cop looked skeptical, Sara began nodding.
“That’s it,” she said. “The key is figuring out what Alastair and Alex have in common. There must be something.”
Alex raised his hand again, and Soren pointed at him to speak.
“Both our names start with A?” he said.
Sara smiled and patted his hand.
“Let’s hope that’s not it,” Soren said. “Otherwise any friends named Adam, Aiden, and Alphonso are also in real trouble. But I like that you’re thinking about it. Keep doing that. Adults often miss what’s right under their noses.”
Soren began pacing again. They weren’t totally in the dark. They knew that the shade was at least involved with Alastair’s case. If the shade hadn’t taken him, someone else had. That meant the key to figuring out Alex’s case lay in examining Alastair’s.
“I need to have access to Alastair’s case file,” Soren said.
Ken nodded.
“I looked through them already, but I might have missed something,” he said. “I’m happy to move this to my place,
where there’s a little more room — and weapons.”
Soren looked at Sara, who shook her head.
“I’d rather be out here,” she said.
Ken appeared hurt, but Sara kept talking.
“We’re in Leesburg, remember?” she asked. “We’re miles away from the playground or soccer field.”
“I don’t know how much that matters to a creature like this,” Soren said. “It used to be in Oregon, remember?”
“I’d rather not chance it,” Sara said.
“You’re welcome to stay here, Ken,” Soren said.
Sara looked at him in obvious surprise. Soren would have enjoyed watching Ken leave. He hated the way the cop looked at Sara. It reminded Soren of a puppy. But having the cop here could be useful. For starters, he needed someone with access to the police database.
Ken also seemed puzzled by the offer. He was probably assuming that Soren and Sara had been romantically linked in the past, and that Soren would use this as an opportunity to rekindle an old romance.
“It might help if you brought your laptop here, so we can help you with the search,” Soren said. “I want to broaden it to see if there are other cases where our friendly neighborhood shade might have shown up. If we can establish any kind of pattern, we might have a better idea of what’s happening.”
“I’ll drive home and get my laptop and some clothes,” he said.
Soren just nodded. Alex yawned noticeably.
“So we’re going to have another sleepover?” he asked.
“Looks that way,” Soren said.
“Yay,” the boy said and he jumped off the couch and ran over to the bathroom. Ken made a move to follow him, but Soren shook his head.
“There’s no window in there,” he said. “There’s no access point for anyone to grab him. But I’m glad he’s gone for a minute, because we need to talk about something.”
They waited for Alex to close the bathroom door. Soren lowered his voice.
“Let’s say our working theory is right,” Soren said. “Let’s say the shade really is trying to ‘save’ Alex. He might still be a threat.
“Sometimes supernatural creatures have funny ideas about helping mortals. And from what we can tell, this shade seems a little off his rocker. He’s obsessed with helping Alex and kids like him, but we have no idea what that means. He could spirit Alex away to a deserted island or make him invisible for the rest of his life.”
“He could do that?” Sara asked.
“Probably not literally, I’m just trying to give examples,” Soren said. “We don’t know what the shade wants to do. What I fear most is that the shade believes Alex is in for an unpleasant death, one in which he suffers. In that context, ‘saving’ him might mean...”
He let his drift voice off, but Sara finished the sentence anyway.
“That he’ll just make it quick,” Sara said. “So his goal might still be to kill him.”
Chapter Nine