Shadow II
Written by B.A. Savage
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An original publication of Savage World Entertainment.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, except for use of quotes for review purposes. For information, please contact
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Printed in the U.S.A.
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McLaughlin City Series
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Tomb: Expect the unexpected as the tomb protects itself from intruders.
Shadow: A million dollar female assassin hell bent on revenge.
Archan: The cat burglar with the power to talk to animals.
Coming Soon!
Century: A man who ages one year every hundred and believes himself to be immortal, finds out his origins and at the same time must deal with this new information. Meanwhile, trying to discover the connection between a series of recent thefts, he figures out that a recent addition to his life seems to be connected also.
Ms. Grimsley: Years after her parents were killed inadvertly in the crossfire of an organized drug bust by the McLaughlin City PD, Ms Grimsley, and the son of the officer who allegedly fired the shoot that killed her father, cross paths. Bad news for him, she has the ability to control the recently deceased.
Archan II: After dealing with her former employees, the Katsuya Corporation, Shadow decides to deal with other parts of her past; her abusive father, her displaced caring mother, and younger brother she has never met. Unfortunately, her plans are interrupted by a creature who’s killing spree’s pace has increased. With assistance from Archan and Century, she hopes to finally get the life she had stolen from her back.
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Chapter 1
McLaughlin City National Park has its normal buzz like it does most late nights. The foot traffic consists of the usual visitors to the city, patrol officers, late night joggers and late night muggers. Tonight is no different. Unfortunately, there’s never enough patrol officers to counter the muggers. McLaughlin City Police Chief Darren King has been quoted unfavorably as saying, “We don’t need more officers in the park after dark. We need fewer citizens in the park after dark.”
On a typical night anywhere between two to six muggings occur and the majority of them go unreported, mainly due to the well-known fact that the police could care less about the happenings of this park at night. Hapless victims are treated like dimwits by the reporting officers.
A lady in a bright red jogging outfit, speed-walking through the park followed by two individuals is about to become just another statistic. Luckily, these men had no sexual desires as they leave her in the bushes that they dragged her in. Besides a few minor scrapes and bruises, the only things hurt were her sense of security and the great vision she had of the big city. McLaughlin City is one the world’s fastest growing cities, full of employment chances and opportunity, especially in the mugging department of labor and industry.
As these two men sit on a park bench dividing their nightly earnings, an extremely attractive woman walks by them, wearing an extremely form fitting outfit. Some kind of jogging outfit, they figure, complete with a fanny pack.
One of the men turn toward the other, “Man, they were right! This is the city of opportunity. And did you see how stuffed that waist belt looked?”
The other man replied by simply getting up to give pursuit of their next victim. As the men approach, the woman picks up her pace. The two men love this reaction, to them it means that she’s scared. Most people become overwhelmed with fear and can’t react well; some even freeze up, which makes their job that much easier.
The lady looks back a couple of times, then picks up her pace to a slight jog. The men copy. Finally the lady turns off the path and runs into some bushes. The men several feet behind give full pursuit into the bush.
“Stupid bitch. Does she think this is gonna slow us down? We would have dragged her dumb ass into the bushes anyways.”
When the muggers clear the bush and enter a small clearing they come to a complete and sudden stop. They look at each other, then back at the lady. She is standing facing them about twenty feet in front of where they stopped. Her grin does two things at the same time. It throws the would-be muggers into shock and anger simultaneously.
“So you want some of us? What are you, a fucking cop or something?”
The lady shakes her head no. This adds more fuel to their fire.
“How could a common Joe have the balls to stand up to us? And a woman too!” stated one of the men.
“Well lady, we don’t usually try to hurt the people we mug...much. But in your case, I think we’re gonna hurt you something good.”
The lady grins an even bigger smile, exposing her flawless teeth. She motions for them to bring it.
The first man, the talker of the two, charges her, and with little effort she lays him out cold. She turns toward the other man who’s shocked and pissed at what he just witnessed. He flips out his switchblade, “You’re gonna pay for this, you stupid bitch!”
This comment turns her smile into an intense frown, she mumbles, “I’ll show you bitch.”
The man sloppily charges her. She grabs him by the wrist that he’s holding the knife with and with her free arm grabs the same arm and breaks it over her shoulder. The man screams in pain and drops to the ground holding his arm. The lady walks over to the unconscious man and searches his pocket. She pulls out a fistful of dollars and lint, no wallet.
“Makes sense to carry no I.D.” She thought to herself.
Rolling in agony with his broken arm, the man notices her digging into his downed partner in crime’s pockets. “What? You’re robbing us? What the fuck!”
She starts walking over toward him. He yells, “You fucking cunt, you can’t do this!”
The insulting comment flips the same switch as before and that furious frown appears again, and it’s the last thing this man would see for the night, along with her boot as she ran and soccer style kicked him in the face.
She empties his pockets also, taking the loot from the evening’s earlier muggings. She unzips her fanny pouch and puts the money neatly between several smoke bombs and ninja stars. She zips up, leaves the bush and heads back onto the main trail.
“Mike’s Junkyard” reads the lettering on the door. “Closed” reads the sign on the door. The latter never has mattered to Shadow, and just because she goes by her newly discovered name doesn’t change a thing. A ninja assassin by trade, stealth has never been an option, but a requirement. She’s already passed through the office and has made her way back to the living quarters of the on-site owner. She stands behind the chair that the owner is seated in. He’s listening to Jazz on the radio.
“Hello Betty, out late again tonight huh?” asks the man.
Stunned that he knew she was there, “...but how?”
“I’m blind, remember, but I can still hear just fine,” says the man with a smile and his back still towards her.
“But I didn’t make a sound.”
“Why do you feel the need to sneak around so much?”
She doesn’t answer him. She feels and knows the less he knows, the better it is for both of them. Only if he knew how close she came to killing him when he accidentally foun
d her working on her bike at his junkyard. For being blind, he knows his way around “his” junkyard. That time he caught her off-guard. Never again. And the fact that he heard her in the living room now, makes her wonder about her stealth like abilities, was all this “civilian” living hurting her skills?
This pause in conversation lets Mike know to let it go, “Oh well, it’s your business. Just promise me that you’ll be careful. You know a lot of bad people are out there every night. That’s why I stay here with Spot,” he leans over and rubs the head of his seeing-eye dog.
Shadow looks over this old black man, his features show that he was probably a handsome man when he was younger, but anger suddenly fills her heart.
“At least he had a chance to grow old and a chance to live a life!”
Then she manages to check her anger, she knows it’s not his fault. The people whose fault it was, that she lost at least a decade of her life, had paid for it with their lives, she made sure of that.
She reaches into her fanny pack and pulls out some money and hands some to Mike, “Here,” she says.
“I don’t need your money, dear. I do fine all by myself. Plus you already paid for your storage space this month,” says Mike without turning.
“How’d you know it was money?” asks Shadow, with a hint of paranoia.
“Cause it’s the only thing you hand me, dear,” he answers with a hearty chuckle.
He is right. Shadow is a little embarrassed. Embarrassment and a whole lot of other emotions are still new to her. She says nothing and doesn’t show it.
Mike says, “Sorry if I hurt your feelings; I didn’t mean to. I just like you being here with me. I love all the questions you ask. It’s like having a grandchild around asking questions about the world.”
“It’s okay, I was just thinking.”
“Thinking about what?’’
“A lot of stuff.”
This is her answer when she isn’t going to talk about the real issue at hand. He learned this early in their many conversations.
“Well, if you want to talk, you know I’m all ears,” he says with a smile.
This was always his answer in this friendly exchange, between them as if he knew this joke about his blindness would make her smile every time, which it did, every time.
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re really blind old man.”
“Since day one,” he says still with his back to her. He adds, “Why don’t you give that money to charity or a church? You know, I give my tithe every month and there are a lot of people who could be helped with just a little money.”
Shadow had given up hope that there was a God. If there was how, could he let a child go through what she had, only to grow up and be surgically experimented on and have her past wiped clean? To lose over ten years of her adulthood after an abusive childhood; There was no God, no Almighty; “He”, as Mike referred to. This had been some of the topics of their earliest conversations. She never indulged all her personal information to Mike, only that she’s been through a lot. Any desire to donate anything to church or even helping people, was a loss after that realization.
“No, Ford, I don’t think I’ll do that.”
“Well, it’s your choice. God still loves you,” he smiles. Then adds, “And dear, why do you still insist on calling me Ford?”
“Cause it’s your name.”
“Yes, my last name. But dear, we are friends, right? I call you by your fist name right?”
She never thought of it that way, but then again she’s never had a friend.
“It’s just the way I was prog... taught. Sorry, Ford, too late to teach a dead dog new tricks,” she tries to smile, not thinking about the fact that he can’t see it.
Mike’s been trying to help her develop a sense of humor, because she had none when they first met. He smiles and corrects her, “It’s ‘teach an old dog new tricks’.”
“Same thing,” she says plainly.
“So you’re saying I’m dead, dear?” he chuckles. Word play is not her forte but she herself asked for help with it, so she’s not upset with Mike’s kidding but she can only take so much conversation a day, not really used to it yet. “Well, I’m gone.”
He doesn’t reply, he’s learned over the months that means she’s already exited the room, which she had.
Chapter 2