Chapter 8
Shadow unnoticed, has been trailing Archan roughly for half an hour. She hides, under the camouflage of darkness, in the place that Archan vacated for another place of hiding. They both repeat this pattern until Archan spots a man hiding by a bush. The man grabs a passing lady from behind and drags her into the bushes. He tosses her down onto a blanket he had laid out for this purpose.
“Please don’t hurt me. Take my purse, just please don’t hurt me,” pleads the lady.
The man smiles, “I plan to take more than your purse, lady.”
Archan drops down from the tree above, landing on the man’s shoulders facing him and uses his momentum to flip the man several feet through the air. The man lands with a huge thud. The lady gets up and immediately runs over to the downed man, “Honey, are you alright?!” she asks.
Archan can’t believe his ears, “Honey, are you alright?” she repeats.
The man recovering on his rump replies, “Yes, buttercup. My tail bone hurts a little, but I am okay.”
Archan yells, “What the heck’s going on here?!”
The lady angrily explains, “We were trying to add some spark back into our relationship, so we decided to role play, since we heard about all the recent...”
Archan cuts her off, “What in the world?! Do you think this is a game? People are dying around here. Get out of my park, you perverts! Now!”
The couple gathers themselves hastily and then exits the area. Archan shakes his head in disbelief. Trying not to laugh, he says, “Can you believe that?”
He stands still for a moment, then repeats himself, “I said ‘Can you believe that?” Yes, you up in the tree.”
Shadow, now in full ninja gear, hiding in the tree above him, didn’t believe he was talking to her. She didn’t even think he knew she was above him,” How did you know?” she asks.
“Cana told me.”
“Is Cana an animal or something?” she asks sarcastically.
“No, well, not really. He’s kind of hard to explain, but he’s my guardian.”
“How’d he know it was me?”
“Who else would be following me?”
She jumps down from the tree, and decides to get to the important issue at hand, “I believe that creature you are looking for attacked my mother and now she’s in a coma. I want that creature.”
“That was your mother? I heard about the incident from one of the creatures here.”
Not believing one bit about him talking to animals and wanting to catch this creature, she rudely replies, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but how are we going to find it?”
“Why is it so hard to believe I can communicate with animals?” asks Archan.
She rolls her eyes in frustration. He says, “Here, give me a chance to prove it, okay?”
“Go ahead.” Shadow hopes that this might speed things up.
Archan points at a squirrel over by the back of a tree, “See that squirrel? I’ll make it come over to me.” They both look at the squirrel, seconds later Archan is holding it in his hand, rubbing it gently. “See?”
“Cool....not!” She thinks to herself, “Where did I pick that up at?” she laughs to herself.
Her mask hides the doubts that her facial expressions are reflecting.
“Okay, so can we get down to finding this thing? I have a blood sample of it. Maybe it can help us figure out what it is and maybe an antidote to whatever it did to my mother.”
“You mean the purple smoke?” he asks.
“Yes, but how...let me guess, an animal told you right?”
“Yes, but that’s pretty much all the bird told me, except that it seemed like a giant bug of some sort.”
Getting off the subject of talking animals, “So, what now? Do you have any idea where it is? Or do you know anything about how to do blood work?” she asks.
“No to both questions, but I know someone who should be able to help with the blood work and get you an antidote. He’s pretty resourceful,” says Archan, who starts walking toward a payphone in the park. Shadow stand off to the side in the comforting darkness.
Archan uses the telephone briefly then walks back over to Shadow, “He’ll meet us here in about half an hour.”
“So, who is this person?”
“His name is Bob Johnson, but I personally think it’s a fake name. You know nowadays everyone seems to have a secret identity,” he laughs, then asks, “So by the way, what’s your name?”
With no emotions she answers, “It’s a secret.”
Archan laughs.