Shadows in Light
Chapter 23

I did the first thing that made sense, all things considered.

I ran.

Hey, I had part of a plan, and that meant I needed some time to work out the rest. I put some distance between me and Eli, feeling that stalked sensation diminishing as I ran.

Eli had the advantage here and now, in daylight my Shadow took more effort to work properly, coupled with the fact I had to get away from people to ensure no one saw whatever was going on. I was sure Joseph and co wouldn’t react well if I were seen.

So, I needed to find a place out of the way of normal people, in the dark, within running distance.

I went towards the Underground.

This was not as easy as it sounds though, it’s not like I knew of any direct links to the Underground, except through the Pub.

I phoned Dave, as I ran, “Ryan, what’s up?”

“I’m being chased by Eli.”

Dave’s voice went tense, “Your day just isn’t getting better is it? What can I do for you?”

“I need an entrance into the Underground. I’m up near Blanchard and Fourth right now.”

He paused for a moment, “You need to go to Alaskan Way Viaduct by Lenora Street. In the fenced area there is a hidden entrance. It’ll get you into a quiet zone. Just be careful down there okay? It’s only recently been cleared out from a recent flooding.”

I rammed the phone back into my pocket and bolted even faster.

Unfortunately, there would be a lot of people heading around that area, going to Pike Place Public Market for their Sunday Market.

People. Cars.

Joy.

I could feel Eli’s presence increasing, so I couldn’t afford to slow. I started to weave through the people, bouncing between gaps to the dismay of people I was barging between. Some people got flat shoved out of the way as I went, but I had no other option.

Hitting the first street corner I got to a mass of cars bumper to bumper, blocking the entire road, forcing me to slow for a moment as I ran along, trying to find a gap to get through.

I hit Lenora, when a huge glass window exploded behind me, showering the road and the people around me in glass. People screamed and panicked, forcing me to shoulder them out of the way while trying to duck down.

I dodged into an alley, and barely had chance to duck under a glinting blade. Fortune favored me with my low stance in this case, and I was able to slam into the holder with my shoulder, sending him flying into a wall.

He bounced off the wall with barely a noise, the switchblade tumbling out of his fingers. I jumped close and hit him with an extremely ungentlemanly knee swung up between his opened legs, then grabbed his head as he collapsed downwards to introduce it to my knee.

Screw being nice, I wanted to live. I kicked his switchblade away, before I ran for it again without any further pause, cackling a little at the noise of pain coming from behind me.

I hit the next crosswalk and without pause, jumped over one car, and slid across the second, managing to hit the sidewalk before a couple of loud crunches happened not far from my head on the wall. I had no idea the cause, but it didn’t seem to cause any panic behind me as I kept going.

But for me it was an increased incentive to keep my legs going as fast as they could go, and I was gone before the car owner was out of his car, yelling down the street at me. Ahead of me in a couple of blocks or so I could see the Viaduct, but it wasn’t close enough for my liking.

I needed a distraction.

I did something that was, in all reality, probably stupid.

I pulled my gun out and shot it into the floor several times. Unlikely my attackers’ gun, mine made repeated loud bangs that echoed off the walls, causing an immediate effect on people. They screamed and started to run. Car horns went off, engines revved, and then cars crunched into each other.

In short, chaos reigned. And I had my distraction. I gave hope that no one would remember me when the police arrived as I ran along. But my distraction paid off, as nothing cracked or exploded around me. Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ (ꜰind)ɴʘvel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

I hit the bottom of the Lenore, and rather than fight with a fence, I gave a Shadow ram at the gate, causing it to go flying into a grassy and bush filled area. For a moment I couldn’t see a door there before it appeared to me clear as day. I swung it open and went into the welcoming darkness.

My night sight kicked in straight away, bringing that tinge to everything as I went down the sloping stone corridor. I wasn’t going to have long before Eli would be here, and I needed to get to a good spot to launch a counterattack.

I got into the main street area, seeing a downtrodden area, and took a moment to pause and look around. The streets and buildings seemed empty as far as I could see and overall, the place was filled with poorly maintained buildings.

As going right would theoretically take me back to the busier areas I saw before, I took a risk and went left, giving me even more buildings to pick. These tunnels and roads went on further than even I had guessed.

I didn’t run now I was in the Underground, but still moved along as quickly and quietly as I could. I paused at a corner, closing my eyes and focused on the feeling that Eli caused. I held my breath as the feeling didn’t change. It took several minutes before it started getting closer.

Part A was done, Eli was in the Underground.

Now I just needed to, you know, work out the rest of my plan.

Don’t look at me like that. I came up with something at least.

I went straight to the first place I could find, and stashed my bag after removing a few useful things, before hurrying along to the first crossroads I could find.

All four on this street were in various states of dereliction. A couple of them on opposite corners had collapsed walls, revealing the internals of the building. The other two had broken windows and semi collapsed parts to them without giving a clear shot them.

I quickly hopped into one of the buildings with collapsed corners, making a quick mess in the puddles and dirt, before I jumped over to the other collapsed one, kicking up as much of the mess in that one as I could, and hid the Coin Eli used to track me.

Moving quickly to the third building where I pushed open the door, before I left the fourth alone. I didn’t want it obvious which building I could be hiding in. They’d have to be suspicious about all the buildings due to the signs and lack of signs I’d left.

I bolted back to the first building I’d gone into and got myself upstairs using the rickety staircase at the back. I crouched down where I could see where I’d hidden the Coin without being easily spotted.

I figured Eli would move slowly to be careful, making sure no one jumped out at him. And I had to assume he had at least one friend with him. Even if said friend wouldn’t be walking quite right just yet.

I began the waiting game, my ears were listening to every noise, looking at every avenue into the crossroads. I wasn’t good at waiting, I’ll freely admit this, but I had to stay where I was for this to work.

Time passed, then a year more of it. Doubt started to creep across my mind. Had I messed this up?

Then I heard a soft whisper, the words weren’t clear, but the voice was Elis. He was here, and likely his waddling friend was here. I might have given a little smile of victory.

It took a bit longer before they appeared in my line of sight, walking into the junction before stopping. they hadn’t figured that I’d found the Coin, and after looking over the place, they ended up facing towards where the Coin was hidden. Waddle, however, nudged Eli and pointed to the open door, making Eli look around suspiciously.

I held my breath in hope my hiding place was good enough, but apparently either Eli couldn’t see as well as I could in the dark, or my hiding place was better than I thought. He looked over the ground in the building below me, and then continued over the fourth building that remained untouched by me. His attention focused on that while Waddle seemed to come to his own decision.

He headed towards the place where the Coin was hidden, drawing his knives, while Eli was fooled by the fourth door which he headed towards.

Eli pushed his way inside as Waddle got inside the collapsed building opposite me, heading towards the Coin. I decided quickly, I had hoped that Eli had gone after the Coin, it would have been easier to do what I had in mind.

But I had a chance, so I took it.

I closed my eyes and summoned up Shadow, pulling it to me as quickly as I could in the few seconds I had, and jumped off the edge of the building, tossing it the building that Eli had entered.

In the dark, a lot of Shadow came to me, even in that short space of time. By the time I threw myself off the second story, I had a mass of it rolling around me that shot at the building. It might not have hit it as well as I liked, but the wall buckled with an echoing boom, then collapsed inwards.

For a moment it seemed like that was all that was going to happen, but then the upper floor gave a crack and started to tumble downwards landing on top of everything below it.

I hit the ground panting a bit. I can’t explain how it felt pulling and throwing that much energy around, but it was tiring much like after a long race. But there was a good chance that Eli was out for a while, and I still had Waddle to deal with.

And when I looked at Waddle, he was coming right at me, another switchblade in hand.

I didn’t have the time nor the energy to pull Shadow to me at this point, even if my combat buddy was still wide stepping a little towards me. And he was too close to risk a gun. But I had handy thing on me that had been left to me.

Out of my pocket, I pulled the knife that had previously been in my stomach. I had planned to return it to Eli, but his buddy would do for now.

Waddle was, unsurprisingly, bigger looking than me. But with a large pain between his groin, and a nasty looking bruise on his head, I had the movement advantage. He swung at me when he got close enough again, which I had no difficulty dodging before slashing back with Eli’s knife.

I hadn’t accounted for the fact my combat partner had a longer reach than I did, which meant I couldn’t get close enough to use the knife properly, and I was going to have to try something fancy to avoid being hurt.

The return attack came, and I dodged backwards and to one side, using my faster movement to an advantage and sliced at him with the knife, causing a grunt of pain as he wobbled off balance some more.

Some primal part of me felt a surge of pride and power in myself. I wasn’t as bad at this fighting thing as I thought.

Waddle kept going with this swing with his knife, and I kept dodging away, trying to get close enough to cut him properly, but all I could do was wounds on his arms. And he was a tough guy, even with them, and the pain between the legs, he was holding his own, evading my attacks and working to attack me properly.

Trying to figure out what to do, I stopped paying attention properly. Fights are fast things even several attacks and defenses were only at most ten seconds long.

And in that time managed to slip out a second knife and slashed at the hand holding the knife, causing me to drop it onto the concrete floor with a cry of pain and dull thud that sounded echoing to my ears.

Waddles face split into a sadistic grin as I hopped back, snarling at me “Not so good now are you boy.”

Damn. Should have gone with the gun.

Waddle pressed his advantage, slashing at me with the knife, and I tried to get distance between us, but he pressed his advantage with his knives. And I was running out of time, there hadn’t been any flash of light, so it was entirely possibly Eli was going to be out shortly.

I needed to rethink my battle tactic, if I didn’t do that quickly I was going to at least get seriously injured and end up dead.

I threw a hand into my pocket desperately, and feeling something solid in it, I pulled it out in time to block his attack. His hand had smashed into the bar Alice had hidden in my apartment. I didn’t even remember getting it out my bag. But I was glad for it as his voice hissed in pain.

I followed it up by surprising him and ducking down under his next slice, and rolling forward a few times, getting distance between us that he couldn’t quickly make up.

And taking that upper hand I had, I desperately tried to summon up Shadow.

But instead of a Shield or preparation for a bolt, I felt it leave me instantly, flowing through me into the bar. The bar in turn expanded in an instant from a bar barely a foot long, into a staff as long as me, giving off a glow of midnight blue as it did.

We both froze in surprise at that, before Waddle continued to attack, trying to get in quickly before I used my extended reach. But I was faster and managed to bring the now staff down on his arm with a resounding crack as his bone broke and followed up with a whack to the head. He screamed once, then gurgled as his arm went, falling to his knees in front of me.

Waddle tried to attack me with his other knife from his knees, but I was at no real risk from his clumsily attempts and smacked his hand to leave him disarmed in front of me, gasping and attempting to glare up at me.

He coughed out at me, “You won’t win boy! They’re stronger than you, bigger numbers than you, and they’ll get it back.”

I snapped back, “And they won’t get it. It’s mine now.” I had no idea what he was talking about in truth, I was guessing though it might be this bar.

And I was stalling, I had to kill him in theory. Seeing a building drop on someone was easier than beheading him.

This was the moment I decided what lengths I was willing to go to. What kind of person I was? And I was falling in my determination to kill this man, despite his desire to kill me, I’d frozen.

But I was saved by every sense in me screaming to dive out of the way, and I was midair as a roar came from behind me, and bright Light flashed through my vision, hitting the kneeling Waddle.

I saw his face try to scream, but I never heard it as the blast of Light rushed over him, engulfing his whole body with that roaring noise. I hit the ground and rolled to one side, managing to point myself in the direction the Light came from. There amid the fallen wall I’d dropped on him, I could see Eli trying to get to his feet.

I responded with calling more Shadow as I got to my own feet. This time rather than absorbing it, the newly created staff felt like it was helping me out as I used it to get to my feet, pulling in the darkness around me. I raised my hand at him and once again let it go.

Eli tried to dodge it, but I wasn’t aiming for him. Dropping a building on him was apparently a successful method of slowing him down.

I did it again, making the Shadow hit the wall behind him with a resounding explosion of stone. There was a moments pause before the entire wall buckled inwards, quickly followed by the rest of the three-story building, covering Eli with a mass of bricks, mortar and concrete.

I panted, leaning on the staff watching the brickwork. But nothing moved except dust and a little brick falling from the pile. Then there was a flare of light that burnt through the place as if someone had set off a huge flare for the briefest of seconds.

I laughed out loud, even with the tiredness flooding over me from those two huge shots, and the fights. Glancing to one side I could see Waddle still kneeling there. He hadn’t gone up in a flash of Light. He was kneeling in the same position as when the Light had hit him. His face was crackled like burnt paper, and he wasn’t breathing as far as I could see.

Falling back on a good method of doing things, I poked him with my staff thing. The moment I did he started to crumble into dust. But as he did, I felt my staff shudder, and glow as it seemed to be doing something. The marks all over it glowed in a bright red as Waddles body crumbled to nothing, leaving just his burnt clothing crumpled there.

I looked at my staff for a moment, trying to figure it out, before it shimmered and retracted back to the bar. It almost felt like it had a mind of its own to me, or maybe I just didn’t understand what it was for at this point.

Either way, I put it back into my coat for now. Weird though it was, it was useful. I picked up my knife, then searched through the clothing Waddle had left behind. Gaming had taught me to take anything I could to ensure I could gain useful items. Waddle had a cellphone in his pocket, an ID-less wallet with a few low-level notes in it, keys and a couple more of those horrible knives. As Eli was entombed, I wasn’t going to get anything useful from him.

I grabbed the Coin again, taking some pictures of it on my cell phone, which seemed safe to me, and went back to my bag. Breaking out a good old fashioned energy drink, I headed out of the Underground.

Victorious.

I liked that word.

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