The Covenant of Shadows Collection Read online

  It is beautiful, Gabrian thinks, getting lost in the illusion and inhales again.

  This time, as she inhales, she breathes in some of the light fragments too. Intoxicating jolts of energy begin to flow through her entire body. It is like nothing she has ever felt before, and it envelopes her in a euphoria of sensations. A blur of colours, sounds, tastes, and smells ignite her hunger to taste more of it. She pulls the air in over and over again with more effort in each breath, exhaling out excess waves of pleasure. Gabrian feels alive and unguarded. Surging from all of the uncharted emotions flowing through her—feeling a strange rapture from this new energy that she draws in—she lets go of her self-restraint and allows it to overwhelm her to the point of collapse.

  Where am I, and why is it so dark? I cannot see anything. Wait, I can hear something...birds, it sounds like Ravens.” Lost in darkness, Gabrian’s fingers begin to burn as panic sets in.

  The cawing of the Ravens grows louder and louder. She screams at them, but her words are slow and jumble into an incoherent mess of sounds. She feels stuck in the dream again—the one where no one can hear her, where no one will help her. She catches the sound of footsteps coming toward her, but they do not stop—they just walk on by.

  Gabrian hears someone laughing amongst the calls of the Ravens. It is getting closer and the ominous sound of it sends chills down her spine.

  The Raven’s cackles become deafening, but she swears that it sounds like they are saying something.

  “He is coming, he is coming.”

  They shriek so loud that her eardrums feel as if they might explode. Her head aches from the bombardment of sounds battling for her attention. The pain slicing through her is too much for her to handle. She places her hands over her ears, trying to drown it all out, but they are inside her head, unrelenting and resolute.

  A soft voice whispers above all the noise. “It is just a dream, Gabrian. Wake up, you must wake up.”

  She gathers every ounce of lucid control she can muster and screams until her throat aches with pain.

  “Stop it! Just stop it, please!”

  Chapter Four

  A Raven and a Grinch

  THERE IS ONLY the sound of silence, but the Darkness fades, and Gabrian sees fragments of light bleeding in slowly from all around her. She blinks and squints her eyes from the brightness of the sunlight that shines down on her face. She feels it embrace her body, filling it with warmth.

  Surrounded by fields of green grasses and tall yellow timothy that dance and sway with the gentle ocean breeze, she sits up to look around. Perched on a rock beside her is a Raven. Quietly it sits, tilting is head from side to side and watches her as if it is concerned with her well-being. She searches for a clue as to where she might be and finds a tall lighthouse in the distance, worn by weather and time. Like a beacon of hope that shines through the night, it stands out against the sea of greens, yellows, and blue.

  Standing between the lighthouse and the Raven, she notices a figure. Gabrian cannot quite make out who it is, but she knows it is a woman with long dark hair surrounded by soothing silver light. She looks familiar, but Gabrian cannot see her face clear enough to tell who she is. The woman raises her hand and waves at Gabrian. As she lifts her own hand to wave back, the sky begins to darken.

  Clouds the colour of charcoal quickly cover the sun. The warmth she once felt has now been replaced with an icy breeze—prickling her skin. The earth beneath Gabrian’s feet rumbles and shakes. Crouching down and reaching toward the ground in hopes of stabilizing her footing, she looks over at the Raven, and it gives her a sympathetic look.

  “Storm is coming!” it whispers to her then takes flight, flapping its large shadowy wings and disappears into a blur. Her eyelids droop, becoming heavy as the Darkness surrounds her again.

  Gabrian fights to open her eyes. She reaches out with her hands to grab hold of something, anything, only to find a cool, smooth surface. The world has turned her upside down. She wakes to find herself lying on the floor of the bar where she was sitting only moments before, being gently shaken by Rachael. There are blurred faces all around her chattering, but she does not understand what they are saying; too many voices come at her all at once. Then she singles one out in particular:

  “Gabrian, Gabrian can you hear me? Please say something,” Rachael’s voice echoes for a moment in her ears then clears as she continues to plead with Gabrian, gently stroking her hair. “Are you okay? Can you get up?”

  From the expression on Rachael’s face, Gabrian figures that she must have given her quite a start. She looks around and sees everyone staring at her. Some of them look at her, assuming she has had too much to drink, but others seem to have legitimate concern. She realizes she better become coherent quickly or the remainder of her night will be spent sitting in a hospital room. Regardless of the slight psychotic episode she has just endured, that is no way to start off the weekend.

  “Yes, I can hear you. Yes, I am okay, and yes I can get up. Just give me a moment,” Gabrian grumbles as she crawls her way back up into her chair. Readjusting herself, she overhears a conversation from the table in front of her—the origin of the light strands she had become so fixated with earlier. The two women speak as if they have had some kind of occurrence as well.

  “I know just how that poor girl must be feeling. I kind of thought for moment that I was going to pass out and fall out of my chair, too. They must be making these drink specials extra strong tonight because my head feels like it is swimming.” The blonde girl giggles.

  “That is strange. I was feeling a bit peculiar myself. I hope she is okay though. It has to be the drinks.” The girl chuckles then grins mischievously at her friend. “We should order another round.” They both burst out laughing and agree.

  “Do you need me to take you to the hospital?” Rachael interrupts Gabrian’s eavesdropping and reaches for her arm.

  “No, I am fine, Rach. A little exhausted from the day, I guess.” Gabrian gives her a convincing smile. “I just need to go home and rest. I will be good as new in the morning.”

  “You are sure, Gabe?”

  “Yes. I am fine.”

  Gabrian and Rachael gather their things from the backs of their chairs then head for the stairs. “I do have one request though.”

  “Sure, anything you want,” Rachael promises.

  “Next time we go out, maybe we should make sure we have something to eat before we let the Grinch out of the bottle. Agreed?”

  Laughing out loud, Rachael hugs her friend tightly. “Agreed.”

  Chapter Five

  Kettle and Smoke

  IT IS SATURDAY morning and Gabrian’s apartment is quiet. The streets below are even quieter. At five o’clock in the morning, life is yet to start pumping through the veins of the city.

  “So why on Earth am I awake and so full of energy?” Gabrian wonders out loud.

  After last night’s fiasco, she thought she would be exhausted and sleep in until noon. But apparently that is not the case. There is no headache, no aches, pains, or any other signs that would suggest she took a tumble to the floor either. She feels great—like she is ready to take on the world. Well, maybe not the entire world, but a small manageable portion of it. She looks down at her hand where she had given herself a paper cut yesterday, but it was gone.

  “Huh. That is odd. I could have sworn that the cut was pretty deep.”

  Gabrian jumps up out of bed and wanders around her apartment, trying to recall the events that had taken place the night before. What could have made her collapse like that? She had not felt tired or hungry—not really—not enough to make someone faint anyway.

  “I need coffee. Coffee will help put things into perspective. It always does,” she declares, absolute in the decision, and jogs into the kitchen. She pours some water into the kettle and turns it on then rounds two large tablespoons of coffee into her press, eagerly waiting for the water to boil.

  “It is too quiet in here. I need some noise. I wond
er who is up and wants to have coffee with me this morning.” She reaches out her hand to turn the radio on, but before she touches the button, the vocal talent of David Levine bellows out of the speaker. “What the…” She jumps back. “That is freaky.”

  Gabrian scratches her head, trying to find a logical answer to this bazaar phenomenon. “Ah, I must have forgotten to shut off the alarm on the radio last night,” she tries to convince herself, knowing full well that the alarm does not go off until six-thirty a.m. which is still over an hour away. Making it a point not to check the time on the alarm, she turns away and returns to stare at the kettle as it begins to whistle.

  She pours the hot water into the coffee press and fills her cup. The steam rises slowly, and she closes her eyes as she inhales the incredible aroma of the brewed coffee as the room starts to shift and whirl quickly around her. Then it stops.

  Gabrian opens her eyes and finds herself no longer standing in her own kitchen, but in a dark corner, back at the bar again. This time she is an onlooker of the events that had unfolded the night before.

  She watches as her doppelganger stands mesmerized within a trance, inhaling multiple streams of light with every breath—light that is fragmenting off of the people beside her. Her mirror-self looks empowered by it as she devours every morsel, and her bodily form takes on the subtle glow of an aura that grows brighter all the while.

  It is not like the other auras she has seen—it shimmers and sparkles like stardust. Suddenly, it turns to grey. Gabrian’s mirrored-self wavers and becomes unbalanced. Just before she falls to the floor, her aura shifts colour again—turning dark and smoky—like the one she had seen hovering around the bar when she had searched for the mysterious man.

  Gabrian hears laughter coming from somewhere behind her. She is certain that she has heard that laugh before…that ugly, cynical laugh. She searches around the bar to find its source, but she cannot see anything but grey smoke strangely slithering toward her mirrored-self. When it reaches her, the smoke hovers around the body, circling round and round as Gabrian’s carbon copy falls slowly to the floor.

  “That cannot be smoke,” Gabrian whispers. “Smoke does not move like that! What the hell is that thing?” The smoke stops shifting as if it can hear her and turns, rushing toward her. “Holy crap, it is coming right at me!” Gabrian screams.

  She turns around quickly to run but stops abruptly, realizing she is back in her kitchen, holding the kettle. “What the…?” she utters, bewildered. Gabrian covers her chest with her hand, feeling her heart beat like crazy beneath her skin. She glances back over her shoulder, looking for the smoke that had been heading straight for her a second ago.

  She finds nothing, only the kitchen rooster staring back at her from the countertop and the microwave clock flashing seven o’clock over and over again. She slips backward, leaning against the fridge, and exhales a sigh of relief. Though still confused about what just happened, she is pleased to be back in her apartment and happy that that thing, the smoke or whatever it was, is gone.

  “Wait a second! Seven o’clock? How did I lose almost two hours in the last few minutes?” She scratches the top of her head, trying to query the sudden absence of time. “That can’t be right!”

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! A loud noise from across the room assaults her sense of hearing, thundering through her ears.

  “Ah!” she shouts, jumping backward—almost out of her skin—as she drops the kettle on the floor.

  Gabrian’s eyes move toward the direction of the noise. There, on the other side of her living room window, sits a rather large Raven. It tilts its head from side to side then nudges the window gently with its beak. It looks directly at her. Now seemingly satisfied that she has given it her full attention, it flies away.

  “Rotten bugger!” she yells at the bird then turns to look at the state of her poor kettle. Picking it up, she closes her eyes, hoping it is not damaged. “Oh, please don’t be broken,” she whispers, biting the tip of her thumb. Opening her eyes, she peeks at the kettle. “Aw no! That was a nice kettle too.”

  As she feared, the kettle has a large crack going up the side where it hit the floor. Gabrian reaches down and picks it up. Gently setting it on the counter, she moans with disappointment. “Mom gave me that kettle last Christmas. I guess it fits with the day that I am having.”

  She reaches out and traces the crack with her index finger. A warm sensation jolts through her fingertip, sending out a brief spark where she had touched the glass.

  “Ouch!” she exclaims from the quick biting sensation on her finger, similar to a shock. Thinking that maybe she nicked her finger on the broken glass, Gabrian turns her hand over to examine it, but there is nothing. “Huh,” she says.

  Shaking her head in dismissal, Gabrian places the broken kettle on the countertop and picks up her coffee that is now ice-cold. She nukes it, determined not to let her rotten morning ruin the enjoyment of her first cup of the day, then heads straight for the shower. All the energy she had when she woke up this morning has now been almost depleted. Gabrian chugs down what remains of her drink and jumps into the shower, hoping the water will wash away this uneasy feeling running through her.

  ***

  IN THE KITCHEN, the kettle’s cracked glass begins to bubble and bend. Sparks flare and sputter along the fissure. The abnormal melding causes the glass to cast a brief red hue as it fuses back together. Any trace of it ever being broken disappears and the kettle stands as strong as the day it was created.

  ***

  AFTER A TWENTY minute shower, Gabrian begins to feel better—almost human again, for the moment anyway. The occurrences of the last twenty-four hours begin creeping their way back into her mind, making her desperate for a distraction.

  “I don’t want to think about all this anymore!” she whines. “I need Mom.”

  As soon as the words escape her mouth, the phone rings, echoing through the bathroom and scaring the crap out of her in the process. “Bugger!” Gabrian curses.

  Shaken, her hands tremble as she reaches out to pick up the phone. “I am falling apart…” she mutters. “Hello?” Gabrian grumbles into the receiver, rubbing her damp hair with the towel.

  “Hello, sweetie, how are you?”

  “Hey, Mom, I was just thinking of you,” she admits raising her eyebrows. Literally, like two seconds ago. A shiver tremors through her body but she shakes is off. It is just a fluke.

  “Well, that is a fun coincidence.” Gabrian’s face softens and the edges of her mouth curl upward at the sound of her mother’s voice on the other end of the phone.

  “How are things with you?” Gabrian leans herself against the counter, preparing for a lengthy conversation.

  “Oh fine, honey. You popped into my mind just now, so I decided to check in on you and see how things are going. We haven’t talked in a while.”

  “I am doing all right. Sorry that I have not called lately. Work is keeping me quite busy,” she says, staring up at the ceiling vent while she twirls a strand of her damp hair.

  “Well, I hope you are not overdoing it. All work and no play will make you old before your time, young lady,” she scolds Gabrian playfully.

  “I know.” Halting her hair twirling, she grabs a fist full of hair, and scrunches it at the top of her head, pacing the eight feet of space between the door and the toilet. “Say, what would you think about me coming out to visit you and Dad for the holidays, or do you guys have other plans?”

  “Really? Oh, Gabe, that would be so wonderful. What day are you coming? How long can you stay?” Her mother’s voice begins to squeak from obvious delight.

  “Slow down, Mom, you are getting hysterical. You make it sound like I have not seen you in years,” Gabrian teases, giggling at her mother’s bombardment of questions.

  “I am just so happy that you are coming. Your dad will be thrilled to hear it.”

  “I was thinking that I would try to finish up work by the twentieth of December and then see if I can fly out sh
ortly after that.” Gabrian halts her marching and stares down at her feet, wiggling her toes nervously. “And if it is okay with you guys, I might even stay for a while.”

  “Gabrian, that sounds great; stay as long as you like.”

  “Thanks, Mom, I can’t wait to see you and Dad.” Gabrian’s voice begins to crack.

  “You too honey…Gabe?’

  “Yes, Mom?” Her words slip out across her lips in barely a whisper.

  “Are you sure that you are alright?”

  Gabrian wants to say, “No, Mom, I am not alright.” And have a big heart-to-heart with her over the telephone, but she is not sure how to even begin to tell her mother about meetings with imaginary clients, about seeing people’s auras, and the strange daydream she just had about smoke chasing her in her own apartment. How does one have a casual conversation over the phone about any of that without someone calling the men in white jackets to come take her away? She is supposed to be the one that people call to figure out what is going on in their heads, not the other way around.

  Gabrian desperately wants to tell her mom how she is in need of counseling but has no idea who she would even talk to about these sorts of things. She hates the idea that her own logical mind cannot unravel her dilemma and that she may be in need of a witch doctor or something to that effect. And as luck would have it, she does not have one of those in her address book.

  Gabrian resurfaces from her mental rant. She releases the knotted hold she has on her hair, letting it fall loosely around her shoulders then wipes the wetness welling up in her eyes and simply replies, “I am fine, Mom. I just need a little R&R.” Her voice wavers, sounding defeated. “And Rachael made it a point to remind me that it might be a nice idea for me to go visit with you guys.”