Sweet Shadows

“Holy goalie,” Grace gasps.

I shake my head. “What in the world is going on in there?”

The scene before us, in the dark abandoned warehouse, is like something out of a postapocalyptic movie. The space is crowded with stacks of boxes and pallets, tarp-covered piles, and dusty forklifts. In the center of the floor there is a clearing, a square about fifty feet on each side, where there is a gathering.

Two dozen monsters of all different kinds, but all of them evil looking, stand guard around the clearing, circling the space to form an impenetrable barrier. Keeping the humans from escaping.

My heart stutters.

In the middle of the clearing, standing in very military-looking formation, perfect lines in perfect rows, are dozens of humans. Maybe more than a hundred.

They are dressed in ordinary street clothes and many of them look pretty out of shape, so they clearly aren’t real military personnel. They stand, unmoving, like someone has turned off their power switches.

The creepiest part is their faces. They are completely and utterly blank, as if someone—or something—or a lot of somethings—has hypnotized them. Not only are the lights off, but nobody’s home either.

Grace gasps again.

I follow the direction of her gaze, to the front of the human formation, where one of the monster guards is approaching a tall, middle-aged man who is wearing a business suit. The monster lifts the man’s wrist and chomps down.

I smack a hand over my mouth.

“What is he doing?” I whisper.

“I’m not sure,” Grace replies, “but Gretchen said the monsters drain human life force.”

“Drain them?”

“Something about feeding on human energy gives the monsters extra power in our realm.” She stares blankly through the window. “I think … it looks like they’ve hypnotized them.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” a mocking male voice says behind us. “Killed the cat.”

I turn, slowly, afraid of what I’ll find.

There is a two-headed monster standing on the crate just below us. He must have snuck up on us while our attention was on the humans inside. He grins, a pair of sickening smiles, like he’s just found the biggest prize ever.

One head says, “Killed the huntress too.”

Grace elbows me in the ribs. I cast her a sideways glance and see her gesturing with her eyebrows. She’s kind of jerking her head at the double monster below us.

She mouths, This one.

Really? I mouth back.

She nods.

I take a deep breath and sigh. Guess we’ve found our potential informant. And I suppose it’s my job to distract the thing. I take another deep breath, reminding myself of my duty.

“I must have hit my head, because I’m seeing double,” I say with a big fake smile on my face. “Double ugly, that is.”

One of the beast’s faces scowls in confusion while the other contorts in anger.

“Actually,” I say, moving slightly to my left and stepping toward the edge of our crate, “I think you might have two of the ugliest faces I’ve ever seen.”

The creature lunges for me. I leap down to the next crate over—grateful that I changed into flats for the hunt—trying to keep my balance and keep out of the monster’s reach. The monster follows after me, turning his back on Grace.

While his attention is focused on me, Grace steps up to his back, reaches out wide with both hands, and then—crack! In a swift movement, she knocks the two heads together. Hard.

I dodge to the side as the creature crumples to the ground, tumbling down the pile of crates until he lands on the wooden pier with a thud.

“Perfect!” Grace squeals.

I stare down at the unconscious creature. “How are we going to get him home?”

Grace makes a face. Clearly she hasn’t thought that far ahead either.

“Come on,” I say, bounding down from crate to crate. “We’ll figure it out.”

While Grace stands guard over our quarry, I fetch my car—dent free and fresh from the body shop this morning—from its parking spot two blocks away. I lower the convertible roof. That’s the only way the thing will ever fit in my tiny backseat.

I execute a quick turn and then I’m backing down the pier toward Grace. I stop in front of the still-unconscious creature.

“I tried to drag him into the open,” Grace says as I climb out of my car. “He’s too heavy.”

“We can do it,” I insist.

We each lean down and grab a shoulder. Together we manage to inch him over to my car. As we struggle to shove him up into my backseat, I say, “Sure could use Gretchen’s superstrength right about now.”

“Tell me about it,” Grace says, panting.

A minute later we have the monster strapped into the backseat and I’m speeding home, desperate to get him there and secured before the thing—things?—wakes up.

After I back my car into the garage, we drag the unconscious two-headed creature through the door to the rec room. We manage to hoist him up onto a bar stool. Neither of us is very skilled with knots, so we do our best to secure his arms behind him and his ankles to the legs of the stool. When we feel sure that he’s not going anywhere, we step back. I take a seat on the coffee table while Grace paces. We wait.

The first sign of life is a soft groan. Grace slammed the heads together pretty hard, so they probably hurt like hell now.

Slowly, with awkward flutters, both pairs of eyes open. The beast glances around the room and, finally seeing us, affixes us with twin glares. If the creature’s eyes could burn, Grace and I would be deep-fried right now.