Half-Sick of Shadows

Introduction

She’d gotten good at breaking into buildings. Ordinarily she would have passed over the easier entrance and gone for a more challenging route, just for the fun of tempting the threat of arrest or, more likely, execution. Over the years she’d been gone, it was almost like she felt she had so much lost danger to make up for. She’d been reckless, sometimes downright stupid, simply for the thrill of knowing that however her disaster came, it was one of her own choosing.

But she was not here to enjoy herself, so she simply jumped into the back of a Cleaner and kept low as it made its slow journey into the cemetery. Unless the routes had changed in her absence, the truck would glide right past where she meant to go. It turned out they had not, and soon she hopped lightly off the slow-moving vehicle and strode up to the tomb of Marni Wallace.

“Hi, mother,” Shilo greeted the unresponsive stone. The grave had not been maintained in her absence, the steps were cracked and pitted, the wrought-iron bars in the tiny window caked with rust, the whole surrounding area choked with vegitation. Shilo tilted her head, half-heartedly toying with the idea of pulling a few weeds, but didn’t bother.

With a wary glance around, Shilo reached up for the wreath she had slid up around her shoulder so she could have her hands free I she needed. It was a dried, woven ring of bougainvillea blossoms, petals a gaudy, aggressive pink even in their withered state, vines bristling with thorns the size of sewing needles. The young woman lowered herself to one knee and leaned the wreath against the door of the crypt.

“I brought these from the east,” Shilo told the lacquered portrait of her mother as she rose to her feet. “It’s beautiful—there are more wild places. You’d like it. I mean…I think you would.”

Her years on the outside had been beneficial to Shilo’s senses. She heard a delicate crackle of disturbed leaves she wouldn’t have caught before she left the city. Maybe she’d have herself some fun after all.

Shilo spun around, drawing her handgun, and pointed it right between the eyes of the intruder. It was a man; tall, muscular, skin white as a clean bone, in tatty clothes that hung off his wiry frame. He came to a halt several feet away, clearly surprised. Shilo’s dark eyes flicked up and down the stranger’s body, calculating. He was older, probably early forties, and thin as a rake, but he looked strong. Her immediate attention was caught by the small, metallic objects clipped to a leather strap crossing his chest: unmistakably guns.

“Drop ‘em.” Shilo commanded.

The man’s dark lips spread in a smug leer as his hands went to his belt buckle.

Shilo narrowed her eyes. “Your weapons.”

“Ah,” The man didn’t take his eyes off Shilo (or rather, the firearm she held pointed at his head) as he slowly unclipped the guns and held them up so she could see. “These, actually, are medical supplies-“

Shilo squeezed the trigger, sending a warning shot whizzing into the dirt right between the stranger’s boots. To his credit, the man didn’t so much as flinch.

“Next time I aim higher, and you carry your dick home in a jar.”

“It’ll have to be a big jar,” The stranger smirked, but he obediently opened his fingers and let the guns fall into the dust. He tilted his head to the left, then the right. “You look familiar, but…ah…a bit too healthy to be anyone I’d know.”

Shilo had known immediately. The low voice, the scraggly reddish hair (now grey at the temples), he even still had the same patchy coat. She also knew well enough not to lower her weapon.

“Here’s a hint,” she growled. “You nearly got me arrested twice, introduced me to a highly interactive junkie population, and dumped me headfirst into a crater full of rotting human corpses.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “You’re gonna have to be more specific, sweetie. For me, that’s an uneventful Tuesday.”

Shilo had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Time had changed him, but it had most certainly changed her more drastically. Her hair had begun to grow back soon after leaving the city, and was now an unevenly shorn thicket of scruffy black spikes sticking out in all directions. She’d gotten taller, filled out, and years of hard living had definitely put a few premature lines in her cameo-pale face.

Having suddenly and accidentally reminded herself of how she had lived, what she had learned, Shilo no longer felt at all threatened by this man’s presence. She lowered her gun. “I was on the stage the night Rotti Largo died.”

“Aha,” Comprehension dawned on the Graverobber’s face and he looked at her as one might at a notoriously unintelligent house pet that had just unexpectedly performed an amusing trick. “Now you, I remember. The One That Got Away.”

“Only because you couldn’t convert me into one of your urine-soaked, sycophantic ‘customers’.” Shilo returned her handgun to the holster strapped to her thigh and crossed her skinny, white arms over her skinny, white chest. “Still peddling Zydrate?”

“Obviously. Still scared of your own shadow?”

“Obviously not.”

“Hmm.” The Graverobber inclined his head politely and turned to walk away. That would have been that if he hadn’t called over his shoulder, “I think I’ll call you Shalott.”

Shilo lightly descended the stairs and fell into step beside the Graverobber. “As in, The Lady Of?”

“Yeah. Apropriate?”

“Mmhm. I suppose you’d be Sir Lancelot, then?”

“Why not.”

“I have a real name, you know.”

“So do I. What’s it matter?”

Shilo glanced over her shoulder, as the still-vivid spot of pink that now marked her mother’s grave. “Doesn’t matter much, I guess.”

The Graverobber spun around, facing Shilo with a charming smile that had her instantly suspicious. “Hey,” His voice was a low, insidious purr. “How about revisiting old times?”

Shilo arched an eyebrow, her eyes stony. “In what way did you have in mind?”

The Graverober threw back his head and bellowed “GRAVEROBBERS!”

Instantly, about twenty flashlight beams from all corners of the graveyard swung around and spotlighted them. Shilo heard the thud of boots, the clatter of rifles. The Graverobber winked, then fled off into the labyrinth of tombstones.

“You stupid fucker!” Shilo shrieked, sprinting after him.