Page 64 of Possessed By Shadows

“About the shadows or Lukas?”

“Both.”

“The police will be here soon. I called the two we filed the report with. They said they’d be by barring any emergencies. Could be in an hour or later today.” Micah sighed. “Ididmake it clear that we were concerned for Lukas’s safety.”

“That we think he was abducted?” I wondered. Would they ignore that? We had proof. Sort of. I mean the guy on video could claim hefoundthe backpack abandoned. I wouldn’t believe that, but the police might.

“Yes. Sky checked on the shop on her way over. Said everything looks okay. Lots of water in the streets still. Everything moving slow. We will still have rain off and on today, but nothing as bad as last night.”

Which was normal after a storm, though no less frustrating.

“I sent the face from the video to Timothy. He’s done some tech stuff. Not sure if he can do a search on the guy based on what little we see in the video, but I thought I’d try.”

I tugged Micah across the bench and halfway into my lap, wrapping my arms around him and breathing him in. He was my sanity, my rock, even when sometimes his world ran askew as well. “Thank you.”

“We’ll find him,” Micah promised.

If he was still alive, I thought grimly. My heart ached at the idea, but I held firm to the warmth of Micah, needing him to keep the shadows away.

Sky reappeared in the doorway. “You can come back in,” she said. “We’re finished with our cleanse. Dion will show you some basics to keep trouble to a minimum until Alex can get more training.”

“Train how not to be a magnet for darkness?” I asked.

“We can’t teach you to not be what you are,” Dion said, appearing behind Sky as Micah and I stood up. I took Jet’s carrier and let Micah guide me back to the door. Dion and Sky stepped back, letting us inside. The space felt normal, like home again, for which I was grateful. “We can only train you how to control what you have. And to cleanse the aftermath.”

“Did I call a demon or something?” I clarified.

Dion shrugged. “I don’t think it’s that simple? Or that defined. Energy doesn’t always have intent until we give it one.”

“Does that mean the shadows aren’t bad?” I thought about my encounters with the black-eyed child. It had sort of helped in the past, and yet only to keep me bound to it? I wasn’t quite sure how that worked, or even what it was.

“Can we keep them from taking him over?” Micah asked.

“I think with practice, yes.”

“That’s good news,” I said.

“It will take time.”

Of course, didn’t everything?

She held her hand out, pointing to the bracelet I wore. “Let’s clear that, and show you how to clean the rest. We’ll set up a few more.”

“The stone does something?” There were a handful of crystals set out on the table, even a giant swath of tiny ones that seemed to be strung together like some sort of art?

“It will slow them, filter some of the energy and give you time to learn, but you’ll have to clear them regularly,” Dion told us.

“I’m a retired military guy who grew up being raised by Southern Baptists, so you might have to explain this a couple times. I’m not sure what all this magic is. New Age stuff has always been sort of awhateverthing to me,” I said.

“It’s not magic,” Dion corrected me. “Magic is an illusion. Your ability to see beyond is not magic any more than you seeing the color red might be.”

“But I don’t control seeing the color red either,” I pointed out.

“No. However, you can control what you think and feel when you see it. Does it make you angry? Sad? Can you shift your feelings about it to something else like memories of sunshine on a warm day, or a memory of a favorite blanket?”

“That easy?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Depends how resistant you are to believing in your own natural power.”