Page 2 of Safe in Shadow (Pine Ridge Universe #22)

N yx stayed in the dark, his natural habitat.

These men were not The Stranger. For one thing, The Stranger always came alone.

There were three of these men, sometimes four.

The Stranger came once a year. These men had come every day for a week.

The Stranger was silent and breathed heavily.

He smelled like alcohol and blood. These men smelled like coffee, and they talked loudly as they carried clipboards and brown belts full of tools.

They moved switches and complained about the squirrel nests and the rotted wires.

Nyx didn’t need to breathe, but he remembered the motions, even all these years later.

He held his imaginary breath now as the men went outside and walked through the densely wooded, overgrown property that he was forced to call home.

They walked right over the piles of leaves and rotted branches, damp and broken from the winter past. They walked right over the little black plastic bags of bloody clothing that The Stranger had buried in his lawn.

Bastard.

Nyx slammed a door with a swing of his arm.

He could touch things—things inside his house, things that belonged to the house.

This was his domain, and everything in it he could manipulate and possess.

The Stranger mostly stayed outside during his “visits,” but when he had come in (twice in a decade, both times when it was raining), Nyx had done everything he could think of to try to destroy him.

A Shade knows evil when it meets it. He’d had his formal invitation to the Dark Side years ago and hadn’t taken the bait. This living Stranger was rolling in the Darkness, evil wafting from him like the stink of blood and tears.

I broke his fingers and gave him a concussion. Nyx stared out the window and remembered slamming the door into The Stranger’s pudgy but flat face. Then he slammed his hand in the front door for good measure.

Well. I’m no hero. I’m not even “real.” Can’t speak to those outside of my “realm.”

At least, no one hears me when I try...

He watched those men in the woods, trampling along in blissful ignorance as they walked over enough evidence to ease a thousand broken hearts.

As he watched, another big vehicle came up the rutted dirt path that led to the house.

This one had a blue and white swirling pattern on the paintwork and read “Restoration Water.”

Lights. Power. Water?

Nyx’s dark, shadowy form went gray in shock. For the first time in seventy years—it looked like someone was going to move into Hilltop House.

Who in the world would do something so stupid? This place was a wreck. He prayed (ha, as if someone up there was still listening) that Hilltop would be struck by lightning, washed out in a flood, or even set on fire. If it were razed to the ground or utterly destroyed, maybe he’d be freed.

Not like he couldn’t leave the property for short bursts of time—but he always reappeared the next night, spewing forth from the shadows under the rotting old brass bed upstairs.

“This place hasn’t been used since the forties!”

“I think they tried to turn it into some wounded soldiers’ home. For the guys with PTSD. They called it shellshock back after World War I. My grandpa remembers when it was called the Home for Soldiers with Combat Fatigue in the forties for all the guys who’d been in World War II.”

Nyx turned. New interlopers came, with more belts and gray-blue overalls.

“The owners are connecting it to the county system?” one man asked.

The other replied with a shrug. “They have to—and guess what? She got a restoration grant for fifty grand from the State Heritage Preservation Society. So this is county pay.”

“Well. At least she won’t be rushing us ‘cause it’s on her dime.”

“I heard we gotta rush anyhow because she got another grant from the Department of Aging and Welfare. The lady is going to do monthly programs for seniors and provide interim housing for people who are on waiting lists to get into assisted living. It’s smart if you think about it.

But—that means the fumigators and painters are coming.

They’ll strip the place down and paint it up. ”

“Wish I could get someone to help me pay for my renovations,” one grumbled.

“You want to build a Man Cave. Plus, this lady is real determined. Very persuasive. You have to be if you’re going to get grant money.”

“Screw that, then. I can’t write for shit.”

“Anyone who has ever read your work orders knows that .”

THE PARADE CONTINUED , irking Nyx more with every passing day. He slammed things, blew fuses, and made the faucets run full blast.

No one seemed to care. They all attributed it to the failings of one of the dozen workmen in the house at any time.

I’m supposed to be tearing this place to bits, not watching it get rebuilt. Ugh.

Nyx put his head in his hands. He supposed he could try appearing to the people plaguing him.

After watching a painter eat a ham on rye while sitting crookedly on a ladder, Nyx rose up from the floorboards, shadowy body as fearsome as he could make it—a thing of muscles and writhing smoke with stark white eyes and claw-like hands.

The painter put his cigarette out on him, flicking ash into the shadows as the cigarette butt joined bits of old paint on a long, stained dropcloth.

Stupid humans.

“ARE YOU SURE WE SHOULD be here?”

Nyx had been contemplating going out to the big industrial dumpsters that now stood by the house.

They were full of rotted wood and molding boards, mildewed cloth, and rickety furniture.

Most of the old library was in one of those dumpsters.

There was nothing written past 1935 in there, but still—they were his only entertainment most nights.

Nyx was considering trying to bring them back inside, frozen in contemplation as he wondered if he’d be able to.

After all, there must be a new owner of the house, and she had ordered them to be thrown out. Would they still bend to his will?

“I have a key from Silverman. We need to check.”

Frozen no more, Nyx went like a shot to his spawning place, the place where the edge of the Netherworld touched the light of the living world. He resisted going into the inky, icy depths of that place.

One day, they wouldn’t let him out.

“But there’s... there’s been bloodshed near here. I feel it. Can’t you feel it, Jakob?”

“Shh, Alban. I don’t smell blood—but I can sense something. If a vampire can’t smell blood...”

“I think we should force it out. Whatever’s hiding in here.”

“We’ve come by here a few times before. We’ve never been able to draw it out.”

“Force, I said. I know a spell—”

“You’re the finest warlock of our times—and you write up excellent wills, Alban. Your practices in both arenas are above reproach. Let’s not break the habit of a lifetime. Just because it hides doesn’t mean it’s evil.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s good. Normal humans are going to be coming here to spend a lazy weekend or take a quickie honeymoon. We can’t have it be a dead -and-breakfast instead of a bed-and-breakfast!”

Nyx felt sick—and not just from the bad pun.

He knew these voices. He knew these men.

They came from Pine Ridge, the little town nearby.

He had made it there a few times, stretched to his breaking point before snapping back.

Each time, he was able to last longer, but each time, he saw less and less reason to stay.

The place was crawling with supernatural beings living happy little lives.

They were walking amongst oblivious humans—beings he hated now.

Funny, since he used to be one. The humans didn’t seem to know or care.

Blind, all of them. The supernatural beings were out and about, blissfully buying sweets at open-air stalls, flying overhead, moving casually through crowds on the sidewalks.

As far as he could tell, none of them were squatting at the gates of Hell, prisoners of their own houses.

No one noticed him.

So how come, every so often, certain residents of the little town would pay a call, seeking him out, as these two were today?

If he remembered anything about his past life, Nyx recalled that people who came into your home uninvited were dangerous.

“We mean no harm. We pose no threat. If you do not harm innocents, you’re welcome to join us at any time.”

“Maybe he doesn’t speak English.”

The voices tried again. Polish. French. German. Italian. Spanish. Hungarian.

He knew them all, and they all sounded the same, despite Nyx realizing they were different.

“I’m sure you realize it, my unseen neighbor, but the property has been sold. You’ll have to share the space or leave. If you wish to drive the new owners out, you mustn’t harm them. We cannot allow that.”

Who dares to tell me what is allowed in my own house? This is my prison, my torment, and the freedom I have to do what I please inside of it is all I have left!

Nyx trembled with rage, and his form seemed to shift, come unglued. He oozed through the floorboards and drifted down the walls, leaking into the shadows of the newly painted hallway.

The one who spoke most turned in his direction, but crimson eyes scanned the room and never settled in one spot. So the one with an Old World elegance and a slight accent to match was a vampire. The younger one must be the warlock.

Dangerous creatures.

“He’s here.” The warlock raised a hand, but the vampire gripped his wrist.

“Don’t force him, Alban.”

“How come we can’t see him? We can see Gloria White-Creighton. She’s a ghost.”

“I do not think the owner is a ghost. He is something... else.”

Nyx rattled all the windows in the lower level of the house at once. The old glass panes trembled to mimic his rage.

“No. Not a ghost. Something more substantial. Speak, friend.”

Nyx didn’t, bristling at the use of the word “friend.” Upstairs, doors slammed and flapped.

“That’s it. You want parlor tricks? Leave it to the magician!” The man called Alban spat and threw an empty fist toward the floor.

All at once, Nyx felt light hitting him, lighting up his form, seeping through him. He panicked, scrambling back up the wall and into the floor above, hiding under the bed.

“Alban. You scared him!”

“He tried to scare us. Let’s bless the place, put up wards, and go.”

“May we have your consent to protect the occupants of the house from harm?” called the vampire.

Nyx flung all the doors open wide—and then held them.

He pictured The Stranger entering the house. Finding the people inside of it.

Gently, the doors all closed, sealing softly.

“Well. I believe he means yes.”

The two men went out onto the semi-rotted wraparound porch with powders and potions.

Nyx watched them work until the sun began to rise and chased the other night creatures away.