Dreams and Shadows - By C. Robert Cargill Page 0,131

toe in blood, mud, and lake water. He was high—punch-drunk off the fresh blood soaking through his cap and dripping onto the carpet. Tingles ran along every inch of his body, his mind slowing to a crawl; he was barely lucid, unaware of the world around him. It was like floating through an electric current, each heartbeat tickling his insides like the aftershock spasms of spent love.

He drifted in and out of semiconsciousness, reliving the moment his pike struck home, spilling open the bare chest of that scaly green creature, her gape-jawed expression staring blankly at him, horrified as her innards erupted, spraying across the water—every drop remembered in crisp detail.

He liked it; he liked it a lot.

The knock at the door shook him halfway out of his daze. Something felt familiar. He looked around, saw the scraps of paper on the floor, the grease pencils scattered about, for a moment wondering if the last few hours had even happened at all. Wasn’t I just scribbling something? he wondered. It felt as if he was drifting in and out of some dream, pieces of time folding in upon themselves and, as he began to wake, the pieces started taking shape again.

Another knock.

He rose to his feet. He saw the puddle on the carpet, felt the muck drip off his limbs; he knew this was no dream. It was taking longer to shake off the fuzzy feeling than he imagined. Slowly he wobbled, faltering, toward the door, barely able to grasp a coherent thought.

KNOCKS STOOD OUTSIDE the door, taking a deep breath. I shouldn’t be doing this. It was just nerves, but something felt very wrong. For as many years as he had dreamt of strangling the very life out of Ewan, he’d never thought it would be in a late-night ambush; yet here he stood, a sharpened piece of iron in his pocket, disguised as Mallaidh’s alter ego, Nora. With the genie in a bottle and Colby distracted by the council, this might be his only opportunity, and any chance to kill Ewan was one worth taking.

Again, he rapped loudly on the door.

There came no answer.

He has to be here, he thought to himself. Unless the genie lied.

He rapped again.

Again no answer. Damnit, a few seconds longer, then it was back to the warehouse for another hour of torturing the genie.

“Who is it?” grumbled a muffled voice from behind the door.

“It’s me,” said Knocks. The door unlatched, swung open, the dank smell of stagnant water and body odor wafting out, almost bowling Knocks over. There stood Ewan, covered from head to toe in a moist reddish-brown layer of god knows what, naked as the day he was born save for the dripping red cap atop his head. He’d been hunting, and now was only a few nights shy of his transformation.

The very thought of Ewan becoming a redcap infuriated Knocks. For all the years he’d run with the redcaps, wearing a blood-soaked cap of his own, he would never be one of them; he would always be an outsider. A wannabe. All Ewan had to do was to put the cap on once; he probably didn’t even want to be one. Bullshit, Knocks thought. Fucking bullshit. He wanted to stab him right then and there.

“What did I tell you?” Ewan asked gruffly. “I don’t want to see her. She doesn’t exist.”

Knocks snapped back from his wandering thoughts. What was he thinking? Of course Ewan didn’t want to see Nora; he knew she wasn’t real. Hastily he formed an image of Mallaidh in his mind, running over every specific detail, from the curve of her hips to the cut of her chin. “Sorry,” he said, shifting forms in front of him. He crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping that Ewan wouldn’t notice any subtle differences.

Ewan motioned him in.

The place was a mess. Knocks wasn’t sure what to expect, but somehow had always imagined him living in a nicely furnished, rock-star-like apartment. It’s not that he thought him rich, but better than this. The carpet, covered in a light coat of scattered cigarette ash, like a fresh dusting of late October snow, stank of whatever it was that dripped off Ewan. This was nothing to envy; it was a tiny little shithole nestled in the armpit of a much larger shithole.

“What have you been doing?” asked Knocks.

“Nothing you’d want to know about,” said Ewan, his eyes shifting nervously, as if he had some great secret to hide. He looked sick, like