Shadowhunter (Nephilim Quest Book 1) (27 page)

"They cut the cord..."

"Yes. It can be cut with ordinary weapons too, if the shadow's master isn't paying much attention to its activities and we can take it by surprise. But when the connection is strong, the Shadowmaster can put up quite a fight. They push more energy into their creature - it's a two-way process, they can also take some of the power that these energy-vampires suck into themselves. When the Shadowmaster is fully aware of what's happening, they turn their creature into a veritable killing machine. I just wonder why the teenage preference is to make them look like something out of a bad horror movie..."

"Do - do the Shadowmasters ever appear themselves?"

"Only as a last resort. They don't want to risk their immortality, and prefer to let the shadow go, and create a new one. After all, if the shadow is destroyed, the energy they have given it just reels back in to them. It can be hurled back with quite a snap, and it's not pleasant, but they survive it, I have been told."

"I could see that shadow in the garden," I said, "so do you think I will be a Hunter, then?"

"Maybe. We need to test your skills in seeing them some more. That means we need to go to the city one evening, to a place where they like to lurk, and see if you can see them for real, or whether the shadow in the garden had simply been made more solid. A Hunter sees them in their 'stealth mode' too." Grandma was chatting almost casually.

For a brief moment I wondered what other people of my age were talking about with their grandmothers. Certainly not other levels of existence, vampires and shadows... fleetingly, the thought of discussing flower arrangements and theatre and recipes seemed rather alluring compared to the facts of the hidden reality I was being exposed to.

"Was that invisible person in the bookstore a shadow, then?" I asked.

Grandma started laughing.

 "No, that would have been Daniel, who came too close to the veil between the lowest buffer zone and our physical world. At the very edge of the buffer zone it can happen that a person standing there appears as a form that seems to be molded out of thin air. One step closer and he would have shown as a more solid form, if still a rather shadowy one. A bit of a creepy sight, isn't it? An invisible man..." she grinned, before continuing, "We need to take Daniel with us on that trip to the city, though. It is potentially very dangerous and things can turn ugly."

"When are we going?" I turned to Grandma.

"There's no better moment than the present!" Grandma slapped her hand over mine gently but encouragingly. "We'll leave after we have eaten dinner. You'll be in safe hands with me and Daniel."

I could only hope Daniel would agree to come with us, after my breaching of the wing-etiquette...

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

35. Merit's Notebook

The sketchbook became Mr. Donnelly's obsession when he had time to painstakingly translate the next lines. He even sent his servant on errands in order to be able to read and translate in total secrecy.
 

"I lay there, dying, when she found me. She walked from the desert as if the sun had no effect on her. She had some kind of an animal skin bottle with her, and she gave me water from it. She carried a piece of cloth on her back, with wooden sticks, and she erected a little tent over me to give me shade. By that time I had already burned my skin. I lost consciousness for a long time. I only remember her giving me water, and humming in a strange way. She must have hunted something, because she began to feed me pieces of dry meat as soon as I could swallow. My burned skin peeled off. When I was strong enough to walk, she forced me to my feet and so we walked. I had no idea how far I had reached from Nabta until I saw the skeletons in the sand. The huge skeletons of ancient whales, lying where they had died in the ancient sea. I realized I had to be in the Valley of the Whales, the WadiHitan, in Egypt."

"Imagine that!" Mr. Donnelly exclaimed aloud, "whales in the desert sand? Never heard of such a thing!"

"I feel so relieved - we are bound to meet some tourists sooner or later!"
the writing continued.

After that there was a hole in the page. Another page had been torn out, or eaten.

"Ants!" Mr. Donnelly cursed, recognizing what had caused the hole. So this book had been in Egypt, where ants often destroyed any organic material left lying about.
 

The text continued.

"...and we reached the lake. A beautiful, big lake, with crocodiles in it, and a fisher village on its shore. And it was a shock. Elijah - all these people were... ancient. There was nothing modern anywhere. No cars, no TV aerials or dishes , no wrist watches, no brightly colored clothing. No shoes. I fear what this means. I sit here in one of the small mud brick houses, surrounded by women and children who gawk at me, trying to touch my hair all the time. As if they had never seen blonde hair. They speak a language I do not understand at all. I don't even understand the language of the woman who brought me here. I am certain it is not Arabic, though."

"No!" Mr. Donnelly banged his fist on his table, looked up, scared that someone had heard. The next page was missing - clearly torn away.

The text continued from mid-sentence.

"...and this is what I saw from the boat. Elijah - it is a pyramid, and it is whole, not eroded at all. I saw a temple in front of it - and it too was whole.
 
I have no idea how to get back to you! I have no other option but to stay here at Mi-Wer, which is the name of this place of women. How could I send a message to you? Could you come back in time and fetch me? How would you find me now that I have left the stones of Nabta? How could you know how to come to this exact time and place? My heart weeps - I have lost you for good!"

Mr. Donnelly had to check and double check that he had translated the text correctly. Finally he had to admit that he was right. And that meant Merit had somehow travelled back in time to ancient Egypt.
 

"Mi-Wer... I know that name from somewhere..."
 

Mr. Donnelly considered a moment, repeating what she had written.
 

"A lake, she said... And a pyramid nearby, itseems. Crocodiles... Mi-Wer..."
 

He put the sketchbook and the Moleskine with its pen into the pocket of his loose dressing gown. He went out of his office, locking the door behind him, and into the library. With determined steps he walked to the ancient Egyptian section.
 

It did not take him long to find what he was looking for. In a book about the ancient palaces and abodes of Egypt, he read that Mi-Wer was located in a time that was one of the grandest and richest of the Pharaonic period. Now he knew where and when Merit was trapped. The modern date at the beginning of the sketch book was a few years back in the time of the ordinary world.
 
Mr. Donnelly wondered whether she was already dead. Or... perhaps she was still there, living in mortal time exactly the same way she would have been living it with Elijah, in modern times?
 

The idea was mind-boggling. Mr. Donnelly had never thought about time travel, because it should not be possible. Yet his own experience in the City of Immortals told him time was not as linear as was generally thought.

"Poor girl," he whispered, "you are still there, aren't you? Living in those distant years, unable to reach Elijah. Do you hope that Elijah can travel across time to reach you, then?"
 

He had to translate more, as soon as possible. He had to know. With hurried steps he scuttled back to his office, his worn slippers threatening to drop from his feet, carrying the book about Egyptian architecture under his arm.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

36. Tracked Down

The message had been passed to the Hunter. The shadow waited, hidden away, out of sight of the big building.
 
It had recognized the smell of not just one, but three Time Walker Hunters that it had encountered during its long life.
 

This time the shadow knew that it had done well. It had been responsible for the discovery of the meeting place of the Hunters, or at least these three Hunters, a place the Masters had been trying to locate for a long time. It had followed the smell of the car, which was easier after it had left the main road, and its nostrils were not blocked by pollution and dust. And even though the car was out of sight, the smell of Hunters brought on the wind warned it in time and it withdrew before it came within sight of the big house.

Then suddenly she was there, appearing next to the shadow without warning, along with the shadow's own Hunter. The shadow retreated a few steps, and bowed its head respectfully. Both figures were hooded.

Clearly she was pleased, because the next words she spoke were unexpected, both to the shadow and its Hunter.
 

"Well done," she said to the shadow, "you have earned the right to live. Finally we know where their Hunters are gathering."

The shadow made obeisance, with a curious sense that amounted to achievement. She ignored it, as she and the Hunter were observing the building closely.

"She will be there, no doubt," she said to the Hunter. "What better place to keep her safe than nested in a lair of their Hunters."

"Indeed, my lady," the Hunter nodded from within the folds of his cloak. He never exposed his skin to daylight, if it could be avoided. His skin looked too different from ordinary human skin in bright daylight.

"Now, the question is how to get her out of there."

"A direct attack..."

"No, for the present it is vital they have no idea we have found them," she snapped. "There will be no attacks, or else they may quickly hide her from us again."

"No, my Lady. We shall follow your orders."

"It is well that you do..." she said, but her tone was almost absentminded rather than intimidating. "Thankfully, this was easy to predict. It was most likely that they would hide her, if they sensed us observing her, but I made plans long ago to lure her out, if needed. Once we removed her friend it became even easier."

The Hunter considered her words, knowing that ultimately the girl would have no chance.

"You," a nod towards the shadow, "will watch this place closely. If the Huntress leaves, follow her. We will send more shadows to assist. You must not fail. You will not fail."

The shadow bowed almost to the ground in front of the beautiful and imperious woman. It would have answered respectfully, but the Masters had taken away its ability to speak. That was all because of the old Huntress. How the shadow would have loved to make her pay, for that loss alone.

She and the shadow's Hunter vanished, as though they had slipped below the surface of a lake. For a while their shadowy figures could be seen, and then they were gone. The shadow lay flat on the hill, behind the bushes, in a depression on the side of the hill, sheltered from any wind that might spread its scent. Its gaze did not shift from the great building. Its patience was endless whilst stalking its prey.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

37. Hunting Shadow

We set out in Grandma's car that evening.

"We're not going to use the buffer zone, because you are not used to it yet and you'd probably fall asleep. Not that it matters, but it's better to stay awake and alert all the time, if there is the slightest chance of encountering any shadows," Grandma said. "We're driving to the nearest city where we'll meet Daniel. There's been no sign of any shadow following us from the university, so it looks as though we've shaken them off our tail."

It was a bit of a relief to know that I would not be travelling in Grandma's tiny sports car squashed in between Grandma and Daniel.

It took us half an hour to reach our destination. Grandma drove to a rundown area, where there were lots of pubs and a few nightclubs. Some revellers were already stumbling about in the streets and there was cheering and drunken shouting going on.
 

"There's no point in going to the more upmarket areas – people there use taxis to go home, but here there are plenty of people who are so drunk they often walk when they leave - or get thrown out," Grandma commented. "Many of them don't have cars anyway, or they don't have them with them."
 

She parked by the side of the road where her vehicle was clearly visible and vehicles came and went all the time. There was a police car parked up further down the street. "If I left this car in a side alley, someone would break into it right away. Also I can't drive near the bar we are going to keep an eye on, because the shadows know my car," she added tartly. "The price of vanity... I can't stay incognito near this car."

We walked along the road. It was well-lit, but I was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable.
 

"Now, we're going to the alley on the other side of the street from that bar..." she pointed at a light sign that was flashing nearby. It wasn't working properly. "I know that shadows use that one as a rich hunting spot, but they don't know I know, because I have not hunted them here yet. It's let them be lulled into a false sense of security.
 
They get careless then."

We crossed the street. I did not like the looks some of the men threw my way, nor the noises that they made at me. But they didn't say anything, once Grandma had looked at them directly. She had such authority they thought better of it and decided to shut up. I didn't wonder. She walked as though she was in her twenties, and her posture revealed she knew how to defend herself. Her eyes showed no fear. I'm sure no one would have been surprised, if she had suddenly taken an oriental defense position in the middle of the street or done a few backflips and cartwheels. My Grandma the martial arts movie star...?

The alley itself was like something out of the set of a detective series. Trash cans - or rubbish bins, as they called them here - soggy cardboard boxes, filth. Stuff that had been dumped by nearby shops, take-aways and pubs. If my mother had known where Grandma had taken me, she would have severed their relationship for good.