“Have you heard the saying ‘no man can jump over his own shadow’？” Salt asked.
Rand had not.
“It’s a German saying. It means everyone has their limits.”
“But you don’t believe that,” Rand said.
“No,” said Lionel. “I’ve always believed there was a secret to the universe. A path by which man can acquire godhood. And that path is through shadows. You claim you can wake mine.”
Sensing this was the moment, Rand stood. “Shall we begin, then?”
“Ah, yes, indeed,” said one of the other men. He smiled in a way that Charlie didn’t like.
“As you gentlemen are aware,” Rand began, “the world is full of nearly limitless strangeness for the seeker. We are not just believers. We are not the faithful, taking the work for granted. We are adventurers, explorers of the darkness. And so, you will understand when I tell you how surprised I was to realize the talents of my own child. She can make herself an empty vessel and allow in all manner of beings of great wisdom and power to speak through her.”
Two of the men exchanged a glance.
Charlie bit the inside of her cheek. There was an undercurrent to the conversation that gnawed at her instincts. She wished she could find some way to catch Rand’s eye, but the whiskey and conversation seemed to have gone to his head.
“That’s fascinating,” said one of them, in a bored tone that belied his words. “What sort of thing does she usually reveal? The location of buried treasure? Stock trades?”
A few of them laughed. Rand frowned, finally noticing that he’d lost them. But he didn’t seem alarmed, didn’t seem to sense the same danger that Charlie felt. “I can never tell what will come through, but I assure you it will be to a higher purpose. If you seek a quickened shadow, then we will guide it toward revealing that. But perhaps I am mistaken in you. Perhaps you are mere dabblers after all.”
“Bring forth a devil,” said one. “How about that? I want to talk to a being from hell.”
“Are you certain?” Rand asked.
The others went quiet, smiling at one another.
Charlie’s gaze went to a corner of the room where a shadow lengthened across the carpet. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now that she had, she couldn’t seem to look away. There was nothing that could be casting it.
“My dear Lexi,” Rand said. “Are you ready?”
Charlie dragged her gaze back to him and took a breath. “I don’t like doing this.” It was the truth, but it was also part of her role.
“I know, my dear,” Rand said, patting the top of her head. Then he stopped and frowned, as though he’d lost his place in the speech.
Her palms were starting to sweat. Nerves, she thought.
“I—” he started. His face was flushed. “You—”
No, not nerves. Something was wrong. Her stomach hurt.
One of the men turned to Salt with a smirk. “It worked faster than I thought. I was so hoping to see their performance.”
“Very naughty to try to trick me,” said Salt, smiling as he shook his finger in her direction. Then he turned back to his friends.
The drinks. There’d been something in her water. Something in Rand’s whiskey.
Charlie covered her mouth, dipping her head the way she had planned during her possession, and thrust her finger into the back of her mouth, pressing against her hard palate. Gagging once, she pushed herself out of the chair and made her body quake just as she would have done if she were pretending to be possessed. Then she vomited beet juice all over their expensive rug.
She heard shouts as the men jumped back, but she slumped forward, keeping her eyes closed and her body still. Didn’t allow herself to move, despite her cheek being pressed into her own sick.
“Is she dying?” one of them asked.
“You gave her too much.” Another man’s voice. Faint distaste.
She heard the creak of hinges from the direction of the bookshelves. The scent of moldering paper. The spinning of a safe’s dial. A confusion of men’s voices.
Don’t worry about her. Get the man.
There’s an experiment I want to try. Let’s see how his shadow reacts to exsanguination.
If the girl dies, we can still harvest hers.
And then her thoughts spiraled away to nothing.
* * *
Charlie came to lying on the rug. The fabric beneath her was still damp with bile and beet juice. Not much time could have passed.
“Someone’s coming. Don’t move.” A voice from behind her, a boy’s voice. She wondered if he was actually there, or if he was the echo of a dream she’d been having before she woke.