The Scent of Shadows (sotz-1) by Vicki Pettersson

Author:Vicki Pettersson [Pettersson, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_horror
Published: 2007-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

16

The rest of the cab ride was spent in stony and uncomfortable silence, and as we sped up Industrial, heading under Flamingo Road, I dully watched the sun setting behind the Palms and felt the darkness rising, eyeing me from the east. Gridlock had set in on I-15, parallel to us, and I could see people singing and talking from behind their windshields, suspended on that strip of highway, momentarily delayed on the way to the rest of their lives.

Meanwhile, as the world went on revolving around me, I tried to answer Warren’s questions for myself. How had Ajax found me? Had I done something to call him to me? I tried to think back, but my memories were blighted by screams and pain, and Ajax’s particular scent had slithered beneath my skin to suck at my pores. The questions continued to pile up before me, and like those drivers on the freeway, I felt stuck in eternal gridlock.

And why would Warren ask if I’d murdered another person? Could he really believe I could do it? Did I, in some chipped and faulty corner of my heart, believe it of myself? I thought about the construction workers again, and how power-drunk I’d felt as I used my senses and words to blow holes into their worlds. I had tried to justify it in my mind, telling myself they’d deserved and asked for it; but the truth was, even though I hadn’t killed that man named Mark, or the other man who was sleeping with his wife, I had altered their lives in a horrible and irrevocable way. And wasn’t that a death of sorts? Wasn’t that a way to murder Mark’s hope, in his own fallible heart, that he was wrong in suspecting his best friend and wife?

I put a hand to my mouth and stared blindly out the window, deciding I didn’t want the answers to all my questions.

We pulled abruptly into a half-empty parking lot behind Tommy Rocker’s Cantina, a favorite hangout for locals who wanted to be near the Strip but not necessarily the tourists. Two men emerged from the bar, looking innocuous, just colleagues enjoying an after-hours drink before facing the drive home, but I recognized them as the men who’d chased Ajax. The shorter was dark and severe-looking, but the taller appeared happy and light, bouncing on his toes as he approached the cab. The paranormal world’s answer to Laurel and Hardy.

The doors opened for them. “Is it taken care of?” Warren asked as they slid in.

“Of course,” the first man said. He slouched low, not even glancing at me. “The place was absolutely stinking with her scent.”

“It’s fine,” the other man countered sharply, and they both fell silent.

The cab began moving again, but this time my view of the freeway was blurred by fresh tears. The “it” Warren referred to was really a “she.” I wondered what the headlines would read in tomorrow’s paper. Teen Dies In Botched Hold-Up. Or, Tragedy At Quik-Mart. One thing I was certain it wouldn’t read was Novice Superhero Destroys Yet Another Life.

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