Chapter Club: The Shadowrunner Chapter 15
Happy Friday! I’m excited to bring you another excerpt from The Shadowrunner.
Want to start from the beginning? You can find Chapter 1 here!
Last Time
Luke is the chief police officer in a small Arizona town called Abeja
His daughter, Lucy, has magical abilities that she is keeping secret from her parents. Her mother, Jenni, doesn’t know about Lucy’s abilities
A Texan named Silvia Montes was murdered not far from Luke’s house. Lucy both met Silvia prior to her murder and saw the murderer the night of the crime. She has come to call the murderer a dragon
Luke found a storybook in Silvia Montes’s apartment with an inscription to Pejito, and discovered it belonged to a magical creature that can see things happening at long distances
Pejito revealed the location of the murderer to Luke and Luke is going to investigate
Jennifer looked at the time on the microwave. It was after seven, and Lucy needed to go to bed in thirty minutes. If Luke came back before she went to bed, she would want to stay up and then she wouldn’t be going to bed on time. Then again, Jennifer could guess that if she went to bed before Luke came home, she would stay awake until Dad came home. Yes, she would lay in bed and follow the rules they had worked together to make, but she would still be tired the next day.
She sighed. Their food was cold. She grabbed a plate from the cupboard and poured out their spoils from Dizzies onto it before placing it in the microwave. Eating so close to bed wasn’t good for you either, she thought.
Lucy was looking out the window at the garden in the corner. By now the sun had gone down.
“Should we go outside for a bit?”
Lucy turned to her with a look of panic in her eyes and frantically shook her head. “I want to stay inside.”
“But you love playing outside,” Jennifer protested.
“Not in the dark,” Lucy replied. She rested her head on her folded arms and continued to look into the dark.
“Since when?” Jennifer pressed. “When we went on that camping trip we could hardly get you to go asleep you were so excited.”
“I don’t like playing in the dark anymore.”
She didn’t even look up at Jennifer.
Behind her, the microwave beeped, announcing that dinner was ready to be served again. Jennifer retrieved the food and another plate, dividing a portion for Lucy and keeping the rest for her and Luke. Assuming that he hadn’t gotten food while he was on the way home.
“Dinner time,” Jennifer said.
Her words fell on deaf ears. Lucy continued staring. Jennifer walked up behind her daughter and rested a hand on her shoulder.
“Sweetie, is everything okay?”
“Dad’s not home yet.” The tone of her voice wasn’t dejected, like it had been the last time he had come home late. This tone was taught as one of the strings on a violin.
“Are you worried about him?”
“Mm hmm,” she mumbled.
“You probably don’t feel like eating, then.”
When Lucy shook her head, Jennifer went back to the counter. She stole a bite from their food before gathering everything up into a plastic tub and putting it into the fridge. As she returned to Lucy’s side, she bent down next to her.
“Hey,” she said, rubbing Lucy’s arm. “Your dad is going to be fine. He’s strong and brave and he knows how to take care of himself.”
“Even from the monsters?”
Jennifer furrowed her brow. “What monsters?”
“The ones that live in the dark.”
Jennifer smiled. “Honey, those monsters aren’t real.”
“Just like my imaginary friend?” Lucy replied.
The room grew very still. She was right, Jennifer realized. If her imaginary friend, her ghost friend, was real, then why wouldn’t the monsters that go bump in the night be real too? The logic was impeccable and unsettling.
“What kind of monsters do you think want to hurt Dad?”
“A dragon,” Lucy replied.
Luke parked the patrol car on the side of the road next to the overpass he had seen in Pejito’s pool. The wind was running through the leaves, giving the impression that the trees were shushing him like an old teacher. The creek was tumbling over itself as it ran over the shallow bed. There didn’t seem to be anyone out and about at this time of night. No dog-walkers, no late-night joggers. Just him and the bridge.
He briefly thought about texting Jennifer. He should let her know that he wouldn’t be home to put Lucy to bed. That would irritate her, but she would understand if he told her that he was working on the case.
His thoughts turned to what Pejito had shown him. Something under the bridge had killed Silvia Montes and he had driven out here, by himself, to check it out. Part of him, the part that had berated Pollard and Bradley, would have told him to turn right back around and come back the next day. It was never a good idea to go alone.
But what would he tell the officer he took with him? That he had seen a vision of the bridge the other officers had been at the other day in a magical pool? And that he thought the vision would lead him to the killer? Maybe someone would have believed him; probably Rebecca. But she wasn’t qualified to come with him to try and catch the murderer.
He supposed he could have called it a hunch. But then that wouldn’t eliminate the problem of him coming right back to the place he had dismissed just the other day. That fact was sure to raise a few eyebrows.
Say he did find the murderer. What was he going to do then? Apprehend him by himself and then take the perp down to the station? Stand up in a meeting tomorrow and say, “that’s all folks! Case closed.” There would be questions.
And yet, he knew he couldn’t do nothing. Not if the murderer really was under that bridge.
His mind made up, he opened the door and stepped out into the frigid night air. He pulled his flashlight from his belt and lit it, shining the little ring of light immediately in front of him so that he wouldn’t trip on an uneven patch of dying grass. He picked his way down the slope to the sidewalk and approached the mouth of the overpass. It was pitch black, except for the glow of a street lamp on the other side. The errant thought occurred to him that he should tell the city council to install lights on the underside of the overpass. It would make things safer.
As he drew closer, his pulse quickened. He could feel the blood rushing to the tips of his fingers and the ends of his limbs. If he did find the murderer, he would have to be ready.
The wind changed direction, blowing immediately into Luke’s face. As he continued looking into the dark, he saw the light shift on the other side, as if the street lamps were moving. With a start, he realized it wasn’t the street lamps that were moving.
On the other side of the bridge, a small cluster of four orbs of light drifted in his direction. These ones had the same orange incandescent light as the bulbs in the lamps.
Luke watched as the crossed the threshold of the darkness and continued to float toward him. They cast small halos of light on the ground as they moved, revealing dirt and pavement. At about the middle of the bridge, their light revealed a bundle of clothing on the ground.
He drew his pistol and brought it into position such that his flashlight was pointing where the tip of his gun was.
“Don’t move!” He yelled into the dark.
The expected scrambling noise didn’t come, so he started moving into the dark. His thoughts raced. He had found their murderer.
When he was just steps away from the bundle of clothes, he realized it was a person lying on the ground. Their clothes were filthy and wreaked of body odor. He poked the person with the edge of his shoe, keeping the gun trained on him.
“Hey!” he said, trying to rouse some kind of response from the person. When nothing was forthcoming he bent down and turned them over.
It was a man, homeless by the look of his unkempt beard and hair. His eyes were rolled back slightly and blank. His mouth was slightly ajar. For a moment, Luke thought he was dead but then caught the faint sound of breathing. He holstered his gun and put his finger on the man’s neck, probing for a pulse. After a moment, he found it. It wasn’t particularly faint or frantic. For all intents and purposes, it was like normal.
He grabbed the collar of the man’s shirt and shook it a little. “Hey! Buddy!”
When the man didn’t respond, Luke withdrew his hand and sat back on his haunches. He listened to the faint sound of breathing.
After a moment, he noticed another pattern of breath, following the beat of the homeless man’s. This one was heavy and wheezing, as if its owner was sick. Luke turned his flashlight up to either side of him, expecting to find another person passed out nearby.
As his flashlight swept over the ground, it winked out. Luke flipped the switch down and then back up again, but there was no response from the flashlight. Around him, the sound of labored breathing grew louder.
Luke cast the flashlight aside and pulled his pistol from its holster. By now, the shards had drifted to the other side of the bridge and were floating slowly up the creek. As far as he knew, he was on his own.
Luke stepped in the direction of the police car, then whipped around when he heard footsteps behind him.
“Stand down!” he yelled. “I am armed and I don’t want to shoot you.”
There was a ghost of wind, but this one was entirely unlike the one he had felt moments before. This one felt like he was staring into the mouth of a feverish lion.
Luke stepped backward as quickly as he dared, not wanting to trip and end up on his back. He was just about to reach the end of the shadow cast by the bridge when he felt something grab his foot.
He fell backward, the impact knocking the breath out of him. As soon as his senses came back, he refocused them on the end of the gun, straining to find the outline of his attacker. He felt himself being dragged back under the bridge. He aimed the pistol down his legs. If he fired, he might hit the homeless man.
He twitched he pistol slightly to the right, hoping that it would miss the other man, and fired.
Instantly, the pressure on his ankle disappeared. Something, a man it sounded like, screamed. Luke scrambled to his feat, pulling his flashlight back out and trying it. He switched it a few times before the light came back on and by then the tepid air had cooled back down to what it was out from underneath the bridge.
Luke realized he was panting. He stepped forward to the homeless man and checked to see if the bullet had hit him. He felt his pocket buzzing. Someone was trying to call him.
A quick check of the man’s chest revealed no pool of blood forming on the ground. The wheezing breath was nowhere to be heard and so he put his gun away. He pressed the walkie talkie and said, “Station, this is Officer Alden. I need an ambulance at the Gold Street bridge. Now!”
“Copy,” a disembodied voice replied through the machine.
Luke dashed to the other side of the bridge, scanning the ground for blood and found none. Whoever he had shot had vanished without a trace.
His pocket was still buzzing, so he ripped his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t need to look at the screen to know who was calling him.
“Luke! Where are you? Are you okay?” Jennifer’s voice demanded the instant he answered the phone.
“I’m at the Gold Street bridge. Someone’s hurt.”
“What about you?! Are you hurt?” her voice screamed.
“No…no. I’m fine,” Luke said. He tried to bring his breathing under control. She had probably noticed him panting when he picked up the phone and thought it was indicative of something.
“Where have you been? Lucy is so worried about you that she can’t sleep.”
Luke felt a pang of guilt in his chest. She couldn’t know how close he had come to not being alright. He still had to be dad.
“I found a lead on the Montes case that was time sensitive,” he said. He realized that such an explanation would raise more questions than it would answer at the station. He would need another story for them. Something unrelated to the murder.
He turned his head so that he was looking over his shoulder at the one slowly drifting away.
“Luke, she’s scared. I’m scared.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “It’s just another case.”
“When was the last time that you worked on a murder case?”
“It wasn’t that long ago.”
“And when was the last time that the victim talked to your daughter?” Jennifer demanded.
He was about to protest, but he stopped. It may have been unfair. It may have been unreasonable. But it was true. This case was so outside the realm of normal procedure that he might as well have been operating on another planet.
“Lucy thinks that you’re in danger.”
“More than normal?” He was trying to make an attempt at humor. When Jennifer didn’t laugh he knew he had failed in that particular attempt.
“She’s worried that you’ll run into a monster and that you won’t be able to handle it.”
“I deal with monsters all the time.”
“What about monsters from your daughter’s nightmares?”
In the distance, he heard the sirens announcing the approach of the ambulance. It would be here soon and he would need to have a story. And that story could not include him talking with his wife on the phone.
“I need to go, I’ll be home soon.”
“That’s what you told me two hours ago.”
Before he could say anything in response, the phone buzzed and the connection ended. He saw the blue and red lights flash on the outline of the trees and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He needed a story. He had seen something on the way home and had decided to check it out and had found the man under the bridge. That was it. That was safe. That’s what he would tell them. And then he would grab the lights and take them back to the station.
Now he had to figure out what to tell his wife.
I hope you enjoyed this sneak-peak of The Shadowrunner. What did you think? Let me know in the comments below!