Page 22 of Soul of Shadow
“Elias?” she whispered.
His shadowed lips spread into a dark grin. “You learn quickly.”
“Wh—Whatareyou?”
“I,” he said, holding out two shadowed arms, “am what they call a mare.”
Charlie tried to slide backward on the carpet, but the cords around her legs held her in place. “You’re a what?”
“A mare.” He traced a finger in circles through the air, which caused the cords to lengthen and tighten, slithering up her legs and around her body. “A creature of the night. In Norse mythology, we’re the creepy old ladies that sit on your chest in your sleep and give you nightmares.”
Charlie’s heart pounded in her chest. She needed to get out of here. What Shadow Elias was saying made no sense—what did she know about Norse mythology? That Thor held a big hammer and was played by Chris Hemsworth? But it didn’t erase the obvious: this creature was dangerous, and she was trapped in its clutches.
Her only option was to distract him until she could find a way out.
“You don’t look like an old lady,” she said.
“Of course not,” he scoffed. “Humans know only a fraction of the truth about my kind.” He wandered over to the side table and picked up a fake apple from inside a dusty bowl. He tossedit into the air and caught it again. “They only know a fraction of the truth abouteverything—the gods, the ghosts, the divine spirits of nature. Humans were cut off from magic long before they developed written language. Only fragments of the truth remain, passed down from storyteller to storyteller, warped over time.”
As Elias spoke, Charlie scanned the hallway, looking for a tool she could use to cut through the cord around her legs. Not that she knew if it could even be cut at all. How does one sever something made of darkness?
Not just something made of darkness—aboymade of darkness.
As absurd as that thought sounded, as impossible as it might be, it was the best explanation that she had for what she was witnessing. It was theonlyexplanation, other than that she was dreaming, or that she’d somehow taken LSD without knowing it—though she was fairly certain that if she had, the house would look more kaleidoscope-y and less murder-horror-exorcism-y.
So. Boy made of shadow it was.
“Tell me, Charlie Hudson,” said Shadow Elias, setting the fake apple back into the bowl and leaning on the side table. “What do you know of Norse mythology?”
“Not much.” Charlie took stock of the items in the hallway as inconspicuously as possible: candlesticks, dead flowers, fake fruit, a dusty wooden box set on a dusty wooden table. Maybe she could use the candlestick as a sort of club? “It’s not exactly a priority in American curriculum.”
“Alas.” He hummed, but it came out low and whispery, like a gust of wind preceding a storm. “They really should, given that it’s all real.”
“Right,” she said. “Sure it is.”
“You don’t believe me,” he said. “That’s understandable. Most people don’t at first.”
She glanced at the bottom of the table. She could break off one of its legs. Yes. Then she could use that as a spear…
“Don’t bother running,” Elias said mildly. “I can step right through the walls of this house.”
“You can—” Charlie blinked in surprise. “What?”
Elias turned his glowing eyes on her. “Don’t believe me? Watch.”
He took two quick steps, crossing the hallway. Then he stepped into the wall.
Charlie gasped. It happened that quickly: he—or whatever this version of him was—was standing in the hallway one moment, and the next, passing through the wall as if it were nothing. As if it were air.
“Where did you—” she started, but then he was back. Stepping out of the wall as easily as if it were a doorway. “How did you—”
“I told you, Charlie.” His eyes held hers. “I’m a mare. The only dark spirit that can be created from a human.”
“Wait.” She raised a hand. “So, youarehuman?”
He looked away, his gaze momentarily going distant. “I used to be.” When his eyes returned to her, his shadowed lips had pulled up into another cruel smile. “Now I onlylookhuman. And only when I want to.”
“Why are you telling me this?” She needed to get out of this house.Now.What was Elias’s game here? “Did you tell Robbie Carpenter, too? Before you killed him?”
