Shades And Shadows Collection

Chapter 4-1

Alaric looked out the window of his father"s office, watching the gathering throng on ground below. Tension filled the air following the failure of the police to find the vigilantes responsible for the recorded deaths of another black man, and a woman of middle eastern descent who wore a hijab.

The videos had been posted online, picked up by news sites and shown around the world. Similar deaths had happened in Atlanta, Detroit, and Chicago in the last week. There were rumors that the 8th Battalion was becoming an organized threat, not just a scattered ideology shared by random militia groups.

“There"s going to be trouble.” Alaric breathed as his father joined him at the window. The mood of the crowd was fiery; anger and fear broiled with grief and pain. Even from this distance, it was nearly suffocating him.

The crowd was teeming in the space in front of city hall, pushing against the barricades lined with police officers. It wasn"t going to take much of a spark to set off the fireworks. There was a swell of emotion and the crowd was shifting. Alaric squinted as he moved to get a better look. Behind the crowd clamoring for justice, there was a counter protest forming. “This isn"t good,” Alaric"s father said beside him.

The new group was smaller, but still growing. They were loud, screaming some chant he couldn"t hear clearly enough to parse through. The front line was filled with signs with big letters spelling out exactly who they held responsible for their problems. The nearest sign had a list with a circle around it and crossed through: Muslims, Shades, Witches, Blacks, Immigrants.

The first group was turning its attention away from the police and city hall and was screaming back at the new group. “This is going to get ugly.” Alaric said.

“Yes, it is.” Anson agreed.

Suddenly, his father grabbed the back of his neck and pushed him down. Alaric went to his knees, the question on his lips, but before he could ask, something slammed through the window and into the opposite wall. Outside, the yelling became screaming. Shots rang out, the measured beats of a high-powered rifle answered by scattered gunfire from automatic weapons. Alaric dared a glance up, trying to sense what the target was, stretching his gifts out as much as he could.

Both crowds were running, their panic overthrowing their anger as they ran for cover. Alaric spotted cops and others running toward a building to the east, heard people screaming for help and others yelling that the shooter was a terrorist. Emotional chaos washed over him and he dropped his head back down, shaking it at his father" unspoken question. He couldn"t see any clear sign of who was shooting or who they were shooting at.

“Anson!”

They both turned to the door, gesturing from the secretary to get down. She crouched and moved across the room toward them. “Are you okay?”

Alaric nodded. It was starting to quiet outside and he could hear sirens approaching. He eased up, peering carefully out the shattered window. There were a number of bodies on the ground. The crowd had dwindled to handfuls of people huddling together behind press vehicles and police cars. Police were moving slowly, guns drawn as they tried to find where the shooter was shooting from.

His father shifted upwards as well, his eyes scanning the streets. “Did you get anything?”

Did you get anything?Alaric shook his head. His own senses were too blown open to make sense of anything, fear and pain reverberated through him and he forced himself to take a deep breath and tried to retreat behind his shields, walling off the growing grief as people outside the window began to wail for their dead.

There were gunshots now in the distance and the sounds of people moving through the scene below, radios echoing as police and emergency medical personnel began to assess the fallout. Alaric stayed clear of the window as he crossed the room. Outside the open office door, people were coming to see if anyone had been injured.

Alaric stepped into the outer office to further distance himself from the chaos outside, only to be confronted by an odd mix of emotions from the people crowding in around him now. There was a flood of worry and concern, a flash of anger and fear. His hands lifted to rub at his temples, trying to block out the input. His elbow brushed someone, and the emotion coming from him was not what he expected. Where the others dripped with worry, there was smug self-satisfaction, a thought about learning lessons.

Alaric started to turn to figure out who it was, but hands were grabbing him and pulling him out of the crowd, spinning him away down the hall and pressing him against the wall, a soft barrier going up between him and the others.

He swallowed and blinked, forcing his focus back inside and blinking up into Bryan"s worried face. He took a few deep breaths and centered himself, nodding his thanks for the reprieve. Once he was sufficiently guarded, Alaric stood up a little straighter and Bryan eased down on the mental wall.

“You were leaking out all over the damn place.”

Alaric nodded. “I know. I"m not sure what happened.”

Bryan"s face softened and he took a step back. “First time you"ve ever been shot at, it"s to be expected.”

“What is?” Alaric asked.

“You over extended, how long has it been since you used that actively?”

Alaric glanced at the people who were close enough they might overhear, if they weren"t more concerned about finding out what had happened. “A while,” he conceded.

“Well, I suggest you start practicing, or this will happen again.” He crossed his arms and looked over those who hadn"t ventured into his father"s office yet or wandered off. “Did you manage to get anything useful?”

“No, just…too much emotion between me and whoever was doing the shooting.” Alaric said softly. “What are you doing here?”

“Your father called me.”

“He"s inside. One of the shots just missed us.”

Bryan frowned. “Do you think it was meant for you or your father?”

Alaric shrugged, his eyes scanning over the remaining crowd. “I didn"t. But…” He replayed the overheard emotion and its accompanying thought, opening up enough to share it with Bryan. “I"m not sure who it was though, you grabbed me before I could find him.”

Bryan"s eyes narrowed and Alaric could sense him reaching out. “Whoever it was is gone.” Alaric said. “He kept moving.”

“You sure?”

Alaric nodded. “I don"t sense him anymore.” He pushed off the wall. “I should check on Dad.” Bryan followed as Alaric eased past an aide and several clerks.

“I"m fine, Alaric is fine. Please, let"s focus our efforts on the people outside who need help,” Anson was saying as they entered the office. Several of the city office administrative staff were there along with Councilman Marley.

“I"m sure that the police will want to ask a few questions,” Marley said, putting a comforting hand on Alice Hanely"s shoulder. “Alice, why don"t you see if you can get maintenance up here to board up this window. Thom, can you coordinate with security to have a detective come up here to get Councilman Lambrecht"s statement?”

“Thank you, Townsend.” Anson said, his eyes finding Alaric"s and checking in. Alaric sent reassurance that he was okay. Alaric moved to the window, first looking over the dismal scene where paramedics were tending to blood soaked victims and police were still combing through buildings. His eyes moved up then to the hole in the window, not far from where his head had been moments before the impact.

Cracks radiated out from the hole, spider-webbing across the glass. The hole was big. Alaric turned, tracing the likely path of the bullet, finding the spot in the wall where it had impacted. He crossed the room, ignoring the voices around him and focused his attention on the remnants of the bullet. It wasn"t likely that he was going to be able read anything from it, especially not in the charged atmosphere around him, but he thought it worth the try.

Blocking out everyone around him, Alaric extended his senses toward the wall, starting outside the hole the bullet had made to give himself time to adjust to the inherent violence he knew he would get from any connection to the actual metal.

Slowly he moved his attention closer to the actual hole, then to the metal that protruded slightly from the wall. He almost recoiled physically from the heat that hit him first, but kept steady and tried to read past it. There wasn"t much left of the bullet and nothing left of the last person who had touched it.

He felt the approach of the police and stepped neatly away from the wall, moving to his father"s desk. Bryan"s unspoken question caused him to look up, making eye contact, followed by thought. “Not enough left.”

Not enough left.Bryan nodded. There was no way to know if they had been targeted or not. Alaric was inclined to think not. If it had been another act perpetrated by the 8th Battalion, they had not shown any signs that they were even aware of his kin. And if it wasn"t the 8th Battalion, they had even more to worry about.

* * *

Alaric finished answering the police officer"s questions and stepped out of the office. It had been hours since the shooting. The death toll stood at seven, two of whom were police officers. The injured numbered around twenty, some with gunshot wounds, others injured in fights that had broken out or by flying debris.

His father was on the phone with his mother and they were still waiting for the maintenance men to come board up the window, but Alaric needed to move.

He headed down to the coffee cart on the first floor that he assumed was doing heavier business than usual. As expected, there was a line. He sighed and resigned himself to waiting, settling into line behind two police officers.

“We need to be careful, Minister.”

We need to be careful, Minister.Alaric turned his head, startled by the clarity and loud nature of the voice. It wasn"t spoken. It was a thought.

He stepped back, out of the line and back against the marble pillar that was in the center of the room. He slowly scanned the room, spotting Councilman Roth near the hallway that lead to the council chambers. The man with him was unfamiliar.

He started to reach out, but hesitated. If this man was gifted, he"d be exposing himself. Alaric pulled his phone from his pocket and pretended to be answering texts as a cover for watching them.

They seemed to be talking normally, but he was sure that this was the same man he"d just heard mentally. Alaric couldn"t tell what the warning had been about, but the fact that he had called Roth Minister and not Councilman said that his purpose had more to do with the man"s profession outside of city hall, and that was concerning.

Roth"s church had long championed some of the strictest laws on moral issues. He was anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-LGBT, anti-Shade (although that seemed to be a new addition to the repertoire) anti-s*x, and anti-pretty much anything that could be interpreted as part of the “liberal agenda” or that the religious right decided was against the will of God.

Alaric turned his face back to his phone as they looked his way. He could feel them watching him. He thumbed a link on his phone to call Riley. He lifted the phone to his ear, smiling as he pushed off the pillar and headed past Roth and the other man.