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Out of the Light

This story first appeared in 2007 in the US dark fantasy magazine DARK WISDOM (issue #11). One review stated "A creature-hunter tale that kept me guessing until the very last paragraphs. I was on edge throughout the whole story!” (Melissa Minners, Global Pop Culture reviews, September 2007). Enjoy!

This story is eligible to be nominated for the 2008 Hugo Award and the 2008 Aurora Award (Canada). Give it a read and, if you enjoyed it, please consider nominating. To learn how to nominate for the Aurora Award, click here. To nominate online, click here. To learn how to nominate for the Hugo Award, click here.


Out of the Light


by Douglas Smith




The morgue door swung open.  Jan Mirocek hesitated at the threshold, clinging to the hallway’s bright comfort.  Ahead in the dark room, under a lonely cone of light, Detective Garos loomed over a shroud-covered corpse.  Jan glared up at the single ceiling bulb.  Forty watts max, he thought.  He turned to a clerk slouched at a desk in the hall.  “Got any more light?”


The man just shrugged.  “Our guests don’t do much reading.”


Scowling, Jan stepped inside.  The door clicked shut behind him, cutting the light even more.  He cursed and pulled a small flashlight from a coat pocket, his breathing slowing as the beam brightened his path.  I can do this, he thought.  Trying not to look into the shadows, he walked to Garos.


Morgues didn’t bother Jan.  He knew death.  And corpses.


He just wanted more light.


Garos eyed the flashlight but the big man didn’t comment.  “Good to see you in action again, hunter.  It’s been a while since...last time.”  His beefy hand swallowed Jan’s.


Last time. At least, old friend, you have the decency to leave it at that, Jan thought.  “I’m retired, Andreas.  Why’d you call me?”  Ignoring the frown from Garos, he studied the contours of the white shroud.  Slim, short, female.


Garos shrugged then turned to the corpse.  “White female, early thirties.  Found about one this morning--just twelve hours ago--on a well-lit, still-busy, Toronto street.”


Stabbing his beam into dark corners, Jan pulled two extra flashlight batteries from his pocket.  He shook them in his hand, calmed by the clicking noise.  “So?  What do you need me for?”


“You tell me.”  Garos pulled back the sheet.


Maybe it was the light.  Or the darkness.  Or perhaps seeing Garos in a professional role again had brought her back, brought it all back.  He looked down, and she was there.  Her face.  The way it used to be in the mornings--peaceful--beautiful.


Then the face shifted into someone else--something else.  Jan stared at the desiccated corpse of a stranger, black sunken eye sockets and cheeks, lips pulled back from rotting gums, white hair framing gray translucent skin.  The shadows closed in and with them, his terror.  He ran from the room.




Ten years old.  Lying in bed beside his brother Pyotr, in their house in the woods.  His mother’s voice rose and fell in her sing-song way of telling stories.  But these stories were not of frog princes, or bears and honey pots, or little girls chasing rabbits down holes.  These were...different.


“To begin his change, the werewolf put on a belt of wolf skin, then drank water from a wolf's paw-print,” their mother whispered.  Jan looked at Pyotr.  The younger boy was wide-eyed.  Jan smiled.  These are stories, he thought.  Just stories.




Five minutes after leaving the morgue, Jan sat huddled at a window table of the first bar he had found.  The afternoon sun of a Toronto winter did little to remove the chill he felt.  A familiar face peered inside.  Moments later, Garos eased his bulk into a chair beside him.  “You okay?”


Jan lied with a nod.  “For a second, I saw...”  Her name caught in his throat and he swallowed.  “I saw Stasia’s face.”


Garos frowned, his eyebrows forming a single bushy line.  An old woman in Sicily had once told Jan such eyebrows were a sign of the lupomanari .  She had missed the true signs in her own son.  He killed nine people before Jan and Garos had brought him down.


“I shouldn’t have called you,” Garos said.


“I’m okay!” Jan snapped.  Garos looked away.  No, you shouldn’t have, Jan thought, you of all people.  Jan stared at his hands gripping his beer as if it were a beast about to leap at his throat.  He held life that way now, a wild thing to be feared, never trusted to lie quietly at his feet.  “Who was she?”


Garos said a name.  It meant nothing to Jan.  He looked up.  “Why did you call me, Andreas?”


“Did that look like a fresh corpse to you?” Garos asked.


“The rotting doesn’t mean it was done by a shifter.”

“Come on, Jan.  We saw the same rapid body decay in shifter victims back home.”


“Any ‘bodies’ we saw were in pieces and mostly eaten.”  Her body would've been too, Jan thought, if he had been able to bring himself to see it.  “This one was intact.  That’s no were-beast.”

Looking around, Garos lowered his voice.  “We’ve had other killings, similar to this.  We’re barely keeping a lid on it.”


Jan swallowed.  “What’s similar about them?”


“Victims killed at night on bright, busy streets.  No robbery.  Victims in good health.  No drugs or sign of sexual assault.  No violence except some contusions around the throat, but death wasn’t by strangulation, and...”  Garos leaned forward.  “...and the corpses rot within hours.”


“Any pattern to the killings?”


“None I can see.  Both genders, all ages and professions.  All over downtown.  The only consistency is the body decay and autopsy results, plus the time of night and type of locations.”

“Anything else?”


“A witness saw a guy standing over this body.  She says she chased him into a dead-end alley.  No door, window, fire escape.  Nowhere to hide.  But also no suspect--the alley was empty.”


Jan felt cold.  “That still doesn’t say shifter.”


“Put it with the body decay, it says something weird.”


“You believe her story?”


“She gave a description.  We’re checking it out.  And her.”


“I’ll bet your theory went down well with the brass.”


Garos snorted.  “I keep my own counsel.  They’re not from the old country.  Don’t believe as we do, haven’t seen what we have.”  He stared at Jan.  “I need your help.”


Jan avoided his eyes.  “I came to this country, to a big city, to escape the beasts of the night, Andreas.  They don’t come to the cities.  You don’t have a shifter.  Even if you did, I can’t help you.  And you know why.”


They sat not speaking, Jan’s shame burning him.  “Well, I had to try,” Garos said as he stood.  He looked at Jan.  “I know what she was to you.  I know you blame yourself.  But she knew the risks.”  He squeezed Jan’s shoulder.  “It’s not your fault, Janoslav.  Give yourself a break for God’s sake.”  He walked to the door, then stopped and looked back.  “What if you’re wrong?”


Jan stared at him, puzzled.  “What do you mean?”


“What if I do have a kallikantzari?  A beast of the night in your big safe city.  What then, hunter?”  Not waiting for an answer, Garos turned and left.  Jan stayed until the winter sun sank too low.  Walking home, he watched the shadows all the way.




Fifteen years old.  Returning home from friends, far too late, through winter woods oddly silent.  The house dark, even the light in the front room not burning.  The door open, tilted at a strange angle.  His heart leapt.  He ran.


He burst past the ruined entrance to stumble in the dark and fall amongst bloody bodies.  His parents.  Upstairs, Pyotr’s bed empty, room in disarray.  Outside again, father’s rifle in hand, following prints in the snow.  The prints of the beast.


He found it near the quarry.  Half-human, yellow eyes looked up from where it fed on his brother.  He raised the rifle.  


His childhood died.  The hunter was born.




After leaving the restaurant, Jan walked home to his apartment over his book store on Queen West.  His place was small but he’d left most of his possessions behind in the old country.  Too many memories tied to them.  Besides, he liked this area.  Lots of shops and bars that stayed open late.  Plenty of neon.


Plenty of light.


Once home, he checked that every light in every room was on.  He read for a while after dinner then went to bed early as usual.  Two flashlights lay on a table beside the bed.  He made sure they both worked, then he lay down leaving a lamp on.  Maybe tonight he could sleep.  Maybe he was tired enough.  Closing his eyes, he prayed for escape from dreams.


He awoke screaming her name, sitting bolt upright on sweat-soaked sheets.  Sobbing, he fell on his side.  There, bathed in light that never touched the night world inside him, he prayed again for deliverance from his darkness.




Twenty-five years old, in a Paris bistro, a stack of papers from around the world beside him.  Serial killings got good play.  And sometimes the signs were there that spoke to him of shifters.  He sat forward.  Like this one.  Athens paper, one week old.  He paid his bill and left, heading for the nearest travel agent.


He had hunted were-bears in Norway and were-tigers in India.  He carried a ragged scar on his thigh from a leopard shifter in Kenya.  Towns paid a man well to be rid of a beast, a man who knew the signs and was brave--or foolish--enough to follow them.


Jan Mirocek had become such a man.




The morning sun found Jan curled shivering in an armchair in his living room, a flashlight clutched to his chest.  Jan thought about the old times and about what he’d become.  He realized that he didn’t like himself anymore.  He realized also, to his surprise, that he had known this for a long time.


Finding his phone, he punched Garos’s number, taking vindictive pleasure in waking him.  Garos swore, listened, then gave a phone number for the witness and directions to the dead-end alley.  Jan swore back when Garos thanked him for the third time.  Promising to keep in touch, Jan hung up.


Hell, he thought.  Just like old times.  Grabbing his coat, he checked the pockets for his flashlight and batteries, then stepped out into a cold but bright February morning.




Twenty-five, in an Athens bar.  Listening to a young cop named Garos complain.  “They won’t let me talk to the press.”


Jan nodded.  “They always hush it up.” 


“Damn bureaucrats.  Well, thanks for the lead.”


Jan shrugged.  “Thanks for backing me up.  I probably wouldn’t be alive otherwise.  Didn’t figure on two of them.”


“We worked well together,” the big man said.


Jan looked at him.  “I’m thinking of taking on a partner.”


Garos grinned.




The alley was as Garos had said.  Nothing but a few bits of trash.  A neon sign over a bricked-up door at the end of the alley advised that “Clancy’s Eatery” was now on the next street.


“You the guy who called me?” a voice said from behind him.


Jan turned, startled.  She stood at the entrance to the alley.  Five-six maybe, short brown hair, long black coat over a slim figure.  “Kate Lockridge.  You called me, right?”


Jan walked up to her.  “Jan Mirocek.  Thanks for coming.”


“You don’t look like a cop.”

She had nice eyes, Jan decided.  "Friend of one.  Garos.”


“Big guy from last night?  He was okay.”  She looked Jan over.  “Okay, let’s talk.  But not here.  Gives me the creeps.  I know a place nearby.  Lousy food but great coffee.”  She started to move to the street, then stopped, scanning the alley again.


“Something wrong?”


She shrugged.  “Place seemed brighter last night.  Guess it’s coming in here out of the sunlight.  And things are always different in the dark, right?”  She walked to the street.


Yeah, he thought.  Things were different in the dark.




Thirty years old, in a little tavern in a little village in Poland, waiting for Garos to get to the point.


Garos coughed.  “Mara and I, we’re getting married.”


Jan had seen this coming.  He nodded.  “And you want out.”


Garos reddened but nodded back.


“I wish the best for you both, Andreas.  You know that.”


Garos smiled and shook his hand.  “Thank you.  These have been good years, my friend, but Mara needs a different life.”


And I need a new partner, Jan thought.




Late afternoon.   The Big Mistake was almost empty.  They sat at a sunny window table in the long narrow tavern.  A jungle of neon signs, each a visual scream of a beer brand, colored the dark room in a random rainbow.  Kate called to the bartender.  “Two coffees, Harry.”  She turned to Jan.  “So what do you want?”


“Garos asked for help on these...this killing.”  He watched a corner of her mouth curl up.  “We worked together in Europe.”


“How so?”


“I was an advisor on one of his cases.”  He hurried on before she could probe any further.  “So tell me what you saw.”


Her story was the same.  “...I reach the alley and there’s no one, nothing.  Including no way out.  Well, you saw, right?”


Jan nodded and sighed.  He asked a few more questions, but it added nothing to the story.  “Listen, sorry I wasted your time.  Let me buy the coffees.”  He reached for his wallet.


“So is this body rotting like the others?” she asked.  Jan stopped in mid-motion and looked at her.  She smiled.  “I’m a reporter for the Toronto Star, Mr. Mirocek.  We need to talk.”


Jan sat back again.  A reporter, covering the killings.  For a moment, despite the sunshine, he felt an old darkness close in.




Thirty-one.  Working alone again.  He met her in a village in Poland, a reporter up from Warsaw to cover the killings in the town.  Her name was Stasia.  He trained her.  He loved her.


A year later, she was dead.




Harry brought refills while Jan gathered his thoughts.  A bluff, trying to see how he’d react?  No.  She might guess that the separate killings were linked but not about the body decay.  “How’d you know about the corpse?” he asked when Harry had left.


“Corpses,” she corrected.  “Got a source in the Coroner’s office who likes to supplement his income.”  She leaned forward.  “That’s why Garos called you, isn’t it?  You know why the bodies are rotting like that, right?”  Her voice was eager.


Jan began to growl a denial but stopped.  What could she do?  No paper would print it.  Besides, he didn’t believe it himself.  He shrugged.  “You’re right.  I’ve seen those signs before.”


She flicked on a micro-recorder.  “What’s it mean?”


“It’s a sign of a shifter killing,” he said, straight-faced.


Her brow furrowed.  In a very pretty way, he thought.  “Shifter killing?  What’s that?” she asked.


“Shape-shifters.  Garos and I used to hunt them.  He thinks you saw one.”


Pause.  “Shape-shifters?”  Her eagerness melted into a dead-pan then hardened into a glare.  “Like a were-wolf?”


“Shifters aren’t limited to wolves.”


She clicked off the recorder and stuffed it back in her purse with a near ferocity.  “A were-beast.  Right.  Thank you for the coffee, Mr. Mirocek.”  She stood up and grabbed her coat.


To his surprise, Jan realized that he wanted her to stay.  “So how do you explain the rapid decay?  How did the Coroner?”  


She bit her lower lip.  “I can’t.  Neither could they.”


Jan stood and faced her.  “I can.”  He could smell her perfume, a hint of vanilla.


She stared at him then shook her head and sighed. “Twenty minutes, no more.”  She sat down, arms folded.


An hour later, Jan sat back, having summarized his life story.  He had left out the part about Stasia.  Kate looked hard at him.  “Jan, I’m certain you believe every word you just said.  I also know it can’t possibly be true.”


“Does it matter?  The Star wouldn’t print it anyway.”


She groaned.  “Okay, so Garos thinks we have a were-beast in Toronto.  Because of this corpse decay, right?”


“Plus the time of the murders.  Most shifters assume animal form only at night, to hide in the dark.  Out of the light.  But actually, beyond that, I don’t think it fits with a shifter.”


“You mean you don’t believe Garos either?  Why not?”


“Shifters live where their animal form is common.  Then if seen, they aren’t viewed as anything unusual.  So were-tigers live in areas with tigers, were-wolves with real wolves.”


“So?”


“So what animals are common in downtown Toronto?”


“Dogs and cats, for starters.”


“Yeah, but not running free, which they’d need to be.”


“How about birds?  Maybe it’s a were-pigeon,” she said.


“Very funny.  Too small.  So are raccoons from the ravines.”


“What’s size got to do with it?”


“Mass-energy conservation.  It has to be as big as us.”


“Sounds like we’ve run out of animals,” she said.


“That’s what I think.  No such beast.”


“So what about the corpse decay?”


Jan frowned.  “I don’t know.  I can’t explain that.”  He looked at her.  “It almost sounds as if you believe me now.”


Kate shrugged.  “I’ve heard worse.  You meet all sorts of weirdoes on these streets.”


“Thanks, I love being tolerated.”


She grinned at him.  “You want to stay for dinner?”


He looked outside.  The sun had set and streetlights were winking into life.  He should leave.  But the area was well lit.  Lots of neon.  And Kate was smiling at him.  “I’d like that,” he said.  He just wished she didn’t remind him so much of Stasia.




Thirty-two years old.  Sunday.  A small church outside Budapest.  Stasia, tall and fair beside him, a hunter for a year now.  At the altar in the otherwise empty church stood Father Karman.  Their prey.  “His parish suspects,” Jan whispered.


Stasia nodded. “But simple tourists like us don’t, right?”  


The priest turned from the altar and noticed them.  He smiled.  “Are you here for Mass?” he called.


Jan hesitated.  His Catholic upbringing made this hard.  A priest in a church.  He could at least let the man hold a last mass.  They should be safe.  Karman needed either time or the taste of blood to shift.  Jan nodded.  Stasia looked at him, puzzled.  “After Mass, outside the church,” he whispered.


During the Liturgy of the Word, Jan felt in his jacket for his gun.  Stasia’s presence at a capture still made him uneasy.  As they approached the altar for Communion, Karman stared hard at Jan.  He turned his back to pour the wine.  The communion began.


After the ceremony, Karman took the cup from them and turned back to the altar.  Only then did Jan notice another cup on the altar.  The one from which the priest had drunk.  Jan’s eyes froze on a drop of liquid hanging red and thick on its lip.  


Thick as blood.


Jan struggled to his feet, but the room swam.  He fell, panic rising in him.  The wine.  Stasia screamed his name.  A face loomed before him, cruel, already bestial, the reek of blood on its foul breath.  Jan fumbled for his gun but the beast struck him hard on the temple.  Darkness took him.




As Harry brought Kate and Jan their dinners, Jan noticed an old man sitting in the back, out of the light.  He wouldn’t have seen him except that the man gestured to Jan with a jerky motion of a stiffened hand.  Jan turned to Harry.  “Who’s that?”


Harry looked over.  “Solly?  Street person.  Comes in sometimes.  I’ll give him a coffee, sandwich maybe.  Don’t know how he stays alive.  He’s usually in the shelter by now.  Doesn’t like the streets after dark.  Last time he stayed late, I had to walk him there after we closed.  Only way I could get him out.”


Jan stood up.  “I’m going to see what he wants.”


Solly was a small round man.  Round bald pate ringed by gray scraggly hair.  Circle of a face under stubble and dirt.  Rounded shoulders under a filthy coat, once an actual color, now unknowable.  Round balls of hands, fingers twisted in, peeking surprisingly clean from tattered sleeves, guarding an empty coffee cup.  Jan smiled then struggled to maintain it as he caught the smell.  Solly waved at a chair across from him.


Jan sat down.  “Harry says your name is Solly.”


One eye was almost shut.  The other pinned Jan then darted over the room.  “Harry’s is a good place.  Stays the same, you know?  S’important, you know?  Some places--change.  Don’t like that.  Can’t tell if they’re just different, or...”  He fixed Jan with that eye again.  “Heard you talking.”  Jan glanced back to where Kate chatted to Harry.  Not a word reached Jan.  Solly glared as if he read Jan’s mind.  “Heard you!”  He pounded the table with a crippled hand.  “Solly’s seen things,” he rasped.  “Seen things.”  He looked around again, then lowered his head.


Jan waited, but Solly said no more.  Standing, Jan started to walk away when a wheezy whisper stopped him.


“...out of the light.  Gotta know the signs.”


Jan turned back to the old man.  “What did you say?”


Solly’s head was still down.  “Remember.  S’important.” Hunched over his empty cup, he sat muttering to himself.

Kate looked up when Jan returned.  “What’d he want?”


Jan shrugged.  “You’ve got me.  Buy him a coffee on my tab, will you, Harry?”  Harry nodded and left.


They ate and talked.  “So if you hunt shifters,” Kate said, “and they don’t come to the city, why do you live here?”


Jan looked out to where the gathering dark fed on a dying day.  “I live here because they don’t.  I don’t hunt them anymore.  I got someone killed, Kate.  Someone who trusted me.”


Kate bit her lip.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  They sat silent for a moment, then she gave a small smile.  “Anybody could understand why you’d want to get away from those things.”


Jan looked back to her.  “I wonder if I have.”


“What do you mean?”


“Every civilization has had shape-shifter legends.  I’ve always wondered why no such myth exists for our modern cities.”


“Why would such creatures live in a city?  Why not stay in the wild?  Less chance of being seen,” she said.


“Also less food.  They’re predators who prefer human flesh.”  He shuddered, remembering.  “There’s more of that in a city.”


“Sure, but you eliminated all the animal options.”


He stared out at the night.  “This is a different jungle.  Maybe we’ve created a new niche, supporting a different predator.  Convergent evolution.  Its other form may not be animal at all.”


“If it’s not an animal, what would it be?”


“Don’t know, but it’s more likely to be seen in a crowded city, so its other shape would need to be downright mundane.”


“But what?” Kate repeated.


Jan looked out to where shadows fought pale neon.  He wanted to say that it would be a thing at home with concrete and glass as a wolf was with earth and forest.  A thing that breathed ozone like a summer breeze and held metal in its heart and electricity in its veins.  A thing that not only lived in this realm of the lonely but fed on it.  But he just said, “I don’t know.”


Kate shook her head then checked the time.  “Oops.  I’ve got to go.  There was another witness last night--a hooker.  She won’t talk to the cops but she’s meeting me at midnight.”  She looked at Jan and bit her lip.


“Why don’t I come with you?” he asked.


She broke into a huge smile.  “Great!”  She put on her coat while Jan wondered what he had just done.  Solly shuffled over.  “I also told Harry I’d walk Solly to the shelter,” she said.


Solly peered outside.  “We take Talbot?”


Talbot was little more than an alley, with no lights.  Jan shivered.  “Let’s keep to well-lit streets.  We’ll use Richmond.”  As Solly started to argue, Harry called Jan to the phone.


It was Garos.  “Janoslav?  Did you meet Kate Lockridge?”


“Yeah.  I think she’s on the level, but she’s a reporter.  She, uh, knows about the corpse decay and the other victims.”


Garos swore.  “We checked her description of last night’s suspect.”  He paused.  “Jan, it matches a prior victim.”


Jan felt a sudden coldness in his gut.  “Victim?  That doesn’t make sense.  How could it be a dead guy?”


“Jan, she was at the scene of the most recent killing and described a victim from another.  Now you say she has further knowledge of these deaths.  We’ll be talking to her again.  In the meantime, be careful around her.”  Garos hung up.


Jan stared at the neon signs over the bar, trying to lose himself in their colored swirls.  A hand touched his shoulder.  He jumped and turned to find Kate, Solly in tow.  Jan’s face must have betrayed something.  She looked puzzled.  “What’s wrong?”


Jan shook his head.  “No.  Nothing,” he lied.  “Let’s go.”


Waving good-bye to Harry, they stepped out onto Richmond and turned east.  The snow had stopped, and the sidewalks were slushy.  “We take Talbot?” Solly asked again.


“Richmond, Solly, or you go alone,” Jan said.  Solly glared but fell silent, hanging by the curb and scanning the street as they walked.  Jan kept thinking of Garos’s call.  They reached Jarvis.  A young blond woman stepped from a doorway, long white coat over a short red leather skirt, black stockings and boots.


“There’s Carla,” Kate said and started towards the girl.


A shout made them turn.  Solly was backing away, wide-eyed and pointing a shaking hand to something above their heads.  “No!  Solly knows the signs.  You won’t get Solly!”  Terror on his face, he ran onto the street.  Jan spun back.  Above the doorway where Carla stood open-mouthed, a neon sign glared “Franny’s Tavern.”  The first word was red, the second blue.


The blue one was moving.


In an eye-blink, the letters slid down the wall to form a glowing pool on the sidewalk.  In another blink, a humanoid shape rose radiant white from the pool--female torso, face, hair, the shape of clothing, then colors, facial details.


The face of the murder victim from last night.


“Carla!  Behind you!” Kate yelled.


A spear of light stabbed from the creature’s hand, striking Kate full in the chest and Jan in the shoulder.  Electricity flamed into him.  Numbed, he collapsed to watch as the thing grabbed Carla by the throat and lifted her into the air.


Slush seeping into his clothes, choking on ozone, Jan tried to move.  A violent tremor shook Carla.  Jan’s arms twitched.  The creature held Carla higher, its glow brightening, colors cycling.  Jan could feel his legs again.  Carla fell limp, and the thing slapped her down like a wet towel.  It turned to Kate.


Gasping, Jan heaved himself to his knees and lunged forward.  Somehow he got his hands under Kate’s armpits and dragged her just out of reach.  “Get up!” he cried.


“Can’t...move,” she gasped.  He pulled her to her knees.  The thing’s colors were fading, its features melting back into a smooth humanoid shape.  It shimmered and changed again.  And became Carla.  The Carla-thing smiled.  It stepped toward them.


Inches from its outstretched arms, Jan hauled Kate up and they lurched into the road.  Stumbling but with returning strength, Jan scanned the street.  From a dark alley across the road a small round figure waved, a jerky motion from a stiff arm.


Half dragging Kate, Jan struggled towards Solly.  Footsteps sounded behind them.  The back of his neck tingled as if an electrical charge was building at his back.  He pushed Kate into the alley as something brushed his coat.  Shoving a trash can behind him, he heard a thud and a sound no human throat ever made.  The alley was dark, and Jan’s eyes still burned from the electrical flash.  Ahead, Solly’s gray form disappeared to the right.  Jan moved along the wall, Kate’s hand in his.


“Now that thing looks like Carla!” she panted.


“It takes the form of what it kills,” Jan gasped.  That was why her description of the suspect had matched an earlier victim.


A hand grabbed Jan from the darkness and yanked them both sideways.  He could see nothing but he knew the smell.  Solly pulled them along.  Jan could feel walls to either side.  They stopped.  Jan reached ahead in the dark and touched another wall.


Solly had led them into a dead end.


“No!” Jan screamed.  His nightmare seized him.  Trapped in the dark with a monster.  And with a woman who trusted him.




Thirty-two.  In a church basement outside Budapest.  Waiting to die.  Total darkness.  Lying on damp earth, bound hand and foot.  Stale smell of mildew stinging his throat.  As he fought to awaken, a scream sliced the black, clearing the flames of pain in his head like a bucket of ice water.  Stasia.


He raged against his bonds.  She screamed again.  “Jan!  Oh God, no!  No!  Help me!”  Jan threw himself forward and managed to roll once.  Her cries were clearer.  But so was another sound.


The sound of something feeding.


Jan threw himself again but something held him fast.  He could do nothing but lie in the dark, listening to the beast feed on the still-living Stasia.  Praying in the dark for her screams to cease.  Praying in the dark for her to die.


An eternity passed.  Then only the grunts of the beast remained.  The stench of rotting meat grew strong.  A huge shape moved in the darkness.  Moved closer.  Jan screamed.


Blinding light suddenly flooded the room, and the roar of the were-wolf echoed in the roar of gunshots.  Blood, thick and black and hot, struck Jan’s face as Garos shouted his name.




In the dark alley, Jan shoved Solly away and turned to run back.  Solly grabbed him, holding on with surprising strength.  “No!  Stay here.  Out of the light!  Solly knows!”


A glow began at the entrance to the dead-end, but Jan still couldn’t see.  Kate’s hand found his.  “Jan?” she said.


Hearing her fear, his panic fled, replaced by a feeling of resolve he had almost forgotten.  He squeezed her hand.  She would not die.  “Solly, talk to me.  Tell me what you know!”


Solly’s voice quavered.  “It don’t like the dark.  We’re safe here.  Right?”  At this, Kate groaned.

Jan swore,his mind racing.  Light was the key.  “It must feed off electricity, hiding as part of signs.  When you chased it last night, it joined with the sign in the alley.”


“That’s why the alley was brighter last night,” Kate said.


“Sunlight must sustain it in the day, plus electricity.  But when night comes...”  Jan stopped.  When night comes, it needed more.  It needed its real food: human life force.


The light at the entrance grew and the glowing form of Carla appeared.  “I thought it doesn’t like the dark,” Kate whispered.


Jan swore.  “It must still be hungry and figures we’re worth the risk.  Solly, how long can it go without light?”


“Five minutes,” he whined, “but a lot more if it just ate.” 


“Wonderful,” Kate said.


Twenty paces away now, the thing lit the entire area.  Its glow was dimmer but Jan doubted that would save them.  At least now he could see.  He looked around, and his heart leapt.  The wall behind them and the walls on either side each held a door.


Jan grabbed the door handle behind them.  Locked.  So was the one to their right.  He tried the last one.  The handle turned a bit.  He leaned on it and heard a click.  He threw his weight against the door and it squealed open with rusty protests.


“Inside!” Kate cried, rushing forward, Solly in hand.


“No!”  Jan grabbed her, an idea forming.  The thing was ten paces away.  Pulling out his flashlight, he stepped into the room and flashed the beam around.  The stock room of a store, twenty feet square.  Not much space to maneuver.  Could he do it?  Could he finally face his darkness?  By walking into it?  He turned back.  The thing was five paces away.  He aimed his light at it.


“No!” Solly cried.  “It eats light!”


Jan ignored him.  “Kate, take Solly into the corner.  After I lead it inside, close the door and don’t open it.”  Kate turned pale but nodded and pulled Solly back.  Jan stepped up, playing his beam over the creature.  It turned to him.  Keeping his light on it, he backed into the room.  Darkness closed in on him and with it his fear.  What had he done?


The thing stepped inside.  The door slammed shut behind it.


It stopped and looked back.  Its mouth opened, and a sound like fingers tapping fine crystal, filled the room.  And somehow, in that sound Jan heard its hunger and its pain.  A wave of empathy flooded him.  They were alike.  Hunters.  Hiding their true shape.  Fearing the night.  The creature reached for him.  I’m sorry, Jan thought.  He turned off his light.


The thing trembled, and its aura dimmed.  But then Carla’s features and clothing faded, seeming to melt back into its body.  A featureless human form remained, glowing blue-white.


It’s conserving energy, Jan thought.  It no longer needed to pretend to be human.  He swallowed.  How intelligent was it?


A deadly game of tag began--the thing pursuing with the same plodding step--Jan retreating, avoiding corners, always leaving two paths of escape.  With each passing minute, the thing’s aura dimmed, fading to blue, then yellow, then red.


Finally it stopped, arms drooping.  Jan sighed and relaxed.  He noticed too late that the arms weren’t just drooping.


They were growing.


Both arms flashed out, three times normal length, easily covering the space between the thing and Jan.  Taken by surprise, Jan dove aside but a hand brushed his thigh.  Electricity numbed his leg.  He fell.  Looming over him, the thing reached down.


And stopped.  Its colors cycled the spectrum then faded to gray.  A sound like breaking glass fled a suddenly grotesque mouth.  Its feet melted into a pool.  The arms flowed back into a shrinking torso.  Soon only the pool remained, faintly glowing.


Jan walked to it.  The pool bulged once toward him, then its last light died and Jan stood in the dark.  He waited before  flicking on his light.  The pool was a dull gray.  He kicked, and it shattered with a crystal cry, imploding into sparkling powder.


He opened the door and Kate threw her arms around him.  Back on the street, Solly checked every bit of neon in sight, then fixed Jan with that eye.  “Gotta know the signs,” he said.


Jan phoned the police about Carla’s body and left a message for Garos to call.


“So what now, hunter?” Kate asked.


Solly stared up at Jan.  “You gonna get the others too?”


Jan and Kate turned to him.  “Others?” Kate groaned.


Jan shrugged then looked at her.  “I could use a partner.”  She said nothing but took his hand as they walked Solly home.


They took Talbot.




Thirty-five.  A midnight street.  He waits in the dark, watching the signs.  She waits beside him.  He knows the ways of the beast; she knows these streets.  A town pays well to be rid of its creatures of the night.  Creatures that breathe ozone like a summer breeze, wear glass for skin and burn electricity in their veins.  Creatures that feed on this realm of the lonely.


Once, he shunned the dark where shadows hide their secrets.  Now he stalks the night streets, a shadow himself slipping from alley to alley.  Now he keeps to the dark.


And stays out of the light.


~~~