Chapter Fourteen
Shadow
My dark nature chooses the most fucked up time to reveal itself. One second of not paying close attention to my glamorous facade, and it can slip through the cracks.
Making sure to move at a steady pace, I go and help Luna to her feet. I haven’t been this close to a woman in such a domestic setting for a long time. I’m not just out of practice, I feel as though I am out of my league, too.
I like to operate under cover of darkness. Dim red lights in nightclubs. The subtle glow of candles in restaurants. Or the fluorescent buzz of street lamps. Those are the best environments for my hunter instincts to come out and play.
I must tread cautiously.
Lowering my tone to sound concerned, I pat Luna’s back.
“What happened? Did you see something outside the window?”
Her eyes are like two kaleidoscopes; fractured colors filled with fear. Luna is going to come straight out and say it.
Am I human?
But once again, she manages to shock me to the core.
“I… I… yes, you’re right. I saw something strange through the window.”
Why is she lying?
Steadying herself by putting her hands on my chest, Luna does not look at me.
“I reckon I’m going to call a timeout on tonight, Shadow, if you don’t mind. It’s been…”
I hold my breath. It’s been what? Traumatic? Terrifying. Troublesome?
Inhaling a shaky breath, Luna lifts her head and locks her gaze on me.
“It’s been a long night.”
She turns to leave. Not wanting to end things like this, I call out.
“D’you mind if I hang? I want to stick around and try to make sense of all these pages.”
Luna freezes at the door with her hand on the frame before continuing to her bedroom.
“Sure, Shadow. Knock yourself out.”
I should be happy when I hear the door to the bedroom next door closing. Now I can root around in Tempest’s study to my heart’s content without having to constantly explain myself to Luna.
But I’m the polar opposite of happy.
I am absolutely certain that Luna knows what she saw and believes it to be real.
Why does she not call me out on it?
I’ve never been perplexed by a woman like this before. I take pride in being able to read a woman’s mind from just one look, one touch. Luna seems to take pleasure in keeping me guessing.
She turns me down cold in the middle of making out. That’s never happened to me before—not when I’m making such an effort to intoxicate my love victim.
She calls me out every fucking time I make the wrong move.
And the confusing part is this: By now, she should be dying to do anything for me, but it’s the other way around. I know I would kill to keep my enigmatic, beautiful Luna safe.
With everything upside down like this, I forgive myself for being in such a fucking bad mood.
Growling, I shake my head to rid it of Luna’s luscious image.
Flipping my focus to the problem of the recipe, time goes quickly as I sort the pages into order. I start listening for the sound of the rooster in the henhouse on Ben Magoo’s property as it senses the approaching dawn.
This much I know. Luna can never be left alone at night anymore. A shadowy guardian must constantly watch over her.
And the last page—the most important step—of the recipe is missing.
Returning to the inn is easy from Tempest’s house. Kicking the stand up, I coast the bike downhill with the engine off. I’m halfway there before the momentum runs out and I have to turn the engine on.
Momentarily, I forget the sorrows and stress that have plagued me since the first day of my monstrous existence and allow myself to enjoy the early morning pre-dawn air.
But unlike the billions of normal people in the world, my skin does not prickle when it feels a chill on it.
The hairs on my forearms do not rise up against the cold.
Inert, they lay flat against the alabaster surface.
Letting the engine purr at low revs, I maneuver the bike to stand next to the other four machines. I have less than an hour left to explain everything to the other members of the club.
Slithering into the basement through the connecting clubhouse portal, I find the others ready for sleep. What I have to say will wake them up soon enough.
“Arise. Time for church. Y’all need to hear this. The half-breed made some kind of a connection with Luna—and he’s able to give her delightful nightmares.”
The squeak of leather as all four of my brother riders rise pronto.
Theron whistles. “Woo. That was quick. She’s only been here a week.”
“Slick.” Rundas growls. “But how did he get on top of things so quickly?”
“He’s been to the house. Shit, he was probably living there until Linda Farmer started tidying the place up for Luna’s arrival. That fucking bastard must have been in seventh heaven when he saw Luna arrive.”
Silence as the riders absorb this. Time for me to fill in the gaps.
“Tempest hasn’t made this easy for us. She left no clue with the lawyer. Luna is a blank slate, too. But Tempest did good because she knew what would happen once the supply ran out. She knew he would come looking for it, so the last page of the recipe is missing.”
“You call that doing good!?” Jaecar is furious. “The reckless slut has ruined us all!”
The monster inside me roars. “Never call Tempest that again! You know how strong the glamor is. What human woman could ever resist it?”
I keep the revelatory glimpse of ghoul that Luna saw to myself. It was not my finest moment, and I still cannot make sense of it. Almost as if my dark soul is forcing me to tell her the truth whether I want to or not.
“Listen, Luna seems to be cool with what I have told her so far. She knows we need the recipe, and she allowed me to stay overnight to gather the pages together. It’s a start.”
Artim says what we are all thinking. “No, it’s only a start once the fucking fluid is brewing! Until then, we are in deep shit, brothers.”
“Rundas, you’re in charge of night duty tomorrow at Tempest’s house. We can’t let him get access to Luna’s bedroom again.”
“Does she have any idea what he’s doing to her?” Rundas wants to know out of curiosity.
Trying to sound nonchalant, I grunt my last words as I settle down to sleep.
“Luna thought she was dreaming of me. I’m flattered. There’s no need to alarm her yet.”
As the sun crawls higher in the sky, I think about Tempest.
She told me her sad story so many times that I know it by heart, like an elegiac poem a child is forced to learn at school.
Damn it, but there was something about that female that got me straight through to the soul, from the first time we laid eyes on each other.
Tempest’s father, Sam Aherne, played by the rules, just like his father had done so before him. He traveled to the mainland, found a woman, and brought her back to Landslide as his wife.
But Laura Aherne was a stubborn, spoiled, backstabbing bitch.
She was one of those women who manage to claw their way out of a strict and poor family upbringing by latching onto the first man to pay them attention.
She lured Sam into wedlock with the promise that he could be the one to take her virginity.
The poor guy was cunt struck and pussy whipped. It was slim pickings when it came to women on Landslide at the best of times. He couldn’t wait to get that ring on her finger and bring her back to the family home.
I raised an eyebrow when Sam introduced his wife to me. He brought her to the clubhouse one evening and knocked politely on the door.
It was the early nineteen-seventies. I was in the last years of my Shadow cycle, but I still ruled Landslide with an iron fist.
My deathless body was the same as it is now, but my hair was long, black, and matted, hanging around my face like a dark rag.
My beard grew thick down to my chest. Sometimes when I rode, I would knot a bandana around my head.
We had denim cuts then, before leather became easier to get and plentiful enough for me to cut the sleeves off my leather jacket.
“Meet Shadow Sylva, Laura. He’s president of the MC.” Sam looked so proud to have paired off.
But Laura had shot me an evil eye, her mouth pulling down as she sulked. “So you’re the big cheese around here? Where are all the hangouts, Daddy-oh? It gets damn boring staring at ol’ Sam across the table most nights.”
I was so tempted to pay her a little visit one night, to show her how exciting Landslide could be, but Laura was already pregnant, so I abstained.
“Wait until summer and then go visit the mainland for all your thrills and spills.” My reply was dismissive.
I disliked Laura Aherne from the get-go.
Red hair teased into a sky-high beehive.
Black eyeliner painted on her eyelids with a heavy hand.
Thick pink lipstick caked around her mouth.
I’m no Goddamn artist, but I thought all the makeup made her look like a tuppenny ho.
Pointing at the small bulge under her ribcage, Laura made an impatient sound and rolled her eyes. “You dope. I won’t be able to go anywhere soon. I’ll have the baby to worry about.”
I should have known right then that it wasn’t going to work out between Laura and Sam.
Tempest’s mother split before her baby was old enough to walk.
By the time we thought it would be wise to find out what happened to Laura Aherne on the mainland, she had already disappeared into the ether.
Now I know how she did it. She found some other sad sack schmo to marry, which changed her last name. She must have fallen pregnant again and had Luna’s mother before the ink had time to dry on the Ahernes’ divorce papers.
I’ll never forget the first time Sam dropped Tempest off at the Heiners for them to babysit his little girl.
Loping over to the general store at dusk to pretend to buy some groceries, I found a much younger, newly married Celia Heiner showing Tempest how to tally the receipts.
The red-haired girl took after her daddy—lanky and loose-limbed with the same bright green eyes.
Looking up when I came in, she gave me a long stare as I stuck random stuff into the handbasket.
After a while, I thought of an item Harry always kept in the basement which caused Celia to go down and look for it.
“Be a good girl, Tempest, and guard the till for me.”
Being new on the island, Celia had yet to learn to trust a down and dirty biker when cash money was involved.
Wasting no time, I confronted Tempest. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
She came straight out and said it. “If you shaved off your beard and cut your hair, Mister, I reckon you would look mighty fine.”
Checking to see that Celia wasn’t coming up the ladder, I lowered my voice. “I’m an elderly man, Tempest. I dye my hair black to hide the gray, that’s all.”
There is no dye, of course. Our glamorous facade simply fades and darkens over time, that’s all. Every time there is a new generation of Landsliders, we polish ourselves to be bright and shiny and new again, the same way one does to a silver dollar.
Shaking her head so hard her ponytail flicked out, Tempest denied my claim. “Nuh-uh. And why aren’t you hungry for food? I see folks come in here, and they always lick their chops at the candy. But you don’t like any of that stuff in your basket, I can tell.”
We stayed looking at one another in silence—with Tempest casually kicking her feet under her chair and chewing the end of her ponytail—until Celia came back up the ladder. “Here it is, Mr. Sylva. And it ain’t expired yet.”
I took the can, paid for the groceries, and left with Tempest’s eyes following my every move.
The next day, Tempest walked all the way from the house to the club and sat outside the door waiting.
Rousing ourselves that evening, we caught a whiff of cotton socks, apple-scented shampoo, and laundry detergent loitering outside the door. She hadn’t been starving herself, either. The trace of cookie crumbs and soda pop lingered in the air.
I did not need to open the door to know who was there.
“What are you doing here, Tempest?” I tried sounding gruff, but there was no denying the smile in my eyes.
And so it started. The questions, the constant visits—and the lifelong friendship.
“Why didn’t you answer my knocks? Where were you? What are your names?”
It wasn’t long before the MC agreed to rejuvenate everyone’s appearances. It might not look like such an anomaly if Tempest chose to hang out with a bunch of young bikers. So Shadow’s son, Dante, made an appearance.
And just like Luna, Tempest was able to see through my disguise and pretense after a few days.
“No, you’re not Dante, Shadow’s son. You’re Shadow. I know you are. I’ll call you Dante if that’s what you want, but you’re the same Shadow as before.”
Nothing changed for the first couple of years—until one day it did.
I smelt the change and for the first time, I was made to feel awkward by it. Her body had filled out, the skinny girl was gone, replaced by a lithe young woman with red hair flowing past her trim waist.
Tempest noticed my reluctance to hang out with her and asked me why.
“You’re a lady now, Tempest. Time for you to think about visiting some dance halls or discos on the mainland during the summer, don’t you agree?”
Shrugging off my suggestion, Tempest Aherne shook her head.
“No, thanks. I think my daddy should build an accommodation facility on Landslide so that the day trippers can stay overnight. And if I happen to meet someone nice during their visit, they can stay here with me. But he must be like you, Dante. I want him to be a biker just like you.”
And that was when all our problems began.
Because Tempest did meet someone just like me. And he found Tempest to be very much to his taste.