Chapter 6

The police officer was only just beginning to step aside to admit the federal agents for what could only be another round of questioning, but for Shannon it may as well have been many long minutes before they even drew close enough to see her frightened features through the window.

Her thoughts ran like wildfire. It only served to slow things further into a crawl. She experienced a sinking sort of sensation. By the time she realized she was now almost buried in her bedding by her sulking, sunk down to laying prone by fear, things barely moved. She turned back to the television, lifting the remote to turn it off and hide what she’d been watching.

But the screen had frozen as well. A commercial for some local carpet company was on, but it was between frames. An actor knelt on a sample with one knee, elbow on the other as he touched the fabric. Smiling obnoxiously, his eyelids were closed amidst blinking. Slower than molasses and odd looking, the frame rose for the next where his blink was only beginning to unfurl, letting his glazed gaze return to the viewers.

Shannon wasn’t much of an audience for any advertisement, much less this sort, but especially not at a moment like this. She really hated local commercials even more than national ones. Something about the lack of budget attributed them always left them looking more fraudulent than corporate commercials with better actors, high-priced ad-wizards, and expensive graphic animations, logos, or whatever else they could devise.

Sneering and fearful at once, she frantically pushed the power button, but the television responded in the dream that everything else suffered. The screen went black almost instantly, but the closing of the horizontal and vertical was slowed terribly in winding down with a bright spot at the center of the screen.

Shannon’s breath was already trapped in her throat, so there was little else she could do but face the terrifying realization that she’d seen this sort of dream once before. She knew it immediately. It had happened during the attack two nights ago. It had happened when she had laid eyes on the elf on the hill.

No matter her misgivings on the matter of what to call what she had seen, she couldn’t help calling it an elf in her head. She had no other terms to describe such a sight.

She glanced around frantically to ensure she was safe, but she suddenly found herself staring blankly into terror-stricken space. A sense of awe washed over her, and she tried to reason through an abrupt tickling in her chest that could only be described as her very soul lurching forth from within her core.

A figure, black and forbidding, emerged from nothingness right before her bewildered dark eyes. It was the very same figure. She knew it instantly.

As if it had come straight out of thin air, it simply stepped into being with all the cool grace of fantasy and legend and more. It came to an immediate walking halt just short of the foot of her bed, an utterly silent little image of the reaper himself. At this vantage she had a much better look at it, but it seemed a different being than she’d witnessed before.

Covered head-to-toe in a draping cloak and hood, it was mostly indescribable as before. But where it had seemed so prominent on the rocky hill, this figure was surprisingly small. No bigger than a young teen boy who hadn’t gotten the better shake at the genetic sticks that would let him play sports alongside the bigger boys, it didn’t appear all that terrifying or powerful. But despite that size the shape of it screamed to her instincts it could play any game much better than those more visibly suitable for athletic feats.

Buried in the blackness it wore, with the fading light in the room lingering from the television’s slow refusal to shut down, she could see its features now. It was fairly short, yes. It had pale flawless skin that almost radiated a soft hazy glow, and long, streamlined and delicately poised ears spread wide to either side of its dome -somewhat like the misshapen wings of a strange plane. Dominating its almost childlike face, were a pair of large, depthless, entirely obsidian eyes.

The one on the hill had eyes that glowed in the night and fire for a second. Though this little guy’s eyes did not flare, Shannon was positive this was unquestionably the same figure. Not because she could recognize it from the distance she’d previously witnessed, but because she could feel it in her bones.

No, deeper still, she amended. She could feel it in the very fibers of her core. Its gaze, though almost looking blind, held the same penetrating weight -as if she lay stripped bare before its immutable spirit.

Trapped by sheer levels of awe and fear, Shannon could do nothing but study agape, and wait trembling to see what might happen. She refused to move, couldn’t, in fact. She just held her breath and trembled before it, while the Elf did nothing more than regard her -as if letting her see him for what he was. So she studied, and noted above all else, all miracle, awe, and wonder, this being’s face was utterly expressionless. He, she, it, whichever it was, may as well have been a cadaver, illegible in its alien presence.

Disbelief slowly settled in, uprooting fear and awe. In all honesty, she had to admit, she had to be hallucinating, or dreaming. No. It was a nightmare! It had to be. A dream, or a flashback to previous nights. The past was mingling with what she was experiencing now. She knew it because she didn’t think she could take her eyes off of it.

Whilst it did mostly nothing, staring down upon her for these uncomfortably long moments, disbelief began to subside. She began to get the impression she was being weighed. It felt like she was some sort of prey for a predator she couldn’t even begin to imagine. As her thoughts cleared, she recalled the federal agents. Fearing for her life out of the instinctual part of her animal being, she proved herself wrong. She could move, and she used that freedom, hastily looking toward the door.

A way out, or a way to prison -either way was better than being confronted by the sheer horrifying realization that was beginning to scratch its way up her spine like the claws of a rabidly plague riddled rodents. We are not alone as a species. She was not alone as a prisoner. Shannon wanted to scream and run, and keep running and screaming until she died.

The agents were closer, she saw, but still in route and still slower than molasses in winter. The police officer still had yet to get fully out of their way in either case. Time was so slow they almost didn’t move at all. They would never reach the door in time to help her, she sensed, as subtle movement caught the corner of her eye. Dread alone brought her eyes back.

The little Shadow at the foot of her bed was moving, and she dared not miss a moment.

It peeled back its cloak like a veil of midnight parting before the brilliance of a swollen moon, revealing glittering whiteness and silver light. It seemed its garments below were construed of diamonds and utterly beautiful silk, but she was deceived. It was darkly garbed beneath as well. Her eyes had simply locked onto the light that bounced off the rather long handle of what looked to be a weapon similar to a katana like Jason kept in a rack on the wall at the side of his bed.

However, she couldn’t see much more than a handle. She didn’t need to see more. This weapon’s make was clearly fine by comparison to Jason’s store-bought Japanese katana. And it wasn’t quite the same. The handling length was far greater and slightly reversely curved. It wasn’t like Jason’s at all, Shannon realized. Worse, this one was actually useful in combat. She simply knew it.

Her dread increased as the alien little man lifted one hand of incredibly nimble, almost pointy fingers, and fastened them into an unbelievably iron fist upon what could have been a scabbard hidden in the shadows of his cloak behind the elaborate silver workings of a circular, but sweeping hilt that was only now coming into being –its intricate knots growing into being like living vines of white gold, twisting turning and eventually joining and running a swoop nearly half way up the grip where it then gained purchase and solidified.

It was simply beautiful, wondrous – a terror unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

The elf’s forceful thumb pushed against the new hilt, breaking the weapon’s silent disuse and preparing it for withdrawal. A second nimble hand rose in a methodical sweep. It’s narrow, liquid-dexterous tips moving to fix surely upon the grip, leading to a fist.

Shannon looked up to meet the creature’s black eyes, and finally her breath escaped her in a dreamer’s gasp. She was witnessing a ritualistic set of movements, she realized. It was an execution. A mercy killing.

“Neepier’ne.” Deh Leccend, the Black Leaf, spoke an Elvine apology. His soft sound was like a song, a language in and of itself, whose notes expressed more than his foreign words ever could. Yet it was cold and emotionless as he said it. For that was what it was to be the Black Leaves.

Although she never could have understood his language, she clearly understood his tone. It was as if they alone said everything on their own. He had not needed to speak English for her to understand, a bewildering fact when she realized it, made her eyes expand all the more.

“I’m sorry.” Was all he’d offered, and when it registered upon her, Shannon panicked. Sensing her impending death, she tensed for the end, curling in on herself as his right arm rose in a practiced flash, ripping up and bearing an incredible sword into being. He held it aloft for a moment, that it might descend gently.

It was like watching a samurai movie, only terrifying. Slowly, he settled in, preparing to take her life, forcing her to zero in on that killing tool as it came between them.

The blade was incredibly thin, as if no more than wrought of paper, and much longer than any katana she’d ever seen. And though it possessed a similar curve, this was clearly no average imitation as she’d seen before. This sword had come from a small body’s cloaking, where it shouldn’t have fit to begin with, and though she couldn’t be certain she thought it almost hummed. Its voice’s radiance and its physical luster seemed to collide and set the mood for her entire chamber like those eerie sound effects found in so many movies.

She still wanted to scream. She desperately wanted to get up and run. But she could do nothing more than stare down that blade as it glittered and gleamed a soft hazy glow. She could feel its power thread through her in deceptive fashion. The weapon could destroy much more than herself. It oozed the same sensation of immutability as its bearer.

Special Agent Black lay his hand upon the doorknob only an instant before Shannon’s fear rose to a boiling point. He turned it and pushed the barrier open, gaze turned down as he thoughtfully ran through the questioning he was going to give her. Agent Connelly, only a step behind, did a double take through the swinging glass. And when the door finished its swing, both pairs of federal eyes fell upon an empty bed.

Deh Leccend’s blade swooped slow and practiced, but it seemed to tear apart the very fabric of the air betwixt them as he prepared to strike her down. It left a trail of mist as though he’d converted oxygen and other atmospheric gasses into something else with its edge, but it was not steam and its edge did not hiss.

Then poised, without hesitation or mercy, he lashed out. His aim was keen, and his sword was long. Shannon’s head would roll.

“No!!” She cried, fearful as she cringed, hunkering down into herself. She squeezed shut her eyes and begged desperately for something to save her from this beautiful nightmare. And to her great wonder, something miraculously did.

Her voice, her sheer terror, seemed to take on form much greater than sound, and her fears protected her. In a whoosh the Black Leaf was picked up and hammered away by a gargantuan force, sent blasting through the wall below the high mounting of the television as though struck a blow by something much greater than Shannon. The entire emergency ward shuddered beneath the urgings of her denial. The electricity flickered and failed, the nearest windows shattered, and a plume of sheet-rock dust and debris erupted into her chamber with the boom.

Beyond the dreamlike web into which Shannon had fallen, and operating at a normal sense of time and movement through space, Agent Connelly reacted instinctively, throwing Arthur Black to the floor for cover. They stayed that way for a long few moments as the cloud expanded out into the hall and slowly but surely began to subside. The clattering of debris was the only thing to be heard as they lay with heads covered, backs dusted in white. Then, the television and its mounting collapsed to the floor with a crash, and the fire-system’s emergency sprinklers kicked on, drenching the chalky cloud and trying to drag it to the floor.

Connelly was on his feet in an instant, gun drawn as he coughed against the talcum powder sensation in his throat and the foul taste of sheetrock-filled air.

The policeman at the door had been knocked to the floor, but now back on his feet, came wheeling into the room as well, throwing the door wide again. His face was smattered with his own blood where the glass of the door’s window had pelted his neck and cheek. His gun was also drawn, though in less-practiced swiftness.

But Shannon paid them no heed whatsoever. She could barely register their slow movements as she gasped out a heavy shuddering sigh. Her petite frame trembled with the exertion she hadn’t expected beneath a power she’d never known. She almost fainted outright, fighting for breath, but the Black Leaf reappeared within seconds.

Again she gasped, struggling to stay alert, to control her body and try to flee. But the elf before her eyes appeared entirely unconcerned with anything she might attempt. He casually glanced to the federal agent, Connelly, whose head was turning from the hole in the wall to the bed and back again in a drawl of slow motion. His lips were moving, telling Arthur something indiscernible. His thick brow was narrowed and scrunched as he fought to see through the diminishing cloud of white dust.

Deh Leccend turned his eyes back upon the girl, unconcerned with the officers of human affairs. He knew none of them could see what was transpiring. Not through the Veil. Not like the girl. Shannon panted, helplessly watching as the Black Leaf readied his blade again, refusing to dust himself off. She watched the coming of a second shadow, a taller, gaunt figure with intense emeraldine eyes. He too drew forth a blade in a flick of near silence.
There were two of them!?

“Please, don’t!” She tried urgently, desperate between frantic unchecked breaths.

“She is no match for you, Deh Leccend. End her quickly, or I shall do so myself.” Athaem spoke to the Black Leaf. Again, Shannon could not understand what the fellow’s bird-brained tongue was saying. It was just beautiful gibberish and incomprehensible babbling. However, again, his lyrical tones gave away his meaning like Deh Leccend’s voice had done in his apology. She could hear it –a stern, demanding command. He was instructing the shorter one to kill her quickly. She knew it beyond all doubt.

The Black Leaf stepped forward obediently, but just after ordering it finished, Athaem abruptly gasped, gripping his blonde head. Then for reasons Shannon may never know, the tall one’s hand flashed out, snagging Deh Leccend’s slim bicep.

“Hold, Black Leaf!” He snapped, hissing a warning. Deh Leccend did as commanded, as always, though he did not lower his sword. He just froze, waiting and listening like a machine.

“We cannot kill her.” Athaem informed dreadfully, voice full of curiosity and confusion, but certainty as well.

“No?” Deh Leccend questioned, black brow narrowing for explanation.

“No, Black Leaf.” Athaem confirmed. “My father has decreed she must see Addl’laen.”

“She must have spoken.” Deh Leccend deduced quite simply, in the manner that all Black Leaves held of divination.

“Perhaps.” Athaem answered back, releasing the Black Leaf’s arm and sheathing his blade, prompting the other to do the same. Shannon was taken aback. Confusion swept over her exhausted features.

“You must come with us, young one.” The prince said, and gone was the gibberish as he was abruptly wielding proper English. He stepped forward and around her bed, offering an upturned palm. Shannon cringed, flinching away from his movement. Panting and engulfed in a cold sweat, she felt violently ill. Something terrible had happened to her, but she couldn’t quite figure it out. She was feverous and near delirium. The taller, blonde elf-thing may as well have been offering her doom as well as kindly gesturing her to freedom.

“I don’t want to!” She defied him fearfully, shaking her head wildly to sending dreadlocks bouncing.

“You must.” Athaem ventured insistently as if she had no choice in the matter, causing her to glance to Agent Connelly who was now only looking from the empty bed to the hole in the wall again, face intense with a stress-slacked jaw and firearm lowering as the realization of a possible escape on her part slowly overcame him. He looked as though he was having a difficult time calculating the likelihood of a seriously injured girl managing whatever had caused the explosion.

“Either that, or go with them.” The prince realized where her gaze had gone, and what was ticking behind her fearful eyes. “You don’t want that now, do you?” He made it a statement of fact, as if reading her mind. Shannon shakily shook her head again. She didn’t want either of the parties anywhere near her. She just wanted to go home. She wanted to be free of everything.

“Very well, then. You’ll be coming with us.” Athaem concluded, stepping closer.

“No! No!” She panicked and flailed uselessly.

“Easy, child.” He cooed, yet sternly hissed. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He said, touching his brow with two fingers. Shannon tried to scurry away, but he was too ethereal, too far beyond possibly physical and real. He moved like nothing she’d ever seen. He had his grasp upon her before she knew it, and those two fingers smoked like the Black Leaf’s sword as they scythed into her hospital gown with a dexterity and grace she couldn’t comprehend, promptly finding her bullet-wound with ease.

“Don’t!” She tried to squirm away, but it was too late. He was already withdrawing. She felt a light tugging, and his hand reappeared, pulling a gnarled length of tough dark material. It was her stitches, she realized in an instant.

“There, that’s better, isn’t it?” He asked, discarding the tough thread carelessly and reaching for her forehead as he’d done to his own. In a touch, she felt the shaking and sweat outright cease. She felt the spinning of the world dim dramatically, and all was well again in a matter of several slowing heartbeats. Athaem then offered her his gentle hand, long and narrow like a lady’s, but strong and bearing those super-lithe fingers.

“I am called Athaem Llaerth of the Addl’laen Elvine,” He offered, hesitating. “Ms. Hunter.”

Shannon was bewildered. She couldn’t understand. Two seconds ago these figures were going to kill her, and now she’d been healed and offered kindly of a form of salvation from the trouble with the law she’d placed herself into. Her eyes found the smaller and darker of the two pale figures at Athaem’s backside -the dog Athaem sicked or heeled like his own private assassin. She openly showed her distrust.

“That is Deh Leccend, the Black Leaf. You couldn’t ask for greater safety, I assure you.” He spoke truthfully, forcing a small smile. No matter how much he disliked the Black Leaves, he could not discount their abilities. And no matter how much she feared them, especially Deh Leccend for his presence on the night of the attack on Murton and Norton Industrial, Shannon really didn’t want to end up being questioned further by the FBI, especially not now after an explosion had ripped through the wall of her bedroom. How could she explain that if she was left to talk to them alone?

Slowly she took his offered hand, and his cool touch tingled in her own, not surprisingly cooling her misgivings. Athaem smiled more reassuringly.

“There you go. We’ll get you out of here.” He said.

Drawn to her feet and whisked away, the two led her from the hospital room with swiftness, but no great rush either. They passed purposefully right through the chaos of the Agents and right out the open door under the very nose of the Seattle P.D. officer stationed to ensure her captivity. They slid through the bustle of bodies in the shaken emergency ward without challenge. Then, they were descending a stairwell after a short walk down the hallway.

They moved purposefully, and everything else dragged along around them. Shannon was swept up in the whirlwind of it all, helpless in the face of her saviors. But very swiftly it seemed she wasn’t anywhere near as free as she would have liked to be. Judging by the way the one called, Deh Leccend, the Black Leaf, took to leading far ahead, and by the way Athaem followed close behind, they were just a new pair of agents dressed in black. They were nothing less than new jailors.

However, at the same time, they weren’t just any captors. These were Elves. Weren’t they?

She was sure of that fact beyond anything she’d ever been sure of in her entire life. She was walking in the presence of legends and myths and fairy tales, although they were much different than anything she’d ever read about. For all the foreboding feeling of being captive in a different way under different men, when her heart and mind caught up to what was happening and she was allowed to start asking herself reasoning questions, she was suddenly excited by the thought of it in a rather strange way.

She presumed this was what it was supposed to have been like for all those fictional characters in all those movies and t.v. shows that had ever encountered anything paranormal or fantastic. It always swept them up off their feet and carried them through a dramatic adventure, and she was to be no exception. She simply couldn’t help but follow along just to see what came next.

All thoughts of Jason’s safety, or the whereabouts of Willie and Devin simply flittered away like butterflies in exchange for the wonder that was unfolding around her. She didn’t care a whit for the law, or for her father’s jeopardy or knowledge of her actions. There was nothing but the amazement of the unknown that came to a person when discoveries of extraordinary powers of self came to those who experienced them. It was nothing short of disbelief blended with knowing.

She had sent the little one blasting through the wall with nothing more than a sheer denial of being assaulted. It had happened as if merely thinking and feeling it had brought it into being. She couldn’t explain it any other way, and didn’t need to do so. Acceptance merely became her, and she concentrated on putting one foot in front of another until she caught up with the waiting Deh Leccend at the bottom of the stairwell, where he paused before a doorway out into the hospital’s lobby.

“Alright, D.” Athaem spoke, coming to a halt shortly behind her. “Do your thing.” He said. Shannon could only anticipate whatever that meant, but she wanted to ask these two so many things.

“Watch now, child.” Athaem spoke, lips suddenly hovering at her ear from behind. “Watch what only the Black Leaf can do and part the barrier between your world and that of the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge”

Shannon could feel his smile in the excitement of his voice, but everything was happening so swiftly. She had so much to ask, and his words only prompted more questions. Deh Leccend reached out and lay his hand upon the door.

“Wait!” She said suddenly, stepping aside, putting her back against the wall to place both of them before her. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. But, I have to ask.” She hesitated, seeing she had their undivided attention, or at least Athaem’s. Deh Leccend merely cocked his dark head aside and cast an eerie, blind-like owl’s sort of gaze back at her out of the corner of one eye.

“Yes?” Athaem asked, a slight impatience creeping in his voice.

“Are you two…” She hesitated again. “Elves?!” The excitement and wonder in her tonec couldn’t have been less concealed. Athaem’s blonde brows arched highly, clearly having not expected such a silly question. At least, that’s how it looked to her. The other one looked about as he always had thus far, expressionless, almost machine-like, or perhaps child-like in some way.

“Yes.” Athaem finally answered. “But you’ll see much more than this very soon. Patience child and silence.” He instructed. “Delecce, as you were.” He then ordered again, and the darker fellow turned his full attention back to the door once more, splaying his firm fingers upon it. All about his touch white light erupted in soft rays as if he’d surely punched a hole to the sun and sought to conceal all that could come spilling back through. Then he pushed, and the barrier swung open into darkness and blue-washed tones of forest night. There was no hospital any more out there. There were no buildings, no sounds and no stars overhead. All there was to see were soft tones of night-light blue and towering, gargantuan tree trunks. The Black Leaf stepped forth into the night, paused, and bid Shannon follow.

Sure enough, she did, stepping fully into the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge. Athaem was right behind her, closing the door carelessly. It swung shut beyond her sight with a casual slam that mutedly echoed into silence. As if a volume control, the closing of the door suddenly brought out the sounds of crickets and frogs and night birds. They jumped up to her senses, filling this new world with sounds and as sense of rampant wildlife, and yet there was a strange level of permeating silence.

Utter tranquility wrapped about her as her bare feet settled amidst moist grasses of the softest nature she’d ever felt. The air was cool and smelled of pollens and perfumes she couldn’t even begin to identify. The canopy far overhead screened away what should have been moonlight and blocked away the stars entirely. And yet, there was a light of some sort, emanating from beyond the nearest, view-obstructing trunk of a tree so great in girth it could have dwarfed the great sequoia or redwoods in the national forestry of California.

She gaped in awe as fireflies and other, dragon-fly like, illumine bugs flew along their lazy individual paths.

“Welcome to the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge.” Athaem spoke softly at her back.
Slowly a smile slipped onto her youthful features.

…This place was utterly magical…