Shadowshaper: Chapters 22–32

Sierra opened her eyes reluctantly, releasing the soothing ebb and flow of the spirit world.

Her thoughts wouldn’t congeal into sentences that would make sense.

His smile flashed in front of her mind’s eye, the sheepish one on his chalk-covered face when he stepped out of the shadows of Prospect Park.

Tee stared up at her, arms akimbo.

They’d stopped in front of a storefront that Sierra could have sworn had been empty and disheveled as recently as last week.

His guayabera hung open, splayed to either side of his gigantic belly.

Stacks and stacks of old copies of the Searchlight were scattered haphazardly around the giant metal printing press.

Except it wasn’t Manny’s voice, it was the hideous cacophony of voices from the throng haint.

Sierra glanced warily at the vacant lot and dilapidated church.

Occasional cops and paramedics would pass through to grab their superstrong cafecitos and flirt with the decadent waitresses.

Ruben, a lanky, light-skinned Dominican with a finely trimmed goatee, rained thundering blasts down on the kit, while his brother Kaz came in with a suave tuk-tuk-tuking on the congas.

The shadows spun faster, their long strides reaching over the heads of the writhing crowd.

Juan looked up from his guitar with that smug smile and nodded at Gordo, and the band whirled into another number.

Before she could finish her sentence, the band exploded into another thundering onslaught of metal drums and speed guitar.

When the full moon kills the ancient sun
As the one lures the other who in turn lures the one
When the shadows swarm
Take hold in their form
And burst through the borough like a bullet from a gun
Come to the crossroads, to the crossroads come

A vigorous shouting match ensued.

They gawked at her.

“I’m saying: The water is a mirror. You can see the lights of the city reflected in the East River. It’s like the corniest poetry cliche ever. Oh, the moon, reflected in the sea, blah blah blah, blee blee blee.”

Juan sat against a pillar, his head locked between his arms and bent knees like some surly, spiky-haired statue.

Sierra wasn’t sure if she would even believe herself, but she started talking, tentatively at first and gradually with more confidence.

“No, stop. I’m serious. What if, Sierra, you’re wrong about all this
stuff? We’re doing a whole lot right now, going all the way out to Coney Island, and I’m not saying you’re crazy per se but I’m saying—”

He shrugged, looking infuriatingly blase about the whole thing.

“Last stop,” the conductor’s voice garbled over the intercom.

Juan still trailed morosely behind.

All she wanted to do was beeline for the waves.

The beast could be Puerto Rican all day long, it was still a horrible, lurking, festering...

The corpuscule let out a guttural cry and toppled over, clawing at his eyes.

Tiny screaming mouths erupted along his gray flesh like welts.

Their song rose and fell in gentle crescendos that matched the waves lashing along the sand.

The shadow procession formed a wide circle around Sierra, their dark faces turned expectantly toward her.

Sierra squinted into the shifting luminescence of the moon’s reflection, trying to adjust her eyes, and then she was sure of it: A glow was rising beneath her.

They spun in slow circles, giving Sierra the full panorama.

She turned to the retinue of shadows around them.

“Without Lucera there’s no shadowshaping, but without shadowshaping there’s no Lucera. We are entwined. I drew power from the spirits and spirit workers and I returned it to them tenfold. The true source of shadowshaper magic is in that connection, community, Sierra. We are interdependent.”

The brightness seared into Sierra’s eyeballs, coated the inside of her brain, and burst like a languid, slow-motion explosion down her spine and through her entire body.