Indigo(60)

In ancient times, the murder gods would have used this power to create champions to fight and die for them. It takes such power that it is only possible to forge and maintain one Heykeli at a time. Unaware, unknowing, you’ve been giving Shelby life for years.

Indigo stared at Shelby, saw the tears streaming down her friend’s face, and shook her head. It was unthinkable. Impossible. And yet …

“So, you’re what?” Indigo said quietly. “My—”

“Imaginary friend.” Shelby glanced up, wiped at her tears, and looked away. “More or less, yeah.”

“But you’re right here! Right in front of me!”

“Only when you’re near. When you’re too far away, or you haven’t thought of me in a while, I’m just … gone.”

Indigo could barely breathe. Trying to come to terms with this revelation, she looked around the room. As she did, items began to fade to black and white, and then to vanish.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, focused inward.

Nothing, Damastes said. This is your doing. You’ve been hiding the truth from yourself, and now it is unraveling. Shelby is three-dimensional, full color, but the things in this apartment are only shadows that you’ve seen the way you want to see them. Like so much else.

“Or the way you made me see them,” Indigo snarled.

Damastes kept silent on that point.

“I’m a crazy person,” Indigo whispered to herself. “All of this lunacy. Have I really even been out there, fighting crime, or is that all in my head?”

You are a great fighter. Better than I ever expected.

Praise from a demon. Indigo shuddered.

Unexpectedly, Shelby said, “You’re more than Indigo.”

“What?” She was already shaken, and talking to someone who kept flickering in and out was absolutely unnerving.

“You’ve taken and taken from Damastes every time you go through the shadows, as you hide, as you attack. You’re a leech on him. He never planned on you getting so strong when he entered you, but you did. Only someone very strong could have created me.”

“What about the money?” Indigo asked her Heykeli. Her murder golem. “The trust?”

“Maybe Sam can find out. It’s not something I have to worry about.”

Indigo shifted back into Nora, who pointed out something that had been bothering her, eating at the edges of her new knowledge. “How could I see you eat pizza and drink beer? How did you create all those stories about what happened to you at work? It seems impossible that you aren’t real.”

“And yet, I am.” Shelby seemed more sad than angry now. “Please don’t kill me, Nora. Please don’t erase me. I know keeping me around is sapping your power. But you need me.”

“I’d be stronger without you?” Strength … Indigo certainly needed as much as she could muster.

Shelby started to cry. “I love you, Nora. I’ve been your friend through all these trials. You confessed who you were to me.”

Shelby looked completely solid now, as if she were mustering the remnants of energy Nora had channeled into maintaining her. Nora stretched out her hand, laid it on Shelby’s shoulder, warm and solid. Nora’s heart ached and she still couldn’t quite believe any of this, but if she was going to be able to defend herself against the Phonoi and the murder nuns and even Damastes, she knew she had no choice.

“I can’t let them kill any more children. And I need to know who I really am. How this all happened to me.” Nora could feel tears running down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Shelby. I have to let you go.”

Shelby shrieked, and Nora drew the shadows close, transforming once more into Indigo. She knew how to expend power. Now she experimented with absorbing it. Like a vacuum cleaner, she told herself. She felt the moment Shelby became part of her. Indigo felt the surge of strength, an incredible jolt of power. She closed her eyes to revel in the feeling, and to fight off the guilt and shame that swept through her.

When she opened her eyes, Shelby was gone. The closet door hung open, the rack inside it vacant. The apartment was bare and silent, aside from a dripping tap in the tiny bathroom. And an empty space was inside Nora. But even as the Nora part of her acknowledged this loss, the Indigo of her felt invigorated and leaped into the shadows.

*

With an unprecedented swiftness and ease, she emerged behind the open bathroom door in Sam’s hospital room.

“Before I come out, I want you to know I’m here,” she said, and Sam squawked.

When Indigo emerged, she saw that Sam was half-sitting on the bed, his hair rumpled and his expression startled.

“I was asleep,” he said in protest. “Could you not do that ever again?”

“Sorry. I see you got your laptop.”

“Yeah, my neighbor has a key to my apartment, and he brought it over for me.”

“What have you been doing in your waking hours?”

“Mostly battling a killer headache,” Sam said sourly. “But I started looking up the names on the list you gave me.”

“And?”

His sourness deepened.

“Wow, Sam, I’m so sorry you got hurt because you are my friend. I’m really devastated that you’re missing work and running up a hospital bill.”