A roar tore the sky above, followed by another series of gunshots, and when Shadow looked up, he saw the huge bulk of Jake’s winged body disappear above the house. Moments later, something thudded against the roof, which creaked under the sudden weight. It was yet another reminder that their time might soon run out.
Shadow gave Gray a kiss and stepped out of his body, letting it hang in Beast’s arms. He was about to run off and seep into the house through the nearest crack, but when Gray held onto his arm, Shadow glanced over his shoulder. In darkness only his eyes could penetrate, Gray’s face was tense with worry, but none of it could be heard when he spoke.
“Remember what we practiced. Can you remember the code?” he asked, referring to the long hours of Morse code practice. Since they shared a bond through the Shadow hand that replaced Gray’s stump, they could use it to silently communicate.
Instead of nodding, Shadow tapped his side where the fourth hand used to be, for the letter ‘Y’.
Gray squeezed his wrist one last time, and let go.
“I won’t be long,” Shadow promised and let his form disperse into pure blackness. Entering the safe like this would be easy. Travelling felt more like swimming as he glided along the shadows cast by walls and trees even in the dark. Gravity didn’t matter, and he crawled up the wall, feeling the world shift around him instead of the other way around. In this liquid form, his perception changed, and he was no longer constricted to watching his surroundings with his eyes, because his entire body provided a more complete picture.
The tiniest crack in the window on the second floor was enough for him to pour into the corridor on the other side of the glass.
The room he entered had a tub of water so large he instantly envisioned himself and Gray spending time in it together, but there were more important things to consider. He flattened his form into a sheet and slid underneath the door before continuing along the side of the corridor. Footsteps approached, but the woman who eventually appeared from beyond the bend of the hallway couldn’t possibly spot him in the faint light of her candle.
He sped past her soundlessly, and then followed the path he’d learned by heart during the survey job a few weeks back. Men in black uniforms rushed around with weapons drawn, some shouting while others silently looked out of the windows.
“Must be the water supply,” one said, “We’re all fucking hallucinating.”
Shadow didn’t hear any of the responses, stretching his body until it became thin as a thread and trickled down a short flight of stairs that led into a huge living room where an elderly couple, who both seemed too small for the grand space, sat on a sofa accompanied by another of the men in black.
The woman leaned against her partner, pursing her lips with worry, but as Shadow rolled his form under the antique furniture, a tiny head appeared from between the cushions on the sofa. Next thing Shadow knew, a small, fluffy creature shot to the floor, and a shrill barking echoed under the tall ceiling.
“What is it, Precious?” the woman asked, but Shadow drizzled down a vent in the wall and fled the little dog without alarming any of the humans.
The gutter-sized metal tunnel he entered led him past rooms where smells of food were prevalent, but once he was past a rotating turbine, the scent changed dramatically. The oddly dry air felt unpleasant on his surface, but the couple of spiders and other bugs he’d found on the way sweetened the experience.
Once he was directly above a room adjacent to the underground vault, he trickled out of the pipe, straight under a little cupboard.
There was a single man in here, his gaze drawn to the grille Shadow had passed through half a second ago. A chill went through the entirety of Shadow’s being when he realized that the human must have spotted movement somehow, but as moments passed, the man’s posture relaxed, and he turned his attention back to a book in his lap.
Wary of the guard’s observant nature, Shadow took his time extending his fluid body until it blended so well with the shade of the carpeting he could pass the distance to the steel door undisturbed.
But just as he was about to sneak into the vault, he realized something strange.
He could definitely smell the Pigeon Heart, but it was not in the secure room behind this door. For a while, he wasted precious seconds away from his body, flat against the floor, confused. He considered that maybe the humans had intentionally masked the scent somehow, but he knew for a fact that their senses couldn’t recognize it, or taste the jewel.