Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner (free romance novels .TXT) 📗

was, on some level at least, insane. Still, this explanation didn’t make sense to her. Her mind wasn’t more powerful than any other person’s. She was smart, but she was no genius, and it wasn’t like she had psychic powers or anything. How could she create actual living beings? No, more likely the Cabal and the Shadowkin were realistic illusions. And if so, did that mean the Nightway was an illusion, too? That Edgar was? Was she in reality lying in a bed in some mental hospital imagining all this? The last scenario seemed the most realistic of those she’d considered so far, but it still didn’t feel right. Or maybe she simply didn’t want to believe it. Who would?

“There’s one other explanation I’ve heard,” Edgar said. “It’s kind of out there, though.”

Lori laughed. “Like the others are more believable?”

He gave her a sideways glance, smiled. “True. Well, some say the Cabal’s purpose is to maintain the Balance.”

She frowned. “The balance between what?”

“Between what we think of as the real world and what’s called Shadow.”

“Like in Shadowkin?” she asked.

He nodded. “Each moment of time is like an entire separate universe. As one moment gives way to a new one, the old moment begins to die. The dark energy produced by these deaths creates a realm all its own. It’s like….” He paused, considering. “Like part of a shoreline being eroded and falling into the ocean. Except in this case, it’s the falling that creates the ocean. Does that make sense?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “But go on.”

“Some creatures thrive in Shadow, whether they’re things born there or people who can sense it and move back and forth between it and the real world. The creatures native to Shadow feed on the death of all those moments in time that create their world. They break it down, and process it so it can then go on to feed the Gyre. They kind of pre-digest its food for it. The Shadowkin are such creatures. They’re ravenous, mindless things.” He tapped his chest. “Not all that different from insects in a lot of ways.”

Lori wanted to ask him what the Gyre was, but she didn’t want to stray too far from what she really needed to know. “So why do the Shadowkin seem so drawn to me?”

He shrugged. “That I don’t know.”

“Okay, then can you tell me how the Cabal figures into all of this?”

“The creatures natural to Shadow can be greedy. Their hunger is never sated, and they try to find their way into the real world to feed on it. Destroying it, breaking it down. The Cabal exists to make sure that doesn’t happen. They work to keep Shadow and the real world separate as much as possible, although even with all their efforts, there are still some places where the worlds intersect.”

“What about the Nightway?”

“It’s connected to both Shadow and the real world. And to neither. Basically, it’s its own thing.”

That didn’t make any sense to her, but she decided to let it go. “So what you’re saying is that, according to this explanation, the Cabal are really the good guys?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice.

“I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think they give much of a damn for either world or the beings that inhabit them. All they care about is the Balance, and they’ll do whatever is necessary to maintain it, without any concern for who they might hurt in the process. They’re like sociopathic doctors who don’t give a shit about their patients, only about solving medical problems.”

“So if this explanation is true, that means the Cabal thinks we’ve both done something to upset the Balance between Shadow and the real world?

“Or at least threaten it,” Edgar said.

She mulled this over for a time. If the Cabal were like doctors, it would make sense why they were so enigmatic in how they went about their work. They’d be like surgeons, operating very carefully, in limited, controlled ways, so they could fix a problem without causing additional damage. It was a concept she was well familiar with as a physical therapist. Therapy needed to be specifically targeted to a client’s needs, without making their condition worse or causing any new problems.

So the Cabal are basically the PTs of the universe, she thought, and despite the situation, the notion made her smile. “So if we can figure out what we did to screw up the Balance….” she began.

“We can confess and, more importantly, atone,” Edgar said. “Easier said than done, though. I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell I did for years, and so far, I haven’t had much luck.”

The thought that she might end up like Edgar, as a sort of Flying Dutchman of the Nightway, endlessly on the run from the Cabal while trying to figure out what they wanted her to do, sounded like a kind of Purgatory to her, if not actual damnation. She’d prefer to avoid that fate if she could.

“We’re here,” Edgar said.

Chapter Eleven

Lori peered through the windshield. At first she saw only a glow of blue-white light spread against the darkness, but then she began to make out shapes – lots of them. She thought they might be trees, but they were too uniform in size to be organic. As the van drew closer, she saw what she was looking at were wooden poles about eight feet in height, with a crosspiece on top to form a large letter T, topped with a fluorescent light. There were dozens of poles, spread out alongside the road and continuing back into the darkness, making it impossible to guess how many there might be. There were objects on the Ts, and these objects had heads, arms, and legs. She realized then that she wasn’t looking at Ts – she was looking at crosses, all of which had people affixed to them.

“Fuck me,” she said softly.

Edgar said nothing. He pulled the van to the side of the road and turned