“She was—I don’t know. But I know we were together before we forgot why, so she has to be someone important,” Letty said to the amnesiac as they all crept across Lafayette Square. They were deep into the Central Business District just south of the French Quarter, looking for a street they hoped Letty would still find familiar. It was far past their usual search boundaries, but Dr. Zadeh was getting desperate. The shadowless had been disappearing like ghosts. There were so few left now, and those they did see ran well before anyone could get close enough, even Michael. If this shadowless still remembered Letty even a little, they stood a chance of convincing her to come with them.
The neighborhood clearly unnerved Letty, every sound and creak of wood pricking like a needle on a fresh new spot of skin. The amnesiac looked around nervously, her fear making him jumpy. Here he didn’t know the angles to hide in, the directions to run that weren’t dead ends. They wound their way deeper in.
The shadowless they sought was still alive, hiding between two empty buildings, almost exactly where Letty had said she lost her when she’d started running, so many days ago.
“You’re alive,” Letty gasped when she finally saw her.
The shadowless looked up from where she was crouched between a few Dumpsters. The amnesiac saw the flash of recognition in her eyes—she remembered Letty still. “Shh,” she hissed.
The amnesiac and the others didn’t move for a second, but Letty darted behind another of the Dumpsters immediately. “Hide,” she said. She mouthed the word exterminators.
They all threw themselves down behind piles of concrete, burned-out furniture, any shape that would hide them as the footsteps echoed closer, but it was too late. The exterminators had already seen them.
“Look at this,” the one covered in scars said to the other, probably the tallest man the amnesiac had ever seen in person. He took the gun out of his holster. “Newbies. You all know you’re in Jackson’s neighborhood, right?”
“Jackson’s neighborhood?”
The tall one looked at the scarred one with his eyes narrowed. “I’ve had it with this. People crawling out of the woodwork, muscling in on our area.” He pointed the gun straight at the amnesiac, and Dr. Zadeh and Nurse Marie shrieked, shouting pleading things that interrupted each other and made no sense. “You can’t just come in here and take our catch. That isn’t how it works.”
“I’m sorry,” the amnesiac said shakily. “We didn’t know.”
“Yeah, right,” the tall one sneered. “Explain that, then.” His gun moved to aim casually at Letty and the other shadowless, causing them to cower to the ground, whimpering.
“Family!” the amnesiac cried. “They lost their shadows a week ago. We’re all family. We’re just looking for food.”
“Food here in this neighborhood also belongs to Jackson,” the scarred one said. “But more importantly, so does your family now.”
“No,” Dr. Zadeh said.
“Once they lose their shadows, they’re ours.”
“What about when you lose yours?” Dr. Zadeh asked the scarred exterminator.
The tall one tipped his head at his partner. “Then I’ll shoot him immediately and collect my reward for it.”
“Or the other way around,” the scarred one added, grinning.
“Please, we’ll leave. We’ll never come back,” the amnesiac promised.
“No can do,” the scarred exterminator said. He stepped closer. “See, even if I did believe you that these two were your family, they’re still shadowless, and you’re still in our hunting neighborhood.” The grin dropped off his face. “But I don’t believe you anyway.”
“Shadowless are almost gone, or hiding,” the tall one said. “Other guys have been crowding our territory for months now, taking our kills. We’ve heard every story there is twice. Including yours. I’m putting a stop to it.”
“Please—” Dr. Zadeh started to say just as something cruised soundlessly through the air overhead. The only way any of them knew it had been there at all was the huge dark square it cast down over them as it passed.
In the same instant, Letty’s shadowless friend and the two exterminators dropped into tight crouches, covering their heads. It wasn’t just an instinctual flinch to some nearby movement, the amnesiac realized with a chill—it was a deliberate, practiced move.
“What was that?” the amnesiac gasped.
“Come on,” the scarred exterminator said to the tall one, already running away.
“The shadowless,” he replied angrily.
But the scarred one was already halfway down the street. “No time. I’m not dying today.”
A gust of wind made everyone jump again, and the shadowless whimpered in terror, sinking even lower to the ground.
“We have to go, man,” the scarred one yelled. “Jackson! Come on!”
“Your lucky day,” the tall exterminator snarled at them. He pointed a finger straight at Dr. Zadeh’s chest. “We catch you leaning in on our business again, it’ll be the last time.”
Dr. Zadeh refused to answer. “We hear,” the amnesiac said.
“Don’t forget now,” he teased, sinister, nodding his chin at their still-there shadows. Then he bolted after his friend, eyes checking the sky.
As soon as the exterminators disappeared around the corner, everyone gasped, suddenly remembering to breathe again. “What was that thing?” Nurse Marie cried, and tried to grab both the amnesiac and Dr. Zadeh, but they had each moved out of her reach at the same moment, to look up. They spun around, trying to see the sky between the buildings, but the roofs were too close together, their view of the sky too narrow. Letty ran to the shadowless she knew, Michael close behind her.