Sorrow shattered Shelby’s expression, along with a kind of shame. She slid down to her knees. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look from the shadows.”
“Who are you?”
Shelby began weeping. “Don’t you get it? I’m you, Nora. At least, you and Damastes created me.”
“What?” Indigo’s resolve faltered. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice shaky.
Shelby pulled a green-and-gold vase off the little table next to the love seat and threw it at Indigo. Inhumanly fast, Indigo reached out to catch it … but it was air. The vase had vanished.
“Ask the demon,” Shelby said, and closed her eyes, her anguish painful to watch.
Time for you to know, Damastes rumbled inside Indigo.
She did not even need to formulate a question.
You have so much of me in you. I occupied you so … unexpectedly. And you were so strong. My power is manifesting in you, Indigo. My child.
I’m not your child, Indigo thought. You’re a demon. I fight the bad guys, asshole. I fight evil.
You do not just fight the people who wanted to control me. You leave bodies strewn in your wake. You can create what you need most. You pave the way for my return.
Indigo looked down at the spot where Shelby slumped against the table. For a second, Shelby’s legs vanished.
“What are you?” Indigo asked quietly now, sadness sweeping over her.
“I’m your friend,” Shelby whispered. “Because that’s what you needed the most.”
She’s your Heykeli. If she were mine, I would use her to kill people who need to die, including the ones you named. Damastes laughed. Friend, indeed!
Indigo stared at Shelby, the demon’s words echoing in her head. “I don’t know what that is. Heykeli?”
Shelby hung her head. “You do know, because I know. And the only way that’s possible is if somewhere inside, you have all this information already.”
Simmering with frustration and anger, sadness and confusion, Indigo crouched by Shelby and reached out to take her hand and felt reassured by its solidity. Whatever she was, she wasn’t just a figment.
“Talk to me,” Indigo said. Or maybe the words were Nora’s.
Shelby shook her head. “Let Damastes tell you. He won’t lie about this part. He wants you to know.”
Indigo felt a warmth in her chest, a feeling of pleasure, and she knew that in some shadowy hell, the demon was grinning.
Tell me, then, she thought.
Damastes laughed softly inside her head. Your power comes from me, woman, and I am a murder god. The shadows you control are only one tool I have at my disposal. Another is the creation of a Heykeli. The word is from the Turkish language and myth. Heykeli is a thing sculpted from air and light, a manifestation of pure will. The shadows are only that, but a well-forged Heykeli can appear as real as—
No, Indigo thought. She said it aloud. But the word didn’t make it any less true. She felt it. She knew it. A thing sculpted from shadows the way the golem of Hebrew legend had been sculpted from clay. Which made a Heykeli some kind of murder golem.
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.”