SOULWALKER.

by Erica Lawson.

To Em, Jane, Andi, and Nann for being my guiding lights.

Chapter 1.

It was a beast of a night.

The rain was incessant, the wind bitterly cold, and the darkness deep-a night best left to those creatures that thrived in the worst of weather, creatures that had no need for the light.

In the middle of the downpour strode a lone figure, head bent against the driving drops. The mysterious figure cast no shadow as it moved amid the puddles of water on the sidewalk. It appeared to be nothing more than a black shape in the muted shadows of the night. The shrouded head looked up for a moment, turned this way and that, and bowed its head again to continue the journey.

The streets were all but empty, except for this one soul who defied the fury of nature to venture out. But nature had little effect on this creature that wandered the streets with impunity. The figure, focused on its destination, barely acknowledged the maelstrom that raged around it.

No ordinary whim drove the shadow through this hell. It had a grave purpose that would brook no denial. Neither the elements nor the night would divert it from its course. It had only one mistress, and it was to her that it deferred its will. For without her it had no will, no thought, and no existence.

The storm showed no signs of abatement, instead it seemed a physical manifestation of the shadow that passed through it. But it had no emotional connection to this maelstrom. The shadow was a tool and nothing more.

The creature reached the building where the object of its purpose lay. With ghostly eyes it looked upward and studied the half dozen floors. It made its way toward the entrance, then changed direction at the last minute to find another, more shadowed, way in.

Instead of scaling the outside of the building, the shadow opted for the emergency exit. It slid up into the dimness near the ceiling to the fourth floor. It oozed along its path, found all the nooks and crannies that housed the night, and avoided the blinding flash of light: for that's where it existed... in the dark. It was a dark creature for a dark night.

Finally it reached its destination. It eased through a crack in the door and entered the darkened apartment. Hollow eyes scanned the blackness, easily seeing everything as if in the light of day.

Find him. Kill him.

The words resonated through its form. It had learned and memorized those words many times in the past and had carried out the order in the name of the government.

He was where it had expected to find him, asleep in bed. The creature stood over its intended victim for a moment before it extended an invisible hand slowly toward the man's chest. The hand continued through skin, muscle, and bone until it rested under the heart. Its almost nonexistent palm could feel the steady pumping action as the muscle expanded and contracted. Slowly and steadily the hand closed, putting pressure on the heart to stop. The man didn't stir from his sleep as the assassin's ghostly hand continued to squeeze, tightening until the heart could no longer function.

The shadow confirmed the kill. The victim lay there as if peacefully asleep. No one would ever know how he died.

The shadow retreated. It was time to return to its mistress, answering the lonely call of its sister's soul.

Covered in sweat, the trooper tossed and turned, her mind working frantically to bring her warrior home. She could see, feel, and hear every move it made in her mind's eye; it was part of her. Her inner warrior had performed its task and was now returning to rest until next time. Next time... how many times would she be called upon to carry out this duty?

When she had joined the Special Black Shadow Corps, little did Tarris Waite suspect that she would effectively be a shadow assassin. "Serve your country," the Council said. "You have a special gift that no one appreciates," they said. What a sap she had been. If she refused, she would be the next victim of one of her fellow warriors. Serve or die. She was trapped.

When it all began, she had little choice about what her vocation would be. Her special abilities had drawn the attention of the Union, as their reigning government was called, and opened doors that were firmly closed for everyone else. Of course, she had one physical attribute that earmarked her for the SBSC. She was an albino.

Tarris soon found out why only an albino could serve in the Corps. Her kind nurtured the inner shadow, expelling the soul to carry out the wishes of its master or, in her case, its mistress. From what she could tell, only a few albinos served the Council and even fewer female albinos. What had started as a glorious career in the service of the law had turned into something more sinister; something she no longer wanted to be part of.

Her shadow crept toward her, and Tarris prepared to accept it back into her body. The transfer took place as the dark shape seeped through pale skin and bone to reside in a disabled body that could no longer walk. How ironic was that? Tarris had a mind that could command an assassin, yet she couldn't move her own legs.

"Rya..." she whispered. Tarris was born a twin, though she never had the chance to know her sister who died at birth. But she could always feel her sister's spirit inside her. She was a friend when needed and a shoulder to cry on. The child had been named Ryalla at her burial because no child should be sent on to the afterlife without a name. So Tarris called her shadow Rya, in place of the twin she had never gotten to know.

Tarris opened her almost colorless eyes, and her pupils contracted in the light from the bedside lamp. She was drained and in pain. Pushing Rya through the heavy rain took more energy than she had imagined. Her fingers went to her wrist, and she gently rubbed the area over the pulse point. She closed her eyes, not bothering to move, and allowed the medicated patch sitting under her skin to do its work. She put aside all her concerns and would worry about it tomorrow.

Tarris blinked. The sun was out. It had been so long since it had graced the city that she had forgotten what it looked like. Gentle rays lay over her bedcover and showed how old the coverlet was. As much as she wanted to stay put, dismiss the day, and drown in a sea of medicated sleep, she had a meeting to go to this morning. She reached overhead to the wall to find the familiar button. A gentle whirr tilted the bed and allowed her to slide into the waiting wheelchair.

Some days she hated life. On those days, depression hung around her like a bad smell. The bad thoughts were just there, always reminding her of her disability. What she wouldn't give to be able to walk unaided, to run, and just to be like everyone else out in the street. Quickly and efficiently the motorized chair moved around, while electronic aids helped her dress, bathe, and eat. Nothing was simple anymore. Hands were only useful these days for pushing buttons.

As much as she dreaded it, she donned her disguise. As she stood in the metal body harness, she changed her hair color and eyes. Dark replaced light in an effort to blend in. She hated this, she really did, but society feared who she was. While her fellow Corps members revelled in their identity, she did not. If she wanted to move about freely it was necessary.

As she stepped out into the sunlight, Tarris pushed her temple to darken the lenses in her eyes. Sensitive to the point of pain, her pale eyes needed to be shielded from the glare, and she used the sun-protective lenses to compensate. Because she used the body suit only when she had to, it took a number of steps before she became accustomed to it once more. One of the older models, it caused her some pain, but its use was the price she paid not to be heckled.

She moved steadily through the crowded streets and made her way downtown to an unremarkable building. Gray, metallic and windowless, it screamed of mystery, but very few approached it like she was doing now. A small glass panel appeared in the wall, and she had to touch her temple to show her true eye color. Her iris was scanned, and the nearly invisible door slid silently aside to permit her entrance.

Inside the walls, she dropped her disguise. Dark hair became light once more, allowing her long blonde locks to flow freely over her black-leather overcoat. Her pale eyes looked into the darkness and sought out the exit at the other end of the shadowed corridor. Barely a whisper could be heard from her body suit as servos and gears worked seamlessly to mechanically walk her down the passageway. Powered by two small atomic battery packs, the suit was surprisingly effective despite being nearly an antique. But the newer models had their problems, and she was happy to stay with the old suit and its little quirks, much to the derision of the other members of the group.

"It took you long enough." Her main competitor, Alix Corman, made a quick comment on her arrival. "Did you have to crawl all the way?" The two troopers seated next to him snickered loudly.

Tarris noted his negligent disregard of her and how his lips curled in a sneer. He was tall, thin, and arrogant, although the arrogance was his primary characteristic. Apparently Corman wore his dark clothes as a visual deterrent; the blackness drew attention to his white hair and pale skin and showed everyone how dangerous he was.

Tarris's blonde eyebrows met in a scowl, and she took a step forward. She looked down into Corman's eyes, but he wasn't intimidated. "Shut your mouth, Corman."

"Did you hear a squeak?" he asked his cohorts. "It sounded like a mouse."

Tarris bunched her hands into fists and felt Rya stir within her. The hair on Corman's skin stood up on end. Assuming Corman saw the stirring, Tarris didn't stop it. Rya took exception to her treatment at the hands of the egotistical blowhard facing her.

Corman's eyes widened and he closed his mouth. He lounged lazily over the chair, however, and refused to move his feet to let Tarris pass. He gazed at her and smirked. He was daring her to step over.

She touched her belt, and her leg shot out and connected with his ankle. As she passed, she shoved him and his chair rocked back. He regained his balance and tangled his foot with hers. Tarris sprawled on the ground, and there was a collective gasp. Each trooper looked from one to the other, but no one moved.

Finally, Shark stepped forward and placed his hands under her armpits. He lifted gently, and when she had gained her balance, he let go and backed away. Corman gave her a sly grin. "Can't lift your leg on your own? Maybe you should get yourself one of those gravity pods. It's got to be quicker than that clumsy thing you wear. No wonder you're always late." He flicked his hand in the air as though to dismiss her. He always wanted to have the final word, but one day she hoped to collect every nasty word he uttered and ram them down his throat.

He, and many like him, looked down on her because she wasn't, as they called it, "purebred" albino. The faint bluish tinge in her eyes attested to that fact. But what they considered a fault, she considered an asset.

Despite her tainted blood, she was considered the most powerful in the group and none would openly challenge her. Whether or not that was actually true had never been tested, but Tarris herself didn't believe it. In her adolescence, Rya had responded to her anger and pain. Her shadow was seen by those who were supposed to rein her in as an almost primal force. Rumor and innuendo of her antics at school had elevated her status to that of "freak," not that anyone except Corman ever called her that to her face. That didn't stop the snide remarks though, and she was tired of them.

"I'm not always late. It was a nice day for walking. The sun's out for Christ's sake. When was the last time you saw that?"

"Why bother? It's our enemy, remember?"

"Whatever," she mumbled. Preaching was pointless. They weren't going to convert.

"Why do you continue to try to fit in? We're above all that."

"Because whether you like it or not, we all live on this speck of dust."

"Not for long..." Corman muttered, and a murmur of approval spread around the assembled group. Tarris held her tongue for now; she needed to keep silent. Making enemies of those in front of her was very dangerous indeed.

"Report!" a voice called from speakers set in the walls. The group sat round the table in a huddle, their attention turned to the small screen in front of them.

"One, go," Tarris said. Because of her perceived power, she always answered first. How many times had she said that? Another life snuffed out in the name of government security.

"Two, go."

"Three, go." All reported successful missions. Just once she wished it was for something other than death. When she first started in the group, their missions comprised stealth and covert operations, spying on their enemies, collecting secret information and sabotage. Now... now it was only assassination. One by one, anyone who opposed the government came to their attention.

Tarris kept her mind firmly closed to wall off any errant thoughts that might be picked up by someone in the room. She kept everything about herself to herself.

Rule One in her Survival Handbook: Never reveal anything that could be used against you.

Her survival handbook had been her bible. She had compiled it in her head over the years, and each rule had been a hard-won lesson in her life.

"Your next assignment will be in two days' time. It's a group operation." A metal microchip rose up through the desktop. She picked it up between her finger and thumb and stared at it. The chip was such a small thing, and yet it held so much power, the power of life and death. She placed it in her wrist computer to read their next assignment. It seemed simple enough.

What worried her was the frequency of these missions, which occurred on a nearly daily basis. They needed downtime to recharge. She suspected that the powers that be didn't understand the need for rest. She didn't have an unlimited power supply like her atomic batteries. If she didn't rest her mind, things could go wrong.

"Sir." She didn't want to be the one to bring it up, but no one else looked like they would do it. "We need rest. This is the fourth operation in as many days."

"You don't think you can do it, soldier?" The intonation set off alarm bells in her head.

"Of course, sir. But lack of rest could result in mistakes." She vainly looked around to the others for support. She was on her own, as she suspected she would be.

"We don't make mistakes here, soldier." There was an unspoken message there. Make a mistake and you're dead. She could feel hostility from the others, like a pack of wolves circling a downed deer, ready to pounce for the kill. She had revealed herself, and now she was a marked woman.

Her ice-blue eyes swept the room, taking and holding each set of white eyes in turn. She let them know that she was still the leader and that they would suffer if they tried anything. However, she was not so sure she could hold them all off if they ever tried to fight as one. So far they hadn't figured that out.

"As you say, sir, but our minds need time to recover. Optimum performance comes from a rested mind." She didn't mind quoting back their rules.

"Well met, soldier. Very well, the operation will be postponed one solar day." Tarris breathed a sigh of relief. She had stood her ground and won. The wolves backed down and cowered away. "Dismissed." The troopers stood and moved away from the table as the meeting was concluded.

Tarris could feel the discrimination. The purebreds found one another and huddled together in one corner of the room, periodically eyeing her. They were narrow-minded fools who looked down on all those who didn't have the telltale white eyes. And yet she ruled, and it galled them that a pretender outranked them.

Tarris left her underlings to plot and plan and hurried outside to take refuge in the sunlight. She tapped her temple to increase the intensity of her lenses to turn her eyes dark. Her full-length, faux leather coat flapped open as she strode along, and her fingers deftly found the hidden pressure points in the body suit to increase her momentum.

Black hair swirled around the serious face deep in thought. Normally Tarris would return home after the meeting, but anger and concern occupied her. She took comfort from the warming rays; the bright light uplifted her depressed state. She cast her gaze around and observed an easy atmosphere. The sun, especially after such a long spell of constant rain, brought out smiles that hadn't been around since the last sunny day.

She stripped off her coat, slung it over her shoulder, and allowed the warmth to filter through her long-sleeved shirt and pants. Her legs felt nothing of it, but she knew it was there. Her fellow albinos were horrified that she worshipped the sun so readily, one more thing that separated her from her kind.

Tarris looked up. The onset of clouds already stained the sky. She sighed. Rain was on its way again, thanks to the chemical impact of the gasoline cars of eighty years ago on the environment. Well, that was what the politicians said. Gas had been banned from use years ago when the air became too polluted to breathe. Time had healed the damage to the air and yet pollution was still to blame. So rain and cloud blotted out the sun, perpetual rain the only survivor of the atmosphere. But sometimes Tarris wondered who ruled the planet, the Union or the albinos, because darkened skies were the friends of the white eyes.

Electric cars now prowled the cities, run by the same types of batteries that powered her suit. They weren't as efficient or as long lasting as what she had, but she knew people in high places, and it always paid to know people in the right places.

The rain returned as she stepped through the front door of her building. She was tired, not only from last night's activity but also from moving the body suit around the city. The Monitor had given her one extra solar day, so she would make the most of it.

She stripped off her clothes with the aid of her mechanical "helper" and sighed with relief when she was finally out of the power-driven suit. Her body slumped after being held up for so long by metal and wires. Once more in her bed, she stimulated the medication tag in her wrist, feeling the drowsiness grab her and drag her down to sleep.

Fleeting shadows disturbed the night. Tarris awoke to the whispers of shifting air. Helpless to fight effectively despite the body suit, she sought out her shadow warrior to defend her. With great difficulty she calmed her mind, drew up the assassin, and felt the familiar rush as Rya left her.

Blackness became light as ghostly eyes surveyed the room. Two of Rya's kind were in the room and shifted in concert toward her reclining body. Tarris knew Rya had never been in this position before. How could she find weaknesses in ghostly forms that had none?

Tarris did not back down. She blocked the simmering anxiety of her own imminent death and didn't allow her actions to falter. How dare they even try to take her down! Though she was impure of blood and body, Tarris was pure of mind and spirit. She didn't fight with deceit or dishonor like they did. She was an assassin, but she had a soul.

The larger of the two warriors feinted toward Tarris's warrior and drew her off. Rya always attacked her enemies without fear, and a shadow warrior was no different to her. This, Tarris thought, was why she would always succeed. The two of them fought as one, one lending strength to the other when the need arose. Tarris knew this one truth that the rest of them would never understand.

Tarris realized the error almost a moment too late. She sensed the swift movement behind her as Rya faced her enemy. Rya moved with great speed to cover her unprotected body and took the brunt of the attack on its shadowy form. With a strength unknown to Tarris, Rya lifted her useless body and moved it out of the way as the two specters increased the attack. There was nowhere to run.

Darkness became bright light as they passed across a portal that had not been there before. Rya struggled to hold form under the harsh light of day. Tarris was placed in the shadow of a great rock and felt her ghost warrior lose her battle with the light. She was safe, but at what cost?

Exhaustion lapped at Tarris's reserves as she floundered in the shade. She closed her eyes and rested. She would worry about her future later.

Tarris woke to someone hovering over her. There was no strength left to fight it off, so she quietly accepted that this was the end of the line. A hand reached down to help her to her feet.

She was a striking woman, with short, dark hair and rich blue eyes. "Arrloovarite?"

Tarris awoke with a jerk. What was that? She was not a Seeker of Truth, prone to premonitions, but could she deny what had transpired in her dream? Or was it her anxious mind playing out what she was afraid of? Either way, could she afford to ignore it?

"Light on." Too wound up to sleep, she tapped the button above her bed and slid easily into the waiting wheelchair. The muted brightness of the light forced her to touch her temple to darken the implanted lenses to a tolerable level. She had never regretted having the operation, because it made her life easier. Of course, her fellow assassins saw it as a betrayal to the cause and another wedge between them. They, and especially Corman, were proud to be albino, so any enhancement to their appearance was considered a betrayal of their heritage. She could never understand their position to stay "pure" and give up the comfort the lenses provided.

She touched the buttons on the chair to move smoothly to the kitchen, barely an alcove in these times. She punched in her order and waited moments for the food to be reconstituted and heated automatically. Tarris wondered what it would have been like before all the automation, to survive on her own skills, her courage, her guile, and her instincts. It was but a pipe dream. She would never be allowed to travel outside the metropolis to find out.

She had heard of wild adventure holidays that did just that. They would take you to a barely habitable piece of the planet and leave you there for several solar days to scratch around in the dirt. You never knew where they were going to take you; if you were lucky, you ended up in an area with vegetation. If you pissed them off, might as well kiss your ass goodbye. It was a highly regulated industry because of the risks involved, but it was extremely popular among the naturalists who found the environmentally controlled parks not enough for their adventurous spirits.

The food was tasteless in her mouth. Its only redeeming factor was that it had all the nutrients she needed. Of late, everything was not as satisfying as it used to be. The food was a little blander, sleep a little less restful, and her job a little less appealing. Life was missing something, and she didn't know how to change that. She grabbed what was left of her meal and moved her chair over to her computer that sat on a desk in the far corner of the room. While she ate, she tapped away on the computer monitor to check her mail. Several messages beeped at her, and she knew she couldn't avoid calling her mother. No time like the present...

"Hello?"

"Hey, Mom, just returning your calls." Tarris thought she looked a little worn out.

"How are you, Tarris?"

"I'm fine."

"You look a little tired, honey." Tarris couldn't help but smile. "What's wrong?"

"I was just thinking the same thing, Mom. Are you working too hard?"

"Don't you worry about me. I just wanted to see your face again. I... I miss you."

She didn't want to hear it because it would be the final straw to her day. "Me, too, Mom. Me, too. How is it at the commune?"