Shades of Black by Carmelo Massimo Tidona Page A

while asking himself were to start and how. Not even he knew exactly how his powers worked. Better to say, he knew their effect, but not what triggered them exactly. What if they needed a specific part of a body to work? Maybe the head, the brain, it would make sense. He didn’t remember ever testing them on a beheaded victim.
    Lars, who had already seen him at work, hurriedly ask as many agents as possible to leave the alley, to make room for him.
    Sylke took off his black leather gloves, revealing the ash-grey skin of his hands. He approached a wall, brushing it lightly with the tips of his fingers. It wasn’t the wall he was interested in. It was what was on it.

    He couldn’t contain a fit of disgust when his skin touched the damp stain . It was but a fraction of a second, then his mind wandered elsewhere, in another time, in a place just slightly different.
    He saw with eyes that didn’t belong to him the street he had walked himself to go there, but now he was walking on it at night . Unfortunately he had no control over the vision. He was just seeing events that had already happened, unable to affect them in any way. He couldn’t look down to his body, or try to glance at his own reflection in a shop window. Usually he wouldn’t have needed to, but in that particular occasion he was really curious to know who those last moments of life belonged to.
    He was suddenly back to his own senses . The contact had never been broken before the death of the victim, not unless he had broken it willingly. On the other hand, he had never had to use his powers on a stain on a wall.
    Lars didn’t ask anything. No more than a second or less had to be passed since he had begun. Even without interruptions, he never needed more than an instant in the real world, as dilated as the time in his mind could appear to be.
    Without comments, he took a slow step forward, keeping the contact with the building, and he plummeted again in that life that wasn’t his .
    He wasn’t alone in the street, there was someone else... he was following someone... a woman .
    She was far, at first. She didn’t know she was being followed .
    He sped up . He could feel the beating of his heart (not his, it wasn’t his), quiet and regular. His steps were silent, stealthy.
    He lost contact again. He inhaled abruptly, by reflex, and the stale air full of death almost made him choke and puke.
    He warded off with a gesture Seymourn, who was getting closer, and moved forward some more, hoping for the vision to restart.
    His advance in reality mixed with the other’s in the past, in a continuous flow of images .
    Now the woman was closer . She was walking faster too, and looking behind her back with worried eyes, with quick jerks of her head. She had started running. Not fast enough.
    When he grabbed her, he could see his hands (not his hands, those were the other’s hands, not his). He looked human, or something like that. For sure he had no scales, or feathers, and the colour of his skin, between a tattoo and another, was typical of humans, so fair...
    He dragged her to the alley, pressing a hand on her mouth, threatening her . He had a knife, he couldn’t see hit but he felt the handle his fingers.
    He heard his voice (no, it wasn’t his) vomiting obscenities mixed with false promises. Everything would be all right. She only had to shut up and cooperate. Everything would be all right.
    He couldn’t read the mind he was a guest into. He didn’t need to, to know he was lying .
    The scene dissolved again . He was almost at the back end of the alley, right where she had fallen, when it formed again.
    He couldn’t see the girl anymore. He was holding her tight, but he was looking at something else. Someone coming from the street, in full light . He could clearly see his features, he reminded a gentleman of the distant past. A face hard not to notice, difficult not to remember.
    « Go away! Not your business!» he shouted (no, it hadn’t been him).
    « Be