Shadow Slayer (Shadow Series #2)

By Laura A. H. Elliott

Shadows will do anything to become human. You see their influence everyday. You say things you don’t mean or do things that aren’t like you. You look, different. Friends you’ve known forever suddenly never call.

As a freshman, Roxie just wants to fit in which is impossible because she barely runs into her friends at her huge high school. Adrianne’s disappearance and Hayden’s attention rock Roxie’s world. But nothing rocks it like the most gorgeous guy at school, Drew. And nothing is more important to Roxie than astral projecting back to Planet Popular to solve the mystery of the map. But that changes when Drew invites Roxie to homecoming. Hayden warns her that something’s wrong. Why would a guy like Drew like Roxie anyway? Drew must want something. Hayden’s right. Drew is...different. Planet Popular was just the beginning. Part of a bigger world, the Shadow World. There’s a war brewing between the world of humans and the world of shadows. When the shadow invasion begins at Roxie’s high school, she’ll not only fight for her life but the lives of her family and friends, when she discovers she’s the Shadow Slayer, the one human who can save Earth from the shadow onslaught. But, Roxie can’t even kill a spider. Oh yeah, there’s an evil English teacher, an enchanted play, a sword of Sandonian steel, a homecoming of horrors, and seven magic words too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura A. H. Elliott
• Release date: Sep 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301004959

Laura A. H. Elliott

My passion is telling exotic, humorous stories that uplift and inspire in the hopes of creating world peace one friendship at a time. I find life's real magic happens when I trust myself and the unknown more than the plan.I’m the author of Winnemucca, a small-town fairy tale the Shadow Series, Transfer Student, and The Storytellers.

Book preview

By Laura A. H. Elliott

Shadow Series, Book 2

Shadow Slayer © 2012 by Laura A. H. Elliott

Cover Illustration by Laura A. H. Elliott

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying), recording, or otherwise – without prior permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition.

To read more about Laura’s books visit: www.Laurasmagicday.worpress.com

Twitter: @Laurawriting

And on FACEBOOK

Table of Contents

Other Books by Laura A. H. Elliott

Dedication

Roxie Speak

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Other Books by Laura A. H. Elliott:

The Shadow Series

13 on Halloween, book 1 – Now also avail as an audiobook!

Shadow Slayer, book 2

Moon Killers, coming soon

The Starjump Series

Transfer Student, Book 1 in the Starjump series, an intergalactic tale of beauty and the geek.

Book 2, coming soon

Winnemucca, a small-town fairy tale – where fear’s as blind as love

The Seven Caves & Other Spine-tingling Short Stories

Dedication

To my Halloween girls

Candice and Margaux

Roxie Speak

Roxie speak was so last year. But, I did invent one new word this year:

wirl –– someone who isn’t a girl and isn’t a woman yet either.

Chapter One

It’s the kind of day that’s hot at dawn. Don’t sweat, don’t sweat, I tell myself under my breath. It’s the first day of high school. It’s the first day we have to ride a bus to school. It’s the first day for a lot of things.

6:45? Really? Ally says, taking her place beside me at our bus stop in the weeds of the empty field at the end of our street.

Hey, Ally, I say, fussing with my hair. Tingles shoot out of the spots where my hair gathers in two white sparkly elastic bands. The tingles morph into chills as they travel down my back. Nothing says so-not-ready-for-high-school like pigtails. I pull out the sparkly holders and turn my pigtails into a single ponytail. I like ponies better than pigs anyway. Except guinea pigs. I think guinea pigs are adorable. I read last night that horses can’t vomit. You can look it up.

Ally and I have our first-day-of-school clothes on. She’s in a new skirt because she thinks jeans make her look fat. I’m wearing my new True Religion jeans. Auntie Ann bought them for me. Mom wanted to return them because she thinks wearing jeans that cost more than a week of groceries isn’t appropriate. But Oakdale High School is full of kids who spend a lot more money on groceries than we do.

So it’s just us, I guess, huh Roxie? Ally says.

I look down our deserted street one more time, for what seems like the millionth time.

When did you see her last?

I shrug my shoulders and get this icky feeling in the pit of my stomach. I never liked Adrianne to begin with, you know that. But, in a weird way, I miss her. Especially after the way she sucked up to me all summer. And I won’t lie, it felt good having someone like Adrianne suck up to me. Having someone like her think I have magic powers, which I don’t. I know I don’t. So, don’t think I do or anything. People with magic powers don’t wear ponytails on their first day of high school. I sigh and kick my new black and white Vans in the dirt.

It’s so weird, Ally says, putting her weight on one foot and then the other and then the other. This habit will be the thing that drives me crazy every morning at the bus stop.

It’s the first day of high school and all you want to talk about is Adrianne? I quasi-yell, because I’m mad Adrianne disappeared without telling any of us where she was going, especially after she was the one who gave me the present that changed my entire life at my first-ever birthday party last year. Adrianne and her whole family moved out of town in the middle of the night last Wednesday.

I just want to know...what happened to her. Ally’s voice trails off into a whisper when we both spot a girl walking down our street, headed for our bus stop. I squint, pouring over every detail of the girl in the way-too sunny morning. At first, I think it could be Adrianne. But as the girl walks down the street, closer and closer to Ally and me, this girl is shorter and her hair is different than Adrianne’s, way different. It’s red. She’s super-tan too, which try as Adrianne did, she never could tan. As soon as Mystery Girl walks past my mailbox, I can’t take my eyes off her wild hair, like Einstein wild, and she hasn’t done anything to tame it.

Who is that? Ally says.

No idea. I’m not really in the mood for meeting anyone new so early in the morning, since meeting people is all I’ll be doing today.

The roar of a bus engine wakes me from my new-girl-induced haze like some kind of gigantic alarm on my growing-up clock. High school begins the second I step onto that bus. But I guess high school sort of started last week when I had to go buy my books. Buying books felt even more heart-stopping than the bus barreling my way.

I’d just been swimming and pulled my wet hair back in a ponytail as I walked into the high school cafeteria where all our books were laid out by class. The air smelled of ice cream and suntan lotion. Life still felt like warm summer days until my mom said I’d have to do extra chores to help pay for all my books. Right after Mom laid the bombshell, Hayden’s hand brushed against mine while we were in line. I turned to face him, my eyes at the level of his chin. He’d been away for a whole month with his parents at Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. His permanently sunny hair sparkled even brighter than usual and he stood almost a full head higher than he did at the beginning of the summer.

He said, Roxie?

I couldn’t speak or breathe, freaked out about him not recognizing me. But the smile on his face told me this was a good not-recognizing me, not a bad not-recognizing me. Even though I don’t look different at all, except for maybe my hair is a little lighter because this summer I rinsed it in lemon water and let it dry in the sun a lot.

Wow, you look so... he said, poking around the books in front of us. My stomach tied in nervous knots, with me hanging on his next word.

I like your dress, Haden said.

Thanks. I think the skin on my face went three shades darker than the reddest rose in Dad’s garden.

Um, wanna hang out before school starts? he said.

Sure, I said, smiling what was probably the most ridiculously happy smile ever.

I’ll pick you up and we can ride our bikes to the pool, he said.

After that, every time my cell rang I jumped, thinking it would be him. And I kept my extra-special swimsuit ready for when he did call. And he did call the next day. We rode to the pool together. It was the best afternoon of my real life. We played categories in the diving well and had cheeseburgers at the snack shack. We got caught in a downpour on the way home and all of it was so like boyfriend-girlfriend. Except we didn’t kiss or hug or anything. But it felt like we were going to maybe two or three times. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

The school bus drives right by Ally and me and takes a turn around the cul-de-sac by Mrs. Tekla’s house. The smelly bus squeaks to a stop right in front of us, between us and the new girl walking down our street. The bus doors open and sitting at the top of the stairs is an odd woman rocking major makeup, all bundled in a parka. I run up the stairs because I want to get a good look at the new girl. But the driver’s perfume makes me stop short. It’s Grandma’s perfume. And it’s weird that a young, cold-blooded bus driver who kicks-butt at applying mascara and eyeliner would wear the same scent as Grandma.

Maybe the new girl knows what happened to Adrianne, Ally says, slamming right into my backpack, pushing me into the Grandma-scented bus driver.

What happened to who? The new girl says like she doesn’t look like Einstein and has lived in our neighborhood longer than we have. She smiles, slithers past our over-gawky selves and sits in the very front seat. Who does that? Who sits in front, on purpose?

Ally and I walk to the very last seat in back and sit down.

Weird, Ally says in her super-secret voice.

Very weird, I whisper back. I’m not proud of the silent treatment we give the new girl. It isn’t very nice. I can’t explain it. It just sort of happened.

Turns out we’re the very first bus stop on the route to Oakdale High School, which is in the super-rich part of town. When we get to Hayden’s bus stop, I giggle. He missed the bus on his first day. I look extra-long out the window. 

Four junior highs feed into the high school. I’m not kidding, that’s how my mom explained it to me. She said feeds. And after my first day at Oakdale High School, I thought it would literally eat me alive. 

No one sits with the new girl. Not the whole way to school. I feel bad about it, so I silently decide to, you know, talk to her if I bump into her at school, which isn’t likely. I mean, we had a hundred eighth graders at my middle school and there will be six hundred students in our freshman class. I make the pact with myself mostly because I never think I’ll ever actually have to talk to her.

Period one, Honors Geometry. I suck at everything else, but not math. Geometry is my thing. I’m as good in that class as my brothers. I like shapes. I can see the problems in my mind. And, let’s face it, of all the math––algebra, trigonometry, calculus––it seems like knowing how to figure out how much stuff can fit into different shapes is something that could actually come in handy. Geometry is something I have an outside chance of using in my life. At least it was going to be my favorite class until the new girl sits down right next to me.

You’re very dramatic, she says, her Einstein hair not quite as weird now that I look at it up close. More curly then frizzy.

I roll my eyes.

You have a good look for the stage. You’ve got a good profile, she says.

I’ve never looked at my profile. Note to self: Check profile when I get home. The stage? I say. The new girl has a vibe like she’s acted her whole life, totally self-confident. And I have to say, it makes me curious about her. About why she isn’t super-nervous, like me, at a new school in a new town. And why she doesn’t try to tame her curls.

She hands me a hot pink piece of paper and says, You should try out.

I hold the flyer in my hands and only have time to read Fall Play Tryouts before Mr. Brunson says All right. Let’s get busy. This year it’s all about proofs. What is a proof?

New Girl raises her hand. She doesn’t just raise it, she jolts it in the air, like she’s stabbing something she’s wanted to kill for a very long time.

Um, Mr. Brunson stares down at his seating chart. Wanda.

She must have the world’s meanest parents because no one would name their daughter Wanda, unless they had something against her. I imagine her family as the meanest family on Earth. If I was Wanda, I would never forgive them. Never. Somehow I feel even more awkward around her now that I know her name.

A proof is something that’s irrefutable. It’s an argument for the truth, Wanda says with this teeny smile.

Well, yes. In geometry, a proof is a convincing demonstration that some mathematical statement is necessarily true. A=B; B=C; A=C, Mr. Brunson adds.

And that equation makes total sense to me. What doesn’t make sense is how the new girl raised her hand and answered the first question at her first class on the first day of a new school in a new town. I kind of like her style even though her name is Wanda and her hair is crazy because she’s the polar opposite of me when it comes to all things bold.

The rest of the day, I’m on the lookout for Hayden, but I never see him. Of course I keep running into Wanda all day and she keeps looking at me with a little, teeny grin. And it gets to me. By the end of the day, while I’m tearing through my locker to get the books I’ll need for my homework, I’m convinced Wanda’s grin is the creepiest thing on the planet. It’s almost as if she can see right through me. Like she can read my thoughts. I’m afraid to think anything bad about Wanda at all because she might be able to read my mind.

Ally runs up to my locker and says, We survived our first day!

We high-five. I wince inside because she’s kind of acting like an eighth grader. I look up and down the hall to see if anyone heard. I dig deeper in my locker when a guy I don’t know gives me the dork stare. I was all over the place on my first day of high school. I didn’t like walking all the way back to my locker in between classes just to pick up and drop off my books, but they’re so freaking heavy I had to. Besides, I was sort of hoping that in making all those extra trips, I’d bump into Hayden. But, no luck.

Hurry up, Ally says.

Um, just give me a minute, I say. I look around for Hayden one more time. He won’t be on the bus home. He always stays after school for stuff.

We can’t miss the bus, Ally says, staring at her cell phone.

I’m late, as usual and just sort of throw everything in my backpack. When I grab a hold of Wanda’s hot pink flyer, I stuff it in there too because of her creepy, teeny grins. For a split second, I guess I actually think it would be kind of cool if I turned into a completely different person and could actually walk on stage and remember lines.

On our walk out of the high school, on our way to catch our bus, Ally and I pass this model of a T-Rex outside of the science lab. The T-Rex reminds me of pterosaurs and pterosaurs remind me of peacocks and peacocks remind me of eighth grade. The year I was going to chameleon. A year I was going to eagle. I was going to finally become a peacock... popular. That was so last year. I don’t care about peacocks