A Toiling Darkness (11 page)

Who here could possible know the version of
me he was looking for? I haven’t been in that form for nearly two
hundred years and I’ve only been in town for a few months. Lord Kay
was the only one to know my real form and he was a little more
face-to-face when it came down to revenge. Lord Kay would want to
make sure his target was dead. He would want to feel their life
force leave, revel in their blood, laugh at their fate. Not Kalen’s
master. He was a schemer, hiding in the background pulling on
strings.

“I’ll figure you out, it’s only a matter of
time.”

I gave him a wicked smile. “Go for it. I
know beings who have wasted their entire lives trying to figure me
out. So is all this excess pain worth it? Did you find your
child-killer?”

He shook his head. “I’m close, Darkness. I
know I can find him.” His teeth clenched. “I’m close. A being is
behind that girl’s death. I know it. The necromancers I managed to
talk to said there were other children missing too. But just like
you, they are staying out of it. Why is that? I’m so close.”

Why was he repeating that. Yeah, okay, he
was close. I got that.

Wait. Wasn’t that a sign of a concussion?
Shit. He had a concussion, didn’t he?

I sighed and answered at least one of his
questions. “We are in a large city. People go missing all the
time.”

He shook his head. “But it’s the same as at
the park! An older sibling taken, the younger one dead. And my gut
is telling me it’s a being. I know I’m right on this.” His eyes
unfocused once again. “I’m so close.”

“No, you don’t know anything. You just want
it to be one of us because you can’t accept a human killing a
child.” I grabbed onto his arm and tugged him deeper into the
shadows and out of sight of any potential onlookers. “I told you,
stay alive. Just don’t get yourself killed. And look what happens
in the same day. You’re nearly dead.”

He yanked out of my grip. The movement
almost gave him a personal meeting with the ground. He steadied
himself. “I’ll be fine. I just need some sleep, and then I’ll be as
good as new.”

“So you can...what exactly? Charge off into
the unknown again? Go get killed?”

“Why do you care so much?” he asked, staring
right at me again.

“Like I said, you have information I
want.”

“Bullshit, there is something else.”

He was right, but I wasn’t going to admit
it. Kalen wasn’t human anymore, but he held on to his humanity with
a stubborn fist and he wasn’t willing to let go. Being with him
made me want to help him hold on to it.

“It doesn’t matter. We both have our own
agendas, let us just leave it at that. Do you want a place to
rest?”

He looked around briefly. “No, it’s fine.
I’ll just find some place to bunk in.”

“So that while you heal, someone can kill
you? I don’t think so.” I grabbed onto him and he stilled, looking
down at me with those depthless brown eyes. I blinked up at him and
waited until he finally nodded, so I transported us to my
apartment, using the shadows.

When we landed, he stumbled a bit, almost
bringing me down with him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

I steadied him as best as I could. It was
awkward, him being around six feet tall and me a measly four and a
half. I helped him gracelessly to the couch in my apartment. I
shoved the couch into one of the corners of the room. The other
corner held my twin-size bed. I would put him in the bed, but
truthfully, it was my bed. And it was small, maybe less room than
the couch. He flopped down and leaned back, his eyes closed.

My apartment was small, really small with my
living room and bedroom sharing the same space. The lack of
material possessions gave the place the impression of being bigger.
There was nothing here but a twin size bed, a small couch and one
shelf filled with photography books. The books were the only hint
into my life; it was the only part of me I allowed to exist. Each
book was filled with photos taken from all over the world, ranging
from nature to families to famine and war.

They acted as a reminder about life, a
reminder I always used when I started to fall apart. El suggested
it and the collection grew. The older photos were paintings and
drawings, but after technology advanced enough, my collection of
photos started. Once in a while, I get a package from El with more
to add. I have yet to figure out how he always knows where I am. I
like to move around just as much as he does.

Next to the stack was a small kit of medical
supplies. Kay left it here the last time he dragged one of his
buddies to my apartment to fix him up. Apparently my apartment was
closer than his place from wherever they were.

I grabbed it and stood in front of Kalen.
His head was tilted back with an arm draping over his face.
Bruising grew on his neck, revealing imprints of a rather large
hand. I gently put my hand against the imprint to measure the size.
He went up against a giant, not a necromancer. What magical human
had hands that big? I gently grabbed his arm and lowered it so I
could see the damage.

We may be really hard to kill, even next to
impossible for some of us, but we can still hurt, get infections,
diseases, and colds. Though colds only amount to a couple of
sneezes and then all done. Our chances of recovering from them
ranged from seconds to only a matter of days, depending on the
being and the extent of damage. And some exceptions can take years
to heal, like fifty years. Or more. HIV and AIDS, psh, no problem.
Gone in only a couple of weeks. I didn’t know how it worked for a
slauve, if he could get infections or how quickly he healed, so I
cleaned up his wounds. I was methodical and careful—hell, I even
apologized when I accidentally bumped his nose while cleaning the
cut near his eyebrow. His nose bled again so I shoved a cloth up it
so he didn’t bleed all over. He didn’t heal nearly as fast as I did
or he had a whole lot of internal damage if his nose was a faucet.
We healed the worse wounds first.

“I’m surprised,” he finally spoke, his voice
nasally because of the cloth over his nose. It was already soaked
with blood. I smiled. Nasally voices are always funny to listen to.
Coming from him, even more so. He was a big guy after all.

“Why?” I asked carefully, trying to focus on
bandaging his cut rather than the heat his body radiated. He gave
off a comfortable heat. My smile faded away as words from Mother
Moon came to mind.

Find someone, Nyx. Someone to keep you warm
and be there when you need them the most. You’ll know when it’s
them because they will be the ones to always come back for you. And
when you do, don’t let them go. I let mine go and I regret it every
day.

Mother Moon was a wise woman. I met her when
I was known as Nyx, Greek goddess of the night. Yeah, they turned
me into a goddess at one point. We met in my pre-Akhlys days. I was
okay back then, still believed in humans and kindness and all those
sappy emotions. She grounded me, kept me sane. I just couldn’t
believe in what she told me half the time. Finding someone meant
for me just wasn’t possible. There was no one out there meant for
me. No one.

Kalen tried to shrug and stopped himself.
Instead, he raised his free hand and grabbed one of my blonde
curls, rubbing it between his thumb and index finger. My heart
jumped a couple of beats in response to his tender touch.

“What do you really look like?” he asked,
his words slurring. His body was going into a coma-like sleep to
allow everything to heal. In a few more moments he was going to be
out like a light for at least a couple of hours.

“You’ll probably never find out,” I replied.
Not if I could prevent it.

When I went to step away, his arm shot out
and he grabbed mine too tightly. It was going to leave a bruise
against my pale skin. I yanked, but he held on firmly. I glanced at
him, wondering what he was thinking about. His eyes were closed,
but he whispered, “Who are you, Darkness?”

“No one,” I replied simply and managed to
get loose. I moved him carefully until he was on his back,
stretched out as best as I could get him. It was a small couch
after all. His long legs had to dangle off the edge and his head
leaned against the armrest on the other side. It would have to do.
I took the afghan off of my bed, and covered him.

Look at me, tucking a slauve into bed. Made
me wonder what El would say. He would definitely smile, maybe even
pat me on the back, and then reward me by sending me out to do his
damn errands.

I stared down at Kalen. He was a mystery to
me. Even without the orders of his master, he was filled with
justice. In right and wrong. Too bad he didn’t understand how bad I
was—what I’ve done in my past.

A loud thump roused me from my sleep. I
glanced over to find Kalen gone from the couch. Not bothering to
move, I closed my eyes, wishing for just another hour of sleep and
knowing it just wasn’t meant to be. Yesterday kicked my ass and I
still haven’t fully recharged. My fault, I guess. I should have
just went to bed when Kalen passed out.

A soft swearing brought my attention to the
doorway.

So noisy.

Kalen stood there, trying to put on his
jacket and wincing at the movements. He looked a little tired,
tense around the edges, but better. Determination was carved in the
frown of his face and in every movement he made. He was a man on a
mission. Probably had plans to get into more trouble.

Speaking of trouble, what has he been
doing?

Especially if he was getting his face
pounded in to the extent of last night. I could only hope he didn’t
make it a habit, otherwise I was going to have to murder me some
bitches.

I smiled a little. I never thought I would
use that phrase. I overheard it last week when a teen wanted to get
revenge on some ‘gals’ that beat the shit out of her friend. It was
a good phrase.

Early morning light peeked through the
blinds of my window. After Kalen passed out last night, I wandered
the city, only returning a couple of hours ago after finding
nothing of interest out on the streets. Usually I only needed a
couple hours of sleep. Not today though. Just one more hour would
be nice, maybe two.

Damn it all for being a light sleeper.

When Kalen managed to get his jacket on, he
slipped out the door, closing it softly behind him and leaving me
alone in my small home. At least he was kind enough to put away the
medical kit and fold the afghan, leaving it folded on the
couch.

I got up, feeling semi-refreshed and
stretched out as I walked over to the kitchen window. Kalen
appeared outside a moment later, pulling his jacket tight against
him and putting the hood up as a shield against the winds. He
turned north on the sidewalk and disappeared around the corner.

I should have killed him last night. It was
the perfect chance as he lay defenseless. So why didn’t I? I even
stood over him for half an hour, just staring at him, trying to
figure him out. Trying to even get the blood thirst to do it. It
never came. I couldn’t kill him. I even mentally came up with a
damn pros list in doing it, though there is usually a con’s list
that’s supposed to go along with it. The pros definitely outweighed
the cons. But I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill him.

I should have. I so should have done it.

Then I wouldn’t have to worry about him
figuring me out. When I came back last night and watched as he
slept defensively in my apartment, he brought back memories.
Memories of my mentor and his strong principles.

Back when I was going by Akhlys and still in
Europe while the Middle Ages were in the late stages, El had
brought me to a small town where humans worked hard for every piece
of food they had. It was a period where lords still existed but
were diminishing as towns popped up everywhere and grew. One of the
houses was on the outskirts of a town, very decrepit and lonely. We
stood in the shadows as we watched through an uncommonly large
window as a family settled down for the night.

The air was clear, pollution having yet to
touch the world. It’s amazing how the smell and taste of the air
changed so much through the years and especially through the
Industrial Revolution. But back then, every breath was like
breathing in a whole new life. It was completely clean, no
pollutants. The leaves were falling as winter crept up on everyone.
Life and death were in the air—the life of the animals as they
scurried around, preparing for winter and the death of the leaves
and trees as they lost the battle to stay blossomed.

Farmlands were already being harvested,
fields growing empty as the crops were taken. The sun was low on
the horizon with only a couple of birds dotting the sky. The
temperature was dropping. Wisps of my breath could be seen as I
exhaled.

“Why are we here?” I had asked, in the
common French language of that time period. I knew countless
languages, both ancient and new. I had to, living for so damn
long.

El looked at me, his greyish-blue eyes cold
and calculating. They were the kind of eyes that still came up out
of the depths of my memories in moments when he would reprimand me,
reminding me who I was and what I should and shouldn’t do. I still
didn’t always listen to him, even though his memory has become my
subconscious’ figurehead.

“Just watch them, Melaena,” he replied,
using a latin name for dark. He was the only one to call me this
and somehow it became a pet name of sorts.

And so I watched.

The family was typical enough: a couple with
a son and a whole lot of despair around them rooted to losing loved
ones, probably children. This particular village had been hit hard
with the Bubonic plague, especially the young. From the atmosphere
and pain in this family, they were no exception. Looking at the
father, I thought the other children were probably lucky, but I
knew better to not say it out loud. The remaining family shirked
away from the man. He sat at the head of the table while the mother
filled their plates with vegetables, bread and whatever meat they
were able to scrounge up from hunting, maybe a rabbit.