A Toiling Darkness (12 page)

The son was only about seven years old and
he sat meekly next to his father, staring intently at his plate.
The mother moved around cautiously, trying to do her duty as a wife
while also seemingly wanting to disappear. Fear permeated the air.
The mother and son feared their father.

I cocked my head as I watched silently. The
lighting wasn’t good in the house; they had one candle burning at
the table and the fireplace kept only a small fire, just enough to
keep the biting of the cold at bay.

The father tore a piece of bread apart and
started eating it, glaring at his wife. She finally sat down and
they ate quietly. It had to be one of the most awkward and silent
family dinners I’ve ever seen. And fastest. The food was there,
then it was gone.

When they finished, the wife cleared away
the plates, nervously tugging on the end of her dirty blonde hair
and glancing at her husband and child. She was preparing herself
for something that was about to happen, as if whatever it was, was
becoming a sort of routine for her.

“Where’s my mead?” the husband asked loud
enough to be heard from where we stood watching. The wife mumbled
something about not having any and the man’s face twisted in
rage.

I stiffened as his rage washed over me. I
even stopped breathing for a moment. It called to me, taunted me
with its sweet and bitter aroma. It was sweet in its possibility
but so bitter from its source. I answered that call as I gave in to
temptation. The shadows in the room grew dark and daunting, the
fire from the hearth dimmed. The wife paled and flinched, the son
sat still with his hands in his lap and his head bowed down. He
knew the routine, he knew he was trapped between his parents with
nowhere to run.

Even though I was the one darkening their
room, the son and mother probably chalked it up to their fear that
pounded against their chest and their overactive imagination. Well,
in this case it wasn’t too overactive.

They knew what was coming, knew already how
it felt, how their skin would split open for blood to escape, how
bones may break or splinter from too much strain and how they may,
finally, not be able to come back from the rage that controlled the
one man who was supposed to protect them.

I smiled, tasting their fear and enjoying
the flavor.

The father grew angrier and stood up
abruptly, sending his chair tumbling into the wall. The son stayed
completely still and refused to move even a muscle, hoping to stay
out of his father’s line of sight. The mother backed away as he
approached her.

El shuffled next to me, his whole body rigid
as he watched. When I glanced at him, I was expecting him to be
watching the scene unfold inside. Instead he was watching me.

Something in his expression caused my chest
to clench. I didn’t like the look, but I was a fighter. I wasn’t
going to let El get into my head and make me feel emotions I tossed
away long ago. He wanted me to feel compassion for the wife and
son. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even feel the guilt I knew
he wanted me to feel. It just wasn’t there.

I turned back to the family, ignoring him,
and watched as the man beat his wife to near death. She was
cowering on the floor, sobbing and begging for forgiveness as the
husband hit her over and over again. All she did was cower and
apologize. My nose wrinkled at her weakness. She acted as if the
lack of mead was her fault when he was the man of the house. He was
the one who was supposed to put food on the table, not her. I did
give her credit for at least trying to protect her son from those
sharp fists. She kept her husband’s focus on her instead of the
child.

The man mounted his wife and grabbed her
head, smashing it once, twice, against the floor. She stopped
moving after the second time. The husband leaned back, his chest
heaving as he just sat there on his wife’s chest, staring down at
her. The woman was barely alive. I used the shadows to reach out
and feel the pulse against her neck. It was there, weak and fading.
If she didn’t get help, she would die.

The man stood slowly, the pulsating anger
still in him. He cursed fluently enough that even my ears burned.
The boy’s ears must have also burned because he finally made a
noise and whimpered.

Damn, he was doing so good staying quiet
too. Through the whole ordeal, the boy huddled in a dark corner of
the room, wrapping his small, boney arms around his legs, keeping
his face tucked into his knees. Knowing his mistake, the boy
unfurled and prepared to make a dash for an escape as his father
slowly turned to face his son.

I reached out again and tasted the anger,
not liking the new flavor. It was a different kind of anger,
leaving a sour bitterness on my tongue. He was blaming the son for
something, probably everything.

“Look what you made me do?” he yelled.

Seriously? He was going to blame his son for
beating his wife to death. I shook my head, growing disgusted with
the whole situation. Why was El showing this to me?

The son scrambled out of the corner, trying
to get away. In seconds, the father caught him and held him against
the wall. His small feet kicked around a little as he scratched at
his father’s hairy arms to get free. It was all pointless.

I didn’t want to watch, I just wanted to
walk away. It was something I’ve seen enough times. I didn’t need
to add to my repertoire of abusive people taking their anger out on
children.

El had different plans.

The door burst opened before I even had a
chance to realize he had reached his boiling point. By the time I
walked to the door, El had the man up against the wall. The boy was
on the ground, coughing and crawling towards his mother, crying out
for her.

El’s rage was really something. My mentor
came from the battlefields. He had fought for whichever side he
thought deserved his services and could pay enough. His appearance
was that of a middle-aged Swiss man with light brown hair with grey
streaks, slanted greyish blue eyes, and a defined jaw line with
high cheekbones. He used to be mercenary to the core. Now he just
did whatever the hell he wanted. I always got the feeling he was
trying to make up for what he did during the wars. Why else would
he lug around medicine to hand out to the humans in need.

The man saw El, tried to fight, and failed
miserably. El’s experience became useful when he moved swiftly and
with great aim. The man threw punches that relied on power rather
than speed and El had more than enough time to dodge and throw in
his own punches. I waited for him to use a spell or something, but
he didn’t. He just kept throwing punches that hit the man in the
guts, face, or chest, with only a couple kicks thrown in there. El
danced around the man like a pro, taking every opening he had to
inflict pain. The man charged at El and he responded by moving to
the side and then shoving him against the wall.

“You don’t have the right to be a husband or
a father, not even a man,” El snarled and tossed his opponent
through the window we were peeking through. Since glass was too
expensive then, there was nothing to stop him from landing on the
grass outside. He stood up and took off without looking back.

What a great guy.

I should probably just end his miserable
life and do everyone a favor.

El went for help, leaving me with the two. I
simply stood there awkwardly and watched them as the boy tried to
wake up his mother, crying. There was nothing I could do anyways.
El eventually returned with others behind him and stepped aside as
they attended to the family. We slipped out, El bruising my arm
with his death grip, while no one was looking. We made our way back
to the cabin we’ve been using, El leading the way. Eventually he
let go of my arm and I rubbed it as the pain already disappeared
along with the bruising.

The walk was quiet and intense. Neither of
us was willing to say anything. I had nothing to say and he
appeared too mad to say anything. When we found the path to our
little cabin and turned to walk on it, he finally spoke.

“You felt nothing?” he asked, his body
language neutral. Only his eyes showed the depth of his anger, even
disappointment. I stayed quiet as I climbed over a fallen tree.

“What should I have felt?” I finally asked.
His lessons could be tiring if not annoying. We had already been
together for a couple of months and I was envisioning leaving him.
I used to think there was nothing he could teach me, not when I was
older than him. I believed I understood life a whole lot better
than he did. It took me years to realize how wrong I was. He
understood so much more than me, probably still does. To his credit
he remembers being a human once, before he was killed and by fate’s
magic, became something else. I’m still not even sure what that
something else is.

Me? I never got the displeasure of being a
human.

“Anger, disgust, anything negative?” The
small cabin came into sight. I picked up speed wanting to get away
from this conversation. He easily kept pace. “Did you?

I shrugged. “I’ve seen worse—a man beating
his family is a common occurrence.”

“It isn’t nothing when he hurts those around
him, especially family.” He sighed. “Melaena, we are powerful,
similar to lords. We have a duty—”

“To protect the weak. I know this already.
You tell me nearly twice a day.” At least lords got homage for
their protection. We were lucky if we could even find a warm meal
in any given day.

“And yet it isn’t getting through to you,”
he snapped. “You have more power than most beings and so this
applies to you especially. You fed those negative emotions. And
don’t think I didn’t notice. Why? Why did you do that to him? To
that family? You made the entire situation worse.”

“It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always
done.”

El rubbed at his face, trying to wipe away
his wariness. I was his most challenging student. The Consort had
sent him to me to see if I was salvageable before they came to
destroy me, and El was the one who was going to try and ‘salvage’
me. I was getting to a point where nothing but other’s suffering
mattered anymore. If El hadn’t come for another couple of days, the
Consort would have had no other choice but to kill me, if they
could. We all knew they couldn’t but they would do far worse than
death. They said I was too valuable to lock up and torture forever
and ever but they would if they had too.

When he first found me, I was laughing while
a group of men were sprawled around me, their senses lost, and with
only the nightmares in their heads to keep them company. I was
releasing so much power that I sucked out all the warmth in a three
mile radius, freezing to death anything that lived. Even now, the
area was still a dead zone and became one of the wonders of the
world. Scientists strived to solve the mystery of the area. Life
just refuses to take root there. El told me all this in his latest
mail. He even sent me pictures of the area to remind me to be
careful. As if I could forget what I’m capable of doing.

Back then it took El two days to convince me
to release those men from their personal hell. I wasn’t impressed
with him since the Consort sent him and I already despised them for
branding me. By the time he finally got me to release them, I had
already grown tired with the game and didn’t care anymore.
Afterwards, he just followed me around and hindered anything I
did.

And then he was expecting me to take action
for the sake of the very humans who made me who I am. I failed his
little test with the father, stopping him never even crossed my
mind.

“That isn’t who you are. You forget; I can
see more of you than you think. I probably know you better than you
do yourself. I know there was a part of you that wanted to stop
him. It’s a really small piece of who you are and probably the only
part of you left that cares more than you want to. Try listening to
it next time.”

“Why should I? Why should I help those who
only fear me?”

“They’re scared of you because they don’t
know any better. Prove them wrong.”

“But they are right.”

“No, they aren’t,” he replied.

I looked into his eyes and saw so much pain,
pain I didn’t understand then and pain I still don’t understand
now. It was raw enough that I had to look away. The rest of the
walk was quiet. The critters scurried away in the dark, staying
completely hidden but on my radar as they put distance between me
and them. When we reached the cabin, we entered quietly. I threw my
cloak onto the kitchen table and sat down on the couch.

I watched as El neatly hung up his coat and
started to slowly pack up. We never stayed in one spot too long. El
said there were lessons to be learned in every part of the world.
I, of course, didn’t agree. The same things happened everywhere.
Pain and suffering was a universal epidemic.

“Why didn’t you use any of your powers to
fight that man?”

He glanced over at me as he stuffed some
items into his satchel. “He’s only human.”

“So?” I said, not getting his point. “It
would have been faster to just cast a spell.”

“I already know I’m powerful. I don’t need
to prove it by cursing someone a lot weaker than me.”

I shrugged. “He’s only going to go back and
abuse his family again.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” I replied. “They always come
back.”

“Then her family will protect her.”

I shook my head, wondering where all his
hope for mankind came from.

In everyone’s eyes, El was an affable
medicine man. He only ever showed them that side of him. Never the
ruthlessness, the emptiness he sometimes felt. He was a good man. I
could admit that, even now.

“No. Not when having even one extra mouth
could be the difference between starvation and survival, let alone
two,” I explained.