A Toiling Darkness (18 page)

He cringed, understanding exactly what I
meant. “That’s not fair.”

“Oh yeah it is. I’m simply making an
observation. It’s who you are.” I couldn’t help the sound of my
words—cold and bitter. I took a punishment for him, he owed me and
I was ready to cash in. He just wasn’t ready to accept. He probably
convinced himself that I deserved the punishment. “This curse
should be yours and you know it.”

He shook his head in denial and it confirmed
what I was thinking. He didn’t change. I thought maybe he did if he
was so possessive of his little seer girlfriend. Apparently she
wasn’t as precious as I thought. He was still that self-absorbed
ass who attracted me so long ago. It was attractive back then, but
now it was time for him to finally grow up—to grow out of his
college student form.

“I never thought they would do that to
you.”

“Then repay me. Don’t leave me out hanging
to dry again.”

“If I knew, I would tell you,” he said
defensively. He was sitting straight up in his chair now, not
lounging around anymore. The tension between us was thick with
unresolved issues.

“That’s the thing. You do know! You know who
his master is and yet you won’t even try to look into it.” I wanted
to punch something, preferably his face.

The candles blinked with my anger and the
shadows in the corner grew darker, creating an endless pit of
possibilities. I could do so much with that pit. Summon different
beings through it; beings who would gladly try to take down Kay. I
could feel the presence of each of those beings in my head as they
waited in the darkness with anticipation. It was so damn tempting.
I could only take so much shit from Kay, then I would start to
fight back and I probably should have done it a long time ago.

Lightning flashed and barely a moment later,
thunder rumbled through the room. It was as if the storm was
responding to my emotions and it gave me a small satisfaction as
Kay also responded to both me and the storm. He paled and swallowed
visibly, so unaccustomed to my anger. I was no longer that docile
little girl he was used to pushing around.

“Darkness…I didn’t mean to upset you,” he
stumbled with his words. The room grew a little warmer as he
readied himself for a fight. A wall of thin mist formed between us
as my cold anger met his hot magic. The two temperatures met and
battled for control.

We have always been hot and cold emotionally
through our weird affiliation. Being too similar for a sexual
relationship created a kind of twisted friendship—at least until he
went too far and left me behind to deal with his own bloody
mess.

What did that kid say to his friend? Not
cool, dude. Not cool at all. Yeah, I agreed. It wasn’t cool at all
to force me to take the fall for him.

I reigned in my waning self-control,
allowing the candles to stop flickering and slowly the mist between
us dissipated.

“I won’t fight you, relax.” Even if I did,
there was no telling who would win. I was really out of
practice.

“Good,” he sighed and the magic in the air
around him loosened. “If I could help you, I would. I care more
than I like to think I do.”

I shifted, uncomfortable with his little
revelation. They were words I wasn’t used to being aimed at
me—especially by Kay.

“If you want to help, then at least think
about it.”

He considered what I said before
nodding.

A loud thud drew our attention to the door.
Someone grunted followed by another thud.

“What the hell?” Kay grumbled and walked
over to see what the disturbance was.

“Don’t,” I said as my stomach twisted with
knowledge. At the same time as when I spoke, the door flew towards
him. Kay barely had time to dodge it by throwing himself towards
the wall and into a bookshelf.

I stood frozen to the spot as I took in
Kalen’s figure, his face twisted with anger, his knife in his
hands, dripping with both magic and blood. One of Kay’s bodyguards
was behind him on the floor, barely moving with small noises
escaping his lips. Kalen had stabbed him in the throat. I could see
the splatter of blood as the man tried to breathe or talk.

Kalen looked at Kay and then dismissed him,
turning to me instead in what felt like slow motion. His body was
drenched from the storm, his hair plastered around his face, and
his eyes nearly black as his master’s biggest command kept him
enthralled. Those eyes reflected his soul, screaming for my death,
for its freedom and he was finally listening to it.

I stood there completely shocked at his
showing and stayed that way until he shoved me down onto the large
solid desk. Papers fluttered around us from the force and I winced
in pain as my breath was forced out of my lungs and something rigid
and sharp pushed into the middle of my back.

There is a defense mechanism programmed into
me. If my life is threatened, my instincts automatically take over
and I fight back. It makes suicide impossible and keeps me from
dropping my guard and letting someone else kill me. It also makes
making friends nearly impossible because I became a really
self-persevered person from years of betrayal and the inability to
trust people’s intentions anymore. In this case, Kalen showing up
short circuited my brain and allowed those instincts to instantly
click on and take over.

Kalen was no longer Kalen. He became just a
slauve, a being intent on killing me and I responded to those
intentions.

“Slauve,” I snarled and blocked the knife as
it came down, aiming for my heart. In this form, I had a hell of a
lot more power than as a child. Blocking him was easy, even easier
to do was forcing him to stumble back and releasing me as I
engulfed his eyesight with a temporary darkness. Just enough to
throw him off his game.

A small part of me yelled at me to not hurt
the slauve and my instincts forced me to shut up as I protected my
life. He became the enemy and enemies needed to be terminated. No
one, not even a slauve, was going to hurt me. I wasn’t going to let
them.

The slauve blinked a couple of times as his
eyesight cleared. He came at me again, his knife flashing through
the air as he tried to slash me. I moved, always just out of reach
and slowly an angry smile crept into my face.

We circled each other, testing out the
waters. He made a slash at me and I dodged, then I kicked out and
he dodged that—both of us testing out the distance between us.

“Kay, do you trust me?” I asked, barely
aware of the man biding his time to attack the slauve. We had our
differences, but there was no way he was going to let a slauve make
a mockery out of him by attacking his guest in his own
establishment. It would bring up a lot of rude questions about his
magic abilities and security.

“Of course I do.” He didn’t hesitate with
his response, which would have probably surprised me if I weren’t
so focused on surviving.

“Good.” I waved my hands and heard as he yelled in
protest. A moment later he was gone and it was just me and the
slauve in the room. Me and the enemy. If Kay stayed around, he
would have only gotten in my way. Right now he was probably in my
apartment and by the time he got back here, the fight should be
over. Only one of us was going to survive this fight and I really
wanted it to be me.

I finally found Akhlys. When I first sensed
her, I blacked out and when I came back to myself, I was outside
this building and my body kept moving on its own.

Now I faced her.

Now I can kill her.

I can be free.

Can I? Can I be free? Is this okay?

The woman was breathtakingly beautiful. She
was tall and lean, in only leather pants and what could be mistaken
as a leather bra. Her long black hair flowed around her delicate
face. And yet something was wrong.

I stared into the black pits that were her
eyes and a shiver crawled along my spine.

Kill her. End her.

Freedom.

But why does she remind me so much of that
small child. Of Darkness.

She looked…broken.

Attack.

Is it really okay to do this? There was no
real proof. Just my master’s orders and his stories. Is this woman
in front of me able to do something so horrible?

My body moved on its own, my soul crying out
as it charged at the woman, swinging the knife at her and hoping to
land a hit. I tried to stop, to pull back. But I was in the back
seat. My soul had control and he wanted her dead.

Something wasn’t right.

The slauve attacked, quicker than my eyes
could follow. By the time I saw him again, he was back in the same
spot he started from and my arm was burning from a cut. It was a
shallow wound on my arm, but the pain was massive. A fire entered
through the cut and into my blood stream, spreading from my forearm
and up to my shoulder.

Magic, in a way, can be poison and that was
exactly what was coating the blade. In normal circumstances I could
heal the cut in less than a minute. There was nothing normal right
now. With whatever magic was coating that damn blade, it not only
slowed down the healing process, it also kept the wound
bleeding.

I shook off my surprise and the pain, and
focused on the slauve. I’ll have to deal with the wounds later.

The slauve went for another swing and I
jumped back. I kicked out my leg, getting him in the stomach. He
let out a grunt as he stepped back a little. I kept up the offense
and whipped my leg out in a classic round house that got him in the
head. He staggered, eyes a little unfocused and I used that moment
to bind him with the shadows. They wrapped around him like the
chains on his soul. His soul yowled, making his eyes dance around
in the madness he was stuck in.

He fought against the chains and I had to
mentally fight to keep him strained. The slauve was stronger than I
anticipated. Probably too strong for a slauve. The last slauve
wasn’t even this close, power-wise. He had to be more than I
thought as a human if he was so overpowering now that he was
something else.

I released even more power and aimed it all
on the slauve. My brain pounded against my skull at the strain, but
I pushed through it. He fell to his knees, his face twisted in a
grimace. I pushed into his mind, to find that little bit of fear in
there. Everyone had fear and it was easy to find his. It was in the
forefront of his mind, always there, even now as he fought for his
life. It wasn’t what I was looking for and I lingered in that fear
in wonder. Usually, at this point, I could just use their fear of
me and who I represented—but no, it wasn’t me he feared. He feared
failure. There was even the fear of failing to kill me, but what
overshadowed that was the fear of failing to find who killed that
child in the park and took her older sister.

Leaving the park and her body behind had
bothered him more than he let on.
The thought fluttered through
my enraged mind, muddling my instincts. He wanted to keep those
children alive and for some strange reason, I was one of those
children he feared he couldn’t protect. He was still stuck in the
alley, looking down on me as I bled. I caught the scene, a flash of
my small white body. So frail. My stomach was a puddle of blood and
I was squirming around. He didn’t know what to do or how to help.
All he could do was watch while I fought of the souls that had
invaded me.

He’s scared for me. Not of me.

He’s a slauve. Ignore it. Kill him.

I shook off the image and began constructing
my metaphysical attack. The only tangible fear that was useful was
his fear for the children. I grabbed onto it and sent in my power,
intensifying it.

Another image of me popped into his mind. A
little girl with big empty blue eyes, porcelain flawless skin, wavy
blonde hair done up into two puffballs, and small delicate bone
structures that looked so breakable. His image of me was of one of
those delicate and yet cold and empty looking porcelain dolls. He
didn’t want this little child to be hurt. He wanted to protect her.
Seeing his image of me stirred something in his chest.

Is he using me to represent the
children?

No, ignore it! Kill him.

Shut up.

I stood there, warring with my instincts,
hesitating to finish what I started while he kneeled down in front
me with so much hatred and disgust in his expression.

Don’t do it. Don’t kill him.

The little voice that kept telling me not to
kill him was louder now, pounding against my skull and driving back
the instincts that I allowed to control me through the entire
fight. I did not want to kill this slauve. In a way, I couldn’t. I
just couldn’t.

I touched his hair and felt the soft curls
as it glided through my fingers. It really was as soft as I
thought.

“Kalen,” I whispered, still warring with my
psyche.

This man wanted me dead, the look he gave me
told me this clearly enough and yet I couldn’t find myself to kill
him, to protect myself. He blinked up at me, the hatred dimming a
little as he looked lost and confused, my reaction not what he
wanted. Even his trapped soul hesitated. I ran my hand through his
hair again, enjoying the silky strands as they glided through my
fingers. I could not kill him.

Finally, I gained control of my instincts
and managed to push it down. It was like I was crawling out of a
muddy pit in the middle of the forest. It was completely
exhausting. I don’t think I ever went against my instincts and to
do it took everything I had.

Pain burned through my stomach, up to my
chest and wrapped itself around my heart.

I looked down and realized the dagger was
sticking out of my stomach. I had loosened my hold on Kalen and he
used that opportunity to stab me. A whimper escaped me as he pulled
the dagger back out.

I stepped back, shocked. The shadows
surrounding him dissipated and he stood up slowly.