A Toiling Darkness (2 page)

What could I say? I was attracted to
anything dark and he fit my image of the perfect man. Somehow
looking at him, he just felt right to me. Which only made me think
he was bad news, really bad news.

Nothing good ever comes out of handsome men.
Lord Kay was a classic example.

“A little girl?” the man asked, sounding
bewildered.

I glared at him, pouting my lips and putting
my hands on my small waist.

“So what?” I finally asked after giving him
another once over. He even shifted uncomfortably, glancing around
the rooftop as if someone should be up here with me. “What’s wrong
with being like this?”

“You saw what happened in the alley?” His
voice carried easily to me and I could taste the concern in his
words.

Concern?

I looked at the man again. He had a guarded
look, but he was still inexperienced and his dark chocolate eyes
gave him away. He knew I saw the scene that happened down below and
he was worried about me.

Was I supposed to be freaking out? Crying?
Screaming bloody murder? He was expecting something and wasn’t
getting it and it was throwing him off. Well, he can expect all he
wanted, he still wasn’t going to the reaction he wanted from
me.

“What do you want?” I asked him.

He blinked, surprised by my question. The
question did come out a little snippy. His brows furrowed as he
tried to unjumble his thoughts.

“How old are you?” he finally asked.

I was tempted to tell him I wasn’t some
child, that I was older than dirt. I wanted to watch him try to
wrap his mind around it. I only held back because I couldn’t figure
out what he was all about.

“And what about you? Who are you? Why are
you here?”

Where did you even come from?

Even now I couldn’t really sense him. He had
to have been nearby when the bloodborn attacked and yet I felt
nothing. I always knew when a being was nearby, I could sense them
in the darkness—little bleeps on my radar. And yet nothing from
him. He was a blank space.

Already he was a confusing man and we’ve
barely said ten words to each other.

I couldn’t call him a being of the night. He
just didn’t have that flavor. He wasn’t a hunter, nor the hunted.
That confused me even more because everyone was one or the other in
my mind. I couldn’t even say he was human. Not when he leaped up
six stories onto the roof while carrying a dead body. There was
also this random feeling of familiarity to him, as if I should know
him.

I shook my head and waited for a response,
watching him cautiously. He stepped towards me, not saying
anything, and I stepped back, keeping my distance. I understood
beings and had lived long enough to know when something wasn’t
right with one of them.

This man hit my intuitive radar as something
different, possibly dangerous.

“You’re not human.”

He paused, not liking my statement. His
reaction was like I called him scum or something. His face showed
the disgust. The stranger was handsome with the square jaw and
smooth dark skin. Kind of like an everlasting tan those orange
women are always jealous of. Maybe they should try the beach
instead of the tanning booths for the more natural look.

He looked me up and down, realization
dawning on him. “Neither are you.”

“Hmph. Why did you kill him?” I pointed to
the body. It wasn’t my business why, but like I said, I’m a curious
little thing.

If he wasn’t a hunter, then why go out of
his way to kill a bloodborn? No being would interfere with another
over something like this. He glanced down, then back at me. His
concern was still there, but now he was on guard, probably
realizing I was more than I seemed.

Good. He wasn’t as dumb as I thought.
Definitely slow on the uptake though.

“Why did you let him kill that man in the
alley?” He cocked his head in puzzlement. “Never mind, forget I
asked. You’re what? Twelve?”

I said nothing, silence being my best
friend.

“Shouldn’t you be home, with your parents or
something?”

I bit down the inside of my cheek, holding
back a laugh. My parents?

He could only see me as a little girl. That
was a first. No one ever saw me as just a little girl, even the
humans. They looked at me and just knew.

I was Darkness. My name, my whole existence,
everything about me radiated darkness. I was the root of most
fears, the foundation of most horror stories, and the cause of all
nightmares. In different parts of the world, I was even a
legend.

Someone didn’t get the memo.

Hell, I’m in existence because of humans’
fear of the dark during a time period where fire was a rare
commodity. Dirty little humans would huddle around their small
fires in hopes of casting the darkness away. Of casting me away.
When man learned to draw pictures thirty thousand years ago, some
of their pictures were warnings against me. They created me and
then casted me away. Human was something I never was. Parents
aren’t something I ever had.

“If I’m not human, then why do I need
parents?” I asked. I’m always surrounded by beings who already knew
better and humans who wouldn’t even be able to grasp the reality of
our existence. He was like a newborn, so unfamiliar with the world
around him.

He blushed and mumbled something underneath
his breath. It was kind of cute, not that I would dare call a
handsome man cute. Wouldn’t want to step on anyone’s balls. “My
apologies, I guess I’m still getting used to this.”

Aha, he was a newborn.

“Used to what?” I wanted to watch him squirm
a little. Beings were created in different ways. The ‘natural, born
this way’ way. The ‘this is my fate’ way. And my personal favorite,
the ‘I’ve been cursed’ way.

He shifted from foot to foot, not
disappointing me. He was embarrassed. “This world.”

I flipped through all the possibilities of
his existence and narrowed it down to just one. He was still in
human form, there was energy but he most likely couldn’t cast any
magic even with an amulet to draw his energy out, he wasn’t of the
night, the time of day probably did nothing to restrict him. And he
knows jack-shit about this world, so it wasn’t like he grew up as a
hunter or anything. He was just a normal human up until very
recently. A couple of weeks tops, I think. An answer dawned on me
and I didn’t want it to be true. I really didn’t want it to be.

I looked him over once again, but from a
different perspective. He was still weak, but he was growing every
second. His strength was more than just physical. It was deep in
there. I focused so hard I nearly missed the small sound. Just a
tiny little clanking noise. Chains. A sound I only heard once
before. Goosebumps broke across my arms.

“You used to be human.” I forced a smile as
it all dawned on me. Figuring out just what he was, how could I not
laugh? So I laughed just a little bit. It sounded nervous to me,
but apparently he thought I was teasing him or something. If only
he knew. I felt my mask wrap itself around my face, protecting my
emotions and hiding all my thoughts. It was instant. I went from
laughing, with a small smile on my lips to an empty face, devoid of
everything. The man blinked in a flurry of confusion at my sudden
change. “Wow, you’re a very rare kind. How could I not tell?”

“Tell what?”

“It’s been a while…I nearly forgot about
your kind.” I ignored his question, trying to stay grounded in the
present and not the past that was trying to creep up on me. He
flinched at the words.

I stepped towards him and when he didn’t
move, walked up to him and reached out, laying my hand flatly
against his chest. The response from inside him drew an inaudible
sigh from me. It was there—a slight brush of his soul. There were
chains wrapped around the poor thing, tethering it to his body. The
soul was slumped over right now but when it felt me, it began to
stir, recognizing something. I could sense its stare as it blinked
awake and took notice of my presence. Then the soul jerked
completely awake, the chains clanging from the abrupt movement. The
noise was loud but only I could hear it. I don’t even think the
stranger heard it. Maybe felt it. No, no maybe about it. He felt it
alright. Every movement his soul made was probably tearing him
apart inside.

I hope someone, somewhere, shreds your false
immortality from you.

I remember some woman saying that a long
time ago. I only smiled at her and said if they could kill me, I
would welcome them with open arms. Now I was staring at a slauve
created just for me. Someone, somewhere really wanted me dead.

Was this someone’s idea of a joke?

This man was a slauve, rare beings who died,
their souls tied to their bodies until they achieved what their
master wanted. Only higher beings could create one and even then,
only a select few. It takes too much life force and magic to
succeed.

And a slauve was incapable of killing me.
I’ve already established that two hundred years ago. They just
didn’t have the juice for it. As far as I was concerned, no one had
the juice to kill me.

The slauve flinched as if something hurt
him. I smiled, it coming out feeling fake. “And you died very
recently. Who did you piss off?”

He backed off, out of reach, his face
constructing itself into a mask. He swallowed and looked back down
at the body. I carefully kept my own face empty of any emotions.
The slauve didn’t really understand his situation yet. He was only
a fledgling flopping around, learning the ropes still. If he did
understand everything about who he became, then he would know to
listen to his soul as it screamed and snarled at me, yelling for my
death. This slauve was created just for me.

How…interesting.

“So you’re not really twelve are you?” he
asked.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”

“What are you?” He glanced at the body and
back at me.

“I’m not a being of the night either if that
is what you’re thinking.”

Beings of the night were things that did go
bump in the night like the bloodborn at our feet. They were the
ones people told stories about around campfires; vampires and
werewolves were not just lore and they were barely the skin of what
really existed in the dark. They were also restricted by the sun.
Just a little bit of sun was detrimental to their life. I had no
such complication. Our relationship involved me providing the
darkness for them to use. That was it.

I kicked the body lightly with the toe of my
laced-up boots, my expression still blank. Having a half-crazed and
starving bloodborn in the city was rare. Most bloodborns were more
civilized than this one. They didn’t want to risk angering their
king.

“Then what?” he asked again, frowning as he
watched me toe the bloodborn some more. He was determined to put a
label on me, to stick me in some kind of category. I was surprised
he wasn’t attacking me outright instead of trying to have a decent
conversation. The reaction from his soul told me enough to know he
was meant to kill me.

“If you want to survive in this world, then
don’t go around asking others what they are. You’ll get yourself
killed.”

He went silent. Not just with his voice, but
with his whole body. He went completely still, still enough for me
to think he wasn’t there.

Did he use that talent to hide himself
before attacking the bloodborn? I was tempted to ask him about it.
I shook my head, the less he knew and understood about himself the
better for me.

The slauve moved. Faster than my eyes could
keep up with.

There was a whisper of disturbed air and
then he was behind me. With one arm, he pinned both of mine behind
me. His other arm snaked around my neck and he lifted me off the
ground, blocking my airway with his forearm.

“It will be easy to snap this little neck of
yours,” he whispered into my ear. Even though his words were harsh,
I knew he had no intention in killing me. If he meant what he said,
he would have just snapped my neck the moment he touched me. This
meant two things. First, he wasn’t listening to what his soul was
trying to tell him. Even I could hear the thing inside him,
snarling at me, blaming me for putting it in this position. Second,
this man cared. He cared too much and didn’t want to hurt me, and
so was trying to scare me instead. What he didn’t know was that I
feared very little, including him.

I choked and clawed at his arms for a
moment. He only tightened his grip, believing it would be that
simple. I finally laughed at his naïve thoughts and before he could
process the sound, I was standing off to the side, a few feet
away.

Misting is a favorite move of mine. Your
body goes weightless for mere moments and when you’re back in your
skin, you can be a few feet from where you once stood. The little
move wasn’t a talent of mine personally. But I took it and turned
it into one of my own, and now I can mist up to half a mile away.
When I wanted to do longer distances, I simply used the darkness.
Shadows are what I’m best at manipulating, I can make them do
anything I want, attacking, shielding, and even making a sort of
portal to travel through. With that, I can end up on the other side
of the city. Of course, in this form, I could only travel a couple
of times using that method before I needed some rest. My power pool
was just as stunted as my height.

I wasn’t ready to run away yet, so I only
misted to the other side of the roof, putting distance between us.
The look on the slauve’s face was priceless.

He snapped his head around as he searched
for me, completely confused until he spotted where I went.

“What? How?”

“You have some nerves of steel, slauve. Did
you believe snapping my neck would end my life?” I allowed my voice
to reveal that I wasn’t just a little blonde-haired child with big
blue eyes. I allowed the wrath I kept locked away to fill me up,
take me over and overwhelm him. He stood there, frozen. Not out of
fear. That puzzled me even more.