A Toiling Darkness (29 page)

He spoke in a low murmur and slowly the
children stopped shivering, and then their bodies went completely
relaxed. Their expressions grew blank, their lips slack, eyes big
and unseeing.

We watched as the kids drove off inside the
taxi. Kay was quick to disappear after he finished up, so it was
just Kalen and me left behind. Kalen stayed quiet, not saying
anything. I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking about and it
worried me. Did I finally convince him that I was one of the
monsters he hated?

Eventually he turned to me, his face
carefully constructed to show nothing. “Why did you just let that
thing take him?”

“I told you, he made a deal. He has to hold
his end of the bargain.” I stayed cautious, unsure of how he was
going to react. I may have finally did something he could not
accept—I allowed a human to suffer. Oh, the alleyway when I first
met him was similar, but not quite as bad. But tonight? That man
begged me to save him. I just wouldn’t. He wasn’t worth the
trouble. Now, if only Kalen would accept my decision.

“Could you have saved him?”

I shrugged. “Probably. It’s more of a hassle
in doing it though, and when, not if, but when they do get him, his
fate would be a hell of a lot worse.”

“You held so much hate for him,” he
whispered, staring down at me.

“What are you so pissy about?” I asked. “We
got him, we got the bad guys and saved those children. Isn’t that
what you wanted to do?”

“Yeah, it is.” He started pacing taking a
couple of steps before turning and taking another couple of steps
and then repeating it, walking only a short distance between me and
light post that no longer worked. Probably never worked.

“Then why are you angry?”

“I just...hell, I don’t know. I just don’t
understand. You seemed so cold, as if that man being dragged off,
to God knows where, had no affect on you.”

“Because it didn’t.”

“No one should have to go out that way.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
I asked. He was genuinely upset about that man. He stopped pacing,
his expression showing me he didn’t like the answer he came up
with.

“Do you think something like that is going
to happen to you?” I asked and reached out for his arm. He
stiffened under my touch, but didn’t move away. I took that as a
good sign.

“I don’t know what is going to happen. All I
know is, if I want to be free then I have to kill Akhlys. And I’m
starting to think I don’t want to do that.”

“You said it yourself, she needs to be
killed.”

He shook his head, confused with his own
logic.

“You won’t die like that man,” I said.

“How would you know?”

“You can be freed only by two ways. First
one, completing your mission and the second way is killing your
master. No bloodhounds are going to come for you. You didn’t make a
deal with a demon.”

“Bloodhounds? You called those things that,
right?”

“They do the bidding of the demons, mainly
fetching the souls.”

“And they come out of the shadows?”

I nodded. “Yeah. They use darkness to
travel. They would keep coming until they got their target.”

“I don’t want to go like that,” he
whispered, looking out into the streets. It was the same, still
dark and still full of drug addicts. I squeezed his hand.

“When you do go, it will be peaceful for
you. One of the requirements in making a slauve is the type of
person they use. You are pure in a way.”

Kalen pulled away and started walking down
the street, not responding to my answer. I followed, keeping my
mouth shut as he thought about everything.

“Why did you come with me?” he asked. “I
doubt you cared about those children.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I don’t care about
them.”

He grimaced.

“Then why?” he asked again.

“Because you would have died,” I finally
admitted it to him. I was almost a hundred percent sure he would
have died. He wouldn’t even kill the human—even after everything
that human did. Kalen would have risked his life to save him from
the bloodhounds. It was just who he was. He still believed in the
justice system, still believed that everyone deserved a fair trial.
If I asked him, he would probably say he was against the death
penalty. My codes are a lot older than just the death penalty. I
was more of an eye for an eye kind of gal.

“You sound so sure of it.”

“You didn’t kill that man. You simply
knocked him out.”

“He’s human! He doesn’t deserve to die like
that.”

“He’s still a human even though he took part
in sacrificing four children? Those kids are dead now because of
him and you still see him as human? What about their little
siblings that he had to kill to get them? That’s a lot of children
he killed for his selfish reasons.”

He made a weird frustrated noise that
originated more from his chest than his mouth. He punched a nearby
tree, despair in every line of his expression. He was pissed more
with himself than he was with me.

“I couldn’t even save them.” He choked on
his words, the pain in each syllable. My heart hurt for him. I
wanted to comfort him and tell him everything was going to be okay,
but it wasn’t. Not for him. I looked down at my small hands and
curled them into fists. To him, he failed those children and
nothing I say or do will going to make it okay.

“You saved four children. They get to go
home, crawl into their parents’ arms and cry and eventually heal.
You did the best you could.”

“My best wasn’t good enough.”

“For those kids still alive, it was.”

“Shit,” he swore. More words escaped his
mouth and he leaned his forehead against the tree he punched.

I just stood there and let him have his
moment. I could feel him as he pulled himself together again. He
picked up each piece that had broken off him and carefully placed
it back where it belonged. When he was as whole as he was going to
be, he straightened his posture, took a couple of deep breaths and
began walking again. I followed silently behind like a trained dog.
Well, not so much trained as just infatuated with him. Sometimes I
still wished I could care as much as he did about strangers.

“Why are you so goddamn jaded?” he asked,
the question coming out of nowhere.

“God has nothing to do with my
jadedness.”

“Stop avoiding my question with sarcasm.
Just tell me why.”

“There is nothing to tell.” I shrugged.

“So you’re going to admit to being a
cold-hearted bitch?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Something
happened. What? What got you to hate humans so much?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Stop being stubborn!” he yelled. “I’m sick
of all the secrets. You hate humans and don’t make a point to hide
that hatred. You look at children with jealousy and adults with
disgust. You just sit on the sidelines when someone is in trouble,
even when you obviously have the power to protect them.”

“I can’t tell you because it isn’t just one
thing to tell,” I yelled back. “There are thousands, hell, millions
of years attached to it! And I don’t completely hate them. At least
not all of them anymore.”

He fell quiet and stared at me in disbelief.
I just continued, making use of that silence.

“For my entire existence, I’ve been nothing
but tortured, beaten, used and abused. I have had things done to me
that your simple little brain won’t even be able to wrap around.
That’s why I’m jaded. That’s why I don’t trust humans and why I
just can’t get myself to care about a bunch of children going
missing or being killed. I’ve seen worse, done worse.” I was
breathing heavily after my tirade. Somehow it made me feel better,
like admitting to it was my way of letting go. Parts of my mind
relaxed, finally accepting some of what happened. It simply became
facts that occurred. Some of my rage dispersed with the words.

“Millions of years?” His voice was tight
with emotions I couldn’t identify.

“I’m more than two hundred years old. A lot
older with a whole lot of history attached to it. Since the
beginning of mankind.”

“No one has lived that long.”

I shook my head. “There are a couple, not
many since most gave up and allowed themselves to simply end.”

He tried to wrap his mind around the age.
Sometimes I couldn’t do it either. I always wondered why I was
still alive, how I was able to keep going. It all boiled down to
just taking it one day at a time.

“And that whole time, humans did all kinds
of things to you?”

“Why should I show kindness to those that
never showed me any?” My pain was in my words and in my expression.
There was no hiding it. “I’m on the other side of the spectrum. As
far away as I can be from being a saint.”

Kalen didn’t have an answer to give, not
after we just killed a man who was willing to sacrifice innocent
children so he could end something he brought onto himself. We just
kept walking in silence until we were in front of my apartment.

He walked me home again, forever the
gentleman.

Kalen turned to leave and I grabbed his
wrist, stopping him. He stared down at my hand until finally giving
me eye contact.

“What are you going to do now that you found
the children?”

He stared at me a moment longer before
looking up to my apartment. “Figure out how to get free I
guess.”

“You don’t want to kill Akhlys any
more?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you’re going to kill your master?” I let
go of his arm and stepped away to get a better look at him. He
seemed so lost and confused.

“I don’t know if I’m capable of doing that.
I can’t go against any of his orders and I’ve tried.”

“You’re different. Haven’t you noticed it
yet? Slauves are normally strong, but you’re easily twice as strong
as they are. You also don’t make finding Akhlys a top priority like
you should. Normal slauves would be obsessed with finding her.”

“You seem to know a lot about slauves,
why?”

I blinked, automatically thinking of Eithna.
“Someone I knew a long time ago made one. He was strong too.”

“What happened to him?”

“He was killed. His master made him do very
bad things and he was dealt with.” I shivered, remembering Eithna
standing there like a crazed phoenix and a man standing slightly
behind her like a bodyguard. He was taller than Kalen, with blonde
hair and feline green eyes. His pupils were fully dilated, no trace
of the green left. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he just stood
there, begging me with his eyes to save him. I denied the man help
simply because Eithna was too important to me to kill. She looked
so young again, like she was getting back her life again.

I didn’t realize then what she was planning.
I thought she created the slauve more to have a companion than to
help with her plans to destroy mankind. She was always like that,
always upfront with her feelings. She went for what she wanted
while I always just stayed back and let them do to me what they
wanted. If I was more like her I would probably have done just what
she did—taken my anger out on the humans.

“Darkness,” Kalen called out to me. He was
kneeling down now, his face only inches from mine. He looked in my
eyes, searching for something. “Where are you right now?”

I took in a shuddering breath and blinked a
couple of times, focusing on his eyes. He lifted his hand and
gently brushed my cheek. A teardrop was on his thumb. I stared at
that tear in complete shock. When was the last time I ever cried
about something? This was twice now that my tear ducts have decided
to work and all because I was with Kalen.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized and tried to step
away. He held onto me, not letting me go.

“There is nothing you should be sorry
about.” He smiled a little. “You seemed completely shocked. When
was the last time you let yourself cry. Just a nice good cry.”

I tried to laugh off his question and it
only came out weak. “Cry? I don’t cry.”

He brushed my cheeks with the pad of his
thumb. “Everyone cries.”

I tried to look down, but Kalen didn’t let
me. He forced me to look into his eyes. The brown in his eyes were
rich, the depth of them never ending. I touched his cheek
tentatively. I could feel the tiny little bristles of his stubble.
My thumb went over his wide jaw enjoying the feel of the little
hairs and the angles of his jaw. He’s been so busy the last couple
of days that he hadn’t had time to shave. He was handsome the first
night I saw him, all clean-shaven. Now, he was gorgeous. He still
held that innocence I found interesting in humans, so blind to the
possibilities of the world. I wanted him to learn about the beauty
that did exist in my world. I wanted him to have more time.

“I pray to whoever is out there that you
stay exactly how you are,” I breathed out the words softly. He
shivered as my words caressed him.

“And how do you suggest I do that?”

I leaned back, putting some distance between
us. “If you kill Akhlys, you get to go into the next phase of your
life, whatever that may be. If you kill your master, you’ll stay
like this, a slauve, just no orders to control your actions. You’ll
always be chained to this body, incapable of moving on until
someone strong enough kills you. And you’re pretty fucking strong
so that’ll be hard too.”

He finally released me so I could step back.
He stood up slowly.

“So it’s up to me if I want my soul to be
free.”

I nodded. “I’ll help you, either way. Just
decide and I’ll help you the best I can. Do you want to see what
more is out there in this world or do you want to be free of your
chains.” The tears pushed against my face, they wanted release. I
just agreed to help him kill me if he wanted to be released.

I don’t know what it was about him. Maybe it
was in his stance, or in the choices that flittered around in his
eyes. He made a choice and I knew which one. He wanted to be free
of those chains.