A Toiling Darkness (6 page)

Kalen examined the shadow for a while, even
moved so he could put his right hand in it. His hand disappeared
into the darkness while his whole body shivered and I knew he felt
the coldness in it. If I wanted, I could steal his warmth while he
touched the shadow. I didn’t though. I stayed still and acted like
a good little girl while he poked at it before sitting back
down.

“That’s kind of neat,” he finally said and
watched as I released the shadow and it seeped back into the shade
of the tree.

“Yeah, it is.” I couldn’t hide the pleased
smile on my face.

He said it was neat and I was a sucker for
compliments.

A small green plastic ball rolled over to
us, bouncing off the large tree trunk and stopping a foot away from
where my white boots rested. A group of children ran over, laughing
until they spotted me. I was hidden from their view with Kalen
between us and now that they saw me, the smiles and laughs were
wiped right from their faces. They all stopped.

A brave boy, probably around nine years old
with floppy red hair and narrow brown eyes stepped forward. His
eyes widened even more and his fear clued me in on the pounding of
his heart against his chest. The pupils in his eyes danced with the
uncertainty he felt about me. The boy still came forward even
though his mind was probably telling him to run. The others cowered
behind him, giving him what little useless support they could.

This little human child was going to grow up
to be a leader some day. His strength glowed in his eyes behind
that fear and in his stance. And the fact that he even approached
me when he was scared silly only proved how brave he was. Stupid
but brave.

“Can you pass us the ball, please?” he asked
politely while staring at it studiously.

“Just come and grab it,” I said, making my
voice higher in pitch to sound like a girl. In the corner of my
eye, I could see Kalen as he cocked an eyebrow. I ignored him and
focused on the brave boy. He looked at me and swallowed, his face
paling even more. The freckles stood out from his skin like a
constellation going across his nose, acting as a tell for his
fear.

He thought about it and the reluctance was
there. He stepped forward, his body shaking slightly. The boy
didn’t want to get any closer but the tension in his body said he
would. He really wanted that ball.

“It’s okay. I’ll pass it to you,” I said,
taking pity on him, and stood up slowly. He flinched but didn’t
falter. The other kids jumped and backed off a little, leaving the
boy to his fate. I grabbed the ball and threw it to him gently. He
caught it and tucked it under his arm like a football he needed to
guard against me.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he mumbled and they
scurried off. Some of the other kids patted the boy on the
back.

I sat back down, watching them run off like
there were hounds snapping at their heels. It made me wonder what
made humans fear me so easily. I looked like a little angel and yet
they still knew I was off.

“He called you ma’am,” Kalen remarked as he
watched me carefully.

I shrugged. “I have that effect on
humans.”

“But you’re a child.”

“Kids have great intuition. My appearance
may be childlike but not my presence. He intuitively figured that
out and his subconscious recognized me as a ma’am. He’s a polite
little kid.” I nodded to myself, agreeing with my earlier
assessment. “He’s going to grow up to be an amazing man.”

Kalen’s eyebrows knitted as he tried to
grasp what I was trying to tell him. “I get the impression that
you’re a lot older than you look.”

“That’s because I am.”

“In this form?”

“Two hundred years strong.”

His eyebrows rose at that tidbit of
information. “You’ve lived for two hundred years?”

No, more, I wanted to say. Instead I said,
“To survive, I blended in. I stayed quiet with my ears open and my
presence in the background. I try hard not to attract any
attention.” It was easier to survive as a child, easier to hide who
I really was. Those that wanted me dead didn’t try to kill me when
they met me like this. They just didn’t recognize me.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s it. It isn’t as easy as you
think.” I glanced at him through my peripheral vision, wondering
what he was thinking. “So why are you here? I doubt you were
planning to spend time in the park.”

He smiled a little. “No, I definitely
wasn’t. I was walking by when I felt something and...I don’t
know...my body just brought me here on instinct. It seems to do
that a lot lately.” He glanced around, watching all the kids run
about in fits of giggles and playful screams. “This place is
nice.”

I went to say something, but a loud
childlike shrill interrupted our conversation and brought silence
to the entire park.

The sound was filled with a wordless agony
that brought every human in the area to a complete stop, including
all the kids. A being with heightened senses would be able to hear
every human’s heart in the park as it pounded painfully against
their chests while their body went into a hair-raising, spine
shivering shock. It was that kind of scream.

I simply looked in the direction it came
from but couldn’t quite pin it down. I scanned the area. We were in
an open field that eventually blended into a border of trees a few
yards deep. The trees wrapped themselves around the park, cocooning
all the children to one area. About half a football field separated
us from where the scream originated from, on the far end of the
park.

A long moment of complete silence fell on
everyone in the park. Even the sounds of honking horns, sirens, and
moving cars didn’t reach the small area to all the occupants who
were rooted to their positions. A hum of energy broke that silence
as parents began searching desperately for their children and
others tried to find the source of that horror-filled shrill.

Kalen was up on his feet and halfway across
the field before I made it to my own. He ran towards the line of
trees, his figure a blur. He knew exactly where that scream came
from.

As I strolled in the same direction, a
commotion broke out as a mother cried out, searching for her little
girls. The others around her looked at her with pity and relief as
they located their own children. The words were unsaid but it was
clear in their expressions:
Better her than me.

One look at the mother and I knew who her
kids were. She looked just like them.

Well this sucks.

When some of the parents were reassured that
their children were safe, they decided to organize a little search
party to try and find the two missing girls. They had to at least
pretend they were concerned when all they wanted to do was take
their children home and gossip about what happened at the park. To
talk about how this little safe haven was now tainted with death. I
could feel it in the air. Whichever girl shrieked like that was now
dead, leaving behind waves of death energy.

I reached the tree line and spotted Kalen’s
tall figure only a couple of feet away. He was looking down, his
face blank. His body was still, filled with tension as he examined
whatever was on the ground. I approached carefully, not wanting to
cause him to erupt with the anger he was trying so hard to hold
back.

My eyes traveled down to the ground, finding
what had Kalen so stiff and clarifying who I thought made that
noise. At his feet was the little girl with brown pigtails—the one
who was running away from the other girl who wanted to tickle her.
One of the pigtails was still tied up but the other had been pulled
out. Her arm was bent at a bad angle, suggesting it was broken, and
her mouth was slack. Her eyes were wide with terror, still
registering the pain caused by whoever took her life away. Red
angry lines dotted her neck and along her cheek. Whoever did this
made her suffer first. The child was strangled to death, probably
smacked around a little first.

She wasn’t going to screech in laughter any
more as she ran away from someone trying to tickle her. She wasn’t
going to ever laugh again.

“I should have sensed this.” Kalen’s voice
was gruff with his grief. “I know when those things attack
humans.”

“Well those things you speak about didn’t do
this,” I said. I didn’t like his attitude since I was considered
one of those things and so was he. He needed to accept that, though
now was probably not the time to point that out. I knew for a fact
no beings were in this area. I could feel them, well except for
Kalen. For some reason, I just couldn’t sense him when he was
nearby. Maybe it had to do with that weird stillness thing he does
or maybe because he was created to be my hunter.

He spared me a glance, barely keeping
himself together. The air around him thickened with anger. “No
human would do this. Look at her!”

I did. I took in her small frame, her
delicate bones and the pale white skin. If you took away the horror
on her face and the weird position she was sprawled in, you would
simply think she was napping or something.

“Humans are capable of doing exactly this.”
I kept my voice low. I knew well what humans were capable of doing.
“No being did this. If they did, there wouldn’t be a body to find.
She wouldn’t even have had a chance to make a noise.”

He fell silent, staring at me, his fists
clenched and eyes wide. I looked around wondering where her older
sister was. Did she run away or get taken? Was she hiding right
now, hoping to evade the horror that took her little sister away? I
reached out briefly to see if the other girl was hiding in the
woods. I found nothing but critters. The humans were still out in
the light, so I couldn't sense them. The mother was going to be
devastated. She came here with two little girls and was most likely
going to leave with none.

“I can’t believe those words came out of
your mouth,” he whispered, drawing me back to my immediate
surroundings.

“What words?” I scrunched up my eyebrows.
Had I said something weird?

“That there wouldn’t be a body to find or
that she wouldn’t even have had a chance to scream. You said it
with the most emptiest face I’ve ever seen. Does this even bother
you? She’s just a child.”

“I. Am. Not. Human.” I bit out each word
slowly, growing impatient. “You don’t even know me to make a
statement like that.”

“Oh, I think I’m learning enough about you.
You’re a heartless little brat who only likes to sit on the
sidelines while others suffer. This isn’t even bothering you!” He
pointed to the body.

You have nothing inside of you. Nothing.
You’re just this empty shell, making yourself go through each day
simply because you can’t die. That’s no way to live.

I almost growled at him, hating those words.
Heartless. What a word. Did he even know how heartless I could
really be?

Instead of giving in to my anger, I
shrugged. I didn’t even know what should be bothering me. I saw
death on a daily basis. Some would even argue that I was on really
good terms with Death. I always tell them I met Death before and he
was even scarier than me. I have a very short list of those I
feared and Death was second to the Consort. The only difference
between them was that Death didn’t differentiate who died, nor did
he really care how. He just wanted their souls while the Consort
aimed at the most creative way to kill their victims.

“We should leave,” I suggested, glancing
around. The humans would be here soon.

“I can’t just leave her here. And where is
the other one? I thought her sister was with her.”

I risked touching him and tugged on his arm
until he looked away from the girl and at me. There was such pain
in his eyes—a grief I’ll never fully understand. “Let the police
handle the problem. This is between the humans. It has nothing to
do with us.”

“It has everything to do with me.”

“Why? Because someone died while you were
nearby?”

“Because I could have protected her! Why
didn’t I sense this?”

“You can always sense when someone is
dying?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Only if a being is the
one causing the death.”

That’s a weird prerequisite to have.

“Can I ask what your orders are?” I
carefully held back the wave of excitement for the new tidbit of
information. Instead I made my expression look impatient. It was
easy to do since I didn’t want to be here when those humans finally
decided to check this area over.

He paused, taking a deep breath as his mind
switched gears. His eyes grew empty as he recited the orders,
sounding like a robot. “First and foremost, I need to find a woman
and kill her for the wrongs she has done. While looking, if I come
across beings who bring injustice to humans, then to end them.”

Just like I thought. He was meant to kill me
and it also explained why he was able to find the bloodborn who
killed the guy in the alley. He sensed it. And he was probably
already in the area because he was honing in on me, even if he
still doesn’t realize it. I shook the dread inside of me and
pointed to the body, keeping my expression neutral. “She was killed
by a human. You know your instincts are telling you this. This
wasn’t done by a being. Otherwise you would have known something
was wrong before you heard her scream. You would have sensed
them.”

He stayed quiet as voices came from the
park. They were looking in this area now for the girls. We needed
to leave before we got caught and were forced to answer
uncomfortable questions.

“Can you trust me enough to understand that
staying here right now is not in our best interest?” I asked and
grabbed his wrists. My small hands couldn’t even wrap around them
properly. He looked down at me and stayed quiet. “If you stay here,
you won’t be able to help that other girl. You’ll just be thrown
into jail for who knows how long.”