A Toiling Darkness (8 page)

The desperation in them was palpable as they
ran. Anyone in their way moved to the side to let them pass. None
of them did anything to help—even with the three others chasing
behind them. Their pursuers were about ten yards behind.

“Troubles a-brewing,” I sang as the woman
focused onto Kalen. She knew instantly he was someone who could
help. Kalen looked over his shoulder and took in the scene, his
body going on alert. Getting ready for business.

“Please, help us,” the woman wheezed when
she was a couple of yards away. Her grey eyes were desperate,
pleading for Kalen’s help. And I knew without any thinking involved
that he would too. I was beginning to learn just who he was
exactly. A good guy. A real good guy—the kind that would run into a
burning building to risk his life for a child’s cat. His life for a
fricken cat. Inconceivable.

I mentally sighed. This was just
inconvenient.

Kalen grabbed her right arm and tugged her
into the tiny side street we were standing in front of. He didn’t
even think about it, just grabbed the woman and herded the two
refugees away. I followed behind as they went to the back of the
cafe, where there was a small ‘Employees Only’ parking lot with
only one car sitting there.

“Please, they want to kill me,” she
pleaded.

“They want to sacrifice her in a ritual to
get in touch with a very old soul,” the boy wheezed, keeping the
woman behind him. He was in his early twenties with moppy black
hair and a roundness of the inexperienced.

“You mean let the soul possess her,” I said.
“You guys are necromancers.”

“Please. Help us,” she pleaded, ignoring me
and trying to appeal to Kalen’s weak side. It worked.

We heard muffled voices, Kalen stiffening up
as feet pounded against the asphalt. When they came to where the
side road opened up into the small parking lot, they spotted us off
to the side. One of them snickered.

“Hiding behind a human?” the man in the lead
growled. He wore a big bushy black moustache I wanted to pull off,
and his hair was long and scraggly. Hygiene was not his top
priority in life.

“Who are you?” Kalen asked, stepping between
the woman and her attackers. The boy with her stood beside him,
ready to fight for her. I just stood off to the side, watching it
all. As long as Kalen didn’t die, I could care less about what
happened. He was my ticket to his master.

The guy jerked his head and the fight broke
out. No reason to delay the inevitable. Kalen took two of them,
including the leader, and the boy took the third one. Kalen moved
with deadly expertise, all his punches and kicks hitting his
target. He dodged as if dancing and his face was completely blank
as he went into his fighting place.

I knew that place intimately. It’s a place
where emotions are nonexistence and all that matters is you and
your targets. You become numb to any pain, you ignore all
distractions as if they weren’t there, and you zone in on your
objective. I used to live in that place nearly every day. It can be
a very comfortable, safe place.

When fighting among beings, one thing is
sure to always happen. Someone brings into the fight their magic.
It was the equivalent of bringing a gun to a knife fight. In this
case, when the boy was knocked out on the ground, the one he was
fighting stopped and knew they were losing. Kalen was a strong foe
to deal with. Stubborn too. He had one guy down on the ground and
the other barely on his feet.

The man looked at Kalen and made a quick
decision. I was the distraction he needed to force Kalen out of his
fighting place. His lips moved soundlessly. The air grew cold and I
could feel a wind as it blew around the alley. Except it wasn’t a
wind. They were souls. The bastard was going to use souls to try
and harm me. Not that it would...but still. It was going to hurt
like a mo-fo.

Ha, ha. Mo-fo. That one always makes me
smile.

Oh right, souls. Mind back on track.
Check.

Kalen noticed the change in the air too
because before I knew it, he was between me and the man casting the
little spell.

“Move!” I yelled, already too late.

Three things happened at once. The man threw
a blade at the same time as when he let go of the spell, sending
thousands of whispering souls straight towards us, and I misted in
front of Kalen, taken the brunt of the spell and the impact of the
blade. My body moved on its own, knowing the spell could
potentially kill Kalen and I couldn’t let that happen just yet.

The spell sent me backwards, into Kalen’s
arms. All my senses went on the fritz, blinking in and out. I knew
Kalen yelled my name. I knew a woman screamed. And someone died. I
just didn’t hear or see any of it. My body went cold, filling to
the top with thousands of screaming torturous souls. Each one of
them begging for salvation and crying out in vain.

Save us.

Help me.

Save us. Help me. Save us. Help me. Save us.
Help me.

Save us. Save us. Save us.

Help us.

Their begging drowned me. A part of me
wanted to reach out and help them. Instead I found my inner
strength and pulled at it, tugging as the souls tried to tear it
away from me.

No. I won’t do it. I refuse.

I screamed, not out of pain, but out of
anger. This was my body. There was no room for them.

None.

It took a good amount of power. I collected
it all within me, and then used it to push all those damned souls
out.

They put themselves in that situation, doing
things in life and being punished for it afterwards. They had no
right to take their suffering out on me. I have my own suffering to
deal with. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be just like them.

Just not today.

I felt each soul leave from every pore in my
body as I casted them out. It was like forcing them through a pasta
machine. Slowly, my senses cleared up enough to know I was on the
ground and Kalen was above me, shirtless.

Nice.

“Where’s your shirt?” I coughed, hacking out
another soul, distracted by all the hard ridges of his body. I
followed them from his collarbone, down the defined lines to his
abs and then to his hips. All the delicious looking muscles were
bunched together as he leaned over me. He didn’t even know the kind
of affect he was having on me. I was still a woman after all. He
was so damn oblivious.

Blood was splattered on his shoulders,
slowly dripping down his chest. I checked again. No wounds.
Good.

“Stopping the bleeding.”

I tore my eyes from his chest to look at his
face. He was in freak-out mode. His face pale, eyes big and mouth
tight. Why?

I tried to sit up, only to be pushed down
again.

“Stay down,” he growled and put more
pressure on my stomach. I looked down and realized he thought I was
going to bleed out or something. He was genuinely scared for me. I
stared at him, trying to figure out why. Where was his foundation
for this fear?

I finally gave him a genuine smile, the
muscles around my mouth confused at the new way it was being used.
“No worries, doc. I’ll be fine.” I grabbed his arm and tried to get
him to move, but he wouldn’t budge. The wound didn’t even hurt. I
healed fast, faster than most beings. It made that simple knife
useless. There was no way it was even going to put my life in
jeopardy. To a human, this wound was on par with being just a
scratch, maybe a really bad paper cut. Definitely not life
threatening.

“You were stabbed, you’re not fine.”

“Kalen.” My voice was cold now. If he didn’t
move his shirt, it was going to become part of my body. The last
thing I wanted was to walk around with part of a shirt embedded
inside of me. “Move your hand.”

He glanced at me before looking back at
where the wound was. Slowly he drew his hand away, taking his
blood-soaked shirt with him. The shirt even made a sloshing wet
noise. Ick.

Kalen drew in a breath. “Wha-how?”

“I’m not human, remember?” I said, feeling
tired. Kicking out all those souls took a whole lot of power and
now I was using the rest to heal myself. “I’m harder to kill than
even you.”

Kalen was speechless, not sure how to react.
I just stood up, looking around the alley. Two men laid dead on the
ground, the third was gone. Their boss-man was not one of the guys
on the ground, meaning more would probably attack later on, after
regrouping and a little more planning than just chasing them
through the crowded streets of Rheems.

The woman was checking on her little
savior.

“Chris,” she said, patting his face
lightly.

“Tracy? Are you okay?” The boy, Chris, sat
up with alarm, taking in the scene. Tracy let out a small sob as
she wrapped her arms around him, so relieved that he was okay.

“Where’s the boss-man-dude?” I asked,
looking at Kalen.

He stood up slowly, leaving the shirt on the
ground. I reached out to the shadows and called to them. They
responded, going towards the shirt, wrapping itself around it. I
pictured my small apartment and in moments the shirt was gone. So
was any blood that was staining the asphalt.

“What did you do?” Kalen asked, watching me
carefully, as if I might all of a sudden turn into a raging beast.
Did that little move scare him? I frowned a little.

“A lot can be done to a person with just
their blood,” I said simply and asked again. “Where is the guy who
was in charge?”

I jerked my heads towards the dead
bodies.

“He got away.”

I cocked my eyebrow. “And how exactly did he
get away?”

His voice was angry when he responded. “You
were on the ground bleeding. What else was I supposed to do? I
picked you over him.”

Me over him?

My face scrunched up a little. “I don’t
understand.”

“You were on the ground, bleeding. I decided
your life was more important, so he got away when I decided to help
you instead,” Kalen talked even slower and louder.

“I’m not deaf, Kalen! I just don’t
understand. You should’ve chased him,” I snapped at him.

“When someone generally sees a child on the
ground, bleeding from their stomach, they usually pick them over
chasing the bad guy.”

“I’m not a child.”

“Apparently,” Kalen snapped right back at
me. After a moment he sighed and went to rub at his face and
stopped just as his fingers were about to touch his skin. He jerked
his hands away and wiped at his jeans, trying to get the blood off
him, like it was going to burn him or something.

I took in a deep breath and let out the
tension in my body. It was best to dwell on what he was saying
later on. I came before someone else? I shook my head. No. Just no.
It never happens.

I brought the shadows over and let them
crawl all over Kalen who just stiffened. When they fell away, my
blood was off of him.

“I’m serious about the blood,” I said. He
just kept quiet.

Chris and Tracy were back on their feet,
watching us carefully. Chris stared at me, pondering over some
thought he just couldn’t quite put together.

“Thank you so much for helping us,” Tracy
said, looking over at Chris fondly. “We should probably get out of
here.”

So that’s how it was. I smiled a little.
They were all lovey-dovey with each other and Chris couldn’t let
her be used like that. She would have been fine—eventually.

“I should walk you back, in case anyone else
comes,” Kalen said, being the gentleman that he was.

Tracy seemed just as surprised with his
attitude as I was. There just weren’t many true gentlemen around
anymore. “Are you sure?” she asked, probably trying to decide if
she should be suspicious or not.

“It’s no problem,” he replied, smiling. It
was a soft, open smile and transformed his entire face, making him
less predatory.

Chris jerked back, finally becoming very
alert. “I know you,” he said, swallowing. He pulled his precious
Tracy behind him.

“Know who?” Tracy asked.

He pointed at me. “Her.”

“I know me too.” I smiled up at him.

“You’re Darkness.”

I curtsied, lifting up my dress a little.
“The one and only.”

Tracy looked between us, confused. Chris
looked at Kalen then back at me, his eyes dropping down to where I
was stabbed. My poor dress was definitely ruined. It was one of my
favorites too.

“The rumors about you have to be true.”

“Then it makes it easier,” I smiled, showing
my teeth. When I spoke again, I weaved in the threatening tone with
a hint of magic to drive it home. “Kalen is under my protection.”
The air around us shifted, accepting my official words.

Chris stepped back, looking at Kalen again
for a moment, swallowing again.

“Under protection?” Kalen sputtered. “I
don’t need someone to protect me.”

I turned to him. “You have no idea what
you’re saying.”

Protection from a being meant any threats to
those they were protecting go to the being instead. I pretty much
claimed Kalen, telling Chris that if any harm came to him, I was
hunting his ass down and destroying it. When I’m done, there will
be nothing left of his ass to hand back over to him.

“He doesn’t want your protection,” Chris
pointed out. I rolled my eyes.

Men—stubborn mules to the max.

“I could care less what he wants. If any
harm comes to him, consider yourself dead.” I smiled, making myself
look just like a child. It had the affect I wanted. Chris
swallowed, paled, and was ready to make a run for his life.

“Darkness! Enough,” Kalen growled. I just
stared at Chris, smiling.

“I understand,” Chris finally said.

“As long as we are on the same page.” I
turned to Kalen. “I have shit to do. Don’t get yourself
killed.”

He glared at me, angry. I shrugged.

He was in a new world. He was going to be used, no
doubt about it. Looking at Chris, I couldn’t help but think he was
the one who was going to be doing the using if Kalen didn’t toughen
up soon. Necromancers were never up to any good.