The Darkness Within (Sanguine Series: Awakening Book 1)

by H. M Reilly

  Just a lot on my mind, he thought to himself as he sparked the lighter. Smoke slowly escaped from his nose, smiling up at her. He passed her the joint, shaking his head. “I’m good, babe.”

  She took the joint and took a deep hit. Logan let out a long stream of smoke, interrupted only by a fit of coughs, then reached over to ash the end into an empty beer bottle on the floor. He lowered his eyes.

  She moved from the bed and dropped to her knees, crawling over to him. She slipped between his legs and slipped her free hand up over his thigh, keeping her eyes on him. She leaned in for a slow, sloppy kiss before he could put the diminished joint back to his lips. Her hand slipped between his legs, gently stroking him. A smirk appeared across her lips, and she started to sink down between his thighs with a lick of her lips. Smoke rose into the air.

  When he went home, he fell into bed for a nap without a heavy thought in his mind. The stress buzzing in his mind from the prospective hunt ahead of him had finally disappeared. He could return to what he did best, and he was ready to start digging in again.

  Later that night, after dinner and a shower, he decided to start some research and crouched down beside a box sitting in the corner of the attic. He sorted through the contents in search of his books on demons and demonology. He set a couple aside but continued leafing through the contents on a few more books, adding them to his pile.

  He knew about demons and had hunted many of them before, he had even hunted and killed demon hybrids in the past, but he wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a thing. He needed to make sure he covered all his bases this time. He didn’t want a repeat of that night over a dozen years ago. He couldn’t want to make another mistake like the one that cost him more than just a decade in prison. He lost his family to a demon that night. He had been robbed the love of his life and their unborn baby, and soon after their death, he was tried for manslaughter. This time he had to make sure accusations were correct. Coroners wouldn’t consider looking deeper into things that might be difficult to explain or understand without science.

  He didn’t wish for death, but he wanted monsters to recognize him as he invited them to fuck with him. He could handle any preternatural being that came his way. But demons were a whole other game. Some demons were stronger than anything else out there. Any hunter worth his salt knew taking on a demon alone was suicide because demons could be unpredictable. If this succubus was spawned from Patrick like Jimmy said, she could be much more powerful than average, even if she was only a hybrid.

  Not all hybrids were the same, and they didn’t always acquire noticeable traits from their parentage. Some appeared to be more human than creature until provoked. Much of it depended on the environment they were raised in. He found many studies done on hybrids inconclusive, as many didn’t make it to adulthood. In his reading, he found that many didn’t show their true colors until a passionate response to some trigger or provocation. Logan still didn’t believe this young girl to be a serious threat, but he knew she could be deceiving them all.

  He needed to know more about this girl, and he would need more than a few observations to convince himself that she was evil. In the short time he shared with her outside of Troy’s Tavern, he did not see an evil the way Jimmy and Logan’s nephews assumed she had inside her. She didn’t seem cruel or spiteful, either. She seemed full of hope as she told him about looking ahead to a new life in a town still foreign to her. She smiled with a warmth he hadn’t seen in other dark creatures. If she had one ounce of evil in her veins, he wondered what he could do to provoke this girl to bring it out for proof.

  He set his books aside and moved to scan headlines across the country. He searched for articles and stories with a hint of something or someone more supernatural, more evil than what Jimmy had given him. He wanted an excuse to leave town because he still couldn’t believe Charlotte was wicked. He pulled out his cell phone and searched through his contacts, but there was no answer to the call he made.

  He set his books aside on the nearby table and moved the boxes sitting in the corner, revealing a trap door. He pulled on the door until it popped open to reveal a few weathered and worn cases, some large and small. Boxes of ammunition sat in piles. He pulled out a large case and two of the small ones, unlocking them to reveal a set of well cared for weapons. One of the small cases held a couple of iron flasks and a silver flask with a cross etched into the surface. Inside the other two, guns and knives were stored. His prized possessions.

  He turned on the small stereo sitting on top of the dresser, keeping the volume low. He piled the books on the bed and pulled the weapon cases into the middle of the floor. He was in no rush to do anything in the middle of the night, so he pulled out a rag and started taking his guns apart to clean. He oiled them and set them back into their case.

  He then pulled out a large bowie knife and unsheathed the blade. The blade gleamed in the light shining above him. He pulled out the whetstone and started to run it against the edge, slow and precise, concentrating on the edge of the blade.

  His cell phone started to ring, but Logan ignored it as he continued to run the whetstone along the blade. If it were important at all, they would leave him a message. He left his seat only once to grab a beer from the kitchen downstairs. Tonight, he was going to focus on just this. He wasn’t going to worry about whatever else was going on.

  Logan didn’t move from his seat on the floor again until after midnight. After putting his weapons back into their safe places, he turned off the light and went downstairs. He entered the living room after getting himself another beer, parking himself on the couch. The heater kicked on as he pulled the blanket across his lap and searched for something to watch. Before long, he was dozing in front of the television.

  He was startled awake from vivid dreams. The screams that rang through his head sounded too real to be a dream. These recurring dreams always awakened that aching in his heart, the ache that made him mourn and miss his old life. His dreams were echoes of the past. Alcohol was the only thing that calmed the dreams anymore. Logan rose from the couch moment and went into the kitchen, where he grabbed the bottle of whiskey sitting on top of the fridge. He took the bottle with him upstairs.

  When he checked his cell phone, a familiar name appeared in his missed call notifications. He even left a voicemail. Logan dialed his voicemail and set the phone to his ear, twisting the cap off the bottle and taking a drink.

  “Logan. It’s Dixon. Just returning your call. Call me.”

  He slammed another drink of whiskey then glanced at the clock again, debating whether to return Dixon’s call this late, minutes shy of three am. He decided to head to bed, setting the bottle aside. As he crawled under the covers, his mind wandered. He wondered if this girl was masking her true self to deceive him. Demons were deceptive, tricky, even cunning. There was no fuckin’ way he would let this young hybrid pull the wool over his eyes.

  Logan had come across a handful of demons in his lifetime, but this girl didn’t have that pure evil energy radiating from her. She didn’t have more than a trace of evil energy. But he would start the real work after getting some sleep.

  The light from the street cast shadows across the curtains hanging over his bedroom window. He curled up with his pillows and rested his cheek against the cool sheets, staring across the room, drifting off to sleep. Again, the dreams invaded his mind. He sunk to his knees in a small pool of blood. Tears ran down his cheeks. A woman’s screams rattled through his mind.

  When he woke once more, he didn’t know where he was until he looked around and noticed his books and the old smell of the attic. He lay there for a long moment before rising from the bed. He wouldn’t be getting back to sleep easy tonight.

  He grabbed the bottle of whiskey sitting on the small table in the corner and took a drink. When he laid back down, he held the bottle close to his chest, hoping the alcohol could clear his mind enough to sleep.

  CHAPTER 18

  Charlotte became curious about many things afte
r her Uncle Jimmy dropped unthinkable information on her. After her research on the black rose, demons and succubae were at the top of her list. One night after her grandparents were in bed, she wandered around the dark corners of the internet, which only seemed to fuel her questions and curiosity. Although she found much lore on the occult and suspicion about demons and succubae, she wasn’t satisfied. She found little information about the small town of Hollow’s Creek and the town’s history and even less about her mysterious family. She decided to head to the library in the morning, hoping maybe they would have more local information.

  Charlotte loved the smell of books—the older, the better. She spent most of the morning at the local library just a few blocks from the grocery store. She immersed herself, searching through the shelves of local history and lore, hoping to fill in the holes left from her internet research. A few local horror collections sat on the shelves, which she only scanned through. She also searched through the library’s digital archives to find a trail that may lead to anything paranormal or supernatural.

  For such a small town, Hollow’s Creek had a dark history, and it left her with more questions. Paranormal and supernatural activity seemed to occur regularly, implied in many news stories she found. Murder. Suicides. People missing. The title of one article especially piqued her curiosity but reading it didn’t soothe her mind. The article was published on November 7th, nearly twenty-five years ago.

  Devasting death on All Saint’s Day

  Authorities responded on Sunday night to a distress call from the home of a local resident in the Hollow’s Creek area. Local high school senior, Nicole Ryan, 18, was found dead in her sleep at approximately 3 am. Coroners have ruled the cause of death as ‘unknown.’

  Details to follow of upcoming memorial.

  There it was, right in front of her. A brief mention of her biological mother’s death that only left her confused, wanting to know more about the night she died. She needed to speak with her dad, but would he tell her after years of withholding more than a casual mention of Nikki? What was her family hiding about her biological mother’s death?

  With a glance at her phone, she turned away. She didn’t have time to stop at her dad’s and ask him more about the night Nikki died, but she knew the questions would nag at her mind all night. Hopefully, a shift at work would help distract her thoughts.

  When she arrived back home, she hopped in the shower and stood under the hot water until it started turning cold. She stepped out and grabbed a fresh towel, water draining from the tub. She was nearly done drying herself off when she noticed a fresh red stain on the white fabric. She wondered where the blood came from as she touched the fibers, a light smear coating her fingers.

  She glanced in the tub, but the water had already drained. She took another section of the towel and ran it over her body, checking for another speck of blood. When she took the towel from her thigh, she noticed the blood again. The wound she found only a week ago had reopened, and she traced the outline of the mark. The bruise was still just as dark as she remembered.

  Charlotte tossed the towel to the side and sat on the toilet to look at the wound, dark red blood beading to the surface. A single fat drop ran down to the floor, but there wasn’t a speck of blood on the ceramic in the tub. What the fuck?

  She sat there, pressing her fingers against the wound, blood oozing against her fingertips. Her heart beat faster in her chest, leaning in to examine it. She wondered why the bruise hadn’t healed, just as dark as ever. For a moment, she thought the bite was a paranormal occurrence, but she pushed that thought away. These things didn’t happen. These things just weren’t possible.

  She glanced at her chest to find the wound on her left breast almost as dark, but it appeared to be healing at least. She let out a sigh of relief and grabbed her towel from the floor, wrapping herself up. She took a band-aid from the box in the medicine cabinet and slapped one against her thigh, then pushed away the remaining worry that entered her mind. She had work to get ready for. She even took the time to do a full face of makeup, which brought a smile to her face.

  Work kept her mind occupied for most of the day, keeping the negative energy and thoughts away. Writing food and drink orders, counting cash, conversing with the clientele, and the usual cleaning kept her mind focused. During the slowest part of her day, Charlotte spent her time cleaning and filling saltshakers just to keep herself busy. It didn’t take long for her mind to wander back to the blood bruise on her body. The music floating from the speakers only helped her to focus so much.

  That night, she closed the tavern with Troy and Chris, which she was more than grateful for. Bryan had been ignoring her and acting weird towards her since her last date with Michael. Not that life wasn’t complicated enough already.

  When she stepped out the back door just after midnight, she felt good with a busy day of work behind her. Snow sprinkled from the sky as she crossed the parking lot to her truck. She started up the engine and let it warm up a little longer than usual, shivering as she waited for the cab to heat up. She hugged herself tightly, her breath misting into the air. She was hardly able to feel her fingers when she gripped the steering wheel to pull out of the parking lot. Cold weather in New Mexico was nothing compared to what she’d felt already in Colorado, and it was only late October.

  Instead of heading home, Charlotte drove into town, wondering if anything was still open so late on a Sunday night. She drove straight through to the city, passing a couple lights and by a few different apartment complexes. She kept going past the shopping mall and pulled up to another quiet intersection.

  For a moment, sadness washed over her. She missed being back home in New Mexico. She missed people who didn’t pretend to like her. She missed Adriana and Joe. She even missed Julian, which made her heart ache. A pang of longing for what she’d lost passed through her, and she could feel the sting of tears in her eyes. She needed her dad.

  Life was opening and changing too fast for her. She felt alone with nobody to turn to, and her family seemed to be hiding things from her. What was so bad that nobody could or had told her about her real parents? Why had her uncle called her “little devil spawn”? She needed to find the answers before her mind pulled her into another dark hole of uncertainty.

  After what Uncle Jimmy told her, there were obviously other things her family hid from her, and some of it seemed rather important. They all told her plenty about her mother, but they never spoke about her father. Nobody seemed to want to speak about him to her. Her real father was a mystery, just a nameless face she saw in a photograph. She still couldn’t figure out why nobody talked about him.

  Her research in the occult led her nowhere. She gathered some information on demons, but nothing to help her figure out if her father could be one. The only way she could find out the answers was to ask someone in her family, somebody who lived through her death.

  Beeeep.

  She was pulled away from her thoughts and into the present. She glanced in her rearview mirror to see the car behind her, flashing its lights and blaring the horn. She hadn’t even realized the traffic light turned green. The small truck passed her in the right-hand lane when she passed through the intersection. The front bumper of the truck was half torn off, and the right headlamp was cracked. A smirk appeared on her face, and she let out a snicker when she saw the New Mexico plates on the back of the vehicle.

  With a glance at the time, she reached for the phone button on her steering wheel and told her phone to call her dad. Hopefully, he would be home this late in the evening, but there was no answer. She left a voicemail. “Hey, Dad. Just checking in, on my way up to Hollow’s. Give me a call when you can. Love you.”

  She continued down the road without a destination in mind, but when she arrived in the parking lot, she knew it was right where she needed to be. Viper’s Cavern. To most, it appeared to be a bare warehouse standing isolated at the edge of the city, tucked away among the mountains that surrounded her from all directions,
but Charlotte felt a pull in the pit of her stomach in its direction from the first night she stepped through the doors.

  For a Wednesday night, Charlotte thought the place was empty for a bar, a place she would think busy several nights of the week, but this was only the second time she had been through the front door. The familiar scent of sweat and lust filled the air. Another familiar scent filled her nose, but she couldn’t place the coppery odor, which faded within moments.

  The high heeled boots she’d changed into shortly before stepping inside clicked against the dark marble floor as she made her way towards the bar. The dim lighting seemed to make the dark patterns stand out against the floor. Charlotte found herself disappointed to find no live band standing on the platform stage in the far corner of the room, but still, she enjoyed the music pumping from the speakers hidden somewhere near the ceiling.

  She stepped up to the bar, greeted by a silver-haired waitress who asked for ID, and she complied. A man with dark hair stood behind the bartender, his back turned towards the rest of the room. He clutched the neck of what appeared to be a bottle of Irish whiskey in one hand and a fresh glass in the other. Charlotte could feel another pull in the pit of her stomach, quickly growing warm as it spread through her torso. She couldn’t recall having that feeling before, and the warmth made her feel slightly nauseous. Charlotte then turned her attention back to the silver-haired woman who handed back her driver’s license, asking what she wanted to drink.

  “Let me get a rum and coke with lime,” she said. As she waited for her drink, she noticed the dark man lift the glass to his lips and take a drink. When he lifted his gaze, she swore she saw a red flame flicker in his eyes, but it passed so quickly, it could have just been a trick of the lights. His eyes appeared almost amber beneath the bright lights hanging over the liquor shelves. He poured himself another drink, and the bartender placed a glass in front of Charlotte before stepping away to fill another beer.