by T. M. Hart
The moment my feet slammed into the earth, I jerked to the side. I still had the Shadow by the head and my change in position caused it to move with me. I now had it situated between myself and the third Shadow acting as a shield.
It swung its fists and I took a few brutal blows to my abdomen. I wasn’t certain, but I thought I felt a rib break. It didn’t matter, I drove my knee up into its face and heard bones pulverize. I used the impact of that moment to swing my hands out to each side of the Shadow’s face. With as much speed and strength as I was capable, I bashed my fists into its temples.
Instead of dropping to the ground in front of me though, the Shadow went flying across the clearing. I was caught off guard. The third Shadow had ripped its partner out of the way and flung its body aside as if useless garbage. A solid punch connected with my chest and I went hurling back landing flat on the ground.
There was not even a moment of time for me to right myself in a kick up. The instant the Shadow had landed the punch, it dove after me landing on top of my body. I was about to snap my head up in an attempt to butt its nose, but something happened.
It was what I had feared. It was why these things did not carry weapons. It was my undoing.
The Shadow had put its thin cracked lips together and began to blow. A black acrid brume billowed from its mouth. It grabbed my face with its skeletal hand and squeezed forcing my own lips to part.
Vile, burning smoke filled me. It swept its way through my airway and veins, corroding my organs with a putrid stench. I would have been sick, but my esophagus would not function. It had rotted the instant those fumes had slithered down my throat.
I could barely move now. The caustic poison had weakened me in an instant. Tears streamed from my eyes and my stomach heaved over and over again with no effect.
I began to hear a steady thump, thump, thump. Perhaps it was my heart taking its last beats.
Except I could feel vibrations shaking the earth under me. It was unhurried. Confident. And with each thump, the ground at my back grew colder and colder.
Despite everything that had happened up to that point, I became truly fearful. Something terrible was approaching. Something evil. Something from the very depths of hell. If the Shadow sensed whatever approached, it did not make any indication of it.
I needed to cough. I needed to breathe. I could do neither while that thing continued to release its black poison through my lips. The gray skin, the emaciated face, those reflective eyes . . . it would be the last thing I’d see.
And then black sludge splattered across my face. The tip of a sword protruded from the Shadow’s mouth and instead of that brume, now a river of thick black liquid poured from between its lips spilling across my own.
I was horrified, but at least its grasp on my jaw had gone slack once the sword had entered through its head. I was able to clamp my mouth shut and turn my face to the side. However, we did not remain that way for long because with a swish, the sword was retracted from the Shadow’s head, pulling its skull back at the motion. With incalculable speed and precision, that same sword arced from the side and while the Shadow’s head was still in mid-air, the sword sliced through its neck coming a fraction of an inch away from my own.
The Shadow’s head landed on the ground at the crook of my neck in a macabre nuzzle. I wanted to scramble out from under its body, but my organs had been cremated. I couldn’t function. I was surprised I was still clinging to consciousness at that point.
As I lay there, staring up at the black night sky I heard the most gruesome sounds I ever would in my life. From time to time more of that black sludge would arc through the air covering me—staining me.
What would haunt me the most, though, until my dying day . . . were the squeals. God, how I wished I could tear off my ears.
The Shadow’s body that was on top of me was finally pulled off. I thought that would be the end of it. But more sludge was splattered as those horrific sounds continued.
Although I was no longer being assaulted, the pain radiating through my body was more than any I had ever known. I wanted to scream out, but my insides were ash. I couldn’t. That didn’t stop me from doing so over and over again in my head though.
I can’t begin to imagine how long I lay like that. But it had been a significant amount of time because I had begun to regain movement in my fingers and toes. It would be a long, grueling process, but perhaps my body would recover. However, I did not have the luxury of time on my side because finally . . . the darkness became quiet.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Those footsteps began again. Unhurried. Vibrating the ground beneath me. Frost crystallized over the grass around me, scuttling up my skin and freezing the tears which leaked from my eyes.
I was next.
An immense dark form loomed over me. I could not see more through the ice coating my eyes. That was when I was hoisted into the air, and my body disintegrated. I became smoke. There was nothing left to me.
But at least, there was no pain.
◆◆◆
Unfortunately, I still had a body. One that resolidified instantly. One that was battered and bruised, but substantial just the same. I did not drift away into the peaceful quiet of the ether. I remained earthbound. And the punishment that came with persisting in this world was brutal. The pain that tore through me made me wish for the end.
In solidifying once again, the ice covering my eyes thawed leaving behind two pools of water. I blinked rapidly trying to clear my vision, and I realized I was being set down.
Dark. Cold. Bed. Cavernous room.
I recognized the blurry outlines of this place. It was one of the rooms within the manor. One I had spent time inspecting. It was a large bedroom with a floor to ceiling wall of dusty books. There was a crumbling fireplace and cobwebbed chandelier.
And then I looked up at him. His eyes were black. Wild. There was seething hatred in them. It was so prevalent, so all consuming. I had never before witnessed such a level of odium in another. It seemed I was facing death itself then. And I wished for a quick end.
If he had been wearing a shirt earlier, he wasn’t now. Black sludge covered him. It was splattered across his face, his torso, his arms. It probably saturated the dark slacks he wore. But it could not camouflage the definition in his arms, shoulders, chest, and abdomen. With every billowing breath, each highly defined muscle flexed with latent power.
He was larger than he had been before. He took up more space. More air. And although all he did was stand there, his motions were so fluid, so lethal and precise—I understood why I should have feared him above all else.
He was also lost. He had entered a maze of such deep fury and violence. He could not find a way out.
I hated that I knew things about him. That I somehow understood his inner psyche. Because it made me fear him. Because it made me understand what he was capable of . . . and what he was not.
In a movement too fast for me to track, he shoved his hand behind my head and grabbed a fistful of my hair. He was about to say something but didn’t get a chance to. Although my vocal chords were raw, I let out a moan.
He immediately let go pulling his hand back before flexing it repeatedly at his side. It took all the strength I had but I somehow managed to lift my own hand and grab his. Then I brought it to my throat which throbbed with unbearable pain.
The violence and rage churning through him turned sharply into confusion and . . . fear.
I couldn’t fathom was happening. And I didn’t care. When he had touched me, I had felt better. A surge of energy had pulsed there like a balm. But the moment he had withdrew his touch, I was plunged back into the pain.
I didn’t care if he was an incubus. I didn’t care if he was a Shadow. I didn’t care that he was evil.
It didn’t matter what he had done before and what he would do after. Just then, all I cared about was what he could give me. And for some inexplicable reason, his touch was curative.
Now his hand lay over my throat and I arc
hed my back, my spine leaving the bed. And again, he drew away his hand.
“I don’t want to touch you,” he grated. The look of abhorrence would have made a lesser woman wilt and die.
But in that moment, I was a glutton. The relief I’d felt while his skin was on mine made me delirious for it again. “You have to,” I told him. It was barely audible, but I had gotten the words out.
The rage and contempt returned. This time when he grabbed a fistful of my hair at the nape of my neck, he did speak. Leaning his cruel, perfect, sludge splattered face towards mine he seethed, “I’m one of those things.”
He said it in a way that was supposed to frighten me. To disgust me. To repel me from ever asking for his touch again.
I laughed. “I don’t care.” I began to cough. The pain, the burning, it was continuing to eat away at my insides. “Abdomen,” I choked out. “Ribs.”
“No.”
His reply was so stern and clipped, I would have laughed again if I was able. But I wasn’t, I was suffering. I gasped for air. “Then leave.”
I turned my head away from him. It was the closest thing to a dismissal I could manage. It was absurd to think he would willingly help me. He had probably been the one to direct the attack in the first place. Although why he would then come to my aid was beyond my comprehension.
I couldn’t dwell on the details of it all. Nothing mattered but this misery. As I lay there, I began a chant in my mind. This will pass. This will pass. This will pass.
I didn’t know if that was true, but I had to get through each agonizing moment somehow.
And then, I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I felt a featherlight touch across my navel. I turned to look.
His hand was hovering over my midsection, making the barest hint of contact with the cotton of my stained nightgown. But there was no relief from the pain.
“On my skin,” I told him.
A look of horror crossed his face. He withdrew his hand making a fist with it. And he paused like that for a long while.
I couldn’t bear to simply lay there and watch him. I was in too pain. I was about to turn away and resume my meditation, but then he released his index finger. Slowly, hesitantly, as if afraid of being bitten. He opened his fist—finger by finger—and reached for the hem of my nightgown.
His fingers brushed my thigh as he pinched the fabric and began to slide it up my legs. It felt as though a small beam of Light trailed my leg where his skin slid across mine. He was concentrating so intently on his actions, I didn’t dare move or speak. I desperately wanted him to keep going.
And he did. He slipped the fabric over the cotton of my underwear all the way up to my ribs. He stopped there and released the nightgown letting it fall across my chest.
He swallowed, staring at my abdomen. Then he looked at his hand, at the black gunk staining it. And I knew he was about to plunge himself back into that wretched maze of loathing and darkness he lived in. I couldn’t allow him to. I needed him.
I reached up and took his hand. He looked at me then, jarred from his internal struggle. I silently pleaded with him, and he placed his hand on me.
I closed my eyes and let my head tilt back.
I could breathe. I was warm. My skin tingled. Deep inside, my body mended. That dark, acrid smoke was chased away by tiny crackles of Light.
He moved his hand up to my ribs, and my chest heaved at his touch. I took breath after breath, filling my lungs with clean air.
And Light help me, I couldn’t stop my body’s response to him. My chest tightened. I rubbed my thighs together at the throbbing ache that started pulsing at my core. I tried so hard to stop myself, but the need I felt for him was a force beyond my control.
He grabbed my ribs with both hands then. Squeezing. The tops of his hands brushing the underside of my breasts.
I opened my eyes to look at him. His nostrils flared. And brilliant blue lines branched through the black of his irises.
He slid his hands down the sides of my stomach to either side of my hips. Squeezing again. Watching the path of his hands in fascination.
And somehow, in some way, we had stepped away from time. From rolls. From rules. From titles. And actions.
It was just us. Just now. Nothing more. Something simple and basic. Something that I had never experienced before. The time and space that we occupied stretched on. And became a moment that would last forever.
Yet in spite of all that, it was still a moment that would come to an end. And I wanted to know what he would do next . . . I still wonder sometimes. How it might have changed the arc of our story.
But I did not get to find out. Because with a long low creak, the door to the chamber began to open.
His eyes flashed to mine as if ripped from a trance. He snapped his hands back to his sides, those clenching fists forming again. The veins of crystal blue in his eyes were consumed by black once more. And a look of fury caused his jaw to clench and brows to slash.
“You will leave,” he hissed. “Tomorrow.”
And then in a wisp of shadows, he disappeared.
Chapter 17
The Crone entered.
I stared up at the cracked ceiling and cursed the wretched sight of her. She shuffled into the dark room carrying a basin. It sploshed with each labored step she took.
When she finally reached the bed, she set the tub down next to my legs. Then without so much as a word, she turned and hobbled away.
I thought she was going to leave, but she stopped at the wall length bookshelf. She collected a few books in her arms and unceremoniously dumped them into the crumbling fireplace.
From inside her robe, she procured a long match and struck it on one of the hearth bricks. Then she tossed the flame onto the collection of books.
The academic side of me was horrified. I could only begin to imagine what ancient knowledge or art had been preserved there, tossed aside like garbage. I couldn't help it. I let out a gasp.
But the destroyed part of me, the part that was still in pain now that he was gone, was grateful for a little light and warmth, no matter how small.
She pulled a few more books from the shelves, attempting to fling them to the ground in the direction of the fire before feebly kicking them towards the flames—without much success. Then she made her way back to me. I don’t know if it’s possible to intuit another’s irritation by the way they shuffle about, but if it is . . . she certainly didn’t seem cheery.
And without any preamble, she grabbed the sopping cloth from the tub and sloshed it across my legs.
I was speechless. I didn’t understand what was happening. Before I had time to react, she dunked the cloth and splattered my abdomen and chest. I raised my hands in an attempt to take the cloth from her. “I can do that,” I told her, my throat hoarse and painful.
She paused and whipped her head in my direction. And although I could see nothing but darkness beneath her cowl, I knew she shot me a charged look. I could feel it. The flicker of faraway power made me lie still and say no more.
Once she was satisfied with my submission, she began assaulting me with water again. Over my arms, on my hair, and then a big fat smack right on my face. I spluttered, not expecting the mouth full of water. After more wet blows, she finally picked up the almost empty bin and tossed the remaining water over me.
Taking her bucket in one hand and the still dripping cloth in the other, she hobbled out just as unannounced as when she came in.
It seemed the baptism was over.
◆◆◆
I could move. I could walk. I could breathe. It was all excruciating, but doable.
So I dragged myself to my quarters. The room he had brought me to was on the same floor as my own, just the opposite wing. I left a trail of water in my wake and was happy for it. I hoped the old bat slipped on it.
I didn’t have enough energy to light the chandeliers and sconces along the hallway, so on top of being soaked, I was forced to trudge through the dark. And the hallway outside my
suite door was still littered with debris.
But there were fires burning in the main room of my quarters, and for that I was grateful. The fire in my personal bedroom had died down. I grabbed a robe and my phone and returned to the sitting room.
I was about to throw my nightgown and underwear into the fire, but I was afraid of what the black stains might do when they came in contact with the flames. I didn’t want any caustic smoke billowing through the room.
Instead, I stripped down and tossed the contaminated clothes out into the ravaged hall. After wrapping myself in my robe and a blanket from the settee, I called Killian.
I was stunned when I got his voicemail. In the entire history of our relationship, I don’t think I ever once got his voicemail. He always answered my calls. I was afraid something was wrong.
Although I did not have any windows to the outside in the sitting room, I could feel that night was breaking. The sun was about to bloom from the horizon. I briefly thought of moving to another room, of trying to bask in whatever amount of light I could get. It would be good for me.
But the exhaustion was undeniable. And while I put my head down on one of the settee pillows, I told myself I would work up the energy to scour my skin clean and then move.
Instead, though, I passed out where I was.
◆◆◆
I tried to convince myself it was better that I adjusted my schedule. That it made more sense to be active at night and rest during the day. That it would help me with my final goals to adopt the habits of those I hunted.
So I tried to brush off the unease that came with waking at dusk. I certainly didn’t dwell on it long because the pain from the previous night’s events was undeniable. It wasn’t paralyzing, but it would be difficult to focus on other tasks with the misery my body was experiencing.
Something I had learned with my time in The Unit was to keep things simple. When presented with a problem, identify the core issue and find the most basic solution.
My problem at the moment was physical pain. It was preventing me from focusing, from doing, from carrying out my plan. My mission.