Dark of Night

by T. F. Walsh

  • • •

  The pain in her middle was returning. She had to end this quickly. She didn’t have much time left. Caleb thought she was healed. She felt bad for misleading him, but he had to trust her to handle her side of the battle. Luckily, as always, he believed in her magic, even when he didn’t believe in her, the myths of magic always blinding him to what was actually possible. He had forgotten that you couldn’t avoid your place in the cycle. She could heal herself momentarily, because, eventually, she would heal, but now that he wasn’t looking, she was bleeding again, hurting again. Like the tree in the woods, returning from its premature death, her body could not bear long the magic of a premature healing. Of course, she could continue to heal and un-heal, heal and un-heal, and heal again, but she couldn’t sustain that for long, and, more importantly, she couldn’t fight like that. She was bleeding, quickly, dangerously, terminally. But if their plan worked, she would be fine. If they could work together, she would be fine. She would be fine.

  She would give all she had here. She would change her pack. They would see her differently. Lukas expected her weakness, her fragility, and that would be her strength. It would be her lure. He wanted to strike. She would let him.

  Making more noise than necessary, she called Lukas toward her. With every false stumble, with every feint, she called to him. Finally, she heard him near. He had shifted; his steps were the light chuck chuck of the wolf. He was meeting her with full force, then, wholly lethal. He circled her, his feet crushing small leaves, waiting for her to get weaker. She needed to draw him closer. She hesitated, leaned on a tree for support, and allowed her pain to surface. She cried out. He paused, his circle interrupted. He sensed that she was weak; thinking her defenseless, he was walking directly toward her now. When she was able to see him, she attempted to walk forward, seemingly unaware of his position, looking only at the ground. Losing her grip on the tree, she made a planned misstep — falling, grabbing her side, she crumpled on a real spasm of pain. Lukas rushed at her, his claws tearing at the ground, his legs eating up distance. He lunged.

  As she expected, he went for her throat, for the kill. Anticipating this, she dodged, lifted her arm, and buried her knife into the wolf’s neck. His fur grew red, gore spread.

  Wounded, Lukas snapped mercilessly, biting anything he could grab, angry, delirious, confused by pain. His angry bites would weaken him, the wound opening, bleeding faster. Soon, he would be too weak to continue. She just had to hold on. He would quit before she did. Soon. Even as she thought that, she felt his teeth lose their ferocity. He was losing strength. It was working. Giving one more tame bite to her hands, scraping into her knuckles, he finally fell to the ground, unconscious.

  She had done it. Defeated the strongest of her peers. She had done it, but not by herself. Trying to stand, she planned to find Caleb and help him with the other opponent. Her legs wobbled, collapsed. She tried again to stand and fell again. That’s when she knew. She could not save Caleb.

  Then she knew nothing.

  • • •

  Opening her eyes, Libby recognized the hospital: the white ceiling, the long metal rods that stretched the length of the entire room to separate the beds. The lights in the room were off, her people preferring to use natural light whenever possible, and it was quiet.

  Unlike the rooms that dealt with severe injuries or trauma, this room had no clicking and beeping machinery. Being here was a good sign. Turning her head slightly to the left, she noticed that one of the beds on the opposite side of the room had the curtain pulled around it. The white light of the autumn afternoon sun streamed in the room and revealed a shadow inside the bed. Other than that, there was no one else in the room with her.

  To her right she heard the sliding door open, and she turned her head to see who had come in. Caleb. Caleb was here. He was holding a small white pitcher of water. She stared at him, but he wasn’t looking at her, at least he wasn’t looking at her face. He seemed to be staring without focus at her bed, at her hands maybe.

  “You’re awake.”

  She tried to talk, but her throat was too dry, even her lips so dry they stuck together. She opened her mouth and rasped out, “Caleb.” It was barely out before her throat erupted in fire. She clenched her fist against the pain.

  “You’re awake.”

  She shook her head and then pointed to her throat. Understanding, he grabbed a small cup resting on the table at the end of her bed and poured water for her. He lifted the cup to her mouth, and waited for her to drink in slow, cautious sips. She tried to look in his eyes to express her gratitude, but again, he wasn’t looking at her. He stared at her mouth, but blankly, as though he saw nothing. Tired of drinking, she tried to move her head away, but he wouldn’t let her. “Drink,” he ordered, still not looking beyond the cup at her mouth. Finally he pulled the cup away.

  Licking her lips, she said hoarsely, “Sorry I drank your water.”

  “It’s your water,” he said harshly. “I get fresh every few hours, in case.” He still wouldn’t look at her, and he had made no move to sit on the small wooden stool next to her bed.

  “Caleb? What’s wrong? Are you mad at me?” she asked, concerned. For a long time he didn’t answer. She was starting to think he wasn’t going to answer, until, finally, he spoke.

  “You told me you were healed, Libby. You lied to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Caleb.” She paused, trying to swallow some and moisten her throat. “But remember? I told you. The cycle can be played with. But it can’t be changed, not really.”

  “Don’t try to rationalize all of this. You lied to me.”

  “I told you,” she insisted. “I told you the truth. I just didn’t remind you.”

  He continued, almost as if he had not heard her. “When I found you. There was blood everywhere. Lukas’s. Yours. Mostly yours. You were lying in a pool of it. You lied to me.” He hadn’t met her eyes the entire time. He seemed unable or unwilling to see anything in front of him, especially her. His stare was blank and unfixed. He was thinking of the forest. She could feel his memories, his confusion and his fear as he found her.

  “A controller was close. He came right after I did and called for help. They brought you here. Both of you,” he said nodding his head in the direction of the bed she had noticed before. “You nearly killed him,” he went on, his lips rolled over his teeth in an awkward imitation of a smile. But then his face grew stern again, tight, dark. “You lied to me,” he repeated, finally looking at her, accusing her.

  She said nothing, unsure of what to say.

  After a while he continued, calm again. “They tell me you are stable now. You are finally, truly, healing. You have been here for three days.”

  “Three days? I’ve been unconscious for three days?”

  Still, though, he spoke as though he had not heard her. “The final trial will be held in four days’ time. We are scheduled to meet there. We are both in the last bracket.”

  “Caleb? Why won’t you talk to me?”

  Suddenly angry, he threw out, “Well, we got what you wanted. We’re advancing. We’ll be enemies again soon.” He moved to leave.

  “Caleb. Don’t go,” she pleaded. But he did not stop. Hoping to turn him around, she called out, “Caleb! We’re not enemies. We don’t have to be.”

  He didn’t look back. He didn’t say anything. He was just … gone.

  From across the room, she heard a low chuckle. “We don’t have to be enemies, huh? I am sure your father would delight to hear this philosophy of yours, pack heir.”

  Lukas. She had forgotten he was here. She would not see Caleb again until the day of the competition, and by that time, she knew, everything would have changed.

  Chapter 6: THE LAST LAUGH

  The arena was silent and without spectators. Healed from her stay in the hospital, she chased Caleb down the dar
k hall. She had been calling his name, but he would not turn around. “Caleb, stop!” Still, he ignored her, until, after running half the length of the arena she caught him. “Caleb, why won’t you talk to me?”

  “I am talking to you, pack heir,” he said, finally turning around and facing her. He looked down at her, and spoke quietly. “This is part of the trial cycle.” He sounded a lot like her father. “We’re enemies now. It’s time we both remembered who and what we are.”

  “You are reminding of my duty,” she said, asking him questions with statements, as she did with her father. And, as with her father, she was afraid of his answer.

  “I am reminding us both.”

  “I am not going to simply treat you like an enemy because you say it’s time. That isn’t a cycle. That’s crap.”

  “You will face me as an enemy, pack heir, because if you don’t, you’ll die. I will do my duty even if you won’t do yours.”

  “So, what? Last week we were friends, and now you’re going to try to kill me?”

  “We were not friends. I don’t know what we were, but we weren’t friends.”

  Acknowledging her silence, Caleb turned away, calling over his shoulder, “We were playing at something, pack heir, but it’s time to return to the real world.”

  • • •

  “Elisabeth Conall.”

  Cheers erupted around her — loud, abrasive, sudden. A show of support, but she could feel no love or respect in any direction around her. She bowed her head in acknowledgement of the gift of appreciation. She could play her part, too.

  She would play pack princess. The vampires didn’t respect the social hierarchy of her pack, one that rested on the strength of the leader, not on birthright. Her family’s direct line had ruled for three generations, that was true, but that was due to her family’s strength, not ancestral rights. Wolves earned the right to lead. She would earn it, too.

  She entered the arena. It was a wide-open space, surrounded by high cement walls. Behind her, a gate opened into the testing grounds. The testing grounds were complicated, but luckily this year it was in the wolves’ territory. She knew this terrain well.

  These woods had been her playground as a child. Since she was a young girl, she had wandered here whenever she needed to cry and be alone, and that had been rather often. This forest was her true home, even more so than the village itself, and this gave her an advantage. But just how much of one: that was the real question.

  Enemies surrounded her. She looked up at them. All of them stared at her coldly. There was not one single friendly face in the entire group. Her father had been right, as usual. She had to win, or her world, her village, and her family would all change in immense and echoing ways. But her people weren’t blood-thirsty. They wanted her head bent under their might, but they did not wish her dead.

  The vampires, however, wanted her blood. Being inside their minds was a revelation. The vampire women saw defeating her as a way to prove their own superiority. To them, an even match — one between two women, a rare occasion now — seemed the best way to showcase the immense difference between their races. The vampire males were a strange mix. Some were simply eager to chase a female for a change. Others with greater ambition were thrilled by the chance of gaining fame by taking down the future pack leader. As she scanned their thoughts, images of her blood spilling on their arms and passing down their throats flooded her mind.

  Caleb was here, of course. But his blank expression seemed to be telling her that everyone else’s animosity was misplaced. She was nothing special. No, she was nothing at all.

  Hey, maybe she would be lucky and he would be the one to fight her. Then he would simply walk into the center of the arena, look at her, and say, “You’re quitting now, right?” And she could nod her head and scurry away from the battle, flee from her village, and live with the humans. Now that she thought of it, it didn’t seem that bad a plan.

  She made a muffled sound as her laughter caught in her chest, too weak to burst out but not subdued enough to remain silent. Hopefully, the others thought she was coughing. She looked in Caleb’s direction.

  He was glaring at her. Then he … was he mouthing something at her. Did he just say, Don’t stop laughing? Well, at least somebody else understood how ridiculous this all was. Maybe he was right. If she kept her mind loose, her body would follow. If she didn’t get too tense, she might stay calm enough to get out of this alive.

  • • •

  She was laughing? Here? In the middle of all of this? They wanted to dine on her, and she was laughing? Why didn’t she just serve herself up on a silver platter? All his work, all his reconnaissance, all his planning, for what? So she could die here at the hands of one of his own? Just the excuse the wolves needed to start the war back up again. He had heard the applause they had all given her. A political move to be sure. He could tell they had no love for her, but they would use her in the way they saw to be most advantageous to them.

  If she died here, they would likely act as though the vampires had done something unforgivable. Of course, deaths weren’t typical in the challenges, but they had been known to happen. And while killing your opponent in battle was accepted during the trials and did not violate the conditions of their truce, the death of the pack heir would not be ignored.

  The end of the wolves was his aim and war with them was an obvious means to an end. However, he didn’t want a war waged on these terms. The vampires would claim they had done nothing wrong, that a child on the eve of adulthood could not be judged by stronger rules than those of the trials. They would urge him to settle with the wolves somehow, and that would not help him achieve his goals. They would be locked in the same hopeless stalemate again, for generations.

  That girl. She could destroy everything he had planned or she could be the key to his success. And what was she doing? She was laughing. Fool, he whispered at her. I’ll kill you myself, right now, if you don’t stop laughing. But his words just made her smile more. Her eyes seemed to be calling him the fool. Her smile seemed to tell him, “Oh no, vampire. You’ve got it all backwards. See, I’m going to be the death of you.” And maybe she would be.

  • • •

  In the forest, she was strongest. She would escape her opponent there. The moon was rising, so she was more powerful. It wasn’t full, but it was close. Even now, only a few moments after the moon appeared in the sky, her body felt like it was glowing with energy. She heard water now. She ran toward it. She would travel quickly over the water and try to dissipate her connection to the earth, for they could track well, too, in this terrain. The earth was their ally, not hers. She knew that well enough to avoid leaving too strong a trail. She heard a crash behind her. That was impossible, wasn’t it? How could he have found her so soon? She was doing her best to lose him but he had found her quickly.

  She leapt into a tree and ran for many minutes. She was hoping this would be enough, but, again, she heard a loud rustle a few dozen meters on her left. How was he tracking her so quickly? Was it possible that he could see her?

  She had to calm her fear. Her fear would make her scent stronger. She knew this was a competition only, but it all seemed so real. She was being pursued. She had to find a way to turn the tables.

  • • •

  Caleb watched the others with little interest. They were all clumped together, talking, chattering in excited little groups. He noted distantly that, unlike them, he wasn’t happy that she was likely losing right now. Some of them were eager to see the vampire soaked with gore. It wouldn’t be much longer now. Reagan was a strong vampire, skilled with a weapon, too. Still, his biggest challenge to the pack heir was nothing she could prepare for, nothing she could anticipate. Reagan could sense energies, life forces. Better even than seeing heat signatures, he would see her — as upset as she was — quite easily, even in a forest full of life.

 
There was little chance that she would win.

  • • •

  She couldn’t understand the vampire’s powers, but he could see her somehow, she was sure of it. He had found her only minutes before. She had made no sound and given no sign, yet he had found and wounded her. Now, in her fear, blood coursed through her so quickly that she must be incredibly clear to him. She had managed to escape and to stop the bleeding, but fear was her worst enemy. It made her illogical. It weakened her powers. It made her scent stronger. He wanted her wild with terror. But she would not oblige him. Breathing in, breathing out in a steady pattern, she slowly calmed herself.

  She needed to hide, but not in the trees. She needed to hide within actual bodies, other creatures with blood in them that would allow her to cast her spell. She had hoped the woods of the testing ground would save her, but she needed to return to the arena. Unfortunately, the arena was full to the brim with people that hoped she would lose. Could she walk in and ask one of them, “Excuse me, would you like to put your life in danger and allow me to stand behind you so I that I could win? Oh really? No? How utterly shocking!” What was she thinking? This wasn’t a plan. This was suicide. Oh well, at least she’d be killing herself, she thought wryly.

  Come on, Libby. This is your plan. Get it finished. She moved quickly, running toward the arena. She would have several minutes to pull ahead of him before he realized she had doubled back.

  • • •

  She was nearing the arena, but she could hear the vampire again, behind her. She had done much to lose him, and he was not close, but he was closer than she would have liked. She would have very little time to find a spot to work from, and she would have no time to build her energy and work her spell once she was in the round of the arena. That meant she would have to do it while she moved. This would make her spell less focused and less powerful, but her magic was strong. It would be strong enough. It had to be.