Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

The Darkling Book One

  BY ANN SIMKO

  Copyright © 2015 by Ann Simko

  Cross and Kale Delancey were born for one purpose; to be studied for their paranormal abilities.

  When Cross convinces his twin to escape from ‘The Department,’ he is shot. Blinded and separated from Kale, Cross’s memories are wiped. He is given a new life. A past in which he believes Kale is dead. With no memories of his life at The Department, this new Cross is safe, he is malleable. He can still be studied, but without the risk. His entire life is scripted and Kale is threatened with his safety unless he places nice and does what the department wants.

  Until ten years later, Cross begins to remember. The department brings him back in and all bets are off. Cross isn’t fourteen anymore. He’s pissed and he wants his brother back.

  DARK CROSSINGS

  By Ann Simko

  Copyright © 2015 by Ann Simko

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

  Published by Coyote Moon Books

  through Createspace

  November 2015

  This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this book can be reproduced or sold by any person or business without the express permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 978-0692587751

  Published in the United States of America

  Cover Art by Fiona Jayde

  Edited by Judith B. Glad

  Coyote Moon Books

  “I am terrified by this dark thing

  That sleeps in me;

  All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.”

  ––Sylvia Plath, Ariel

  “But they can't know how the dark space inside me is growing. I lie to them. I can't get out of the dark hole. 'Peace is here' it whispers.”

  ––Lurlene McDaniel, Breathless

  “God is evil. Sometimes he lets you live.”

  ––Stephen King

  Chapter 1

  CROSS DELANCY DIDN’T want to die. He also didn’t want to live, at least not like this. This wasn’t a life. It was barely an existence. He tried to suppress a groan as he turned on the narrow cot and failed. His twin brother, across from him, pretending to be sleeping.

  “I know you’re awake,” Cross said. His bruised ribs pulled as he spoke and he couldn’t quite keep the pain from his voice.

  “Shhh, keep your voice down. Do you want them to come back!” Kale’s whisper was louder than Cross’s normal voice. Cross knew his brother was scared, hell, he was scared. But anger was quickly replacing the fear. He liked the anger way better.

  “I don’t care if they come back.” Cross braced his side and rolled to his back. The anger dissolved as quickly as it came leaving hot tears rolling down his face. “I can’t take this anymore, Kale.” He swallowed hard and wiped the hated tears with the back of his hand. “We gotta get out, they’re gonna kill us if we don’t.”

  “They’ll kill us for sure if we even try!” Cross heard Kale slide off his cot to sit next to him. “I know it sucks, but you’re making it harder than you have too. Just give them what they want and they won’t beat you.” Kale was crying now too.

  Cross hated that. They weren’t kids anymore. They were fourteen, practically grown men. They shouldn’t be balling to each other like babies, but Cross didn’t feel grown up. He hurt from the beating Tanya’s goons had given him earlier that day. His one eye had almost swollen shut and he was pretty sure a couple of ribs were broken. Those guys sure weren’t treating him like a baby.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “No, you won’t. There’s a difference.” Kale sounded all pouty now, but Cross felt the frustration in his brother. “I don’t get you man. All you have to do is show her what you can do. She knows you’re lying when you say you can’t do anything. I know you know that. Why can’t you just show her? What’s the big deal?”

  Cross sat up with a little difficulty and a grunt of pain. He swung his legs off the side of the cot to face Kale. “What’s the big deal? You are so dense sometimes, Kale. Tell me you haven’t been inside her head, you know what she plans to do with us. We are nothing more than freaks to her. Something for her to use until she can’t use us anymore. I know you know that!”

  “So what then? You let them beat you to death? What do you think you’re proving? That you can take a beating? Come on man, I can get in your head too, you know. We can’t leave here, Cross. What would we do in the world if we ever got out? I’m not dense. Maybe I just have a better sense of self- preservation than you do.”

  The anger was making a comeback, partly because Kale was right. As much as Cross hated to admit it. They had been born and raised within the walls of the Department. Tanya never failed to let them know they were nothing more than property. They had no say in what was done to them. No rights. They were things, not people.

  Freaks.

  Cross disagreed.

  “Why do you think she wants to know what we can do?” Cross said.

  Kale picked at his clothes. “I don’t know. I just know what happens when we say no.”

  “You can make people do whatever you tell them, you don’t think she wants to use that?”

  “I told her I wouldn’t use it to hurt people. I won’t.”

  “She’ll find a way to make you, Kale. You’re lying to yourself if don’t believe that. If she found out what I can do, you better believe she would use that too.”

  “You don’t know that!” Kale said. “You don’t.”

  Cross tapped the side of his head. “Like hell I don’t. She wants to bottle us up and sell us to the highest bidder. I won’t pretend to understand why, but I understand one thing. If we let Tanya use us the way she wants, then she will truly own us. Body and soul.”

  “So what do we do? I don’t want to die.”

  “Not exactly on my list of things to do either. But let me ask you something. Wouldn’t you want to do the things we talk about? All those dreams we planned in that crappy treehouse they built for us when we were little?”

  Kale wiped his hands down his face and sat cross-legged on the floor next to Cross’s cot. “Sure I would. But they were just dreams. Stupid dreams. They’re not real.”

  “What if they could be? Think about this for a minute. All those things Tanya wants us to do. She thinks she knows what we’re capable of, but only we know the truth. What if we did it Kale? What if we showed her exactly what we can do?”

  Kale’s eyes grew wide and terrified. He shook his head and backed away from his brother a little. “No, we can’t!”

  “Oh we sure can. You just don’t want to.”

  “She’ll kill us for sure if we try.”

  “Not if we get out. I can’t take this anymore, Kale. We are not property. We deserve a real life, but I can’t leave without you. I won’t.”

  Kale’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears, his whole body vibrated with fear. “You’ll never give her what she wants.” It wasn’t a question. Kale knew the answer as well as Cross did. They could read each other’s thought as easily as reading words on a page.

  “She’ll kill me first.”

  Kale took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Then she’ll have to kill both of us. When? When do we do this?”

  Cross felt a grin spread across his face. Despite the beating, he felt light. A weigh
t had been lifted from him. He had no idea what the future held, but he thought, they might actually have a chance at one.

  “No time like the present.” Cross stood. He pushed the pain down and did what Tanya had wanted him to do for her.

  With both hands he made a scooping gesture in the air around him. The room temperature dropped as a glowing light grew between his hands. It grew until it was a seething ball of energy waiting to do as Cross commanded. He turned and saw Kale’s face brilliant in the light.

  Vaguely aware of the alarms his actions had caused he felt far more confident than he should. Confident? Hell, he felt invincible. “We can do this, man.”

  Kale gave him a tentative nod. “I won’t hurt anyone, I won’t.”

  “Not asking you too. Come on, we got company. Just help keep me on my feet, I’ll do the rest. Stay close.” Cross felt Kale’s hand grip his arm. At his brother’s touch, the energy he had called up doubled in intensity. They had linked their powers and together they were stronger. Cross sent all that seething energy toward the locked metal door that kept them in a cage.

  All that power at his command. Cross knew what he could do, he had just never done it before. He had never had the chance. With every step out of that room his power grew. As did his arrogance. A part of him understood he killed people as they navigated the maze that was the Department. The larger part didn’t care. Kale’s voice was a small annoying buzz inside his head. He felt his brother’s fear, his distress, but Cross was drunk with power. All the times Tanya had him beat, tortured to try to make him show her what he could do.

  What do you think of what I can do now, bitch?

  Instinct moved him forward. Anger was his motivation. He would take as many of them down as he could and when they were dead and this Department was nothing more than smoldering debris under his feet, he would take Kale and they would both get out.

  Giddy with power, he heard Kale’s warning too late. Cross focused on the sight in front of him and tried to make sense out of what his mind was telling him.

  A man appeared with a gun in his hand. Cross’s attention had been on finding a way out, he hadn’t sensed the danger until Kale’s urgent scream and the sharp jolt of pain as he was pushed.

  He was floating. He was nothing. Darkness smothered everything.

  Chapter 2

  Ten years later

  FINN DOYLE’S VOICE was calm, rational even. It was the voice he used when nothing else worked. The voice he used when the situation was about to go tits-up, out-of-control bad. Cross tensed in the back seat of Crown Vic and waited for the bad. He gripped Niko’s harness with one hand and the back door handle with the other as he tried to determined just how screwed the situation had become.

  “Danny, I don’t want to hurt you, I mean does it look like I could hurt you? Come on, we just wanted to talk to you and your sister. What’s with all the drama?” Finn’s voice held the right amount of sincerity, the perfect lilt of honesty with a dash of contriteness thrown in but Danny King wasn’t buying the bullshit. Finn was out of the car walking toward the teenager. Cross could read Danny’s terror from where he sat inside the car.

  “Finn, this kid isn’t interested in having a conversation, you do know that, right?” Cross said.

  “Relax, I got this,” Finn’s voice was quiet. Danny and his sister were deep in the cemetery now, they wouldn’t hear. “Besides, Vic is circling around to the other side. Between the two of us, we can handle this.”

  Cross didn’t have to be psychic to understand the kid was unhinged, but it helped. “I think you’re underestimating the hell out the situation, partner.”

  “And I told you, I got this, partner.”

  As if to emphasize Cross’s concern on the escalating conditions, a soft whoosh accompanied by a rush of heat blowing through the open car windows stressed exactly what Danny thought of Finn’s pleas for rational actions.

  “Danny, stop! You have to stop it now!” Sybil, Danny’s younger sister screamed at her brother.

  “I’ll stop when they fucking leave us alone!” Danny was seventeen, scared out of his mind and playing with fire. Literally.

  The problem, however, was Danny wasn’t quite up to the challenge. He could almost control his fire abilities. It was the almost part that scared Cross. He felt the instability in the power Danny was trying to calling up. The situation was getting out of control and he wasn’t at all confident Finn understood the danger they were in.

  “Finn, we need to get out of here,” Cross called from the car. He wasn’t even sure Finn could hear him anymore.

  Super-heated air rocked the car sideways. Exposed skin on Cross’s face and hands tightened in the heat. He smelled singed hair and hot metal and knew play time was over.

  “Finn?”

  If Finn answered him, Cross didn’t hear it.

  Time to scramble. He was sitting in what amounted to a metal roasting pan and the kid had just lit a fire under it.

  Danny King was out of control. Cross opened the car door, barely keeping hold of the dog as they jumped out. A moment later the driver’s side burst into sudden searing flame.

  A few feet from the car he tripped. As he slammed into the ground he lost both his wind and his grip on Niko’s harness. He lay flat and breathless in the tinder dry grass of the ancient cemetery trying to coax air back into his lungs and hoping he was far enough away from the burning car. He smelled the stink of burning leather and scorched electrical circuits. The pops and crunches of the car as it was consumed by the flames filled his ears.

  Too close.

  He whispered Niko’s name and crawled forward. He tried to call again but only inhaled acrid fumes and smoke. He choked and coughed. Tears streamed down his face as he fought just to breathe. His searching hands found a headstone and he hoped it was big enough to shelter him. He used it to pull himself to a low crouch while feeling for more obstacles with outstretched hands. Niko was gone and his cane was in the car, dammit. He hated feeling helpless. He hated being afraid. But right now he was both of those things.

  He tried once more. “Niko! Come!” His voice was hoarse but it had more volume to it this time.

  Where is she?

  Sudden fear for Niko gripped him. Did the heat get her? Did the flames? With everything happening so fast, Niko could’ve easily become confused.

  Danny and Sybil were yelling at each other. Somewhere close. Sybil sounded terrified. Cross could relate. Both kids had fire talents but zero training. That made them more dangerous than a toddler with a machine gun. Cross stumbled forward, putting another headstone between himself and the car. The grass would soon catch, if it hadn’t already. Grass fires spread faster than he could walk.

  Where the hell is Finn?

  “Niko!” he yelled once more, and the hot air scorched his throat. This whole acquisition had officially gone down the crapper. The only thing he could do now was try to get clear. He just remembered the two way and pulled it from his jacket pocket. After fumbling with the controls, he tried to call Finn but all he got was static. He tried to find Finn’s unique aura, but he couldn’t calm himself enough to accomplish that relatively simple task.

  A wet nose, a soft whine and the next moment Niko was frantically licking at his face. She had overcome her instinctive fear of fire and came back for him. Sweet relief flooded through him as she nosed under his hand. Cross reached for the familiar leather grip of her harness and followed her lead. He had no idea if she was leading him deeper into the cemetery or toward the entrance. He tried to put the heat at his back but everything was hot.

  He stumbled over another low headstone. Niko was doing her best but Cross wasn’t listening to her cues. He was scared and he knew Niko sensed it. They were both moving as fast as they could, hopefully in the right direction. Cross did the best he could without his cane as he shuffled his feet over the uneven ground. He didn’t want to fall and lose Niko again. He hoped Finn was safe.

  An unnatural silence replaced the fire’s r
oar.

  He was out of time.

  The gas tank blew up.

  Chapter 3

  CROSS HAD A killer headache. The loss of his dark glasses in the stumbling dash across the cemetery and the annoying play of shadows, across his visual field didn’t help. Neither did Jenner Coben’s annoying rant. Cross’s boss and the director of the Paranormal Containment Unit, was in the middle of ripping everyone on his team a new one. Cross sat across the desk from Coben wishing he was home in bed. Wishing he was anywhere other than here. Medical had cleared him with first and second degree burns and some minor scrapes and cuts. Niko, her fur slightly singed, sat at Cross’s feet as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened a few hours ago.

  “Not only did you ignore standard operating procedure,” Coben yelled at Finn. “You failed to even call the situation in.”

  Finn paced in front of Coben’s desk. “The heat messed with the reception, and even if it hadn’t, exactly when would you suggest I should have called it in? When Danny sucker punched me at his parents’ or as we were chasing him across town? Or maybe when we cornered them in the freaking cemetery and he tried to fry us with the flaming ball of death?”

  “It should’ve never gotten that far. Cross, what the hell happened out there? I thought you profiled these kids.”

  Cross wiped a hand over his face and leaned back in the chair while trying to ignore the escalating pain in his head. “I did. Nothing in their profile suggested they would run. Danny is a classic bully. Loud but basically unorganized and easily intimidated. He should’ve backed down, he shouldn’t have run.” Sharp needle like spikes in his head made him wince.