Cursed by Darkness (An Urban Fantasy Novel) (Befallen Tides)

by Anna Sanders

Keaton wanted to wait for the girls to get settled. He kicked his shoes off, for lack of anything else to do, and tossed his heavy backpack onto the closest couch. But since this did not take long, he almost immediately followed after them, looking for Winx’s room.

  Once he was on the landing, he knocked on Winx’s door. It was the only one that was closed.

  “Come in,” she called out.

  Keaton walked in as Winx was changing her shirt. This wasn’t anything new to him. He had seen her change multiple times while staying at the Storybook Inn with her in Utah. But upon discovering his newly formed crush on her, the sight sent a distinct awareness rushing through his bloodstream.

  She was a lovely sight with her generous hips and taut belly exposed. The bra she wore was red, and the color ransacked his senses. Perhaps it was a warning. He should probably heed it.

  Winx changed from her sweater to a loose purple tank top. The comfortable shirt reached the belt of her fitted black jeans. She returned the sweater to her bag, giving Keaton a quick look before rummaging through it.

  “What do you want, Keaton? I can’t read your mind, but I know that you’re thinking of something inappropriate.”

  The statement made him frown. “What? No, I wasn’t.”

  “Oh, yes, you were. I can feel your emotions.” She stopped and folded her arms. “Well? What is it? Are you waiting for me to get naked or something? Because typically when clothing is going onto the body, it is not an indication of a strip tease.”

  “Winx…”

  “I mean, I’m an expert in these things. I worked at a dance club. Actually, I’ve worked at a few of them.”

  “If you felt anything of my emotions, you would know that they confuse me just as much as they do you.”

  She rose a brow at him, the action cute and discouraging rolled into one. “Are you admitting to something here?”

  “That what? I think you’re beautiful? I’m not the first man to…well…to look at you.”

  Winx studied him for a moment, but she didn’t voice her thoughts. She pulled an electric razor out of one of the pockets she was searching through. Plugging it into a wall outlet, she sat down in front of a dresser mirror and began to give her head a much needed touchup. The wiry hairs sprayed along her shoulders and her seat. It only took about seven or eight strokes to leave her head gleaming once more.

  “You used to have long hair, didn’t you?” he asked her. “Dreadlocks. Right?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “In the car on the drive up here, I found one of your picture albums on the floor. I saw a bunch of pictures of you and your family. You all looked so normal.” Winx didn’t say anything to that. “You were really cute with dreads.”

  “I think so, too,” she said. “But when I was processed by the lixyns they gave me a buzz cut. At the time, I was mortified. Now, I embrace it. They have no power over me if I don’t let them.”

  “I was wondering.” He took another step into the room. “Where are we starting?”

  “Well. I don’t think we’re too far from at least one group of fiends. We can take them out first. After that? We can think on our feet.”

  “And you want to do this tonight?”

  “Sure. The night is young. It’s only eleven-thirty. We have plenty of time before sunrise to do some damage.”

  THE FIGHTERS LEFT THE HOUSE fifteen minutes later. Winx had no visible fear about her. She stuffed the vial of liquid into her pocket, forgoing the pouch. The shovel stuck out under her right arm. She strode determinedly, a gleam in her eyes that only appeared when it was time to maim evil.

  Genevieve had tied her long hair into a high ponytail. The long white trails of her dress were bound to be a disadvantage to any fighting prowess she might possess, but no one made any remark about it. “Keep your eyes open,” she commanded. “They could be anywhere. And they aren’t opposed to sneak attacks.”

  Stori was bundled in constricting furs for the time being. Underneath, she wore brown buckskin flare pants and a peach, long-sleeve Henley. The clonk of her boots echoed along the silent streets.

  “Are you okay?” Keaton whispered to her. She shook her head without answering. “We will be fine. We are strong enough without the pack.”

  “The pack is our family “ Stori corrected him. “They see us through every hardship.” The skies were dark and ominous as they proceeded through the quiet streets. Even the city lights below seemed to house nothing but milling people. “Where do you think they are?”

  “Somewhere.” Winx was squinting into the night, as if she could just see danger over the horizon. “It’s here somewhere.”

  It took them thirty-five minutes to find the first horde, and it wasn’t a very impressive one. They were in someone’s backyard. The house was dark and deserted, and Winx checked thoroughly to be sure that no one was inside. Then mentally she kept any neighbors at bay with their curiosity.

  Hopping the fence first, Winx came almost face-to-face with savages.

  These were two men and two women. They did not look recently deceased. Their skin was so damaged they were unrecognizable. The open wounds festered over them, sending a putrid smell toward her.

  “Stop,” she told them, eyes glinting.

  They each turned to face her. In eagerness, they staggered toward her.

  “I said stop,” Winx tried again.

  Nothing. They continued to shuffle their bodies forward, raising their arms in wanton hunger and snapping their remaining teeth.

  Why did it keep happening? Winx backed away a step, raising her shovel.

  “Alright. Now just stay put—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, there was a blur of color. Both Keaton and Stori had morphed into their Bandit forms, sprouting vicious fangs, and the orbs of their eyes turned completely red.

  Keaton grabbed a savage and tugged him away from the others. He jammed a claw into its throat. There was a gurgling sound from the savage before it went limp.

  Stori also grabbed a savage and tugged it away. She had a harder time keeping hers still, as it was desperate to take a bite out of her arm. She wrestled to keep it immobile, but it swerved in her arms and sunk its teeth into the soft spot of her upper arm.

  She let out a horrible scream as the savage dug its teeth deeply into her flesh. It was going for bone even as it lapped at her blood. While it was preoccupied, Stori stabbed her claw into its forehead. Its eyes went wide with shock before it slipped to the ground, immobile.

  Winx had turned on the one former man trying to back her into a corner. She swung her shovel wildly, easily knocking it onto the ground. It didn’t have a chance to move before she used the flathead to empty the contents of its head.

  “That’s for not fucking listening to me!” she shrieked in time with her efforts.

  That left one female. It was headed toward Genevieve, who had a small pistol out and pointed toward it. But she wasn’t firing. Her arm was shaking wildly, and she couldn’t steady it.

  Stori came up behind the savage and broke its neck. Then, for good measure, she stomped her boot into the corner of its head, watching with satisfaction as it cracked like a rotten egg.

  Genevieve lowered her firing arm.

  She walked over to Stori, her hand aglow, and set it onto her cheek. Stori closed her eyes with a sigh and opened them again in wonder when she realized that her arm was healed. The only thing remaining was the blood on her clothes. There wasn’t even a scar.

  Stori rubbed her shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “Why weren’t you able to stop them?” Keaton asked Winx.

  Winx shrugged. “I have no clue.”

  “Does that happen often?” Stori asked.

  She decided to be truthful. “It didn’t used to.”

  “In what situation can a daevor not control a human?” Genevieve asked.

  Winx frowned. She shook her head in disappointment. “I can’t tell you. It’s never really happened before.”

  “Exce
pt with your sister,” Keaton said softly. Winx shot him a murderous look. He changed the subject, wiping blood from his face with his shirt. “Where do you want to bury them?”

  “Back here probably isn’t a good spot,” Genevieve said. “Anyone who lives here would find the disturbed earth.”

  “All right. Let’s take them away from here.” Winx took charge once more, trying to shake her nerves. “How do we move them?”

  “I have an idea,” the princess said.

  She lowered her head for a moment, closing her eyes. There was a tremble in her shoulder blades, and the lixyn began to sprout her wings. The span was imposing, the color a vivid ivory. When she opened her eyes and looked up again, they were completely white. Her true appearance was like something out of an alien movie, yet ethereal. She actually glowed, like a comet hitting Earth’s atmosphere in brilliance.

  “There has to be a dump in the city. I can fly and look for an incinerator. The Bandits and I can move the bodies and put them directly into the plant, problem solved.”

  Winx was stricken. The sight of wings, the appendages of her nightmares, made her feel so inadequate that it was almost painful. She watched the three of them organize the plan and then take the four bodies. The Bandits sprung away with a burst of speed, clearing the fence with one bound. Genevieve, the once-demure little princess, flew two bodies into the air in her arms like sacks of potatoes. The whoosh of air from the beat of her wings was a strong one.

  “Ugh. They’re heavy! Use your mental conversion to keep eyes off of us,” Genevieve told Winx as she took off into the air.

  Left with what she saw was actually a vital job, but nobody around to see her do it, Winx began to clean the backyard as best she could. Then she left the home in an attempt to follow her comrades.

  She did not have speed or flight, so all she could do was proceed on foot, doing her best to keep human eyes from the sky, striding out into the night with her shovel poised. It was something that she didn’t necessarily need her missed wings for, but it was hard work not keeping up with the three.

  Winx was forced to think of her own transformation, which, without her wings, was nothing more than stubby red horns and a whip of a tail. And controlling humans with her mind was tedious, even if it was useful. Those creatures were so brainless, she could probably get her way around them even if she didn’t have psychic abilities.

  But she hadn’t been able to control a savage. A simple, mindless creature. One that she had never had any problems with.

  Was there something wrong with her? Had the same thing happened to Deja? A sudden onslaught of incompetence?

  It was taking the other three too long to get back to her, and from what Winx could tell, they were not in danger of being spotted. Nobody would be at the dump so late at night, and anyone who thought they saw a flying angel with two bodies would consider themselves too insane to say anything about it. So eventually, Winx was wandering close to a hiking trail in search of more savages, deciding to force her psychic abilities back into their original fold.

  It probably wasn’t a good idea to try to take any danger on her own. Still, the daevor walked on until she reached a vast field and recreational area. It lead into a mountain pass, beyond which were many trees and measureless land. Funny how the Mile High City still had so many damn hills.

  It was when she was nearing a dead end that she felt it.

  Something was watching her.

  From the impressions of the person’s mind, it was a savage. Only there was a problem. Savages didn’t know enough to be silent and watch someone. No, this was strange. It was fighting against its impulsive, erratic nature.

  Winx put her shovel onto the ground and turned to look around the area. From what she could tell, the beast was watching her from an odd vantage point. She turned in the direction that she felt it in. A thicket of pine trees obstructed her view. She took a step in the direction of the stalking savage.

  “Get out here,” she called firmly. “Quit playing games with me.”

  Off of a rise on the hill, the savage straggled out. Winx immediately took a step backward when she saw him.

  It was Bo Erkett.

  The times since the murderer’s death were written on his skin. Not only was he still mutilated from his self-inflicted demise, but he had obviously been exposed to all sorts of trials. The skin on his face was almost gone, but there was still his obvious bone structure and a tattoo on his chest that indicated he was once in a dangerous gang.

  One of Deja’s murderers, ripe for the picking, was less than ten feet away from her.

  For a brief moment, Winx could do nothing more than stare. Even her brief contemplations of what might have happened to the gang’s souls never fully convinced her that any of them were still roaming around.

  Yet there he was. Right before her. Waiting to be killed again.

  He did not move. And neither did she.

  Then Winx gripped her shovel with vigor, her heart hardened, and she crooked a finger at him.

  “Come here,” she beckoned, tempting him with all of the compulsion that she could muster.

  He did not move.

  Strange. A second ago, he was dying to follow her commands. He’d come out of hiding, after all. She had no reason to think that her failings were happening again. Winx kept trying.

  “Come to me.”

  Still, he did not move. There wasn’t even a change in his breathing pattern. Bo just stood there, staring at her. And then, he did something even stranger.

  Bo turned away from her and started to walk in the other direction. His gait was uneven yet steady as he proceeded on. She followed him into the trees, calling to him with every ounce of power that she had. But he still ignored her.

  Winx quickly picked up her shovel and advanced on him, raising the tool into the air as a bludgeoning device.

  “Where do you think that you are going? You are not getting away so easily!”

  He kept up an almost run, completely unlike a normal savage walk, and Winx did her best to keep up with him. Whereas he was unmindful of the many branches and brambles hitting his person, Winx found the thicket imposing and tiresome. It was hard keeping it all out of her face. She felt rips along her arms and face. But she still followed him.

  “I’m going to kill you, and I don’t give three fucks—”

  She never finished her sentence. A sharp pain buzzed throughout her. Shaking violently from the contact, Winx only knew about five seconds of electrified agony before everything went dark and she slipped into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 18

  WINX AWOKE SLOWLY FROM THE haze of the blackout with a groan. The first thing she realized was that she was standing upright. The second was that she was tied up to a contraption, a device resembling one from Skinned. She was completely exposed and secure.

  Excellent.

  She stared at her surroundings with contempt. There was Bo. He was standing in a corner, eyeing her hungrily but not making a sound or a movement. His ripped face was illuminated by a low light. His breathing was in time with the tick of a clock somewhere unseen. From what she could see, the room held a filing cabinet, a desk where her shovel lay, and the savage.

  How could a savage have done this in the first place? And how had she passed out? She jostled around to test the resistance of the rope.

  “Untie me,” Winx demanded, tugging at her bonds at her ankles. The action made her hiss in pain, as her left ankle was still weak from the attack weeks prior.

  Bo did not move. The link wasn’t working.

  “Untie me now,” she growled. “Right now!”

  “He won’t be doing that.”

  Winx froze when she heard the familiar voice behind her. That Latin accent may not be so uncommon, but the fiery tone beneath it was unmistakable.

  That voice. She would never forget it; it had haunted her for so long.

  Winx’s pulse was rapidly increasing, but she now stayed as still as she could. “Chancellor.”


  Esteban Chavez rounded the device to stand in front of her.

  “It is good to see you again, Miss Rowan.” He gazed down at her with those soulless eyes. He appeared to be no different than when she had last seen him in her prison cell.

  Coming to stand beside him was a tall man with golden brown skin and a square-jawed face. He was thin, too thin, and had scars and burn marks all over him. His clothes were ill-fitting, and he had shackles on his feet.

  “What is going on here?” Winx demanded. “The Order cannot take me into custody without telling me why. And they certainly cannot string me up like this! This completely abandons any code of ethics you profess to harbor!”

  Esteban chuckled. “Oh. You want your rights? Is that it? Here they are.”

  He brought his fist back, balled it tightly, and punched her dead into the cheek. The blow made her head jerk violently, her neck cracking. She grunted from the ache that rushed to swell the area.

  “Your rights have been revoked, Winx Rowan. That is what happens when you abandon your duty to the Queendom.”

  He popped the knuckles of his hand and walked away from her.

  Winx closed her eyes and tried to ignore the stinging of her jaw, only to reopen them when the room brightened with another light.

  Esteban was standing near Bo. He patted the savage’s shoulder. It didn’t react.

  “I knew that our friend here would get you to separate yourself from your group. How could you possibly resist killing him again, after your self-justified motives to avenge your sister? Worked out far more brilliantly than I expected. Acquiring him from the morgue, as well as the rest of the Black Hearts Gang… well. It was all worth it.”

  He ran his hand through the dead man’s hair, as if scratching a dog behind its ear.

  “Believe me. It took a lot of preparation to drive you out of L.A. You see, that is London’s jurisdiction. He is far too lenient with the convicts there, as you can see with your case. But I have succeeded in drawing you to my borders. And now I can rid the world of you once and for all.”

  “You want to kill me?” Winx was aghast. “Why?”