In the Light of Darkness

by Delizhia Jenkins

  Go left, I hear Aiden’s voice in my mind. I shift left, barely missing slamming Joseph into one of the lamp posts just as we rounded the corner. I can sense Kai-my mom. She is barely alive. Just hold on mom, I think to myself. Just hold on. Aiden commands me to make another left when I stop mid frame and unsheathe my sword. At least five of the Queen’s personal guard are waiting for us just few feet away from the corner. Joseph is dazed and can barely get his bearings when I release him to face off with my enemies. Power filters to the tips of my fingers as we face off. Over seven feet tall, adorned with specially made armor, spears in hand, they have no time to respond because I am lightening. My mother’s life is at stake. The lives of those who follow me are on the line. I hit all five targets with a concentrated dose of dark energy, courtesy of the House of Darkness. I send them flying several meters backwards, and they hit the ground hard. I know that is not enough to hold them so I take Joseph’s hand once more and we dart through the hallways.

  “Keep up!” I shout to the others. I do not need for them to get distracted by the fallen warriors. I am sticking to Aiden’s plan: fight only if necessary. There was no need for me to finish them right now. I will have plenty of time to do it later.

  There is a stairway coming up ahead, which Aiden directs us to go. Kai’s presence is stronger here and I know without a doubt we can make it. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to even continue the thought because gunfire breaks out behind me. I stop, unsheathe my sword, release Joseph’s hand and backtrack to the source of the sound to find Kenya blasting off several rounds at one of the personal guards. The bullets are bouncing off of the warrior like superman, and the wanna be superhero clearly does not have any sense to realize that the bullets are not working. Aiden and I are one thought, one mind, one single body in motion as both head straight for the warrior who is now stalking Kenya. Her eyes widen at the realization she bit off more than she could chew, but I am a blur of motion and in an instant I am in the air, with one powerful swing, his head goes rolling off his shoulders. Another warrior emerges from another direction and he and Aiden face off as I take on the third. Before long we are surrounded. I hear Joseph’s scream and more gunfire. Kenya was right: this is suicide. However, I cannot allow the thought to consume me. We came here for my mother and we are not leaving without her. Melanie is freeze framing all over the place, trying to bait the warrior closer to Kenya who is now ever more determined to prove herself. In my mind’s eye I witness them take the big bastard down together, while Shad is fighting in ninja styled hand to hand combat with another one of the queen’s men. I don’t know where Joseph is, but I no longer sense him which is troubling. I perform a roundhouse kick on the warrior, catching him in the jaw before following up with my dagger, stabbing him in the center of his chest. Blue black blood spurts out as he doubles back, his silver eyes wide with horror. I reclaim my dagger and prepare to face off with another.

  Suddenly we are surrounded. I allow myself to return to the darkest pit of my soul where all of the power of the universe lies. I will destroy the House of Light. I will slaughter every single member of this forsaken house just as they did members of my race. I hunt them. I will impale their corpses on the horizon for the entire world to see. From within me comes this burst of concentrated ultra violet light, and I can hear Han’s voice laughing in delight. He is proud of me. One by one I watch as several of the Warriors of Light burst into flames. Their screams echo through the entire palace. I can hear Aiden pleading with me to stop until I realize that he too is affected. I watch in horror as he collapses. Rushing to his side, I cradle his face in my arms. He is alive, but barely. How are we going to get out of here?

  He murmurs for me to go to the stairway while he waits there in the middle of the carnage to recover. I cannot bear the thought of leaving him. Melanie and Kenya are by my side, offering concerned looks in my direction.

  “We will stand guard over him,” Melanie offers. “But hurry.”

  I hand Kenya my sword which she accepts all too willingly and I dart in the direction towards the stairs. I spot Joseph by the stairway. He is injured, but otherwise ok. I make a mental note to offer him and his team sanctuary in my compound. I freeze frame down the stairs, finding myself surrounded by the mournful wails of the prisoners who await the queen’s execution. Beings, varying in shape, size and color, clearly from worlds different from own cry out to me for mercy. I wish I could free them, and perhaps one day soon I will return and honor them with freedom but for now I cannot. I sense more light soldiers coming as I zoom past cell after cell, cursing at not having found the right one.

  She is in the last cell, face down with her arms spread on the cold glass floor. In a sweeping motion, I use what was left of the dark power in me and shatter the glass. She struggles to raise her head but she is too weak to do so. Off in the distance, there is more chaos. I sense the moment a blade pierces Aiden’s chest.

  “Nooooooo!” I cry out, my knees buckling beneath me. This is all one bad dream. The plan was perfect. It was sound. Whimpering, but still I find the resolve to break my mother’s chains. I sit her up and she is barely recognizable. Her once full, honey brown face is sunken and hollow. Her lips are cracked and bloodied. Her skin is bruised from head to toe and her wild mane of thick curls is a matted mess.

  “Mama,” I whisper. “Mama, it’s me Dawn. I got you.”

  She struggles to open her eyes to look at me. “Baby?”

  “Yes, mom,” I hug her tightly. “It’s me. I’m here.”

  Her eyes snap open. “You have to get out of here!” She hisses. “She’s been hunting for you-“

  “No. I’m not leaving you,” I plead. “There is too much to explain…come on.” On wobbly feet I manage to help her to stand. I sling one of her arms around my neck and bear the brunt of her weight.

  I am too tapped out to freeze frame the both of us out of here, so we have to slowly make our way to the stairway. The remaining prisoners cry out, some of them reaching out behind the glass walls that hold them. My heart hurts. My soul weeps. I have to get to Aiden. I have to get mom out of here. We approach the stairs and when I look up to see how much further we have to go, a woman with golden hair and gleaming emerald eyes greets me at the top of the stairs. She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life. She stares down at me, wearing a combination of amusement and resentment plastered on her porcelain smooth face. Instantly, recognition dawns on me. Clutching my mother closer to me, I search within for that source of power only to find that there is none. My well is empty.

  And then everything goes black.

  Dawn

  The Darkness is my safety and my keeper. It offers me a place of solace and retreat. I awake to the unfamiliar surroundings of a world I do not belong in, with no memory of the events that transpired the moment I laid eyes on the queen. Vengeance consumes me as I struggle to breathe. My lungs are on fire as unfamiliar hands tend to me, while the very familiar velvety smooth voice of a man whispers in a language that is foreign to my ears but recognizable to my spirit. My thoughts are a tangled mess. I felt the tip of the blade pierce Aiden’s chest. Our mission failed. I failed. My mother was in my arms, we were on our way to freedom-and we failed.

  A fire burns within me. It wages a burning inferno of war declared in my spirit. Han’s voice has become my conscious; he has become that ever present, ever watchful, silent guardian in my mind. I used too much of his power instead of trusting in my own abilities. The familiar voice whispers something else. I remember that voice. He was on the train with me that day. He challenged Aiden, revealed his private truths to everyone in the club that night. He watches over me. Kian.

  My eyes snap open. I am laying on a bed made of straw and sheepskin. Where am I? Kian is sitting across from in wooden chair, his eyes a cold reminder that he is a Berserker-a living, breathing, vision of a beautiful death waiting to happen. I try to sit up, but the injuries I sustained forced me to retreat back onto the straw mattress.

 
; “Where am I?” I grimace through clenched teeth.

  “That is of no concern to you right now. You should focus on your recovery,” Kian answers carefully.

  “How did you find me?” I demand. How the hell did he find me?

  “I will explain in due time. Now rest.”

  “Where is Aidan?” I will not rest until I know he is at least alive and there is a fighting chance that I can get him back.

  “You worry over trivial things-“

  “Where. Is. Aiden.” I demand with a level of finality.

  Kian hesitates before speaking. Every muscle in his body fills with tension at the mention of Aiden’s name.

  “Orion, is with the queen,” he says finally.

  “I have to save him,” I declare attempting to get up once more. The pain in my chest is too much to bear, and I plop back down.

  “You will not. You have more important things to concern yourself with.”

  “You don’t have the right to tell me what I can or cannot do,” I growl.

  “I am not allowing you to risk life and limb over a foolish crush,” he retorts.

  “One would think you are jealous and would rather see Aiden dead because of a foolish crush,” I spit back. “Aiden has done more for me than what you would ever know. As a matter of fact if you really call yourself my guardian, I will ask you once more: where were you when my family was slaughtered? Where were you when Eros made an attempt on me? Where were you during the seemingly countless I died-“

  “ENOUGH!” Kian shouts, slamming his fist on the small wooden table which crumbled from the assault. “I rescued you from the queen’s clutches when you were knocking on death’s door-“

  “I am going after Aiden whether you like it or not,” I huff. “And my mother?”

  He doesn’t answer me. He gets up and stalks off leaving me alone with my thoughts. Again, my memory draws a blank. I suffer injuries as clues as to what happened to me back at the palace. I need answers, but as another wave of intense pain rakes over me, I realize I must heal first. And in order to heal, I need to retreat to that familiar place of darkness where Han awaits.

  I don’t know what happened to Kenya, Shad, Melanie, Joseph, or my mother. Kian operates under a single, intense purpose that involves keeping me alive. Everything else matters little. I suspect if they all weren’t killed, they’ve been imprisoned, which may be a millions times worse. I have a sword with the queen’s name on it. I will see to it that her memory is a distant thought in the cosmos. The House of Light will stand no more. Han is waiting for me near the lake of darkness where I intend to transform myself once more. I will baptize myself in the name of vengeance, and once I emerge from the pool newly healed, the hunt will begin.

  The hunted has just become the hunter.

  About the Author

  I first discovered my love of writing in the third grade, after having to transition to a life living with my grandmother while my mother completed her time in the military. By the end of my fifth grade year I spent quite a few of my days writing short stories, but never contemplating the idea of actually becoming a writer. Fast forward to adulthood, after a series of ups and downs, the desire to breathe life into characters having never left, I wrote my first full length novel entitled, Love at Last in 2013. After that, the invisible, and incessant Muse kept her awake many a night, propelling me to write my first science fiction fantasy novel, Nubia Rising: The Awakening; and in 2014 I self-published both Love at Last and Nubia Rising: The Awakening. Since then, I have self-published three additional books: Viper the Vampire Assassin, Sin: Daughter of the Grim Reaper, and Blind Salvation. Self-publishing has given me the tools needed to understand the publishing world; to understand that there is much more to simply writing the story and praying that others will read it. I am looking forward to publishing more stories in 2016, so much so that new characters haunt me even in my dreams, begging me to put pen to paper. I cannot wait to see what the next chapter in my life will bring.

  Other Books by Delizhia D. Jenkins

  Nubia Rising: The Awakening

  Love at Last

  Blind Salvation

  Viper the Vampire Assassin

  Sin Daughter of the Grim Reaper

  Coming Soon…

  Viper Returns

  Sin Daughter of the Grim Reaper Book 2

  Redemption

  Into the Shadows

  The Vampire Hunters Academy