The Dark One

by Jennifer Martucci

  “Please don’t.” He begs this time, a tremor of agony-induced fear rousing it.

  Bitter laughter bubbles from my throat and my grip tightens on his neck. “You think I would show you mercy?” The wet rasp of his labored breathing intensifies. I squeeze harder. “This is the reason I’m alive, the reason I came back.” The words stream from me from an unfathomable part of my being and my hand clenches like a vise. Tendons surrender to the pressure and bone snaps, and in the moment that I realize I’ve killed Tom, I know the truth of my destiny. I know why I am here and why I was returned to this earthly plane. Exerting every last drop of energy I possess and envisioning Sarah’s face as I do, I crush all that I hold until his skull flops to one side. Eyes bulging and tongue protruding, I stare into the face of evil incarnate.

  I release him and he drops to the floor. As soon as his body hits the concrete, the air around him quickens, darkening and shimmering like inky water. I watch as it undulates then unexpectedly, a hot rush of fire blazes forth. I shield my eyes with my forearm and turn away from it, feeling its heat and hearing it hiss and crackle as it rushes past me. Quickly, the fire is extinguished and the stench of brimstone, decay and blood assaults my nasal passages. I stare into the section of air that rolls and swells and listen as creaks and groans from upper levels of the house bemoan the weight of the structure. A ghostly moan howls dolefully and the foundation buckles. The walls shake and I watch as Tom’s corpse explodes into ash that refuses to settle, but hangs in the air before disappearing altogether. He is gone forever, the world is purged of his wretched existence and by my hand. I am filled with a sense of purpose and belonging. But that feeling is short lived. My gaze settles on Sarah, beautiful, sweet Sarah.

  Blonde hair draped over her face and seated in a puddle of crimson blood, the sight of her punches a gaping hole through my chest. Raw and ragged, it is a wound that will never heal. Feeling the burn of tears sting my eyes, I go to her lifeless form and drop to my knees beside her. I wrap my arms around her and draw her close, hugging as hard as I did when she was alive. I pull her close to my chest, remembering her eyes and her pretty smile, her quick wit and the feel of her hand in mine, and I sob unabashedly.

  She is lost.

  Sarah is gone forever.

  I failed her.

  I didn’t save her.

  Chapter 14

  Still on my knees and clutching Sarah’s head to my chest, my heart bleeds, hemorrhaging one tear at a time. I am broken, shattered into a million pieces that will never mend. Pain unlike any I’ve ever experienced surrounds me, swallows me. I don’t know what to do with it, the agony of loss; this profound sorrow of mine that will remain with me until my dying days. I press my lips to her head, kissing her flaxen crown and smelling the vague notes of her shampoo mingle with the coppery stench of blood. My pulse stutters and my shoulders curl forward. I let her die. Her blood is on my hands. I didn’t save her.

  Guilt and shame collide shaping a form of self-loathing so potent it is an entity of destruction. It is a dark passenger I fear will walk with me for the rest of my life. Chest heaving, sobs beset my body. “Sarah,” I mumble into her hair as I hold her tighter. “Sarah.”

  “She’s gone, Danny.” A familiar voice echoes. I look over my shoulder, eyes swollen and vision blurring from crying, and see Luke standing behind me. “Let her go.”

  “I can’t.” The words scrape from my throat from a raw and primal place.

  Luke sighs heavily. “You have to.” His statement is not intended to be harsh or cold, but they strike a nerve.

  “No!” I reply fiercely. “I’m not leaving her. Not here. Not now. Not ever.”

  Luke shakes his head and frowns.

  “Don’t give me the disappointed dad look, you understand me?” I cling to Sarah, refusing to relinquish my grip even though my brain realizes I cannot sit here as I am with her indefinitely.

  Luke raises his hands to chest height, his palms facing me. Several beats pass between us before he clips his chin toward a space on the concrete floor that is charred and still stinks of sulfur and decay. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?” My head spins. I’m minimally aware of his movement.

  “How did you kill him?” I feel his eyes boring into me. “It’s not possible.” His expression is impassive but wonder lurks in the depths of his sea foam green eyes as he regards smears that resemble swept charcoal. They are all that’s left of Tom. “He’s a Dark One who’s been around for more than five hundred years. His power was unmatched.” His brows link for a fraction of a second.

  “Who cares?” I erupt. Anger and grief merge. I glower at Luke. “Who cares how I killed him. The bottom line is I did, and I did it too late because she is dead!” I am shouting, spittle spraying from my mouth and my nose running. I sniff and release Sarah with one arm so that I can wipe it with my sleeve. Swallowing hard, I demand, “Why didn’t you think I could save her?” I wait a split-second then shout, “Tell me!”

  “Danny,” Luke’s tone is calm, soothing, and he advances toward me slowly. “As soon as you told her what you are, the chance to save her ended.”

  I feel my eyes widen with surprise. “What?” my voice is little more than a whisper.

  “I couldn’t tell you.” Regret plagues his features. “I thought if you found him on your own maybe you’d have a chance.” He shrugs and his voice trails off.

  I shake my head, struggling to comprehend his words, what I think he’s saying. “So you’re telling me I killed her; that the powers that sent me here made this happen to silence her?” My voice grows louder and louder until I am screaming. “Is that what happened?” Anger swells within me in turbulent waves. What universe do I serve would see fit to claim the life of an innocent girl just to silence her? A cruel, unjust universe, that’s the kind.

  “Danny, it’s not like that.” Luke closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Slowly, he opens them and looks directly at me. “You just weren’t going to get the help you needed.” He licks his lips. “You cannot tell people what you are. I can’t impress that point strongly enough. You. Cannot. Tell. Anyone. What. You. Are.” He pauses and holds my gaze hostage with his own to ensure I understand what he’s said. Several moments pass between us before he says, “I still don’t understand how you did this.” He gestures to the dark smudges on the concrete where Tom once lay. “He was way too powerful, very old and far more powerful than any Dark One I’ve ever encountered.” He scrubs his face with both hands. “I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What’s not to understand? He’s dead. And so is Sarah. Period. How I did it and his strength and age are irrelevant. It’s done!”

  Luke doesn’t utter a word of protest and he doesn’t retort. He simply stares at me. After a minute or so passes, he looks as though an idea has occurred to him. “Danny, when you were headed to the light and a man intercepted you, what did he look like?”

  “I don’t know, tall, broad shoulders, whatever. Who cares?” I shrug off his question.

  “Danny, this is very important. I need to know exactly what he looked like. I need you to describe him in detail.” Luke is suddenly more intense than usual, leaning forward in expectance of my reply, his jaw set and his brow low.

  I shift and face Luke, releasing my grip on Sarah incrementally. “He was tall, really tall, and built like a linebacker, you know, broad shoulders, big muscular arms,” I start. The only image branded in my mind as fully as the pristine light I was drawn to is the image of the man who ripped me from my path toward it. “He had long black hair that fell past his shoulders, longer than yours and shiny like glass.” I pause and close my eyes, my mind suddenly filled with his face.

  “Go on,” Luke prompts me.

  “He had blue eyes like Sarah’s. They looked like ice over water only brighter, clearer, not like any eye color I’ve ever seen. He had a straight nose and his bottom lip was thicker than the top and his jaw was square.” I inhale. “But what I
remember most about him is not about what he looked like, but his presence. He had this air about him, regal, powerful. I don’t know if that makes sense even.” I shake my head and open my eyes. And when I do, I see that Luke’s features are clouded, his expression one I’ve never seen him make.

  “Danny, do you know who that was?” he asks.

  “No Luke I don’t. We didn’t exactly introduce ourselves and exchange numbers,” I hiss sarcastically. “I was dead, remember? And I was trying like hell to get to that light. But he stopped me, and according to you, he shared himself with me, as icky as that sounds and whatever the heck that means!” Exasperated, my patience is completely exhausted. I am fraught, overwhelmed by grief and confusion, and this guy is asking if I caught the man’s name! Is he out of his mind? I wonder.

  “Who he is is who you are,” Luke says with the practiced calm of a serial killer.

  I stare at him blankly for a second. “Ok Jedi master, any more riddles for tonight? ‘Cause I’m done with today’s lesson!”

  “Danny,” Luke starts again but I cut him off.

  “No, no more! I don’t care what you have to say. I’m done. You hear me? I’m done. I’m not doing this anymore, not for a power that would let her die.” I cast my eyes toward the beautiful girl in my arms whose laugh I will never hear again. “That power can kiss my—”

  “Enough.” Luke’s voice is a clap of thunder. It resonates with power but also with something else. I swear it’s filled with respect that wasn’t there earlier. “You are here for a reason. Don’t you get that?” Luke’s demeanor has changed. He exudes reverence. He isn’t talking down to me anymore. I don’t know whether to be happy or scared. “Something is coming. Something horrible must be coming. It’s the only reason you’re back.”

  The fine hairs on the back of my neck rise and quiver. I know he speaks the truth. I can sense it as readily as I sense my own pulse, sense a shift in the atmosphere, a shift in the balance of things. Still, I balk.

  “I don’t even know what that means! Am I supposed to know what that means?” I feel my face redden. I’m done with all the cloak-and-dagger mystery. “I’m just going to live my life like a normal kid. I’m not doing this anymore.”

  Luke’s eyes are sad when he addresses me. “Danny, you can’t go home. You understand that, right?”

  I shake my head no.

  “You need to leave now. The Dark Ones, they are all going to sense what happened here, sense you, and come for you. You are not safe and neither is your family. If you stay, your loved ones will die.” His words bleed the air from my lungs. I picture my mother and my sister then feel Sarah’s limp body sagging against mine, and my throat constricts so tightly I struggle to breathe. “Everything you love will be destroyed.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?” My voice is a strangled whisper. “I’m only sixteen. I don’t have any money. I don’t have anything.”

  “You are not a sixteen year old kid, and you don’t have a choice in this.” He levels me with a gaze that is grave. His tone is urgent when he says, “You don’t even have time to say goodbye. We need to leave now.”

  I release Sarah, placing her on the floor, and stand. Shock and disbelief meld with the multitude of emotions swirling in the vortex of pain that has become my reality. “No. I’m not going anywhere with you. I told you, I’m not doing this anymore.” The words, while I mean them with every part of me, sound wrong as I speak them, as if I am trying to deny that the color of the sky is blue on a clear day.

  “You don’t have a choice one way or the other. You purpose on this earth was chosen for you. It’s why you were returned from death.”

  I ignore his words and turn from him, making my way to the staircase.

  “Where are you going?” he calls after me.

  I do not acknowledge him and I do not turn.

  “Danny! Come back!” he shouts as I take the stairs that lead from the basement to the kitchen two at a time. He is still yelling when I exit the Hanson Mansion, and I wonder why he didn’t chase after me, fight with me to stay.

  Crips autumn air greets me as I climb out the window and into the waiting night. I don’t know what to do or where to go. All I know is that I refuse to live my life as a puppet to a power that allowed Sarah to die.

  Unlocking the door to my CRV, I slide behind the steering wheel and start the car. I begin driving without the slightest clue of my destination, where this life of mine that has been torn to shreds in the space of a breath, will lead.

  “Danny, you can’t do this!” Luke’s voice rages over the whir of the engine. But I do not look back. I cannot look back. To do so would hurt too much. Sarah is dead, and I have to leave my mother and sister without saying goodbye lest they suffer the same fate. I cannot live with their blood on my hands. I don’t know how I’ll live with Sarah’s blood on my hands. They are stained eternally. So I pull away into the darkness and into a future that is unknown, uncertain. I leave Luke standing in the driveway, leave behind my family, my friends, my life. I head straight for the highway and watch through the rearview mirror as the town grows distant, as everything I care about fades to black. I am not whole. I have left a piece of me behind. I only hope that one day I will have the chance to return to them, to return to the life I had as just Daniel Callahan.

  About the Authors

  Jennifer and Christopher Martucci hoped that their life plan had changed radically in early 2010. To date, the jury is still out. But late one night, in January of 2010, the stay-at-home mom of three girls under the age of six had just picked up the last doll from the playroom floor and placed it in a bin when her husband startled her by declaring, “We should write a book, together!” Wearied from a day of shuttling the children to and from school, preschool and Daisy Scouts, laundry, cooking and cleaning, Jennifer simply stared blankly at her husband of fifteen years. After all, the idea of writing a book had been an individual dream each of them had possessed for much of their young adult lives. Both had written separately in their teens and early twenties, but without much success. They would write a dozen chapters here and there only to find that either the plot would fall apart, or characters would lose their zest, or the story would just fall flat. Christopher had always preferred penning science-fiction stories filled with monsters and diabolical villains, while Jennifer had favored venting personal experiences or writing about romance. Inevitably though, frustration and day-to-day life had placed writing on the back burner and for several years, each had pursued alternate (paying) careers. But the dream had never died. And Christopher suggested that their dream ought to be removed from the back burner for further examination. When he proposed that they author a book together on that cold January night, Jennifer was hesitant to reject the idea outright. His proposal sparked a discussion, and the discussion lasted deep into the night. By morning, the idea for the Dark Creations series was born.

  The Hunter of the Light series, the Planet Urth series, as well as the Arianna Rose series and the Dark Creations series, are works that were written while Jennifer and Christopher continued about with their daily activities and raised their young children. They changed diapers, potty trained and went to story time at the local library between chapter outlines and served as room parents while fleshing out each section. Life simply continued.

  As the storyline continues to evolve, so too does the Martucci collaboration. Lunches are still packed, noses are still wiped and time remains a rare and precious commodity in their household, but it is the sound of happy chaos that is the true background music of their writing. They hope that all enjoy reading their work as much as they enjoyed writing it.

  Books by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci:

  The Dark Creations Series (A YA paranormal romance series)

  Dark Creations: Gabriel Rising (Part 1)

  Dark Creations: Gabriel Rising (Part 2)

  Dark Creations: Gabriel Rising (Part 1&2)

  Dark Creations: Resurrection (Part 3)

  Dark Crea
tions: The Hunted (Part 4)

  Dark Creations: Hell on Earth (Part 5)

  Dark Creations: Dark Ending (Part 6)

  The Arianna Rose Series (A paranormal romance series)

  Arianna Rose (Part 1)

  Arianna Rose: The Awakening (Part 2)

  Arianna’s Awakening (Part 1 & 2)

  Arianna Rose: The Gathering (Part 3)

  Arianna Rose: The Arrival (Part 4)

  Arianna Rose: The Gates of Hell (Part 5)

  The Planet Urth series (A YA science-fiction/futuristic series)

  Planet Urth: (Book 1)

  Planet Urth: The Savage Lands (Book 2)

  Planet Urth: The Underground City (Book 3)

  Planet Urth: The Rise of Azlyn (Book 4)

  Planet Urth: The Fate of Urth (Book 5)

  Hunter of the Light series

  The Demon Hunter: (Book 1)

  The Demon Hunter: The Dark Once (Book 2)

  The Demon Hunter: Hunter of the Damned (Book 3)

  Oh, One Last Thing Before You Go…

  When you turn the page, you may be given the opportunity to express your thoughts on Facebook and Twitter automatically. If you enjoyed our book, please take a second to click that button and let your friends know about it.

  If they get something out of the book, they’ll be grateful to you, and we will be, too!

  Thank you so much!

  Love,

  Jenny and Chris