Light of Darkness

by Lonnie Davidson

  “Not really. My stomach hurts.”

  She sits next to me and wraps her arm around me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just wanted to show you some of the cool things we have here.”

  “I know, and it has been cool. It’s just, those cool things want to eat or kill me, and it’s stressing me out. All because of the way I smell, which isn’t something I can really help. What does a human even smell like?”

  “They have their own scents of course, but in general, they smell sour.” She runs her finger over my arm. “You know, like stress sweat. I think it’s fear, and a lot of supernatural beings think that smell is delicious.”

  “But aren’t I a demon now? Shouldn’t I smell like one?”

  “Hero, you just came into your demon heritage and were raised human. Stress and fear are a part of you. At least until you get used to everything.”

  “Great, I guess I’ll be a target forever.”

  Valene wraps her other arm around me and hugs me tight. “Not forever. Come on, I’ll take you to the next stop, and I promise that nothing will try to kill you.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  Valene stands and puts her clothes back on. I follow suit, dusting the sand off me and her.

  She takes my hand, and we head out onto another path. As we walk, we talk about our lives. She tells me her true age; she’s a little younger than Serena. Her favorite place on New Birth is Greece. Also, how many times she’s gone through high school and college. Apparently, she has over twenty degrees. Most of them are collecting dust, but the ones she has kept up to date are her doctorates in physical therapy, business administration, and education.

  I tell her everything that has happened since the last time she saw me, when she was posing as Felicia. We talk about my friends and my crush on Airca, school, and all the other not so interesting stuff that comes along with being a human teenager.

  We come to a hillside. At the top is a tall tree, by which Zel is already waiting. Once we reach the top, Zel snaps his fingers and a picnic basket appears at our feet. “Lunch is, like, totally served.” He gives me a high five, then vanishes. We sit and enjoy the food. While I stuff a piece of pie into my mouth, Valene scoots behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders. “So, Kyle, how do you like it here with us…with me?” she asks, pulling me back into her lap.

  “To tell you the truth, besides almost dying three times today, it’s been the best time of my life. I don’t want it to end yet.”

  She looks at me, confused. “What are you saying? It won’t end. You and your sisters are part of this family, and don’t think that you’re getting rid of me that easily. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “It’s not that, I just meant—”

  She leans down and kisses me, silencing me. That intoxicating exchange of energies begins as our lips touch, making my head swim. The intense heat fills my body, then suddenly, I feel a cold spot. Her energy suddenly vanishes. I hit the ground, snapping back to reality to see that she’s gone. “Valene? Where’d you go?”

  Standing, my vision shifts from the sunny hillside to a dark room. My body feels like it’s being pulled in every direction, like in my dream when the Messenger walked through me, only it’s much more intense this time. It hurts. I close my eyes and grit my teeth, trying to bear it. Seconds later, the pain subsides. I open my eyes and see, not the hillside, but the darkened room.

  “Kyle,” Valene says, kneeling next to me, “get down, and don’t look him in the eye again.”

  I fall to one knee, looking at the ground. “Valene Kir, Kyle Ross, please excuse my sudden summoning, but I am in need of some assistance,” the Messenger explains.

  “How may we be of service?” Valene asks without hesitation.

  “We’ve been experiencing some setbacks when it comes to the summoning, and I need some young blood to assist me.”

  I can feel his eyes on me as he says that. “Of course, we are at your command.” I hate saying something I don’t mean, but I’m following Valene’s lead. It seems being agreeable will keep us alive.

  “Good, good. Now rise and look upon me.”

  We do so. It takes all my mental capacity to keep a straight face as I lay eyes on him. He looks just how he did in my dream, but I can smell him now. It’s straight rot. “What do you wish of us, Messenger?” Valene asks.

  “I require security. It would seem there is a rebel faction bent on thwarting our whole operation.” He snaps his fingers. A guy wearing burned jeans, no shirt, and a mask walks in holding a covered platter. The skin on his chest is severely burned down to the muscle. His breathing is long and labored, making it clear that he’s in agony with every step he takes. I recognize him. It’s Heavy. With a jolt, I realize something awful. The dream wasn’t a dream at all—it was real. Oh no.

  The closer he gets, the more my skin crawls. His breathing reminds me of that twisted thing struggling in the hallway of my old home; I shake the thought away. Heavy places the platter on the desk by the Messenger. “That’ll be all.” Heavy walks away, his head down, and I see a tear fall from the bottom of his mask. “Just recently, I apprehended one of their operatives trying to sabotage the summoning.”

  The Messenger takes the top off the platter. Leo’s head sits on it, bloody and horror stricken. I fight the bile creeping up my throat. Oh, Leo. In my peripheral, Valene is as cold as ice, unfazed by her cousin’s head before us. “This one was known as Magician. As you can see, he ran out of tricks,” he says, laughing. It’s hard to keep my cool and these tears from pouring, but with a long, deep breath, I manage. “I want you two to stand guard and prevent any further interruptions.” We nod in agreement. “Good. But first, I must know something.”

  “What is that?” Valene asks, her voice devoid of any feeling.

  The Messenger appears between the two of us, an orb of purple energy pointed right at me. My body tenses and goes into autopilot. A piece of my armor appears on my hand as I knock his hands upward, dispelling the orb aimed at me. I follow up with a spinning back kick that connects with his chest. He stumbles into a nearby wall. I get into a fighting stance. He eyes me with a look of surprise. “You have grown exponentially. I am impressed.” He rubs his chest, which I’m sure is caved in now underneath his clothing. “I dare say that hurt.”

  Over the course of this exchange, Valene hasn’t moved, which seems odd, since she’s made a habit of coming to my defense. Maybe this time, she was sure I could handle this on my own. With a glance in her direction, I realize that’s not it. She hasn’t taken her eyes off Leo. “Valene,” I say under my breath. She averts her eyes from Leo’s head and looks at me with a blank stare.

  “I need you two to be here tomorrow night at midnight, understood?”

  “Understood,” we say in unison.

  “Good, see you then. Dismissed.” He waves his hand. We bow, and the concrete floor morphs into the grass atop the hill. The sun is making its way down to the horizon.

  “Oh God, what just happened? Valene?”

  She takes a trembling breath. Her fists are clenched so tight that blood is dripping from her palms and knuckles. I take hold of her wrist, and she starts, meeting my concerned gaze. After another shaky breath, tears start to stream from her eyes. “We need to talk to Father. Come on.” She grabs my hand, and in an instant, we appear in her father’s study. “Father, we need to talk now!” she yells.

  Christopher appears in a burst of darkness, worry on his face and in his eyes. “What’s the matter, Princess?” She tells him everything that just happened with the Messenger, the summoning delay, his request, and Leo’s head. Chris sighs. “So, Leo was apprehended. I told him not to act so brashly. He was supposed to get in and get out.”

  “You’re a part of the rebel faction?” I ask, surprised.

  His expression is blank as he looks at me. I’m sure he’s mulling over what he can say, or whether to say anything at all. “Son, I am the rebellion.”

  “So, you’re Gaia?”

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nbsp; Chris is taken aback. “Kyle, how do you know that name?”

  I sigh. “This morning, I had a dream. I was there. I saw Leo. He was tied up, interrogated, and beaten. Apparently, he caused enough damage to delay this summoning or whatever, according to the Messenger. I tried to help, but couldn’t physically do anything, so he told me to tell Gaia that he failed.”

  Chris grabs a tuft of his hair as he lowers his head. “Message received. What else did you see?”

  “I saw the soul catalyst, intact, and the demon that betrayed you.”

  He looks up at me with cold, calculating eyes, and I can’t help but be afraid of him. “Son, do you have a name?”

  “Just a codename. Heavy.”

  Valene wipes her tears away. “Heavy? Connor? He’s Leo’s best friend. He wouldn’t.”

  “He did. He was there when we were summoned. The guy in the mask, with the crazy burns?” She nods her head. “That was him.”

  The temperature drops. A strong gust of wind flows from Valene as her energy manifests itself around her. “I’ll kill him.”

  “He may welcome it,” I tell her. Her energy disrupts and then vanishes. She looks at me, confused. “He asked the Messenger something odd. Pleaded, actually. ‘Please, can I die now? Living is such agony.’”

  Chris stands, walks over to me, and puts his huge hands on my shoulders. “Kyle, you can’t be a part of this,” he says fiercely.

  “Father, it can’t be helped. The Messenger knows Kyle’s face and name. He’s involved.”

  “No, I promised his sisters that he’d never be a part of this. I also won’t lose you two to the same monsters I lost my friends.”

  Wait. “What do you mean by that?” I ask him.

  He curses under his breath. “Don’t worry about it, just go to your room,” he says, walking away from me.

  The same monster? I think of how Heavy—Connor—was in so much pain. It wasn’t just from his burns, but from breathing, moving, and just living in general. The image of the twisted thing reaching out to me in my flashback or dream comes to mind. It had the same feel to it that I sensed about Connor: pure agony. “I remember the monster you’re talking about. It killed my parents. It tried to kill me. Is Connor the same thing?”

  Chris stops, sighs, and shakes his head. He runs his hands through his short, blond hair. “Monsters,” he says, emphasizing the S on the end. “There were two of them. Miraculously, you killed one, but the other got the drop on your parents. We still don’t know how they found your family or what they wanted, but they got it. It wasn’t until days later that we found that thing suffering in an alley. We tried to get it to talk, but all it said was, ‘Living is agony,’ and then destroyed its own heart.”

  “You knew?” I ask.

  He turns back to me. His soft, boyish features are hard and sharp like rock now. His eyes are glowing bright, cold and filled with rage. “Kyle, of course I knew. Your partners and my closest friends were killed in their own home. I moved the earth itself to find that thing, and it took its own life before I could.” The ground shakes, rattling the sets of standing armor, furniture, and books on the shelves. Chris looks around as the shaking intensifies. He closes his eyes, and with a deep breath, visibly relaxes. The shaking stops, and his features soften back to normal. “But now, I’ve got a lead on the one who has long been evading me. The Messenger. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you stand in the way of this chance.”

  I walk up to him and look him in the face. “You want revenge? Well, so do I. I still feel that thing’s heart throbbing in my hand at times, the blood.”

  Chris puts his hand on my head and pulls me into his chest. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I just don’t want you to suffer through this again.”

  “Well, like Valene said, I’m already involved.” I feel him growl. “And since he knows our names and faces, we wouldn’t be safe from being summoned again. So, what are we going to do?”

  Chris steps back and meets my gaze. As I look back, I feel myself being pulled into his stare, just like with the Messenger. The ground beneath my feet twists and heaves, sending me tumbling. As I roll down a rising mound of dirt and rubble, the ground opens to a sea of green that feels as natural as the fresh turned dirt. I come to, a little winded and wondering why I keep being pulled from reality like that.

  Chris looks surprised. “I see. Okay, you can help.”

  Talk about a one-eighty. What changed his mind?

  He pats me on the shoulder as he stands. “Thanks to Leo’s sacrifice we have been given time to prepare. That, and you two being asked to stand guard, puts us at an advantage to kill two birds with one stone.” Chris looks at me with an analyzing gaze. He motions for Valene to come over to us. “I know what I’m asking of you two is a lot. I’ve done my best to keep you out of this as well, Princess. I never thought sending you to the rally would have such consequences, but we’re here now.”

  “What’s the plan, Father?”

  “I’ll inform you later. Just know that you two will not be alone. I’ll be with you. Until then, I suggest you use the rest of today and tomorrow to prepare yourselves and say your goodbyes.”

  Goodbyes? This sounds like a life-or-death mission. Valene takes my hand and squeezes tight. “You ready, Hero?”

  I nod.

  Chris holds up his hand. “Kyle, I know your sisters, especially Mayra, aren’t going to like this news one bit. They will try to do as I have and forbid you from proceeding. You’ll have to convince them. Serena will listen to reason, but Mayra…she will not be so easily swayed. She truly can’t be a part of this. Her mere presence here on New Birth would reignite a feud long since passed. If she doesn’t see reason, say this exact phrase to her.” He bends down to me. “Drink long, and drink deep. Let the sound soothe you. Wild of heart, now calm of mind. Rest.”

  I nod in acknowledgement. Valene’s energy fills the air. We’re surrounded by darkness, and we shadow walk away, appearing in front of my house. “Valene, are you…?”

  She stands there for a second in silence until she drives her face into my chest and cries. “He was like an older brother to me. I hated him for a while because he lost something important to me. I wanted to hurt him, but nothing like this.”

  I hold her tight in my arms. “I’m sorry, Valene.” I let her cry against me a moment, then push her back. “Valene, his death will not be in vain. We’ll complete what he—” Listen to me trying to sound all heroic, when in fact, I’m scared out of my mind. The words get caught in my throat.

  She smiles sadly as she wipes away her tears. “Thank you, Kyle. All right, I’m off.”

  “Aren’t you going to come in and see Serena and Mayra?”

  “No. I don’t want to see their reaction when they hear of our mission and of Leo’s death, especially Mayra.” She gives me a kiss. “See you in two days.”

  “Valene, wait. I don’t know if this’ll help, but I did hear what kind of demon the Messenger is.”

  “That is helpful. What is he?”

  “Leo called him a Necros.”

  Her face scrunches up in disgust. “Sounds disgusting, but it really is helpful. I’ll tell Father. See you soon, Hero.” She vanishes, leaving me alone.

  Before going in, I stare at the door, thinking about Valene’s reaction to Leo’s death. If Mayra and Serena knew him just as well as Valene, then this is going to be difficult. With a sigh, I open the door.

  “Guys, I’m home!”

  Like usual, most of the lights are off throughout the house, save the kitchen and the living room beyond it. Someone’s home. As soon as I shut the door behind me, I sense a menacing presence at the top of the stairs. My body tenses as I step forward to get a better look up into the darkened space leading upstairs. Golden-green eyes pierce through the darkness, locking onto me. There’s a low growl as they shift lower to the ground. Before I can react the eyes blur, coming right at me. The panic in my body almost drives me to scream, but instead, I brace myself for a fight.
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  The eyes vanish just before reaching me. Moments go by, and nothing happens. “What the—” I drop my guard a bit. Something slams hard into my chest, driving me to the ground and onto my back.

  A black cat the size of a large dog stands on my chest and hisses. It leans in, baring its fangs at me. “Boo!” it says in my older sister’s voice. Two tails whip around, slapping me in the face. The cat steps off me, and I try to get a good look at it. It’s hard to focus on; its body is transitioning in and out of focus as if I’m seeing through the dark sight.

  “Mayra?! What the heck form is this?” I ask, sitting up.

  “This is a demonic breed of cat called a Mabi. There are legends of them here on New Birth.”

  I scoot up onto the bottom stair. “I didn’t know you could turn into different kinds of cats. What are you, some shape-shifting demon?”

  “All demons that can hold a human form are considered shape shifters. That’s about 80 percent of demonkind. It’s a little more than just throwing a name out there.”

  “Is it really that in-depth?”

  “Oh, you know nothing, little brother. About our culture, history, or how the masses are categorized based on their powers and abilities. But now that you’re home, we can get started.” She stops and looks at me for a second, her head cocked to the side in confusion. “Speaking of, why are you here? I didn’t think we’d see you at least until mid-July.”

  “I have some bad news. Where is Serena?”

  Her body shifts to her human form—completely naked, of course. “Watching TV. What happened?”

  “Come on.” As we walk through the kitchen, I grab a blanket out of the pantry—one of many scattered throughout the house now—and hand it to her. When I walk into the living room, Serena hops up from the couch and grabs me. “By the Creator, Kyle, you’re so buff now. I can even feel the power radiating from you. I’m impressed.” She looks at me with the same confusion as Mayra. “Why are you here?”

  I take her by the shoulders and ease her back down to the couch. Mayra sits next to Serena, her eyes filled with worry. “While at the rally, when I met Valene, we had a small confrontation with the Messenger.” Their eyes grow wide. “It wasn’t too crazy, but it got us noticed, got us some recognition.”