Stirring Embers: An urban fantasy action adventure (The Light and the Void Book 1)

by Willem Killian

  She knew from experience that the incisions would be on both inner thighs. Dave ICK, as he called himself, would have made deep cuts through the femoral arteries.

  She cursed herself again for not having her scarf. She could have used it as a tourniquet for at least one leg. She threw her winter coat to the side, took off her jersey and started binding little David's right leg with it when he opened his eyes.

  Eleanor woke up sweating and trembling. It took her a second or two to realize where she was, safe in her parent's house. The bad dream started to fade as she gave a wan smile. This was her house now. Her parents had retired down to Florida's warmer climate and thanks to Dad's clever investments, they were able to live comfortably.

  The thought of her parents always warmed her from the night chills. As an only child, they had always doted on her, but that wasn't why she loved them. Eleanor loved them for their unconditional love and unyielding support.

  She shook her head and sat up. It was still dark outside. She considered getting some water but settled for the bathroom instead.

  She wasn't supposed to be getting these nightmares anymore. The monster was dead. And she had moved on. It was three years later. Her life had taken on a semblance of normality again. New (but old and comfortable and familiar) home, new job, real friends.

  Months of counseling hadn't helped and so she had quit her job and her life in the city, and moved back here to a more peaceful and rural existence in her old hometown. And it helped. It really did. She didn't find herself glancing over her shoulder in town, or being distrustful of people she met. She climbed out of her shell and socialized with old school friends. She even managed to make new ones.

  If it wasn't for the nightmares, life would have been perfect.

  She flushed the toilet and wished for the bad dreams to go the same way as the swirling water in the bowl. She got back in bed, wondered briefly about the pros and cons of getting a dog or cat as company and then fell asleep.

  The dream seemed to have continued in her absence. It was a few frames past where she had found little David Cronin. ICK was there this time and he had fallen into a monologue that had been absent in real-life.

  “Made you famous, didn't I?” the monster said with a sneer.

  He looked down at her as she cradled the dead child. Why children? she wondered in a seething rage.

  “I made you,” he said in a soft voice, devoid of any emotion.

  The words came out flat, without any feeling, without cadence, lilt or pitch.

  Flat.

  Emotionless.

  Dead.

  It mirrored David ICK's eyes. Even when he smiled, his eyes were dead, showing no emotional connection.

  “And despite this Eleanor. Instead of thanking me, you went on to berate me. To belittle me.”

  A newspaper appeared in his hand. It was the front page of Newsday that caught her eye. It was the second piece she did on him, a week after finding little Markus Engbright.

  “Allow me to quote you,” he said, shoving the newspaper in her direction.

  He dropped it on David's upturned face, cutting off the child's accusatory stare. Eleanor was thankful for that, until blood started to seep through the newspaper from below. There shouldn't have been any blood there, but dreams didn't make sense, did they? They also weren't hundred percent accurate when it came to replaying actual events.

  No matter, she shrugged as she removed the bloody rag and threw it to the side. David's clean face and empty eyes stared at her again. It’s okay, she thought as she cradled him closer.

  This was her penance.

  David Samuel Sterling, the Ice Cream Killer (a name she hated, by-the-way and given to him by a rival newspaper who first published an article about him), was still rambling on.

  “...coward. Spineless. Abomination. A true monster preyeing on the truly innocent.”

  Another newspaper had appeared in his hand. This one, another piece. The one that cemented her credentials as one of the best and brightest. There had even been talks of a Pulitzer.

  “...you even played psychiatrist at one stage and offered reasons why I was this sick. And why I needed to be put down like a rabid dog. Why society should not tolerate monsters like me.”

  ICK looked angry. As if he was about to foam from the mouth and attack her, ripping her throat out with his teeth. Eleanor would welcome it. Instead, he laughed and threw the paper at her. As expected, it landed on the child's face and she had to repeat the process as the paper started to bleed.

  The psychopath's giggle was creepy as hell. Goosebumps erupted on dream-Eleanor's forearms. ICK's laughter was as dead as he was. It was as if the actual ICK was laughing at her from beyond the grave and death had added a darker undertone to his usual demented merriment.

  “Brilliant!” He said and clapped his contractor's rough hands. “That's what I like about you Eleanor! Even when I started leaving notes in your apartment. You never backed down. You didn't show fear. Instead, you heckled me, called me out. Called me a coward.”

  He tapped his forehead with a forefinger. His nails were surprisingly clean and well-manicured.

  “Clever,” he winked. “Trying to work me up into a frenzy and then hoping I'd make a mistake. Was that your idea or Detective Dan's?”

  She surprised herself when her mouth moved. “I call them like I see them,” she said defiantly.

  ICK uttered another eerie little laugh that sounded almost like a witch's cackle.

  “That you do, Eleanor. That you do. And that is why I love you. That is why the world loves you.”

  The scene changed and they were atop the viewing deck of the Empire State building. It was a clear day and you could see for miles.

  Little David Cronin had disappeared.

  Eleanor was no longer cradling him and she felt a pang of sorrow and loss.

  Now she was standing next to ICK. She looked from the breathtaking view to him and took a step back in shock. He had changed into a dark thing, made of swirling shadows, but still somehow holding on to his human form. He seemed to grow in size and towered over her, his eyes turning a baleful orange, like that of a predator.

  Eleanor was surprised when her teenage neighbor Rosewater, and her best friend, Charlene, appeared at her side and took her hands. They formed a line in front of the thing. They stood their ground. Eleanor had the impression they were encased in a protective armor of warm light.

  ICK's features melted into the shadowy mass he had become. Only the orange eyes remained. Shadows seemed to reach out to them. Then they were claws, then tentacles, then pincers. Eleanor was never afraid. With her young friends at her side, she felt invincible. The three of them together, standing up to this thing felt right. Like it was destiny. The dream had taken on a much bigger meaning. It was suddenly a thing of substance. Almost like a premonition, but more intense. More real. As if it were a done deal, cast in stone, predetermined by Fate.

  “I'm coming Eleanor,” it said in a gravelly voice. “I'm coming for all of you.”

  It swept a claw, tentacle, pincer, across the breadth of the vista before them, turned and flew off the building, being swept away like a ragged paper caught in the wind.

  Eleanor opened her eyes. She was already sitting bolt upright in bed. There was no cold sweat this time as light filtered in through her bedroom windows. Instead, she was filled with a strange steely determination. She was convinced that something big was about to happen.

  A part of her scoffed at the idea. If anything, she was a realist, not a dreamer. As a researcher for a famous crime novelist, and an ex-crime reporter herself, she dabbled in facts, not fiction. She had never been one to give credence to the supernatural. She didn't believe in premonitions, visions, fortune-telling, horoscopes. It was all hocus-pocus to her.

  And yet, throughout her morning routine of light cardio in the living room, followed by breakfast and a few hours of research, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had had a premonition of things to come.


  CHAPTER 2

  Not many creatures of the Void dared the sunlight. Most couldn't survive it.

  He was different, though. He hadn't been born in the Dark of the Void as had his brethren. Unlike them, he had been born in the light as an álvur, a Protector of the Light. This was why he would be able to survive in the sunshine. Because of his past. A past he now loathed and chose to forget.

  A hand with sharp claws reached up from the depths of The Pit. It was covered in hard, almost metal-like scales. It was black in color, and the skin seemed to have an oily substance to it that projected different bursts of color off it. The same effect an oil slick would have on a clear expanse of water as sunlight was reflected.

  The hand raised as if it belonged to an undead thing, rising from its crypt. In many ways, this was an unholy rebirth. He was being ejected from the Dark into the Light. An unnatural thing that had been so grotesquely changed from what he had been three centuries before, that he was now unrecognizable. Even his parents wouldn't be able to see him for what he once had been.

  The talon started to smoke and was retracted back into the gloomy mist of the Void. The dark creature inspected his hand. There was no pain. Just a slight tingle as the damaged skin already started to repair itself. He was satisfied that the sunlight will not be able to harm him to the same extent that it could inflict pain and even death to others from the Void.

  He wondered for just the briefest of moments how the beiier would fare in the world above. He didn't worry for its well-being, but rather how its death would affect him and his mission.

  The beiier was a very useful accomplice. As far as he could tell, it wasn't very intelligent, but it was an incredible spy. It was able to make itself all but invisible, to become a shadow within a shadow, and then record all it sensed and relay the experience in exact detail to its master later. It was almost as if the beiier was able to transport its master back in time with it, and show the master exactly what it had seen, heard, and smelled during that time. It felt like being there yourself. And therefore, the beiier was essential to the mission. It could be his eyes and ears when he couldn't possibly spy on someone. The beiier could get into any stronghold unnoticed and unhindered. It could even bring back small objects if needed with its grotesque single tentacle.

  The beiier was an ugly creature, even by Void standards. When it wasn't cloaked in a permanent shadowy cloud, it was a squat, box-like, floating thing of dark purple. It was about the size of a melon, although square in shape, with a single eye that could move across its body. Urøk had seen its eye move once and it had made him feel queasy. It was like watching a snail slowly slide down a block of snot. It was disgusting to see in its natural state.

  To round off its natural ugliness, the beiier had three protruding stalks for ears and four wet slits for noses. It also had a retractable arm-like tentacle, which was covered in sharp, pointy scales. It used this tentacle to establish a mental link with its master and to steal small objects when needed.

  Right now though, the beiier was a problem. The dark creature didn't know how he was going to travel with the creature during the day. And they couldn't wait until nightfall in Edínu. There was a very real chance that another apex predator within the Void might happen upon them and hunt them.

  There were bigger and nastier and hungrier things in the Void than him.

  The beiier would have to wait here until he returned with a satchel or some cloth or something with which to cover the thing. It wouldn't survive long within the sunlight, so there was no option but to leave it behind. As a true shadow creature, it might be able to hide well enough within the Void's darkness. It could float as well, so that was an added bonus.

  He relayed his order to the beiier and then put the thing from his mind.

  This was a momentous occasion that he wanted to savor.

  He was about to become something new. The moment you pass through the threshold from Dark to Light was usually the time reserved for births or renewals. This would be a combination of the two. This would be a rebirth. The third birth during his lifetime, and certainly the most important. He was about to emerge from this primordial ooze of eternal dusk and death into a world of Light and almost perpetual peace. From his adopted home back into the world of old.

  A world he now loathed with all his being. He had once enjoyed a sense of purpose and fulfillment, joy, laughter and even love in Edínu. Now, as a svartálvur and no longer an álvur, he could never again enjoy those feelings. He could now only experience rage, hatred, loathing, jealousy and envy.

  Rage against the Creator for allowing this to have happened to him. Hatred at all things that lived, especially himself. There was a deep-seated loathing for all things living that coursed through his veins. The irony of this wasn't lost upon him.

  He also harbored jealousy and envy at those who had stayed behind on Edínu and who had forgotten his álvur name, Eíríc.

  He smirked at the remembrance of his old name. Eíríc was dead. One day, as soon as he was finished with the human race, so would his kindred be. He was going to kill them all.

  He lifted himself up and over the precipice and entered a land vital with life.

  His rebirth was complete. From out of the dark tendrils and swirls of the Void, a monstrous shadow emerged. Urøk the Korgon was born.

  Within seconds, the twin suns of Edínu stung his eyes and made them weep. He hated the stars for making him appear weak. He hated everything about Edínu, the center of the universe. When looking up at the periwinkle sky and seeing the millions of galaxies above him, Urøk felt a moment of intense vertigo, as if the entire cosmos was pushing down upon him. He shifted his gaze down to his feet and once the nausea passed, he looked up. The light was intensely bright and his blurring 320-degree view showed him a vista of greenery as far as he could see. The Void was behind him, and underfoot was a rocky ledge.

  He looked back at the Void and wondered for the millionth time about its origins. It was a black ocean that encircled the lands of Edínu. It stretched out to the horizon. At his feet, it hugged the rocky edge that was Edínu. Not far from the ledge, the rolling grassland started. It was pock marked by many boulders this close to the edge, but petered out towards the green hills that seemed to stretch towards the other horizon.

  Urøk jumped up and started to make his way away from the Void, towards the border signaled by the line of standing stones. There was always a Guardian Stone within sight of the Void. This one was almost in a straight line from where Urøk had been reborn. When the rocky ledge disappeared, he jumped from rock to rock. For his muscular and armored bulk, he was light-footed when he wanted to be, but he didn't want to leave any telltale tracks of his progress. There was a light dew on the grass and it would leave a clear trail if viewed from the air.

  And so, his first order of business after being reborn, was to concentrate on making his way towards the stone Sentinel without leaving a trace of his passing. In the beginning it was easy. This close to the Void, the surface was very much rock and the going wasn’t difficult. A few seconds into his trek, he had to start skipping and jumping between boulders. Pretty soon, the rocks petered out and he had to stop to plan his approach to the standing stone. There wasn't a direct line to the stone, but a childhood game of hop-stop eventually brought him to it. He was loath to touch it and steered clear, looking for the small dirt track that would be beyond the stone. There was always a path near the stone Sentinels and he was relieved when this belief held true. His new goal identified, Urøk made his way towards the dirt track, running parallel to the Guardian Stone. He was a few yards from the standing stone and the moment of truth had arrived.

  Creatures from the Void were not able to cross this invisible barrier created by the ring of Sentinels around Edínu. They were the first, and in many cases the only defense against the Void and its army of monsters. No one knew where the Sentinels had come from, or how long these standing stones had been standing guard, but that didn't detract from their
effectiveness against creatures born of the Void.

  As an ex-álvur, he shouldn't have any issues crossing this threshold. He hesitated nonetheless. If he couldn't pass, then that would effectively condemn him to an eternity inside the Void. Hunting. Being hunted. His sole purpose then being survival.

  GO

  The command came unexpected and had Urøk reeling for balance on top of the rock he was standing. It was his Master's voice. The Dark One himself. Urøk felt a chill pass through him. It was scary how easy it was for the Adversary to enter his thoughts and communicate with him. He always came without warning, nearly tearing Urøk's mind in two with its sudden forcefulness.

  Urøk didn't waste time to think or even question the command. He merely reacted and passed through the borderline between these two worlds that existed on the same plane. He passed through without as much as a tingle. His álvur ancestry seemed to have done the trick.

  Perhaps I am not all monster.

  FULFILL YOUR MISSION

  There was a sucking sensation inside his head as the Overlord broke the mental link. Urøk saw a crow drop from the sky. It was dead. That was how the Master had been watching him.

  Without knowing he had kept his breath, Urøk exhaled stale, toxic air into the lands of the álvur. His breath was yellow and noxious, even to himself. He looked at his smoking hands, noticing the small blisters form, and pop and reform on his skin as if it were bubbling. Perhaps it was. There was no pain though. It was nothing more than an itch. His body and mind had learned how to deal with pain a long time ago.

  He noticed three wild flowers, growing besides the dirt path he was standing on. Their beauty had an unexpected reaction within him. These were the first true things of beauty he had seen in three centuries. Urøk looked at them and unbidden, he vomited. His dark bile immediately turned the flowers into burnt, black, decimated things. The smell was terrible.