Dark Light of Mine (10 page)

Ryland approached the quaint house with its gray-stone chimney and a red-painted wooden door, the kind that curved at the top and had black-banded metal hinges.  The back yard, what little there was, curved sharply downward and into a wooded valley.  I remembered going on a bike ride with my family through here, years ago.  Or had it been something else?

A woman stands outside the house, speaking with Mom in a heated voice.  A young girl standing to the side of the house waves and smiles.  The air flickers.  Darkens.  A deep boom vibrates the air.  Wind whips against my tiny body, pulling it, dragging me toward a gaping black hole in the side of the house.  The front door slams in a blur of red.  A girl screams.  The door opens and a wave of green malevolent energy pours outside.  The door opens and shuts.  Opens and shuts.  Blood streaks down the sidewalk as if an invisible painter is dragging a brush.  The door is red.  The door is red.  The door is red.

Someone shook me.  Called my name from a long way away.  A sharp pain stung my cheek and I stared into silver eyes.

"Justin?  Are you okay?"

"Ryland?"

A young woman stood behind him, her blue eyes narrowed in concern.  "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know, he was fine a minute ago, and then he looked at your house and froze."

"I'm fine," I said, the fog in my brain lifting.  I looked at the injured female in my arms and was glad I hadn't toppled over during whatever the heck had just happened to me.

"Why were you saying, 'The door is red' over and over again?" Ryland asked.

"Uh, it's red, right?"  I looked at the red-painted door in front of me.  I glanced at the sidewalk and felt a stab of fear in my stomach. 
It was here.  I was here.

"Let's get her inside," the woman said.  "Hurry."

The woman looked oddly familiar.  So familiar, in fact, a name came into my head and I blurted it out.  "Meghan?"

Ryland's eyes widened.  "You know her?"

Her eyes flicked to me.  "He didn't know my name?"

"No."

I shrugged.  "You just look really familiar.  I don't know why."

She looked at me for a moment before motioning me to set Stacey down on a cot near the fireplace.  The inside of the house was open.  Only a few articles of furniture took up space, among them a leather couch against a wall, two cots, and a large wooden table which looked solid enough to support a car.  Light pastels colored the drywall and a set of stone stairs led up near the back.  I spotted a small kitchen to the right of the small foyer.

Meghan inspected Stacey's wounds for a moment before giving a grim shake of her head.  "I can't do anything for her."

My heart tightened painfully.  "What do you mean?"

"Was she a friend of yours?"

A knot formed in my throat at her use of past tense.  "Yes.  She
is
a friend."

Meghan put her hand over mine, her blue eyes sad.  "I'm so very sorry.  I suggest you say your goodbyes because she'll be dead very soon."

Chapter 9

I glared at Ryland.  "I thought you told me she could help!"  The sorrow gripping my throat turned to anger.  "We wasted all this time coming here and she's just giving up?"  I pressed a hand to Stacey's feverish brow.  The only other place I could think to take her was Shelton's.

"Why can't you help, Meghan?" Ryland asked.

"It's a hellhound bite, Ryland, and it's well past the point where I can clean the wounds and stop the infection from spreading."

"C'mon," he said.  "You've got to have a spell somewhere that can do the trick."

"You're a sorceress?" I asked.

"More or less."  She looked at Stacey.  "I'm an arcane healer."

"There's got to be some spell that can work."

"At this stage of the infection, all I can do is postpone the inevitable.  The only thing that would help is a willing…" Her voice trailed off and she shuddered.  "No, it's too late."

"A willing what?" I asked.  Good god, all she had to do was name it and I'd get it for her.  "Tell me, dammit.  Whatever you need I
will
find it."

"I doubt you'll be able to get this."

I resisted the urge to grab her and shake her.  Stacey moaned and cried out, her body arching in pain.  I braced her shoulders to keep her from falling off the cot.  Hot feverish flesh met mine.  Her face was pale, bloodless.  Dark yellow lines ran in her veins, looking ghastly against her skin.  A low moan rose in the back of her throat, and her hands curled and clenched so tight blood welled where her fingernails pierced the skin.

Tears burned in my eyes.  "Please, Meghan.  Tell me what you need."

She looked at me, her face soft with tenderness and regret.  "Spawn blood."

I smiled.  A hysterical laugh leapt from my mouth and did a jig.  "That's it?  That's all you need?"

She looked confused.  "Do you have some?"

I nodded and held out my wrist.  "I have all you need pumping right here."

Her eyes hardened as she backed away.  "Is this a joke?"

Ryland's lips pressed together tight.  "He's spawn, Meghan."

Fear blazed in Meghan's wide eyes to the point I thought she might pass out.  Instead, she whipped out a pale rod and said a word.  Pain tore through me as though my blood had turned to razors and was trying to slice its way free of my veins.  I fell to the floor writhing in blind agony.  My muscles locked and knotted so tight I couldn't breathe.  Gray clouds gathered at the edges of my vision, and my view of the gaily-colored rug on the floor faded.

Ryland shouted.  Meghan screamed back at him and then the pain abruptly vanished.  I lay panting on the floor, my muscles aching from the spasms as my eyesight returned along with the oxygen to my brain.  A yellow bird, one of many woven into the thick wool area rug underneath my face, gave me a cheerful look.  I pushed myself to my knees and gazed warily at Meghan.  Ryland had her wand in one hand and was saying something to her in a low voice, his tone fierce.

"Get it out of my house," Meghan shouted.  "Get it out of here!"

I walked over to her, my body flushed with warm endorphins after the excruciating agony flooding it the moment before.  "I'll leave after you heal my friend."

"Do it, Meghan," Ryland said, his voice soft.  "I promise you he's not like the others."

I dropped to my knees in front of her.  She recoiled, her face filled with loathing.  "Please help me," I said.  "Please."  I felt a tear trickle down my cheek.

She stared at my cheek, her eyes filled with confusion.  "It can cry?"

"Spawn can cry, sugah," Ryland said in his southern drawl.  "And you know my sense of smell.  I tell you that tear is as genuine as it gets."

She reached a cautious hand toward my face and stopped.  Then she went to a pouch at her side and retrieved a tiny corked vial.  Held it to my cheek and retrieved the tear, stoppering the tiny glass container and putting it back in her pouch. 
Women.  Crazy.  God love them, they're all insane.

"This procedure will not be painless," she said after a moment.  "In fact, you might die."  She gazed at Stacey's moaning form.  "This late in the infection will require a lot of blood."

I held out my wrist.  "Do what you need to do."  I gave Ryland a look.  "If something happens, will you…" I faltered as Elyssa's sweet smile and fierce violet eyes filled my thoughts.  "Please tell Elyssa I love her."

Ryland gripped my hand and stared at me.  "I will."

"Move that cot closer," Meghan said, pointing at the other cot across the room.

I did as she directed while she consulted a thin tablet computer with the picture of an orange on the back of it and gathered some surgical tools which looked more akin to torture devices.  My heart thudded as I lay down next to Stacey.

"Tie him down, Ryland," Meghan said, handing him thin silvery twine.

"I don't think that'll hold me," I said.  "And even if it did, this cot would give out first."

"You can't break diamond fiber."  She nodded at the cot.  "And it's made of the same material.  Do you think I'd be using flimsy garbage when I treat beings with such strength on a regular basis?"

I felt dumb, but that was nothing new.  "I don't know much yet.  I'm the new kid on the block."

A very tiny smile crept on her face until she seemed to realize it was there and replaced it with a grimace.  Ryland wrapped the diamond fiber tight around my chest, arms, and feet, touching the areas where he wanted it to knot and watching as the thin twine seemed to weld itself together.  I tested the bonds and found myself fully immobilized.  The urge to panic crested like a silent scream in the back of my throat but I beat it back, trying to calm myself by thinking of Elyssa.

"I can only put you in a light trance," Meghan said, pointing her wand at me.  "Anything more will make this harder than it needs to be."

I flinched reflexively as the wand pointed in my direction.  She said a word and peace settled over me.  Her face and the room around me dimmed to gray.  I blinked a few times and light returned to the world.  I stood in a bright green meadow.  Sheep bleated and tore grass from the fresh-smelling earth, chewing it while giving me somewhat indifferent looks.  A lamb, his wool snow white and fluffy, ran up to me, his cute little legs still wobbly.  He rubbed against my knee, bleating happily.

"Hey there, little guy," I said bending down and scratching his ears.

More lambs joined him, their adorable little fluffy bodies rubbing against my legs, like wooly cats.  A chirp sounded in my ear and I turned to see a bright yellow sparrow on my shoulder.  It cocked its head at me and warbled out a sweet song.  A group of squirrels ran to the end of a long tree limb and stopped a few feet from my nose, chittering and dancing with each other.  Pure joy lifted my heart and the tingle of magic sparkled in the air.  I opened my mouth to sing when a dark gray cloud blotted out the sun.

The lambs scattered, their bleats frightened and panicked.  The squirrels vanished into the tree, and the little bird flashed away in a streak of yellow.

A jagged bolt of white lightning stabbed from the cloud, nailing the bird in midair and reducing it to a puff of burnt feathers.  Another fork of lightning engulfed the large oak tree where the squirrels had gone.  It flashed into bright sickly green flames.  Blazing squirrels leapt from the tree, their tiny bodies sizzling and frying to a crisp as the air filled with the odor of burnt fur.

"No!" I yelled as I looked at the next targets of the malicious cloud.  "Leave the poor little lambs alone!"

Thunder rumbled like a mocking laugh and hundreds of tiny tongues of electrical energy stabbed earthward, toward the lambs.

I shouted a word.  It was one I had never heard before, sounding something like "Rathi-Da".  A sparkling wave of blue energy seemed to shoot from my mouth, its force drawing the jagged bolts of lightning like magnets.  It absorbed them all and settled into the earth in a shimmering sheet of azure electricity.

I stared for a moment wondering what in the hell I'd done.  Then it occurred to me to wonder where in the hell I was.  I didn't remember coming here.  This place wasn't familiar in the slightest.  I'd been helping Stacey and then—ah, that was it.  Meghan.  The trance.  I was asleep, sort of.  I glared up at the now oily-black cloud and extended my middle finger.

"My dream, my rules."  I willed the cloud to vanish but nothing happened.  Another noise caught my attention far into the distance.  I turned, but nothing was there.  A charge filled the air, the feel much different than the lightning.  My hair crackled with static.  My clothes stuck to my body.  Pinpricks touched me everywhere.

And then there was agony.

Every cell in my body seemed to erupt at once.  Shimmering red globules emerged from the pores on my skin, each one crackling and sparking like tiny red planets.  I screamed for what seemed an eternity, my body arching, bones cracking and popping with the strain.  My mind tried to blank out, but it couldn't.  Something held it awake.  The black cloud vanished, sucked away by some invisible vacuum cleaner.  The tree and green meadow went next along with the bodies of the unfortunate squirrels and the frightened sheep and lambs I'd saved from ghastly deaths.

A gray blankness settled in, coating my mindscape in a dull layer of fog.

"You filthy monster," Elyssa said, her blade pressed against my throat as she pinned my arms to the ground with her knees.  Blood trickled down my neck and all I could see was her tear-stained face and the starry sky of night to either side.

"Get it out of here," Leia said, appearing to Elyssa's left.

"Kill it," said Thomas, as he emerged from her right.

"I'll always love you, son," Mom said, appearing behind Thomas.  He grunted and stumbled forward before falling flat on his face, a bloody dagger protruding from his back.  Leia and Elyssa didn't seem to notice.  Mom pulled an intricately curved wand and touched it to Leia.  The flesh melted from her face and body like ice in a sauna, leaving a bloody red slush and a bleached skeleton standing where she'd been.

Mom came behind Elyssa, whose eyes were still locked onto me.

"No," I said.  "Mom, no, I love her.  Don't hurt her."

"We will stop them," Mom said.  "David, it's the only way."  She touched the wand to Elyssa.

I screamed as my true love's body exploded into flames, the heat searing my chest as she toppled onto me.  Blood and ashes filled my view.

I stood outside the door.  Outside the red door.  Red streaks ran down the sidewalk.  All the way to the street.  I spun and saw a woman.  Her legs were gone below the thigh, trailing bone and sinew and so much blood it painted the ground red.  I raced to her and knelt.

"What happened?  Where's mommy?"  I pressed a hand to my throat and found it smaller than it should be.  My hands were tiny.  What had happened to me?

"They must be stopped," she said.  "But the others don't want to stop them.  They don't want to…" Her blue eyes glazed over and the last bit of color drained from her face.  As the light of life left her eyes, the world faded to black around me.  I stood and stared as a plastic sword appeared in my hand.