Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition)

Dark
Series

by

Gail Roughton

ISBN:
978-1-77145-038-6

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Books We Love Ltd.

Chestermere, Alberta

Canada

http://bookswelove.net

Copyright 2012 by Gail Roughton

Cover art by Michelle Lee Copyright 2012

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The Color of Seven

Chapter
One

Twin dirt bikes tore through the night, shattering the stillness of the woods. The riders couldn’t ride fast enough to escape the vision chasing them.
The vision of the skeleton sprawled across the cave floor, the rotting stake lying against its rib bones. Or of the resurrection begun when they’d pulled the stake from its resting place.

Back in the cave, that resurrection accelerated.
Arms and legs rippled with muscle. The rib cage re-fleshed itself as the face re-formed. The
skeleton moved its arms and worked its mouth. A croak issued from newly formed vocal cords. A shout split the
dark
.

“I’m alive!”

The echoes bounced off the cave walls as the figure inched forward and stood. The man, a coal black giant with shaved skull and massive shoulders
,
tore off
the rags clinging to his new flesh and stood naked in the night. His new body raged with thirst. He sniffed the air and caught the scent of prey.

The man didn’t know where he was, though he knew where he’d been
. He knew
who
’d
drained his body of life-sustaining blood and buried him in the cave. He didn’t know how much time had passed but it didn’t matter. If he was alive again, then his nemesis, that interfering highfalutin
g
white doctor, th
e
recipient of the dark powers he himself had
unleashed
—he was somewhere near as well. And by all the dark
g
ods, he would find him. But first, he must have blood. He sniffed the air.
He
didn’t care
if the prey was animal or human. He must hunt. He must stalk and capture, bite and tear. And drink. And drink. And drink.

He stood, naked under the moonglow, and revel
ed
in his rebirth.

“
I’m aliiiiiiiiive
!
” he shouted again
. H
is laughter
rushed out over the woods and moved on further, filling the deepest reaches of the swamp. Night fishermen, tending their lines along Stone Creek, stopped dead in their tracks and shivered. The night noises of the frogs and crickets ceased.
No hoot-owl or whippoorwill sent forth
its
distinctive call
s
. Even the swamp snakes
ceased to slither. The heartbeat of the woods and swamp stopped. It took a remarkably long time for it to resume.

* * *

The house on Orange Street sat and waited
.

While it waited, i
t remembered the glory of its early years
. It felt
unloved and unwanted
as it
sulked within the narrow boundaries of its city lot, pouting in the humid haze of the July heat.

The gracious two-story brick
had been such a happy house. In its past life,
its rooms
were
open and airy, painted in light colors, with golden woodwork and scrolled mantles over the fireplaces.
A fitting haven for the golden couple who laughed within its walls.

The succession of owners hadn’t been kind to the house. They’d partitioned its interior into apartments and later into offices, allowing it to slide into shabby disrepair. Its
spacious rooms were now small
and dark,
the gl
owing
woodwork raped by paint. The hardwood floors lay hidden beneath
cheap
carpet
. The
ceilings looked down on the walls and floors and sighed.

Still, the house hoped. Perhaps it had absorbed into its bricks and boards the optimism and vitality of the young doctor who’d been its first master.

A
‘
For Sale
’
sign stood in the front yard. Maybe someone special would walk through its front door and
see it not as it was, but as it had been, as it could be again.
Maybe even today.

And as the house sat lonely under the blazing sun, a car pulled up and parked at its curb. A young man got out of the car and slapped another notice over the
‘
For Sale
’
sign.
He stepped back to survey his handiwork.

‘
Sold.
’

* * *

Sunset streaked in lines of purple and crimson over the horizon. It faded into streamers of rose and mauve
before dying away
into
full dark.

Deep in the
woods
near Stone Creek, the
giant em
erged from the
cave
in the side of the hill. He stood, tall and still naked, and sniffed the air. His bare chest and upper arms were roadmaps of dried blood from the prior night’s frenzied feeding
, his hand
reddish-brown
.
His animal intelligence knew there were things he must investigate.
He didn’t know
exactly where he was
. H
e assumed he was still
near Macon, Georgia,
the city he’d chosen for his last and greatest victory. He didn’t know what amount of time had passed since the hated white man snatched triumph from his waiting grasp.

H
e felt stirrings of the dark powers he’d first explored the prior night
when
he’d
cast himself out in
the night, disincorporating into a whirlwind of swirling molecules, coming together again into solid form by the power of his thoughts. Now, removed from the red mist of his urgent hunt for blood, he remembered the night of his defeat
, his
enemy’s strength, th
e relentless attacks
, no moment spared for the actual act of moving from one point to another.
Now he understood.

H
e stood, upraised nostrils quivering to catch the scent of blood
.
He gave his body a mental push and disappeared into the thick
trees.
Every
living wood creature went on high alert,
fully
aware
o
f the new
predator who
appeared and disappeared
silently with no warning.

The hours of the hunt flew by
.
He
looked up at the moon, then back at the body of the wild dog he was holding in his hands. He tossed the carcass casually into the pile of fur that only an hour before had roamed through the undergrowth in a large pack.

He laughed. His bloodlust
lingered as a dull echo.
He sensed that echo would never fully die away, no matter how much blood he guzzled
. But
for tonight, he’d had enough, which was as good as a feast. There were matters
to be tended
to
, things to be considered.

He sent his swirling essence into the air and returned to his lair, where he sat in cogitation for some half-hour. The woodlife, sensing the cessation of th
e
active hunt, gradually resumed some measure of
normality.

First, he needed to be sure he was still where he thought he was, somewhere on the fringes of the city. Then he
needed to check
how much time had passed in dark limbo.
A very long time, he was sure.
During the course of his hunt strange noises off in the distance reminded him of the rushing sound of a locomotive, but he knew that wasn’t it, exactly.

He needed an acolyte
. S
omeone to introduce him to
this new world.
An acolyte to follow him blindly and serve him devotedly, do all things needful and necessary to
be done to ensure his continued
well-being.

Struck by a sudden idea, he got up and paced off the clearing in measured strides. Someone else had been here last night.
Someone had uncovered the cave and pulled the rotting wood from his rib cage. He sniffed and came to point.

Two.
There’d been two. One of the scents
, though faint, still gave
off the pleasing a
roma of terror. The other scent
,
much stronger
, was the
scent of anot
her predator leaving its spoor.
Its
strong smell of fear mingled with something else, something broadcasting simultaneous strength and weakness, flavored with a hint of madness. He smiled. Even a human should be able to track this spoor.
And he was anything but.