Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (39 page)

“Paul!”
Sadie rushed forward and grabbed his arms.
Realizing
what he
’d
done, what he could have done, he dropped Tamara’s arms and backed away.

“You see?
Don’t you see?
L
ook at me!
Do you know what I could do to you?”

Tamara rubbed her arms, feeling b
ruises
already forming.

“Son,
dis
happ’n for a reason.
We
r
e
n’t my choice.
An’ ain’t my choice to end it for you, neither.
Would if I could.”

“What’d you do to Cain?
Something, I know.
You
’d never
let him rise
.
”

“Yo’ brother be tendin’ to
dat.”

“How?”

Tamara shook her head
and
Sadie answered.

“You takes a stake, a stake made out of sturdy wood, and you drives it through
de
heart.”

“You sent Joshua to do that?”

“Be his right,” pronounced Tamara.

“Well, what about
my
rights?
I
t’s done, it’s
over!
Now
you let me go
!”

Tamara shook her head.

“Cain be over, son.
But yo’ new life
,
dat
jest be startin’.”

“What the
hell
do you
mean
?”
Paul advanced on her again, menace in every step.
“This ain’t enough?
What the
hell
else do
your almighty
spirits of the
Light want?”

“
You, boy.
An’ dey got you.”

“No, dey
doan.”
Sadie stood and advanced on her sister.
“Dey doan
.
He right.
He done ‘nuff.
His choice.
An’ do he say he wants to be free, I do it.
My boys done ‘nuff.”

“Woman, look at you!
You jest
a
bout at
de
end of yo
’
last
thread already.
Think you can do
dat
to yo’ boy and stay sane?”

“
Dat doan matter.
I do whut my boys need.”

“Paul, she ca
n’t
do dat and survive
.
S
he think she doin’ you a service, but she ain’t.
‘Cause d
at
ain’t yo’ destiny.”

Paul paced the room, carefully staying away from Tamara lest his anger explode over her again.

“Then what is, goddamn it?
What is
?
Give me a reason I can’t sharpen my own stake!
You think after
the last two nights
I’d hesitate to fall on it myself?”

“Oh, God, son!” Tamara moved forward
and grabbed his arms
, her face a mask of horror.
“Doan
you even think such!
D
oan
you think it, you hear me?”

“Better than this.
Anything is.”

“No, it ain’t.
Son, de’
world
, it be ringed with
world
s—”

“Worlds on worlds.
So you keep saying.
No more, Tamara.
I can’t take anymore!”

“You think
you jest tuck yo
’
tail and run?
Prob’ly you even thinks Chloe be waitin’ on you.
Well, she won’t be, boy.
D
ey
a special world for folks whut takes it on dereselves to try and run away from
fate in
dis
one.
It be dark and lonesome, full of cold winds and dreary
lands where
dem fol
ks wander, never bein’ in
dis
world
no
r no ‘nother one.
An’
dey
wander all alone, never meetin’ even no other wandering spirit.
You think
dis
bad, boy?
You try
dat!
Try it for all eternity!”

Paul crossed to her fireplace and
sat heavily on the hearth. He dropped his head. No way out.

“Well, they just
got it all covered, don’t they?
Your precious spirits of the Light.”

“Son, I tol’
you.
D
ey
not mine.
D
ey
be parts of God, de one God.
Sometimes it seems lik’, an’ I doan know why,
de
Light, it got to use
de
powers of darkness to fight
de
dark.
“Dat’s what you did, you a child of
de
Light
dat
walks now
wid
de
powers of darkness.
An’ you not through yet.
It be on yo’ hand,
de
first time you come
see me.
You ‘member, I look at yo’ hand?”

Paul nodded.

Tamara sat next to him and picked up his palm, tracing lines with the tip of her finger.

“See here?
D
at
be yo’ life line.
An’ look here.”
She pointed to a spot on that line.
“It
doan
stop, ‘xactly, but it start to run under
de
skin, not on top, and it run on down.”
Her finger traced the path.
“It run all d
own here, and circle back ‘round
yo’ thumb.
Yo
’
path ain’t walked yet, boy.
You gots a long, long ways to go.
You is God’s own dark angel, son, and you ain’t goan be free ‘til he say you is.”

She
offered him the
glass jar a
gain. “Dere’s blood and
den dere’s blood.
You can do dis, son.
You walk yo’ own path.
A path of light an’
dark.
”

Paul raised his head and stared at the jar.
Then he reached out
and took it from her.
He shuddered. “To long life,” he said.
“Convey my appreciation to the spirits,
Tamara.”
He drained it.

Joshua burst through the door.

“
It’s done. Over. God, Paul, my fault, all my fault.”

Paul’s b
ody screamed to be out,
to
be on the hunt, but he was still human enough to feel the agony pouring out of his brother’s soul.

For the first time since his own transformation, he touched Joshua.
Controlling the new
instinct to feed on hot and flowing blo
od, he pulled him into his arms and
hugg
ed
him as
hard as he’d hugged
that long-ago night when
Joshua’s world had crashed and he’d sobbed on the backporch steps.

Paul looked over at Tamara and stared into her eyes.
She stared back.

“You want him to carry
dat, too, Paul?
To wake every day k
nowing
whu
t he done to Cain
w
u
s
done to you?
To dream
ever’ night of you
havin’ a
stake poundin’ through yo’ heart?”

Paul held
Joshua for a few more moments. T
hen he push
ed
him gently away.
He spread his arms and like a child with a new and dreadful toy, he
cas
t himself into
the
dark.

To Be Continued
….

The Color of Dusk

Chapter One

Outskirts of
Macon
,
Georgia
by
Stone
Creek
Swamp

A splayed skeleton lies on the floor of a cave uncovered by two teenage drug dealers retrieving their stash. A rotting wooden stake lies between the rib bones. A hand reaches out and pulls the stake. And from the dancing motes of dust, a giant of a man, coal-black, with shaved skull, resurrects himself.

“I’m aliiiiiiiiive!”

* * *

Housewarming Party, Historic District,
Macon
,
Georgia

Rising young attorney Ria Knight and her law partner renovate an old house on
Orange Street
into law offices and apartments. She retires to her apartment after the housewarming party and steps into a private theater wherein the house replays for her a past scene starring the original owners of the home, Dr. Paul Devlin and his wife Chloe. Originally built in 1883, it seems to have acquired new life in more ways than one. But it’s just the afterglow of the flowing alcohol imbibed at the housewarming party. Isn’t it?

* * *

Upscale subdivision in northern section of Macon, Georgia

Justin Dinardo, teenage private entrepreneur of the drug industry variety wakes in terror with a hand over his mouth. Mesmerizing eyes stare into his. A voice rumbles low, like distant thunder.

“My name be Cain. An’ my color be sebben.”

* * *

The house on
Orange Street

It isn’t the afterglow of flowing alcohol imbibed at a party. Ria’s house is talking to her. Introducing her. To the original master and mistress of the house: Dr. Paul Everett Devlin, his wife Chloe, and his entire household staff. The scenes are so vivid she has to know what happened to them. And finds they didn’t live happily ever-after. Chloe lies in a grave in
Rose
Arbor
Cemetery
with their stillborn child, a fatality of childbirth in the 1880s. Paul Devlin went west, to escape his grief. So why is he buried in
Rose
Arbor
Cemetery
in a separate mausoleum?

* * *

Bookstore at the local mall

Ria reaches upward for a book just out of her grasp.

A voice asks, “Which one are you after? I’ll be glad to get it for you.” A voice she knows. She hears it often. She turns, ready to face the truth squarely. She’s mentally ill. She has to be. Especially if she sees the man she expects to see. And yes, that’s exactly what she sees.

A man wearing an impossibly familiar face, holding out his hand. “I’m Paul. Paul Everett.”

Coincidence? Ria doesn’t believe in coincidence. But she enjoys the evening she spends with the chance companion she meets in the mall’s one remaining bookstore. The man who introduces himself as Paul Everett. The man who’s the twin of the man her house just can’t forget. So much so that she’s already planning her next evening. Even though the location’s going to be a bit different.