DARK SOULS (Dark Souls Series) (18 page)

I’d rather die than take another soul
, I said to it, causing it to flare up within me. I felt its distaste for me, its pure, unadulterated scorn of me for being so pathetic.

In retaliation, my stomach cramped, almost as if it were collapsing within itself and taking all of my internal organs with it. I cried out again, unable to take the pain anymore.

“I have no idea about your reasons for being in this apartment, but we have got
to get you out of here.”

“Derek?” I tried to crack my eyes open and assess the owner of the voice.

“Yes Derek, unfortunately. There’s not many people I’d crawl up a fire escape for, I’ll tell you that. And into this place, no less. It reeks
of danger. How are you standing it?”

“How did you even find me? You marked me, too, didn’t you?” I squinted at him over the comforter. “You’re powerful, too.”

“Semantics,” he said, walking over to me.

“Just leave me alone,” I said. “Just let me fade away.”

“Oh hell no, little demon. I am not about to lose you just when you were starting to make my life a little interesting. You have got to snap out of this...this pool of pathetic self-loathing.”

“No,” I said, my voice muffled against the covers. “I won’t. I can’t take another life, Derek. I can’t.”

“Well, if you won’t do it, I am going to make
you do it.”

I was so, so cold. I sank deeper into the bed, pulling the comforter over my head, if only to trap the little body heat I had left.

“Now, now you delicate thing, you must get up. You must give yourself what your body is so desperately craving right now. Otherwise, you know what’s going to happen, don’t you?”

“Derek...I haven’t known what’s been happening for the past week,” I said through the comforter. “Everything is going so fast, I’m not keeping up with it. I’m not meant for this. I just want to be normal. For once in my life, I want to be normal.”

A wrenching sob cut through me as I finished my sentence, and my body sagged with it, that one sob taking the last of the energy I had. Unconsciousness began to envelop me again, the dark flame raging against my determination to just give in to my weakness, to just give in to my pain and fade away.

“This just will not do, Emily.”

I stirred under the murky blanket of unconsciousness enveloping my mind, surprised that he’d actually used my name. He never used my name.

“You are far too important to just slink away and die in some stranger’s apartment, surrounded by all this blue. Who uses this much blue, anyway? It’s as if a Smurf vomited all over the place.”

I felt pressure on the side of the bed as he sat down beside me. Even more surprisingly, I felt the pressure of his arm against the comforter above me as he laid his hand on my side.

“There is something about you, little demon. I know it must be important. We must see this through. I wouldn’t have wasted my time with you if I found you to be useless. You’re important to this world, Emily. Don’t give up so easily. Don’t try and escape just when it’s becoming difficult.”

Even through my dizzy fog, I felt the anger at him for thinking that I would just walk away when things got tough. I never
walked away. I stayed, even as my mother flashed a knife against my face. I stayed, shivering with fear in the bathtub as she stood over me, wondering if this would be the time when she would finally succeed in drowning me.

I didn’t stay out of fear. I stayed out of love, out of determination. I was strong. I was not weak. I would never, ever be weak.

With steely resolve coursing through my veins, forcing my body awake and bringing the pain back to the forefront, I pulled the comforter from my head.

“You realize, Derek, if I live through this, if I am forced to take another life, I will see to it that I eradicate your kind. I will eradicate
you,
” I said with as much contempt as I could muster.

His gaze never wavered from mine, his expression blank. “Darling demon, I don’t think you will.”

I gazed back at him, weak but stubborn. “I will destroy you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll try. And it won’t be defeat that will force you to stop. It will be your own choice.”

He sounded so sure about me. Even in the midst of the unknowing, in this fog of uncertainty surrounding who I was, what I was capable of, he sounded so sure about me and the choices I would be making.

If anything, I needed to fight this just to shove that kind of arrogance right back in his face.

“Help me up,” I said, suddenly cranky.

It was so tempting, with the dark flame beating heavily against my chest, to touch Derek, to burn him and send him to wherever I seemed to be sending the demons I touched.

But no
, I thought.
I still need him.

It shamed me more than I could ever admit that this was my first thought, that I didn’t consider the soul of the real Derek, the Derek who remained in that body of his somewhere, fighting, begging for release.

I was so ashamed of the truth. If it weren’t for my need of this demon and his knowledge about a species that had remained under the human radar for so long, I would have attacked him, eagerly taking the soul of human-Derek along with him.

I kept those thoughts to myself as Derek wrapped the comforter around me and lifted me up. I was still too cold to shed my warm cocoon, and much too weak to walk.

“I’ll carry you and we’ll find you a delicious soul to snack on,” he said as he held me and exited the way he came.

I barely felt his three-story jump from the windowsill as he landed elegantly in a dark alleyway, the smell of rotting garbage and the scrapes of rat-feet against asphalt immediately assaulting my senses.

“Take me to a demon. I know you can find them. I know that’s how you found me,” I said, burrowing my nose against his shirt.

If I had to feast on a human soul, at least I could send the demon inhabiting it wherever I seemed to be sending them. I hoped it was to eternal damnation, a fire-pit of fury buried deep within this earth.

“I can’t possibly do that,” Derek said. “I won’t be an accomplice to the disappearance of my own kind. I’ll simply place you back in the abandoned school and bring a human to you. It doesn’t look like you’re going to be able to fight another demon anyway, not in the state you’re in.” He began walking forward to the street.

I struggled feebly in his arms. “We do this my way, Derek, or not at all. And I know you need me. You’ve made that clear. So if you want me to live through this, you have to do it the way I want.”

Even I was surprised at the razor-sharpness of my voice. It wasn’t entirely me; I could sense that. In my weakened state, the dark flame had managed to come closer to the surface. It was becoming so difficult to keep it at bay that I had been gradually loosening my hold since Derek had entered the room.  The slow burn was creeping closer.

“Well aren’t you a testy little flower at the moment,” he said, unperturbed. “Currently, I’m the one walking. You’re going to do as I say, whether you like it or not.”

I breathed in deep, facing a choice. If I let the flame take over, right now, could I trust it not to go after Derek?

I need him
, I said to that dark place inside me.
Don’t hurt him yet. Kill him later.

The flame tickled the back of my head in assent.

For now...
it whispered, prickling down my body, waiting, anticipating.

“Derek,” I whispered softly, laying the side of my face against his chest.

“Yes, little one?”

“You’re going to want to let me go now.”

“What’s that?” he asked, only half-listening to me as he moved stealthily down the deserted alleyway, dodging spilled trash and other questionable piles.

I let the darkness ignite.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Derek paused at the silkiness of my voice and his grip on me slackened for just an instant.

That was enough.

I closed my eyes, accepting the flame for the third time and embracing the fire it lit underneath my skin, burning, coursing, revitalizing.

“Holy mother of Damos,” he cried as he dropped me, the burning heat of my body seeping through the comforter and through his clothes, the flames licking at his skin.

I landed deftly and faced him, my limbs on fire and glowing with power in the shadowed alleyway. My face was flushed and my lips swelled with the heat of it. I felt the fire within me release its energy, blowing through my hair and rising behind my eyes, piercing the demon within Derek.

I felt his fear. I felt him cower within the human’s body. Yet he couldn’t look away, and as soon as he met my eyes, his eyes dimmed, stupefied.

Not him
, I yelled over the raging firestorm within me.

The darkness inside me kept its promise. As Derek reflexively started walking towards me, I felt the flame react, my eyes flashing.

“
Not you
,” it commanded to him.

Derek blinked and took a step back. He blinked again, shaking himself out of my hold on him. Before he could utter one word, I turned and ran, honing in and locating the nearest demon within reach. For though the darkness was now in charge, my body was still deteriorating and wouldn’t last much longer.

I heard him behind me.

“
Emily!”
He called. “Emily, no!”

The dark flame ignored him, taking control and pushing my body into a run, becoming a blur to anyone I happened to pass by in the city streets. All they would feel was a soft wind, surprised maybe by such a warm wind on a cool late-autumn evening, but they would shrug and disregard it, thinking maybe it was just another random weather event.

My senses had already picked up a nearby demon. In fact, I sensed thousands of them. Derek was right; they were populating NYC at an increased rate. It wouldn’t be a problem finding one, but it would be a problem doing what I needed to do privately.

My head cocked to the side despite my rapid sprint throughout the lit city.
Perhaps it’s time I show you another trick
, the darkness whispered.

Please do
, I whispered back.

I found myself heading to Central Park, and I was initially confused. The park would be deserted at this time of night, with no demons in sight. What was there to feast on? Nothing but bare trees and cracked, decaying leaves. But with my darkness at the wheel, I had little control, and had to accept it. I was too weak, too starving, to do anything else.

Once I reached the park, I halted on Oak Bridge and turned, facing the line of trees that bordered the lake. Its simple iron and wood railings created three little arcs over the lake, and I heard the water streaming through underneath me, pushed forward by the wind. Leaves rustled above me, creating a wave of sound in this otherwise soundless escape in the heart of the city. I felt myself breathe deep, my body tingling with the cool air I inhaled even though the wild fire still raged within me. 

 “
You want to come to me,
” I whispered. My voice, though my own, sounded vastly unfamiliar.

The dark flame’s melody once again rode on my breath, traveling with the wind before finally settling on the ears of my next victim. I felt when it reached his ears, alerting him as he rustled, turned, and surrendered.

It was mere minutes before he appeared on the other side of the bridge. It was a man I didn’t recognize, a city cop who patrolled the closed park at night. I felt a sense of relief at that. I’d accepted the fact that when I let the darkness loose, there was a risk I could attack someone I knew, and I couldn’t help but sigh in deep relief at the stranger in front of me. 

He faced me and considered me an instant threat, because he immediately morphed his human host. He didn’t exit the body, and this gave me pause. I wondered why, but the darkness quickly dismissed my question as unimportant. His eyes grew larger, the brown murky depths starting to glow a dark purple. The beak of his nose grew larger, longer, sharper. It grew out and down, almost reaching the center of his chest before it formed a piercing blade at the end. His arms popped out of their sockets and grew long, his nails beginning to sharpen into those talons that I was becoming ever-so-familiar with.

His salt and pepper hair darkened and grew into long, greasy black strings, slinking down his back. Mutation completed, he had grown at least four more feet, and the human had already been more than six feet tall.

His transformation happened in mere seconds, but in my observant state, I drank him in slowly. Luckily, it wasn’t me in charge of my body, because I was utterly distracted by the disgusting sight in front of me.

My darkness had lured him here somehow, but there was no connection with him yet. He was angry, pulsing with tightly wound muscles, ready to leap at me.

The darkness seemed unconcerned, even in my weakened state. I know I could have immediately locked eyes with him and gotten this over with. But it seemed the darkness wanted to play.

My body walked forward, over the bridge, circling the demon as he breathed heavily and watched my movements. If he could move like Derek, I was worried he could sneak up behind me and stab me in the back with that awful looking nose-sword, a revolting weapon that was currently dripping what I could only guess was snot.

Still, my darkness remained indifferent. I was unprepared when my own body took a giant leap towards him, my arms extended and my muscles swelling and pulsing beneath my skin.

He saw me coming and jumped, rolling back into the trees and landing silently on his feet.

“
You are new, and you are stupid,
” he said, his words slurred and nasal.

He uncoiled himself and jumped towards me, his nose flashing silver in the moonlight and lancing at my face. I dodged it easily, but I could feel my heartbeat pounding out of my chest with fatigue. Sweat had already started dappling my brow.

Enough
, I told the dark flame.
There’s no time for this.

My lips smiled with amusement at my meager command. Instead of listening to my pleas, my body jumped forward at the same time it slinked down, sliding across wooden slats of the bridge and attempting to make contact with the demon’s leg and topple him to the ground.