Into the Darkness (10 page)

The first monster entered the room.

It stood ten feet tall, like a Viking of old made out of rotten cheese, holding a flaming staff. It had no eyes, no nose, and for a mouth, a gaping hole filled with molten fire. As the first people from the house rushed it, the staff swept in a great arc, splitting two people in half as though they’d been made out of paper. The third person, holding a glowing red sword, a color to match the staff, blocked the sweep, causing a spray of red sparks from point of contact.

Another monster entered the room—it was the purple-eyed beast I saw earlier. And it was looking right at me!

“Run, Jared!” I hollered as that blossom in my chest rose, hearing a strange call in the air, and humming to join it.

I turned and pushed into Jared, like a kindergartner in a fire drill without a teacher to maintain order. I pushed him through the door, then dragged him behind me as I ran blindly,
knowing
those monsters entering the house were now looking for me. The word was out—whatever strange kind of thing I possessed, it was exactly the kind those monsters were looking for. Whether they were looking to extract or use, I had no idea, but I didn’t get a rosy, sparkly slippers kind of feeling from the beasts.

I twisted and turned until I found another secret entrance. The
only problem was, I was too rushed and freaked out to concentrate on how to open it! I closed my eyes and concentrated, a droplet of sweat working down my forehead.

“What are we doing?” Jared asked in hushed voice dripping with fear.

“
Shhhh!”
I put my fingertips to my temples, as if that would help. It didn’t. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to
will
that sixth sense to be more obvious.

No luck.

I was in the beginning stages of kicking the wall when I felt it. My blood froze. My tongue got thick and my muscles sluggish. Jared had stopped breathing all together.

I turned in trepidation.

Chapter Twelve

Three human-shaped beings stood in the room with us, monsters all, each more horrible than the last. One had purplish horns covering the length of its body, blackened skin like a log after the fire has burned away. Another oozed some sort of liquid onto the floor—green, but pus-like; it emitted a putrid smell. The last was easily the worst. Its enormous head nearly touching the ceiling looked like it was made of writhing, angry worms, reddish in color, like maggots feasting on a bloody carcass.

It dawned
on me that every monster I had seen had some sort of color attached to it. Each of those colors had existed in the swirling walls. These represented green, red, and purple. My knife was currently glowing a faint blue. That all meant something.

Since I didn’t know what
it meant, it didn’t help me now.

“Jared, get behind me,” I said in a shaking voice.

“What are you going to do?” Jared whispered, inching toward the wall.

“I haven’t gotten that far, yet. I’m terrible at strategy.”

My eyes darted throughout the room, looking for an exit, and finding three. The monsters blocked one. They were closer to another than we were, and we were backed against the third, unable to figure out its secret in order to use it. This was not looking good.

“Join us!” Puss Body said again, the horrible liquid creating a pool by its heinous clawed feet.

“I don’t even want to touch you, let alone join you!”

A body emerged slowly from the side exit, hesitantly, trying to sneak. I kept my eyes on the monsters, hoping it was friend and not more foe. Jared touched the small of my back, sharing hope through touch.

Jonas appeared, blade in hand glowing dull orange. His eyes swept the room, lingering on the monsters. His hand tightened on his blade and his body bent slowly, ready to spring. As a stray thought, his gaze finished the sweep, finding me standing in front of Jared, tired and sweaty, dagger held in a meager arm. His eyes squinted. An evil smile curled his lips. He winked, and then backed slowly out of the room.

He was leaving us here to die.

Jared’s hand started to shake.

The monsters advanced
. They were coming to claim me, no doubt intending to kill Jared. He would get the better end of the bargain.

Knife in hand, tears in my eyes, I crouched. I would not go down without a fight. I’d get at least one or two holes in them before they got me!

It felt like electricity filled room, like a lightning bolt right before it touched down. My scalp tingled and my body broke out in shivers. The reddish maggot infestation monster was chanting.

“That is probably not good, Sasha,” Jared
warned, flattening himself against the wall.

He was right. A strange reddish smoke shivered in front of us, wafting in our direction.

What the hell did I do about smoke? How the hell did you poke holes in smoke?

I took a big breath, willing calm. My dagger flickered brighter, the color greenish now.
Another breath. One more. The smoky circle came closer, within a few feet. The monsters advanced behind it, chanting something like a net into existence.

“Oh good, a net.
That’s not obvious or anything,” I muttered, hand tightening, warmth in my chest now pulsing through my limbs.

The cloud wafted closer. I struck, slashing at it with my now
-orangish knife. Where the blade passed, the smoke wilted like a flower, leaving the circle lopsided. I slashed again, and again, taking joy in the destruction of whatever the thing was, my hand moving faster than I would have ever thought possible, fueled by whatever warmth seeped from my chest.

“Sasha!” Jared
pointed, his arm next to my face.

As the last of the smoky thing wilted
and vanished, I looked up into the middle of the magical net, floating on its own.

Fear coursed through me. I didn’t live through this much of my life to go down like this. And I certainly owed Jared a helluva lot more than what he’d been subjected to in the last few days.

Fear turned to anger. Anger boiled into determination. Determination dribbled into my chest, giving that warm blossom new life. Fresh blood. More power!

It surged and bubbled, filling me up and exploding over. My body was simmering, past
joy, into an otherworldly plane. I reached farther, sucked in more. I pulled from the ground beneath me, from the walls surrounding me, from the charged air. I brought it in and lit it on fire.

As one of the monster’s swords reached past me to Jared, and the net drifted around my body
trying to capture me, I threw out my hands with one thing on my mind,
DIE!

From my palms materialized blackness darker than night, more potent than acid. It flashed through the net and into the beings. Rather than bouncing off like light, it soaked into them, filling up the holes in their design—because someone else’s design they were, like a constructed ni
ghtmare. The monsters exploded into wisps of air, like a dust bomb. Power shimmered in front of me, a nightmare vanishing with the dawn.

As the room cleared, my body wobbled, strength having left me with whatever I’d blasted from my palms. I fell to the ground in a limbless slide, already trying to shut off my brain from glowing knives, walking nightmares, and flashing palms.

“C’mon Sasha, we should go!” Jared whispered in a terrified voice, clutching my arm.

I staggered up, completely depleted. Everything was dark, objects in the room hard to see. We ambled along, Jared basically leading, until we got to a door standing wide open, screams drifting through like fog on the ocean.

“This is the way they brought me in. There is a parking lot beyond here,” Jared hissed, plucking at my arm.

“That is very useful information, Jared. I only wish you’d said something earlier.”

I lurched through the door, hitting the door jam and careening off, landing on my face in the dirt. Jared hoisted me back up, practically dragging me along, until we got to a car. I had no idea how he opened the door, but I do know he shoved me in right before I saw black.

*****

A blood curdling scream pierced the fight right before every
Dulcha
in sight
exploded, bursting outward like dirt clods, and then vanishing. The air electrified, as if great power had been unleashed in a wild, raw upsurge.

Warriors looked around, unsure
of what just happened or what might’ve caused it. Enemies stared at each other across their swords. Suddenly, they realized the scales had tipped. No longer was the aggressing party winning. It was universally known and seldom disputed that the Boss and his men could not be beaten when it came down strictly to sword work.

That
is what had the Eastern Territory running—fleeing down the street and out of sight.

“What the hell caused that, Boss?” Charles asked
with panting breath and bleeding arms, stepping up beside him as they watched grown males sprinting to their cars or down the street.

Stefan
shook his head. “I would’ve said their mage, but it was his creations that were destroyed.” He shook his head again, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the landscape. Small fires lit the grass and small shrubs. Bodies lay strewn in ragged clumps, skin slick with blood. This had been a grizzly battle with a lot of power—Stefan was afraid to count their losses. He lost good men tonight, not to mention friends.

“They’re
getting bold, now.” Stefan looked back out to the street where his best spell casters were trying to do damage control. This neighborhood was more oblivious than most, thanks to their constant spell working, but the magnitude of the fight would draw some notice, even with their thick charms. “We haven’t had an attack directly to our castle in…I don’t even remember a time.”

“Boss!”
Jameson sprinted up, winded and bloody. But alive. “The human police are on their way. I’m trying to clear the house, but it might be best if we get Luke.”

Luke was the best they had with pheromones. He was subtle but effective, easily able to navigate even the most difficult human.
Stefan wanted to pit him against Sasha and see if the male had some effect.

“Go to it,”
Stefan said with a nod, thoughts sticking to the pesky human that seemed to follow him like a bad smell.
Good
smell, actually—it turned him on something fierce. It didn’t change the fact that she seemed to turn up wherever he was, staring at him, bringing others toward his hiding places, and needing constant pushing to make sure she stayed gone. Only to find out she wasn’t gone at all. It was almost laughable. And would have been, if it had been somebody else’s problem.

He longed to be rid of her. She had a strange effect on him; he was aware of her, always. If she was anywhere close, he could identify her whereabouts without thought
. It were as if a cable connected them. He had no idea how to get rid of it, and now that they knew she could withstand their influence, and also had magic, things would only get more complicated.

He needed to figure out who he could pawn her off on.

He entered the house and groaned. The furniture was mostly in tatters, the walls coated with burn marks, and bodies littered the floor.

“How many have we lost?”
Stefan asked Charles, trying not to let his head slip downward or his voice waver. He couldn’t allow the others to see his weakness. He would mourn the losses on his own time.

Charles shook his head in small movements. “They’re being rounded up. What should we do with the enemy?”

“Put ‘em on a tarp in the front. If the E.T. want to come back for them, so be it. We will not stoop to their caliber of disgusting.”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Fetch the humans. I want to get them out of my hair.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Stefan bent to a body, realized it wasn’t one of his, and then froze. Not ten minutes ago he’d reflected that he knew when that blasted human was near. At the moment, she wasn’t. Which meant, she took off.

With the enemy.

The building shook with his anger, swirls of power called up in his rage. He did not tolerate spies.

Chapter Thirteen

“Sasha? Are you okay? Sasha?”

I opened my bleary eyes to Jared’s worried face. I raised my head a fraction, then immediately lowered it again, my cheek resting against my soft down comforter. The squashy material didn’t help my pounding headache. I moaned.

“Sasha?”

“I’m alive, Jared, please stop yelling in my ear.”

“Okay, but do we need to go to the hospital? You don’t look good.”

Knowing that Jared was prone to over-reacting, I closed my eyes again. “Aspirin.”

“Yup, sure, you got it!”

I sat up slowly, my head swimming in dizzy circles, to receive a glass of water and two white pills. After swallowing those down, I steadied myself against the nightstand. I felt like I had a fever. My skin was oversensitive, my forehead slick with sweat, and my body shivering with cold. Every muscle ached to the bone, my hands shook, and my head pounded. I also might…

I barely made it to the toilet.

Hanging with my head half a foot from my dinner, I sprawled out, still shivering, waiting for the next wave of…

“Do you want me to hold your hair?”

I waved Jared away as I dry heaved. After I finished, another feeling washed over me.

“Get out, quick!” I screamed, needing to swap ends.

As Jared sprinted from the bathroom, not arguing with the next wave of bodily fluid to pay homage to the porcelain god, I started a marathon of moaning. I felt like I was dying.

And if I wasn’t dying, I wanted to.

“Sasha, we gotta get outta here!” Jared screamed through the door.

“I can’t go far without creating a very messy trail of bread crumbs…”

“He’s here! That big one! He’s
here!”

Fear pierced my gut. It wasn’t the only thing. I definitely wasn’t moving.
“Who? Which guy?”

“The one they
are all scared of!”

I pushed the wind out of my lungs in a huge sigh of relief.
The Boss. Then I moaned, leaning against the wall in utter misery. Even if it had been Jonas, I wouldn’t be able to do much. I wouldn’t even be able to move off the toilet.

A horrible
bang
permeated the door to the bathroom, a follow-up chorus of wood splintering. Male shouting competed with my moans of agony. My vision wavered and my thoughts muddled. I was getting worse.

The door next to me burst open, the hinges cracking and frame splintering. I barely heard the thud even though I was three feet away, shivering on the toilet. The Boss stood over me, some sort of accusation on his lips, before his eyebrows dipped low over his
eyes.

“While this situation probably couldn’t get much worse, you are certainly making it ten times more awkward,” I slurred, barely able to keep my eyes open. My arms
hung loose at my sides, dragging my shoulders down like weights.

“What’
s happened?” He bent to me, opening my right eye with his big thumb and finger.

“Careful,” I warned, trying to pull my head away
.

I felt my head clutched in his mighty paw before
I, once again, lost consciousness.

“C’mon Sasha, take a sip. Just a sip, Sasha, c’mon.”

My head lolled across a large shoulder. I couldn’t feel my body. It was light outside, the sun’s rays filtered through heavy curtains, sprinkling my face.

“C’mon now, sweetie, drink a little.”

What felt like skin pressed against my lips, a warm liquid dripping into my
mouth. I tried to move away from the salty, metallic taste, but I had no strength. More of the substance oozed between my lips, my throat involuntarily gulping it down to clear it from choking me.

More dribbled into my mouth, filling it up, before I swallowed again.
And again. Warmth started to spread throughout my chest, making my limbs tingle.

“That’s enough,” a man’s voice said to my right. “She is unused to this. We don’t want her body to reject it. She’ll surely die, then.”

I knew a moment of panic before sleep gobbled me up.