Master of Miasma (The Valhalla Series)

Copyright  2013 author Poppet

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.

All characters and places appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Foreward

Do you remember when you were little and the dark was a source of anxiety?

Do you recall how steep the fall was to get out of bed, the way you'd stretch your toes until it felt like the joints would pop as you fearfully felt around for the reassuring solid floor of your bedroom?

How you had to turn your back on those shadows and for those horrific seconds your back was turned sweat would prickle a sticky footprint on your spine right between your shoulder blades as you slid to get both feet on the floor, your pj's riding up and smothering you?

Then you'd snap back around and face the darkness with your heart hammering, your hands shaking, your legs wobbly with terror.

The dark was a doorway into another world. A realm of giants and occult horrors that would claw their way out of your reptilian brain and curdle the clammy sweat in your little hands because once you faced them you were too afraid to move.

But the need to pee was so fierce and you knew you'd get the belt if you didn't go to the bathroom, but you're frozen in place while the certainty that those shadows are holding their arms out to catch you almost made you pee yourself right there, and you'd make the most courageous decision of your entire life, you'd run with all your heart right into the chasm of the doorway, a scream waiting on your lips while you go deaf with the thundering gongs of the blood in your ears.

You'd turbo by memory, too short to reach the light switch, too far away from the sanctuary of bed, and scoot into the bathroom, barely sitting on the toilet before you pee more from panic and the loosening of bowel muscles than because you need to urinate, now that your entire body is shivering with horror.

All you see are dark walking shadows dancing down from the ceiling and flinging their wispy limbs across your path, blocking the doorway again and daring you to breach their defenses without being sucked into their world of everlasting gloom.

Watching them with wide eyes every pore in your body is rigid, your jaw clamped so tight to stop the clatter as you strain to listen, feeling on a soul deep level that if you scream no one can save you in time. You'll be gone before dad can flick on the lamp next to the bed. He's snoring and you are juddering with every grate of his sawing inhalations because you can see the shadows are annoyed by the cacophony in their realm of absolute silence.

They demand reverence. They lurk their tall shapes over you, burrowing anger and malice into your heart because they are not shown the respect of hallowed silence. They curl in bulbous ripples as if demanding to know why you're out of bed, their discipline ready to deliver the moment you move.

You are on the precipice of tears because you're whimpering in short bursts of air, feeling without looking for the toilet paper because now you're so freaked out you refuse to take your vigilant stare off them, knowing the second you look away it's all over for you.

You're a few short years away from learning that crime loves the dark, rapists love the dark, the shadowlands are a dangerous outpost for pain and disfiguring abuse.

You always knew, you
felt
, the shadows lurking in the dark were real entities with their own agenda.

What if... you were right?

Chapter 1

Whispers. He whispers and I can hear the velvet baritone while stuck in the domination of his compelling gaze. Closing my eyes, lightheaded, I grip my drink tighter, wishing the condensation could be sucked through my skin to ice my flaming heart.

“Emma,” murmurs across the crowded room again.

It's irresistible, scarring my soul with every syllable, clawing into my mind to lay parasites which feed on my coherence, demolishing my willpower.

My knees clench together because my thighs are weakened by the persistent voice, my resistance dissolving as easily as my focus.

I look away.

“Emma,” curls sweetly through the shadows to lick my earlobe again. It's insistent, seductive, a warm sanctum in a ruthless world.

Sagging brokenly against the pillar I grow tired of watching feet scuff the floor, stomping broken glass and cigarette butts, all while the magnetism summons me to look back at the tall darkness behind the next pillar.

My stomach is shuddering, my muscles quivering, my breath shattered, but I find the strength to meet the charisma lurking beyond me. Dragging my hazed vision up, smearing my view with the morphing gloom of the den, I swallow thickly at the power emanating from him, unable to think as long as he holds my gaze.

I'm so pathetic I'm ground up, sucked in, regurgitated and sampled inside a moment, sliding vacantly down the pillar at my back to bang hard glass on my kneecap.

The beer in my hand falls forward over my knee, down my shin, rolling away in an unnerving clatter of rattled clink. Someone striding kicks the bottle loud enough to ping a hollow knell to applaud my submission to the secret who stares, the magi who knows my name, the man who's siphoning my life out of my eyes so he can knot his vice into my veins.

The discarded shell that has become my body is lethargic and flaccid. My muscles refuse to twitch, to move, I'm depleted of all strength, left to wince in wounded surprise when a boot heel grinds into my fingers in the careless chaos of patrons flirting with satanic darkness. The pillar and the stance of my arms are the only thing keeping me sitting up right now. My hand throbs, pulsating singeing pain up my arm.

I'm aware of this all while staring wide-eyed at the paranormal commander who holds me captive through some arcane divinity. He doesn't blink, advancing with speedy stealth, dispersing light off his body as if he has an aura which is a repellent for unwanted attention.

The darkness slips to the side of my supporting column and knees bend to balance either side of my breasts. A gloved hand nicks my chin up, harnessing my mind with the spiritual cord of bondage. “Emma.”

My heart is rupturing, my womb constricting, my logic bleeding out to be muddied by the damned. The puddle of my identity is smudged in the moshing to death metal, the thrashing floor vibrating up my wrists, pounding viciously under my tush in endless slaps of discipline.

This close I can see his eyes are not identical. Black contact lenses ringed in unholy amber cannot disguise one eye is lighter than the other.

The contact's look like rings of fire crowding the night.

An arm slides around my waist, hauling me up and holding me close; the tension so welcome. It's the strength I lack. It's guidance to the lost. It's salvation to a homeless soul. It's the host to a symbiot.

“You stare, but do not answer.”

He says it as a statement, and I wonder exactly what his motivation is for choosing me from this hall of the Fallen Fraternity.

I do not answer because you do not ask, you take. You do not request, you command. I have no dignity in the siege of your desire.

“
Ah little Em, how do you know so much?”

I know nothing compared to you. You rape my mind while holding my life in your palm, you torch my aorta to burden my body with carnal captivation, and violate my sanctity with your stare.

“We are leaving.”

I have no voice but the husky coo which purrs out the back of my throat in response. I cannot agree to leave or argue to stay. I am an animal in a cage, desperate to be stroked, cuddled, my ability to speak defunct because I am paralyzed by fascination.

What I want is no longer relevant.

The master of miasma cradles me, stepping back into a  shadow, vanquishing any intervention with his rapid getaway down a covert corridor. The possessive hold crunching my body to a hard chest communicates that from this moment on there is no going back.

Is a willful prisoner still a prisoner? Is it okay to be simultaneously petrified and enchanted? Will anyone miss me when they notice I'm gone?

For a split-second I have communion with worry, then discard it just as quickly knowing that destiny requires no justification or excuse.

I have left the church of scarred souls who sway in worship to the gods of metal, to instead kneel in devout adoration to deformed darkness. It reigns long and is an equal monarch to the planet. It holds the scrolls of misdeeds and elopers, bootleggers and murderers, but it is branded with propaganda. The night might hide illicit activities but it also the time of passion, of calm; peace is found in the pillow between twilight and daybreak.

The new day breaks through transcendental quiet. It's a violent act which shatters tranquility with ceaseless activity and cacophony. Night might hide the heartless, but day is when the scourge walk tall and proud in their condescending glory.

I love the dark, it is my friend, not my enemy.

I didn't know I was atrophying inside until this moment: When this magnificent
magi
smuggles me from the crypt and escapes with me into the night of Yule's full moon, clutching me like a purse of stolen silver to offer on his altar.

Lulled by the rocking of his inhalations, swaying me in his arms I rest my weary head over his heart, wishing he'd whisper my name again. The solid rhythm beating so loud is reassuring and calming. Washed with the scent of leaves crisped by fire drake colors, the air crackles with imminent danger, with the ripe moon and the breeze reaching to finger cold ice across the landscape.

Snow is coming but I am already in the arms of winter, and he smells erotic and clandestine. He has the scent of wilderness and the cologne of moonlight on an equatorial lagoon. He smells feral, free, exciting.

Concentrating while I'm jolted by his speedy sojourn into the night, I breathe him in, inhaling balmy skin, iron resolution, power and desire. He is a season of emotions caught in a body which is ready for reaping. He smells like a bonfire on a cold night, comforting and cozy, clad in the incense of earthy spiciness, like that of an evergreen forest rich with mulch and firs.

He's the Frost moon come too soon.

Chapter 2

Keeping my eyelids open grows too much of a strain. His presence saps me of all energy, that or I'm hibernating to change into a werewolf for the full moon or something, but I lose awareness after an eternity of him traversing the tall spires which make up the Boreal forest of my native Quebec.

It's a good place to hide a lair. Or to hide period, as it's over three million square kilometers and is the biggest dense coniferous wildwood comprised of mostly spruce on the planet. It's unchartered, without roads, without nosy people, undeveloped... it's the final refuge of the rejected and primeval.

I followed Guy here, to the settlement of the chosen. We come here regularly for the underground club, for the lifestyle, for the privacy, for the lack of interference where we could find solace with kindred spirits who live to rebel against conformity, who crave the heartbeat of cathartic exorcism found in music and pack mentality.

Despite what outsiders think the men are good to their women, they don't live in fear with guns and bibles, or drink themselves into comas every weekend, and they are not evil just because they wear ink and leather. They are free. They are happy.

I longed to be both and found a semblance of it here until Guy disappeared. I come back every weekend hoping he'll reappear in our secret den of the brotherhood, founded by the Fallen Fraternity. We are a human faction of angels without wings, we accept without judging, we protect our own kind against the gossiping accusers who think they are elite somehow.