Into the Darkness

by Michael Clement

Brynn shook me with one hand, as she clutched her now screaming daughter with the other.

  “We need to get out of here,” she shouted.

  Then, my wife stopped talking. Slowly, she raised her free hand up into the air, staring at it in horror.

  My green blood dripped off of her fingers. It’s one thing to know that your husband is a half-blood. It is something else entirely when his green blood is dripping off your fingers. Suddenly, I wondered if she would run away, leaving me to survive on my own.

  My chest began to hurt, forcing me to focus on the hex marks. The poison was strong. It was taking all of magic’s power to destroy it. Blister’s magic sank deeper into the ground, drawing on the life inside of the dirt. Bugs, leeches, and grubs were snuffed out as it ate their life.

  I could feel it trying to take Brynn and Abigail’s essence. The magic wanted to eat her, as well.

  Groaning, I fought the spell, making it eat anything, but them. The dark circle around me, widened, and grew. Nothing would grow within it for years to come, if not longer.

  Blister had been a terrible teacher. If he taught me healing spells, I wouldn’t need to kill the earth, or someone else, to heal myself. But, like many mages, he didn’t care where his power came from, or who it hurt. Destroying some ground, and the creatures inside of it didn’t matter to him. Not at all.

  “Shit,” Brynn hissed with a groan, unhinged by the color of my blood. On the outside, I looked human. It was my insides that were vastly different. Justin was my half-brother. He didn’t have a drop of Goblin blood in him, but I thought that he had told Brynn what I was. My brother was always worried that I would eat him.

  But, maybe he hadn’t.

  Dammit.

  That wouldn’t be a happy surprise for her. Most women of the Light didn’t want a dirty Darkside baby in their womb.

  The pain in my chest began to subside, as Gavin swam into my vision as well. He was bleeding from a nasty head wound.

  “We need to leave,” he said with a grunt, as he bent down and picked me up like I was a sack of potatoes. “The crowd will return soon, and lynch you for sure.”

  Gavin carried me to my wife’s wagon. He lifted me up and threw me in the back. I landed with a thud, not even sure anymore which way was up. My head was still spinning.

  I felt the Conestoga lurch and sway, and then it began moving… fast.

  A box shifted, and Brynn’s possessions collapsed on top of me.

  Something hard hit my skull, and then… I slipped into unconsciousness.

  --M--

  “Bazal?” Brynn said, sounding unsure if she should wake me.

  My eyes fluttered open. I was alive, I realized. Somehow, Blister’s magic had saved me.

  “No,” Brynn said, as I looked at her. “I saved you.”

  “Can you hear my thoughts?” I murmured, confused.

  Brynn shrugged. “A little,” she said. “You’re not the only one with family secrets.”

  I was starting to get that. More people were a mixture of the new races than anyone thought. After the Darkness fell, a lot of people did what they had to do to survive. If a monster was willing to protect you, in exchange for sex… we’ll then sex was a fair trade.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  I slowly sat up and looked around. I could see out of the back of the wagon. It was sitting on the edge of a quiet dirt road.

  “I’m so sorry,” Brynn said. Her face was blotchy with tears and stress. I reached up and moved her hair away from her ear. It was a mess, flying up all over her face.

  But, she had never looked more beautiful to me.

  “You didn’t leave me,” I said.

  Brynn scowled at me, first in confusion, then in irritation.

  “Because you have Goblin blood?” she growled.

  I nodded.

  “You are an idiot,” she exclaimed before she lowered her voice. No one wanted to wake up Abigail.

  “No,” she said, “I didn’t know about your family’s past. Justin never talked about them.”

  That surprised me. But, then I realized why he hadn’t told her about my heritage.

  “He was ashamed.”

  I wasn’t. They were my kin. And, Goblins were a lot more upfront about how they felt about things. They didn’t mouse around like humans did. If they didn’t like you, then killing you was okay. And, if they were attracted to each other, then fucking in a corner was good too.

  And, in a Goblin’s eyes, clan loyalty was everything. They might pick and fight with each other, but when danger came, they banded together. A Goblin would never leave his mate and child behind, in order to fuck another woman.

  He would just have fucked her, and then either moved on or married her as well.

  “Because Goblins eat people?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.

  I nodded. Hiding the truth wasn’t how I was going to start this marriage.

  “I don’t eat people, anymore,” I admitted.

  “But, you have.”

  I nodded.

  “I grew up in the Dark. My mother left my father for Justin’s human dad.”

  “Why wasn’t he a half-breed then?” she asked.

  I winced.

  I hated that term, almost as much as I hated the racial slur, Hob.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, unsure of how to address my parentage, I guess.

  “Mom was a human that Dad captured in a raid,” I told her. “Normally, he ate his captives, but there was something about her… that made him keep her instead.”

  It was her tits.

  I didn’t tell my wife that though.

  Mom was loaded in the cleavage department.

  And, she had fiery red hair. Goblins liked redheads.

  It reminded them of blood.

  - 10 -

  “What now?” I asked Brynn as I sat up.

  I was feeling pretty good, almost like I hadn’t been poisoned at all.

  Brynn was a powerful healer.

  I just wasn’t sure why, or how. And, I didn’t know why Brynn hadn’t used those skills to become financially independent or help me earlier.

  “The church hates Basilisks,” she said.

  I looked at her in shock.

  She might as well have said, “I’m a monster. Surprise”

  Brynn opened her mouth and leaned back. Behind her eye teeth, were little fangs. Opening her jaw wider than a human typically could, I saw them slip out and down.

  Holy fuck.

  Brynn slid her fangs back up and in. Then she closed her mouth.

  Reaching over, my wife touched my left shoulder. Glancing at it, I saw a bandage.

  But it didn’t hurt.

  “You bit me?”

  Brynn nodded.

  Then, she said. “Basilisk bites can either heal poison or cause death with their fangs.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, freaked out. It was one thing to be a Goblin. But, it was another to be a monster who could kill with either a bite…

  Or a glance.

  Holy shit.

  My wife could literally turn me into stone if she got mad enough.

  “Did Justin know?”

  Brynn shook her head.

  Then, I glanced at Abigail.

  “She is like me.”

  Oh.

  Huhn.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” I asked, wondering if Abigail’s tantrums would stone me as well.

  “Not if I keep biting you,” Brynn answered. “My venom will help you build up an immunity to Abigail’s gaze.”

  Lovely.

  Weekly--or daily--love bites that actually hurt.

  That was going to suck.

  “By the time Abigail is venomous, or capable of casting a glare, you will be safe.”

  Outside, I heard the distinct sound of a man peeing. Immediately, I reached for my knife... which was gone.

  Dammit.

  “Relax,” Brynn said, “it’s Gavin.”

  The peeing sound ended, and then
I heard a zip.

  “What is he doing here?” I grumbled as the big man climbed up onto the driver’s seat, making the wagon tip to the left.

  “Get up,” I heard him yell at the Kwon Dragon.

  Brynn sighed.

  “He’s my father’s retainer,” she finally admitted. “When I left Ashmouth, father sent him to keep an eye on me and to guide me home when I was ready.”

  “Why am I just learning this now?”

  “It wasn’t important earlier, and then during the riot, it wasn’t a good time to sit down and tell you.”

  I still didn’t like it. Brynn had way too many secrets.

  The front curtain that divided the interior of the wagon from the driver slid open a little. “Send your man up here, so we can talk,” Gavin demanded.

  “Was Mary one of his retainers also?”

  Brynn shook her head.

  “She was a local wizard’s widow who I thought would be a good second wife, because of her power level.”

  Before I could point out how stupid that was, Brynn added. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you had Goblin blood, or that she was a member of the Fallen.”

  “Can we at least talk, before you pick out another woman for me to sleep with?”

  Brynn blushed and nodded.

  But, I suspected that Brynn enjoying planning her life out, dozens of steps in advance. And, she seemed to be the sort who always had a backup plan.

  Suddenly, my wife leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “I was scared,” she whispered. I could feel her hand trembling.

  “Thank you for healing me,” I said, feeling a bit out of my depth. I had no idea how to be married, especially to a woman I barely knew.

  She smiled and nodded as I got up and made my way to the driver’s bench on the front of the wagon.

  - 11 -

  The road ahead of us was not the warded path from Savannah to Augusta. Instead, it was an old US highway that was mostly covered in water, as the swamp on our right drifted over it.

  An old, rusty sign proclaimed it highway seventeen.

  Shit.

  “Why the fuck are you headed towards Charleston?” I hissed.

  In front of me, darkness bloomed on the horizon. It swirled and flowed like smoke blotting out the sky under it. We were only a few minutes away from leaving the land where the Mages of Savannah kept the eternal darkness that covered the world at bay.

  Gavin chuckled.

  “The caravan is heading up highway eighty to Statesboro,” he explained. “The city guards will swarm that area, looking for you, since you killed Mary.”

  He let that sink in.

  “Going to Augusta is now out of the question. So, instead, we will travel to Charleston and take the Whitehaven Express to Ashmouth.”

  “No,” I said, immediately refusing to accept his plans.

  Gavin glanced at me out of the corner of his one remaining eye.

  Then, he turned and spat out a stream of nasty, tobacco chew.

  “We are taking the Whitehaven to Ashmouth,” he reiterated. “It is the fastest and safest mode of ground transportation.”

  “It is covered in spiders and Shadar,” I snapped. “They charge blood money, much more than any of us have, to use it.”

  “I will cover the expenses,” Gavin said. “Or, to be exact, Brynn’s father will.”

  I opened my mouth to fight with him, but he growled, “It is the safest path to Ashmouth, stop being a stubborn fool.”

  I shut my mouth and fumed.

  Then, I took a different path.

  “Seventeen travels all along the Tissay Bog,” I pointed out. “No one travels seventeen anymore because of the Hags of Cailleach.

  Gavin snorted, even though I pronounced the name correctly, Kal-lay-ah, instead of Kal-Leach. Though... leach.... would have been an excellent definition for a Hag.

  “Fairy tales,” he chortled as he spat out another stream of tobacco.

  But, I knew that he was wrong.

  “The Cailleach are dangerous, Gavin,” I warned. “And, they will enact a terrible tole on us for traveling seventeen.”

  Gavin rolled his eyes.

  “Have you ever seen a Cailleach?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer. Gavin was wrong. The Hags, also called The White Ladies, were real. I just hoped that we wouldn’t run into them. Thankfully, I could see that Gavin was prepared for trouble. A repeating rifle sat in a sheath attached to the inside of the wagon. And, he had covered the outside of the Conestoga with dragon’s skin. That would keep any light or heat inside the wagon from being sensed outside.

  The termination of the lands of the mages was approaching. I could see the area where the light began to be blotted out. It was about a mile wide, and the patch reminded me of dusk. The heat of the land felt like it was being sucked away. A cold chill drifted out of the wall of darkness, covering both of us in a cold mist.

  “Go in the back and fuck your woman,” he ordered. “When her father meets you, you better smell like Brynn’s pussy, or he’ll take her away from you.”

  That pissed me off, in more ways than one. But, I knew that Gavin was right. Her father was an Archmage. If he thought that he could divorce his daughter from a Goblin, then he’d do it in a heartbeat.

  Annoyed, I climbed into the back of the wagon.

  Brynn was asleep, and so was the baby.

  But, she had left a spot for me, right next to her.

  And, my grimoire was sitting next to the bunk. The quarters were tight, but the thought of Brynn plastered up next to me made me so excited that I forgot how annoyed I was with Gavin.

  I took off my shirt and laid down next to her. Brynn was so tired that she was snoring softly. Something about that sound touched something deep inside of me, something human. Goblins didn’t find snoring, adorable.

  But I did.

  The other goblins had always told me that I was too human.

  Maybe they were right.

  Brynn shifted when I laid down next to her. Suddenly, a sleeping woman was lying with her head on my shoulder, and her arm lay on my chest.

  I froze.

  Fuck.

  It felt so good. I should have been studying, but when I held Brynn… Dark Lady, it felt so good. I leaned into her, smelling her scent, as she started snoring again. Her body shifted again and pressed harder into me.

  Her breasts felt so soft against my side. I wanted to slip out from under her, yank off her nightgown, and then fuck her from behind, making her scream with painful pleasure.

  But, instead, I sat still and just absorbed how it felt to hold her.

  - 12 -

  I startled awake in the darkness when Abigail began crying. My vision had shifted from my mother’s human heritage of colors to my father’s vision of black and white. Only body heat revealed any colors to a Goblin’s eyes.

  We had entered the Darkness.

  It felt like a living, breathing, predator made of black ebony had just swallowed us whole. And, the restrictions of the mage’s light slipped away. In my head, I heard the drumbeat of dark magic awaken. Evil was always the most powerful… in the night.

  Brynn groaned and sat up, rubbing her eyes.

  Her unbound breasts were full and warm in my darkness. I could see the heat radiating off of her skin. Even with Abigail fussing, her mother drew me like a moth to a flame.

  Then Brynn opened her eyes.

  Her golden eyes.

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  In the Darkness, Brynn’s eyes looked like a snake’s. The pupil had even morphed and shifted so that they were vertical slits, instead of circles. Her Basilisk heritage was unmistakable outside of man’s light.

  Brynn stilled.

  “Does it… disgust you?” she asked.

  I pulled her against me and kissed her, enjoying the softness of her skin and breasts, as I pulled her tight against me.