Embrace of Darkness

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “They’re cannibals,” I said, my stomach dropping into my boots.

  “We’ve got a bigger problem,” she said, turning the torch light so it pointed in the direction we were heading in.

  “Seriously, a bigger problem than cannibal trolls?”

  “Think about it,” she said, “these are supposed to be solitary creatures and yet when you walked the scene there were two trolls involved in the attack.”

  “Right,” I said, struggling to keep up with the speed at which her mind jumped from one idea to the next. “It could be a mother and son, that wouldn’t exactly be unheard of. I mean even Grendel lived with his mom.”

  “But you’re holding the skull of a male troll in her hands,” she said, “an adolescent one at that. I could buy a mother and son living together but not more than one male. They’re far too territorial and the women are the same...”

  “You think there are more,” I said, my voice hushed as I stared down at the fleshless skull in my hands.

  “And if I’m right,” she said, “we’re seriously out of our depth.”

  “We need to go back,” I said, “call in SWAT.”

  She hesitated. “You know Jon isn’t going to agree to it,” she said.

  “Then we won’t tell him. We’ll tell Jason and Nic and let them deal with the logistics but if you’re right, Victoria, then we need to get the hell out of here...”

  She held her hand up in a gesture of silence, her eyes trained on something further along in the tunnel that only she could see.

  I strained to listen but whatever she could hear was lost on me. Faster reflexes and the ability to take more damage than I could and still keep fighting weren’t the only advantages Victoria had as a changeling. Heightened senses was another and it was an ability I’d wished I’d had on more than one occasion. And this was definitely one of those occasions.

  “What do you hear?”

  She cocked her head to the side as though listening to music only she could hear.

  “It’s not much farther but they already know we’re here,” she said, her lips set in a grim line as she stared off into the darkness.

  “Great, so surprise is out of the question,” I said, with as much false brightness as I could push into my voice.

  “Surprise was never an option with trolls,” she said with a disappointed shake of her head.

  She held a wide mouthed evidence bag out towards me and I dropped the skull inside, the mud smearing along the clear plastic making the contents difficult to make out.

  Victoria was already on her back down the tunnel in the direction we’d come in. Ripping off the gloves, I fished a second pair out from my pocket and dragged them on before striding after Victoria. She moved faster than I did and I practically had to run to try and keep up with her.

  “Why are you here?” A voice called out from the darkness of the tunnel directly behind me. Victoria came to a sudden halt and I brought myself up short to stop from running into her back.

  The gravelly voice was painfully familiar and a fragment of memory popped into my head. The trolls who had taken Steve, it sounded suspiciously like troll number two. The one who had chased Jessie.

  “Why are you here?” The voice demanded again and this time it came from everywhere and nowhere, making me think the tunnel was larger than I’d first believed it to be.

  “What can you tell us about the human remains we found at the mouth of your lair?” I said, letting my voice carry into the void.

  “Storms wash all sorts of debris down her, we’re a peaceful group.” Her use of the plural caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand to attention. Victoria was obviously correct and we had just stumbled into a god damned nest.

  “We have no wish to bring the wrath of Faerie down on our heads.” The disembodied voice added.

  I shot a questioning look in Victoria’s direction but her expression was blank and unreadable. Typical, trust her to chose now to get secretive about the methods the fae employed to keep their wayward citizens in check.

  “We’re not from Faerie,” I said, “my name is Amber Morgan. I’m an Elite Officer and I’d much rather have this discussion face to face.” I waited as the silence slowly rippled back in around me.

  Victoria’s body had gone statue still and I found myself holding my breath. What exactly was I waiting for?

  I wasn’t sure but it certainly wasn’t the stooped, emaciated creature that appeared at the edge of Victoria’s torchlight. It was the same troll I’d seen when I’d walked the scene and up close and personal as we were in the small confined space of the tunnel, I could tell it was a female.

  The woman, if I could even call her that, had long grey hair that hung over her face like a curtain, keeping her face almost entirely hidden from view. Her frame was as I remembered it, skeletal, the skin hanging from her bones as though there was nothing beneath to keep it properly attached.

  She lifted her face, her cheeks hollow and gaunt. She watched me with sunken eyes, the epitome of pitiful but in her eyes I could see lurking there an intelligence that told me not to trust everything at face value. Appearances after all could be deceiving and I knew looking at the troll before me that I was in the presence of a cunning predator.

  “The light hurts my eyes,” she said, raising one skeletal arm to shield her eyes. Her voice was even more grating and hoarse in person, making it sound as though she didn’t use it very often. And maybe she didn’t. Trolls weren’t exactly big talkers and no matter how many of them down here with her, there was no saying how long it had been since she last conversed with another intelligent being.

  “Tough,” Victoria said, distaste dripping from her voice and she kept the torch light steadily trained on the creature in front of her.

  “I came out here because you asked to speak face to face and this is how you treat those who would cooperate?”

  “What can you tell me about this?” I asked, lifting the evidence bag with the human jawbone inside it.

  “Nothing, I’ve never seen it before. As I said, many things get washed down here. You humans are terribly wasteful, throwing away things that should be protected,” she sighed. “Some of the things are interesting but I don’t take note of them all. I don’t have the time.”

  “What’s your name?” It seemed the direct approach wasn’t going to work and if we were to get out of here unscathed then I needed to find another angle that might put her on our side, instead of making her our enemy.

  “Something your human tongue couldn’t wrap itself around,” she said, and this time there was no mistaking the look in her eyes.

  This was all nothing more than a distraction. She was standing between us and the exit... A delaying tactic for whatever else they had planned for us.

  I took a small imperceptible step back. The space was too confined for a gun, too high a chance of a ricochet and I didn’t fancy taking a stray bullet while fighting a troll. I gave myself a little more room between Victoria and I, if I had to draw my machete, I didn’t want to hit her with the blade accidentally.

  “Victoria, we need to go,” I said, keeping my gaze trained on the woman in front of me.

  “It’s one troll,” she said. “This one I could take with my eyes closed.”

  “You were right the first time,” I said. “It’s a nest and this...” I glanced down at the muddy ground. Just how many of them were down here?

  Every bit of evidence we had, said that trolls were solitary. At the very most they could tolerate living in pairs, usually mother and son but even that was rare.

  “It’s a nest,” I said.

  “We don’t live in nests,” the female troll said, her eyes narrowing in my direction.

  “Really? Then who was this?” I pulled the evidence bag clipped to Victoria’s belt free and lifted it into the light.

  The troll in front of us hissed with displeasure. “A fool,” she said, “couldn’t do as he was supposed to. Couldn’t stick to the rules. He led death back
to our door...”

  “What did he lead back here?”

  She shuddered and shook her head, her long hair falling in front of her face, obscuring her expression from view once more.

  “I hate living with them,” she said, her voice growing higher with every word. “But we have no choice. We need the numbers, there is safety in the numbers...”

  “Safety from what?” I asked.

  “Leather wings,” she hissed.

  I unclipped the strap keeping my machete in the sheath.

  “You won’t get the chance to draw your blade, human,” the troll said smiling at me with a mouthful of jagged and rotten teeth.

  “And if you push this, you will die,” I answered, pushing my fear back down inside where it belonged.

  The first prickle of Victoria’s changeling magic washed over my skin and I fought the urge to throw my head back and bask in its warmth the way a cat plays in the heat thrown by the fire.

  The troll standing outside the light straightened her body, rolling her shoulders back until she towered over us both. Her skin hung from her bones and down the front of her chest were three deep gashes, opening her body from shoulder to groin. They bled sluggishly but even as she stood before us, I could almost see the skin knitting together.

  “You brought a changeling,” she roared and it wasn’t a question. Her voice sent a ripple of activity racing through the darkness surrounding us and the back of my neck prickled with anticipation.

  She had declared war.

  The air currents next to me shifted, giving me the momentary warning I needed. Ducking beneath the huge hand that reached out of the darkness for me, I tugged my machete free and hacked into the sinuous arm the hand was attached to.

  Something a little too close to me, released a guttural scream of pure pain as the arm dropped lifelessly into the mud at my feet. Another hand appeared out of the darkness, drawing the severed arm backwards. There was a pause and the sickening sound of bones crunching and lip smacking hit me.

  It was eating its own arm...

  The thundering sound of running feet met my ears and the fear I pushed down inside climbed back up into my throat. Just how many of them were down here? And how had the Elite not realised there was an infestation of trolls in Fortune?

  I swung the blade around, hacking at anything that came into view. The troll blocking our path to escape grinned and took a step forward. “You will make but a small snack but beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Victoria shuddered, shedding her human form completely. The troll disappeared into the darkness and Victoria dropped her torch and went after her, leaving me to stand in the light alone.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, narrowly avoiding another grasping hand. It seemed so long as I stayed in the light, the other trolls were unwilling to step into view.

  So far, the trolls hadn’t behaved anything like the Elite’s records had suggested they would. The only thing that seemed to be consistently true was their inability to tolerate light. Natural light would have had a much more harmful effect on them, turning their bodies to stone but the artificial beam from my torch seemed to do just fine at holding them at bay.

  “Victoria,” I called into the darkness, “anything you want to get out of here...” The sudden silence sent my senses into overdrive.

  What if they had her? What if they’d taken her hostage, or worse, killer her? Could a troll kill a changeling? Victoria’s reticence at going into the cellar back at the crime would seem to suggest they could but I didn’t know for sure.

  We needed more light and the only way we would get it, was if I could make my power work.

  Something scraped, the sound of stone on stone, making me jump. Tightening my grip on the machete, I sucked in a deep breath I searched for my power and once again found myself disappointed. Alastor was right, I felt guilty.

  Graham’s death was my fault, I was certain of it. I had failed him and I was using that failure as a means to punish myself. My subconscious had decided I wasn’t worthy of my power, what good had it done me? I had only ended up hurting the people I cared about.

  And if I didn’t get a grip on it now, my subconscious would be right. I would fail to protect Victoria, fail her as badly as I’d failed Graham.

  Something cracked inside me, the ache in my chest intensifying so that the tears I’d thought I’d cried out blocked up the back of my throat.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m sorry, I let you down but please help me, please let me help her...”

  My words were flung back in my face as they bounced off the walls around me.

  A lone tear tracked down my cheek, quickly followed by another and when I raised my hand blue sparks danced along the tips of my fingers. It wasn’t perfect but it was something. I’d spent enough time as a witch with no power, I’d learned a trick or two, even if it was mostly just the ability to set fire to objects, mostly candles that I was trying unsuccessfully to light.

  In this case, setting fire to something would definitely be my benefit.

  Raising my arm over my head, I called for my power.

  “From darkness, bring light,” I said, adding an unspoken prayer to anyone who was listening to help me.

  The demon mark on my shoulder started to burn and the sparks on my fingers burst into flames that exploded along the ceiling of the tunnel. Magic flowed upward, the demon mark on my shoulder crawling beneath my skin as red and blue sparks twisted and morphed to form symbols on the roof, illuminating the length of the tunnel with light as bright as any sun.

  The trolls screamed, the light searing into them. The scattered in every direction, fighting one another to hide from the unrelenting brightness that hissed and fizzed overhead.

  Victoria stood a few feet away, her hand locked around the throat of the female troll who had initially spoken to us.

  The troll thrashed and fought Victoria’s hold but her movements were slow as though cement was slowly filtering through her veins, turning her body to stone from the inside out.

  “Do you still say you know nothing about the missing and murdered humans?” Victoria asked, her voice different, almost hollow with the power coursing in her body.

  “We never take more than our fill...” the troll said and howled as Victoria’s grip tightened.

  “You know what the fae will do to someone like you,” Victoria said, leaning in closer. “You know what the price of exposure is.”

  The troll thrashed harder, a low hiss escaping her.

  “Victoria, what do you mean the price of exposure?” I started to speak but something heavy crashed into my back and I dropped to the ground, pain reverberating up through my spine as whatever had slammed into me, rode me into the mud.

  The second my attention wavered, the magic I’d been using to illuminate the tunnel evaporated. The light extinguished and we were once more plunged into darkness.

  18

  I choked, finding myself face down in the mud and shit that covered the ground. My lungs screaming for release as I fought against the weight pinning me down.

  Long bony fingers dug into my shoulder and I lifted my head, screaming as the muscle was twisted against my shoulder blade.

  The troll holding me down rammed me back into the mud, forcing my face beneath the surface, drowning my scream in the thick sludge.

  This was not how I imagined my death.

  I needed to get a grip. If I didn’t, I was going to drown in this troll shit and then I would be eaten. Not exactly the peaceful death everyone usually wished for.

  The troll leered down over me, its breath hot on the back of my neck. I jerked my elbow backwards at speed, slamming it into the face of the creature that had been sniffing at my hair. It clearly wasn’t used to its victim’s fighting back because the blow was enough to knock it off balance.

  I surged upright, the mud clouding my vision as I fought to clear my face of the foul smelling substance.

  Just don’t think about it, Amber... It’s tota
lly fine... It doesn’t matter that it’s in your mouth...

  I gagged. If I got out of this alive, there wouldn’t be enough hot water in the world to make me feel clean again.

  Strong arms wrapped around my chest, hoisting me into the air like I was merely a sack of potatoes. I brought the heel of my boot down sharply on my attackers foot, drawing a cry of pain that ricocheted through the tunnel. The troll dropped me and I scrabbled around in the dirt, searching for my machete. My fingers closed around the blade and I choked back a whimper as the wickedly sharp edge bit into my fingers.

  Picking it up, I grabbed the handle and whirled around. The blade bit into flesh and the troll screamed again. I swung blindly with the blade but in the dark they had the advantage. They could see me while I couldn’t see jack-shit.

  “Victoria!” I screamed, hoping against hope that she was still alive.

  Blood dripped onto my face alerting me to the proximity of the troll I’d been fighting. I ducked low, the sound of its jaw snapping shut somewhere near where my face had been just seconds before sent a shiver of fear racing through my body. The memory of the female troll’s rotten and jagged teeth flashed through my head. If it sank those into me... Well it didn’t bear thinking about.

  My heart pounded in my chest as I swung the blade again and once more struck flesh.

  Long fingers wrapped in my hair, jerking my head back at an unnatural angle. The creature behind me, forcing me into a vulnerable position against the troll in front of me. Jagged teeth tore into the front of my Kevlar vest, pain exploding across my chest as the bullet proof vest failed to stand up to the assault. The creature wrapped its hands around waist, drawing me up from the ground so that I was suspended between my attackers. Its moist breath fanned against my stomach, if I could feel it breathing on me that meant it was through the vest and I was as good as dead.

  A flare of light caught the corner of my eye and something let out an inhuman scream.

  “Release my partner or I will kill her,” Victoria sounded suspiciously out of breath but there was no mistaking the icy edge to her voice. There was a flare on the ground next to her, the luminescence casting strange shadows across her face.