Ancient Darkness

by D. A. Alexander

  That was truly a mother’s love.

  Chapter 35

  The sun had begun its descent into the darkness of night when Maggie approached me. Her eyes were downcast, and she had a look of remorse deep set on her face, it was easier to gaze upon her like this than it had with the look of derision that she had scorned me with before. She held a small Bible in her hands, the same kind that the Bible Thumpers carried to church revivals and other events to appeal to the lost. It was too late for me, my soul was already damned.

  "I found this in your grandmother's home," she said, thumbing through the pages. A spark of anger entered my mind at the reckless reaches of this woman, taking claim of an item from my deceased grandmother's house. It had stayed in the family after her death, but no one wanted to claim it as a residence. Instead, the death of time was taking it over, placing its cold hands of destruction over the property, turning a once happy place into an empty shell of sorrow.

  "Why were you there?" I seethed.

  She looked up at me and looked me squarely in the face. "For what Longinus has planned for you, you would be wise to appreciate this gesture."

  "What gesture would that be? Thievery?" I asked bitterly.

  She stepped back for a moment and her shoulders eased before coming forward again. "This will be a token of appreciation for your sacrifice," she looked on with sadness, a hint of what was to come.

  "What sacrifice?" I asked with the slight edge of regret in my voice, brimming with the realization that agreeing to take part in this might have been a mistake.

  "I cannot say," she answered coldly; instead she looked back down at the pale white pages and brought a yellow highlighter to one of the passages and then closed the book. "It is not for us to decide fate, Noah, but a map to the truth can sometimes alter our course."

  "Who told you that one? Your God?" I was bitter, and no amount of self-serving truth was going to relinquish that from me at this point in time.

  "No," she said as she placed the Bible in a metal box, it was the kind that was constructed to act as a puzzle. You would have to know the secret of the puzzle to open it. I had seen them at flea markets growing up, but never really handled them. I knew it was of significance, but I was too angry to let it register. She looked back at me with her cold stare, the one that held a tinge of contempt under her brazen expression. "Pietro told me that years ago; little did I know exactly where that truth would lead."

  She clutched the box containing the Bible in her white hands and turned her back on me. The coldness of neglect wafted in the air around her. I wanted to lash out at her, but I knew that doing so would result in my quick death. Not knowing what the future held was not an easy place to be in, but I hoped that the uncertainty of it would work for my benefit. Unfortunately, hope was not something that was easy for me to grasp.

  Maggie left her weakness in the kitchen behind her as we walked side by side back to Robert’s office. The coffee still steamed like a chimney as she carried it with both hands, more out of habit than necessity. Robert barely chanced a glance in our direction as we returned with his hot beverage.

  “Creamed and sugared to your liking,” Maggie said with a tight smile, setting it near his right hand so that he could easily reach it without looking away.

  He took a sip of it and set the large mug back in place, almost exactly where it had been before, his eyes never moved away from the monitor. “Just like mother used to make,” he said before realizing the awkward tone of the expression. “Uh, it’s a joke,” he said trying to cover the hurt that had flowed towards his mother. I imagined that as much pain as she felt from watching him age, he probably felt something similar by watching her stay unchanged by time, knowing his own time drew ever nearer.

  “It’s all right,” Maggie said. “Have you found anything yet?” she asked trying to change the conversation more than anything else.

  “We’ve had a few possible matches filter into the database, we will have to look at them later to keep from pausing the system like a lot of amateur hackers do. I need to make it look as official as possible.” He spoke directly at the screen, never looking up. I imagined he did this a lot in his life, maybe not as much now, but the likelihood of being a repeat offender was probably high, to say the least.

  “So, what do we do when it’s done?” I asked, not sure exactly how these kinds of things worked.

  “Well,” he said just before taking another sip of coffee, the steam billowed around his nose and drifted towards the ceiling. “If we can get a solid match then I can triangulate the position of the camera where he was last seen. I take that information and enter in an algorithm to determine where he was going. This is made easier if there are multiple sightings along a certain route, but it’s not necessary for us to track him down. We just have to be smart,” he said pointing at his head with a forefinger.

  “Well, you sound a lot smarter about this kind of thing than I imagine I could be at it.”

  “Practice makes perfect,” he answered in all seriousness while chancing a glance at Maggie. She placed her hands on her hips and exhaled, silently warding that conversation out of the way.

  I recognized the effort, I was sure that Robert did as well.

  “Bingo,” he said as he slapped the mug a little too roughly for comfort back onto the desk and began slapping his fingers back onto the keyboard. The brought each file and all of its information onto the main screen and closed the connection he had with the government computer before he began to assimilate the information. His lips moved as if he were speaking to himself as Maggie and I watched him work. He dragged files from one side of the screen to the next, seemingly on autopilot as he did so. It took me a few moments to realize that one side was possible suspects and others were not even close. I felt a bit proud of myself for figuring out his method.

  He slapped his hands together in exclamation as he finished sorting the information. “Here we go. Out of seventeen possible suspects, we have four that perfectly match the guy we are looking for. All of the images were taken in Laurel, MS less than seven hours ago. Based on the time of each street light camera he was heading north near the downtown district. Unfortunately, he made a turn somewhere between here and here.” Robert had a map of the area and pinpointed two streets that intersected with the main road, each about an eighth of a mile apart from the other. “He either turned onto Oak Street or Yates Avenue, depending on which one we might figure out where he was going.”

  “That opens a lot of potential places he could have gone, even if he was still in the city,” Maggie said.

  “Sorry, I can only give you as much information as I can see. Without more cameras, we are pretty much screwed.”

  “You did good, Robert. We can probably go there and track him in person. What do you think, Maggie?”

  “I think it’s a long shot, but what the hell.”

  Robert stood up from his chair and grabbed the map he had printed from his computer. “Hold on, you guys got me roped into this, so I’m gonna see it through to the end. I’m going with you.”

  “Like hell you are,” Maggie said defensively.

  “Mother, do you really think you’re going to tell an old fart like me what I am and am not going to do?” I raised an eyebrow as he asked the question, mischief etched in the lines of his face, blending in with those of old age.

  Maggie huffed and replied, “Fine, but you stay in the truck and let Noah and I handle this guy. You’re not fifty anymore,” she finished sarcastically. The stubborn family resemblance was endearing.

  “Yes, Mommy,” he shot back with a smile.

  It was hard to keep up with the score between them, they were very eccentric personalities, but I felt that I was finally catching on. “It’s almost two in the morning, by the time we get there the sun will be about to rise,” I said.

  They both looked at the time and he sat back down, a slight groan escaped his lips, Maggie seemed to ignore it for his benefit.

  “May as well slee
p here until tomorrow night,” Robert said. “Besides, you two need your beauty sleep.” He stood up again and moved towards the hallway that led to the bedrooms. He kissed Maggie on the cheek, “Y’all can follow me to the mother-in-law suite, it’s empty this time of year,” he said as he walked towards the back of the house. Maggie turned to walk behind him and I followed.

  A strange relationship indeed.

  Chapter 36

  Longinus stepped into the room after Cerene had left, the air seemed to return back to normal after the awkward tension between us was cut by his presence. He moved a wooden chair over to where I sat, unconfined, yet not exactly at ease in the company that I now kept. He sat in the chair backward and rested his firm, muscular arms on the back of the chair. It groaned as his weight settled on the unstable leg joints. He propped his right leg on one of the braces and brought a can of root beer to his lips.

  “Not exactly the beverage of the hard-ass, God warriors,” I said sarcastically. I didn’t hate the man, but he had a way of making me feel uncomfortable around him. I didn’t think it had much to do with his mission in life, something was just kind of ‘off’ about him.

  “Yeah, well, what can I say? I like to support local business,” he said as he flashed the silver can in my direction revealing the name of the root beer company. My dad had told me that the beverage was created on the gulf coast of Mississippi. I guess he was right about that, or the myth of it was a common misconception. Either way, it made me think of my human father, a small reprieve from thinking about what was to come for my maker, Pietro.

  “What do you want?” I asked, moving the conversation forward into the unknown. The last couple of days had been rampant with mystery as the two of them came and went at all hours of the night. I was not sure what was being planned, but I knew that there was a finality to it that I would not like, not that that mattered to them. I was just their puppet on a string, the one who would be manipulated into their agenda.

  “I just want to talk,” he said, taking another slurp from his can.

  “Then talk.”

  He dropped the can from his lips and sighed. “Look, I know you don’t like the idea of betraying Pietro, but you need to understand that there is a lot of evil brought about by his continued existence.”

  He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than me.

  “So?” I asked.

  “So, there have been a lot of mistakes in my life. He is one of them. I had a chance to put him down several hundred years ago, but I failed to do so.” This was sounding more like a vendetta than it did a mission from God. “You see, he had taken the oath before our Lord that he would turn away from human blood and live according to the law of God. He had convinced me that Lilith no longer had a hold on his heart and that he wanted the redemptive love of God. My mistake was believing him,” he said.

  I listened to the sound of his heart quicken slightly, the emotional attachment to this story told me that he was speaking the truth. “So, what happened?” I asked.

  He turned around in his seat and craned his neck to look at Cerene as she approached us.

  “I happened,” she said as she placed her hands on Longinus’ shoulders and allowed them to slip around his neck and fall to his chest. She rested her chin against his head and a small but significant realization entered my mind. There was a history between these two…

  The day passed by in a blur as all three of us slept in the comfort of Robert’s lavish home. The supposed mother-in-law suite was actually a darkened room he had designed for his mother’s comfort. The windows had been darkened and heavy curtains hung from the ceiling to the floor. The amenities were well beyond anything that I had ever seen, that was for sure.

  The sun faded below the horizon as we climbed into Maggie’s truck and headed towards Laurel. The fastest path would be to take Interstate twenty across the state to where it met Interstate fifty-nine. It was longer mileage, but the roads were more open for faster traffic. The three-hour drive would bring us into downtown before ten o’clock that night, a perfect time to hand around the area and to see who showed up.

  The entire drive was conducted in relative silence, there were some moments of dry, idle chatter, but those were quickly settled into more moments of awkward silence. It was nerve racking and I felt as if I needed to play mediator between them, to help them reconcile whatever it was that came between them. Instead, I kept silent on the matter. I was an outsider to Robert. No matter how close I felt that I was to Maggie, he would never open up to me in a way that would aid their relationship. I guessed that it was going to be up to them to mend it themselves.

  Maggie slowed the truck into a parking lot on the main drag of Laurel, the brick laid streets had not changed much since I had been through here over a century prior. It still had that old feel to it, the kind that hearkened back to a simpler time, a time without motor vehicles and heavy traffic. The bar scene had changed a bit and the rows of nightclubs that offered indulgences to the flesh had sprung up rather unexpectedly, at least for me. It was a perplexing thing to behold, the old streets meeting the newer nightlife.

  Maybe I was just too old for the times.

  The three of us exited the truck and Maggie looked back at Robert to scold him for following us. I could see the maternal need to protect him etched on her face, but she bit her tongue, swallowed her words, and moved over to the front of the truck as Robert and I stepped over to meet her.

  “There is an Internet cafe right there, I can use my computer to try and see if there has been more activity today from our…friend,” he said.

  Maggie nodded her head, “All right, just stay hidden, I don’t want this guy to try to use you against us.”

  “Yeah, I’ll just tuck myself into a booth and try not to fall asleep while you two roam the night looking for him. I’ll call you if I find anything.”

  “Thank you,” Maggie said flatly. She looked me in the eye and then turned away quickly, it was evident that she knew she was pushing him further away but felt powerless at stopping it. “I guess the best thing for us to do is to take a stroll through some of these clubs, maybe see if the bartenders have seen him,” she said as Robert strode across to the cafe.

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said as I sniffed the mucky air. It was distinctly a mixture of alcoholic beverages and cigarette smoke. I could barely detect a hint of blood on the air due to the overwhelming odors from those two smells.

  Together we walked into the first club, the lights flashed blue and purple as we stepped into the bar. The dance floor was busy with dancing and grinding movements of men and women, men and men, women and women, even some people who could be either writhing onto each other. More smells flooded my nostrils as I sniffed the air. There was a detectable trace of opiates on the air, and even more enticing was the smell of blood.

  I had heard of vampire clubs being a reality in other countries but never had I anticipated one ever existing in Mississippi. Low and behold there was a small scene of Gothic kids with prosthetic teeth who were cutting each other and licking each other's blood. I would have been appalled had the smell not been so welcoming, my craving for the lush warmth of human blood began to tickle my throat, urging me to taste, just once.

  I moved over to them, willing one foot in front of the other. Closer and closer to the sound of rapidly beating hearts, pulsing to the music that blasted in the sound system of the club. The recessed lighting was darker than their eyes could adjust properly too. I was a predator, stalking, moving with the authority of a skilled killer.

  “Noah,” her voice carried over to me, to distract me. I felt her hand on my arm, pulling lightly enough to not cause a scene, but hard enough to pull me away from what awaited me. “Noah,” she said again with more emphasis. I looked over to her, suspicion and restraint in her eyes.

  I closed my own eyes, remembering our deal. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

  “Let’s just get out of here,” she said, taking my hand in her own and
leading me away from the feast that the darkness inside me sought after.

  It had almost been too late. Five more steps and the young girl I the black dress and red jacket would have been first. Her boyfriend would have watched in horror until I turned to him and took him as well. That would have left the three black women who were seated in the corner booth, trapped, waiting to be devoured. I shook my head at the thought, but like any vice, blood lust was not so easily quieted.

  Chapter 37

  “Are you serious?” I asked. There was no way that I could grasp the fact that Longinus and Cerene had once been lovers over a thousand years ago.

  “It’s true, Noah,” Longinus said after another swig of root beer. A soft belch rose from deep inside him, but he stifled it with his closed fist covering his mouth. “Pietro is an opportunist. He looks for victims and the best way to torment them. He used me to get to her, and later used her to get to me.”

  “How?” I asked, struggling to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

  “I was conducting business on the trade route outside of Rome, making and selling tents was a skill that I learned from Saul, the apostle you may have heard referred to as Paul. I continued that trade for several years and then would move on to something else as I traveled to other cities. It was here that I met Cerene. She had been taken into slavery and was about to be sold to the highest bidder. I pitied her and wanted to see her freed from the abomination of servitude.

  “The biggest misconception about history is that slavery was condoned by everyone. Even as someone who read the word of God on papyrus in both Latin and Aramaic, I will tell you that it was not condoned then any more than it is today. The sad truth is that it exists and is unable to be ended by mortal laws. It may have been out of my place to save only one person, but I felt that it was God’s calling on me to save her, so I acted on that call.