A Toiling Darkness

by Jaliza Burwell

  “You held so much hate for him,” he whispered, staring down at me.

  “What are you so pissy about?” I asked. “We got him, we got the bad guys and saved those children. Isn’t that what you wanted to do?”

  “Yeah, it is.” He started pacing taking a couple of steps before turning and taking another couple of steps and then repeating it, walking only a short distance between me and light post that no longer worked. Probably never worked.

  “Then why are you angry?”

  “I just...hell, I don’t know. I just don’t understand. You seemed so cold, as if that man being dragged off, to God knows where, had no affect on you.”

  “Because it didn’t.”

  “No one should have to go out that way.”

  “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” I asked. He was genuinely upset about that man. He stopped pacing, his expression showing me he didn’t like the answer he came up with.

  “Do you think something like that is going to happen to you?” I asked and reached out for his arm. He stiffened under my touch, but didn’t move away. I took that as a good sign.

  “I don’t know what is going to happen. All I know is, if I want to be free then I have to kill Akhlys. And I’m starting to think I don’t want to do that.”

  “You said it yourself, she needs to be killed.”

  He shook his head, confused with his own logic.

  “You won’t die like that man,” I said.

  “How would you know?”

  “You can be freed only by two ways. First one, completing your mission and the second way is killing your master. No bloodhounds are going to come for you. You didn’t make a deal with a demon.”

  “Bloodhounds? You called those things that, right?”

  “They do the bidding of the demons, mainly fetching the souls.”

  “And they come out of the shadows?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. They use darkness to travel. They would keep coming until they got their target.”

  “I don’t want to go like that,” he whispered, looking out into the streets. It was the same, still dark and still full of drug addicts. I squeezed his hand.

  “When you do go, it will be peaceful for you. One of the requirements in making a slauve is the type of person they use. You are pure in a way.”

  Kalen pulled away and started walking down the street, not responding to my answer. I followed, keeping my mouth shut as he thought about everything.

  “Why did you come with me?” he asked. “I doubt you cared about those children.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. I don’t care about them.”

  He grimaced.

  “Then why?” he asked again.

  “Because you would have died,” I finally admitted it to him. I was almost a hundred percent sure he would have died. He wouldn’t even kill the human—even after everything that human did. Kalen would have risked his life to save him from the bloodhounds. It was just who he was. He still believed in the justice system, still believed that everyone deserved a fair trial. If I asked him, he would probably say he was against the death penalty. My codes are a lot older than just the death penalty. I was more of an eye for an eye kind of gal.

  “You sound so sure of it.”

  “You didn’t kill that man. You simply knocked him out.”

  “He’s human! He doesn’t deserve to die like that.”

  “He’s still a human even though he took part in sacrificing four children? Those kids are dead now because of him and you still see him as human? What about their little siblings that he had to kill to get them? That’s a lot of children he killed for his selfish reasons.”

  He made a weird frustrated noise that originated more from his chest than his mouth. He punched a nearby tree, despair in every line of his expression. He was pissed more with himself than he was with me.

  “I couldn’t even save them.” He choked on his words, the pain in each syllable. My heart hurt for him. I wanted to comfort him and tell him everything was going to be okay, but it wasn’t. Not for him. I looked down at my small hands and curled them into fists. To him, he failed those children and nothing I say or do will going to make it okay.

  “You saved four children. They get to go home, crawl into their parents’ arms and cry and eventually heal. You did the best you could.”

  “My best wasn’t good enough.”

  “For those kids still alive, it was.”

  “Shit,” he swore. More words escaped his mouth and he leaned his forehead against the tree he punched.

  I just stood there and let him have his moment. I could feel him as he pulled himself together again. He picked up each piece that had broken off him and carefully placed it back where it belonged. When he was as whole as he was going to be, he straightened his posture, took a couple of deep breaths and began walking again. I followed silently behind like a trained dog. Well, not so much trained as just infatuated with him. Sometimes I still wished I could care as much as he did about strangers.

  “Why are you so goddamn jaded?” he asked, the question coming out of nowhere.

  “God has nothing to do with my jadedness.”

  “Stop avoiding my question with sarcasm. Just tell me why.”

  “There is nothing to tell.” I shrugged.

  “So you’re going to admit to being a cold-hearted bitch?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Something happened. What? What got you to hate humans so much?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Stop being stubborn!” he yelled. “I’m sick of all the secrets. You hate humans and don’t make a point to hide that hatred. You look at children with jealousy and adults with disgust. You just sit on the sidelines when someone is in trouble, even when you obviously have the power to protect them.”

  “I can’t tell you because it isn’t just one thing to tell,” I yelled back. “There are thousands, hell, millions of years attached to it! And I don’t completely hate them. At least not all of them anymore.”

  He fell quiet and stared at me in disbelief. I just continued, making use of that silence.

  “For my entire existence, I’ve been nothing but tortured, beaten, used and abused. I have had things done to me that your simple little brain won’t even be able to wrap around. That’s why I’m jaded. That’s why I don’t trust humans and why I just can’t get myself to care about a bunch of children going missing or being killed. I’ve seen worse, done worse.” I was breathing heavily after my tirade. Somehow it made me feel better, like admitting to it was my way of letting go. Parts of my mind relaxed, finally accepting some of what happened. It simply became facts that occurred. Some of my rage dispersed with the words.

  “Millions of years?” His voice was tight with emotions I couldn’t identify.

  “I’m more than two hundred years old. A lot older with a whole lot of history attached to it. Since the beginning of mankind.”

  “No one has lived that long.”

  I shook my head. “There are a couple, not many since most gave up and allowed themselves to simply end.”

  He tried to wrap his mind around the age. Sometimes I couldn’t do it either. I always wondered why I was still alive, how I was able to keep going. It all boiled down to just taking it one day at a time.

  “And that whole time, humans did all kinds of things to you?”

  “Why should I show kindness to those that never showed me any?” My pain was in my words and in my expression. There was no hiding it. “I’m on the other side of the spectrum. As far away as I can be from being a saint.”

  Kalen didn’t have an answer to give, not after we just killed a man who was willing to sacrifice innocent children so he could end something he brought onto himself. We just kept walking in silence until we were in front of my apartment.

  He walked me home again, forever the gentleman.

  Kalen turned to leave and I grabbed his wrist, stopping him. He stared down at my hand until finally giving me eye contact.

&n
bsp; “What are you going to do now that you found the children?”

  He stared at me a moment longer before looking up to my apartment. “Figure out how to get free I guess.”

  “You don’t want to kill Akhlys any more?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So you’re going to kill your master?” I let go of his arm and stepped away to get a better look at him. He seemed so lost and confused.

  “I don’t know if I’m capable of doing that. I can’t go against any of his orders and I’ve tried.”

  “You’re different. Haven’t you noticed it yet? Slauves are normally strong, but you’re easily twice as strong as they are. You also don’t make finding Akhlys a top priority like you should. Normal slauves would be obsessed with finding her.”

  “You seem to know a lot about slauves, why?”

  I blinked, automatically thinking of Eithna. “Someone I knew a long time ago made one. He was strong too.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was killed. His master made him do very bad things and he was dealt with.” I shivered, remembering Eithna standing there like a crazed phoenix and a man standing slightly behind her like a bodyguard. He was taller than Kalen, with blonde hair and feline green eyes. His pupils were fully dilated, no trace of the green left. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he just stood there, begging me with his eyes to save him. I denied the man help simply because Eithna was too important to me to kill. She looked so young again, like she was getting back her life again.

  I didn’t realize then what she was planning. I thought she created the slauve more to have a companion than to help with her plans to destroy mankind. She was always like that, always upfront with her feelings. She went for what she wanted while I always just stayed back and let them do to me what they wanted. If I was more like her I would probably have done just what she did—taken my anger out on the humans.

  “Darkness,” Kalen called out to me. He was kneeling down now, his face only inches from mine. He looked in my eyes, searching for something. “Where are you right now?”

  I took in a shuddering breath and blinked a couple of times, focusing on his eyes. He lifted his hand and gently brushed my cheek. A teardrop was on his thumb. I stared at that tear in complete shock. When was the last time I ever cried about something? This was twice now that my tear ducts have decided to work and all because I was with Kalen.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized and tried to step away. He held onto me, not letting me go.

  “There is nothing you should be sorry about.” He smiled a little. “You seemed completely shocked. When was the last time you let yourself cry. Just a nice good cry.”

  I tried to laugh off his question and it only came out weak. “Cry? I don’t cry.”

  He brushed my cheeks with the pad of his thumb. “Everyone cries.”

  I tried to look down, but Kalen didn’t let me. He forced me to look into his eyes. The brown in his eyes were rich, the depth of them never ending. I touched his cheek tentatively. I could feel the tiny little bristles of his stubble. My thumb went over his wide jaw enjoying the feel of the little hairs and the angles of his jaw. He’s been so busy the last couple of days that he hadn’t had time to shave. He was handsome the first night I saw him, all clean-shaven. Now, he was gorgeous. He still held that innocence I found interesting in humans, so blind to the possibilities of the world. I wanted him to learn about the beauty that did exist in my world. I wanted him to have more time.

  “I pray to whoever is out there that you stay exactly how you are,” I breathed out the words softly. He shivered as my words caressed him.

  “And how do you suggest I do that?”

  I leaned back, putting some distance between us. “If you kill Akhlys, you get to go into the next phase of your life, whatever that may be. If you kill your master, you’ll stay like this, a slauve, just no orders to control your actions. You’ll always be chained to this body, incapable of moving on until someone strong enough kills you. And you’re pretty fucking strong so that’ll be hard too.”

  He finally released me so I could step back. He stood up slowly.

  “So it’s up to me if I want my soul to be free.”

  I nodded. “I’ll help you, either way. Just decide and I’ll help you the best I can. Do you want to see what more is out there in this world or do you want to be free of your chains.” The tears pushed against my face, they wanted release. I just agreed to help him kill me if he wanted to be released.

  I don’t know what it was about him. Maybe it was in his stance, or in the choices that flittered around in his eyes. He made a choice and I knew which one. He wanted to be free of those chains.

  He needed to kill me.

  “I want to be free. Every second feels like a painful strain, like I should be able to go where I want but instead I’m held down against my will. I want to be free.”

  This is freedom, Akhlys. I need this. I’m suffering with this gaping black hole in my heart because my babies are dead. So yeah, I’m going to embrace my decision and follow it through until the end

  They are going to kill you.

  I know. Like I said, freedom.

  Shit.

  “Darkness?” I blinked, refocusing on Kalen. He was looking at me funny. “Are you okay?”

  “Ya—Yeah,” I gave him a weak smile. “Don’t look like that. I said I’ll help you and I will. You’ll be free soon enough. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? I’ll help you with Akhlys.”

  “At the harbor?” he asked.

  I let my smile grow a little more. He was starting to understand me at least a little bit. Too bad he was going to kill me. “Yeah, at the harbor.”

  I turned and went into the apartment, knowing he was watching me as I disappeared through the door.

  I wonder what death will feel like. Will it be the ultimate end? Blissful and peaceful like the humans liked to believe or was I meant to go to a place full of suffering to pay for all the crimes I committed. The bigger question was how was I going to let Kalen kill me? Saying I would and actually doing it were two different things. Good thing I didn’t go back on my word. I’ll help him find a way to do it.

  Chapter 23:

  The apartment building was weirdly quiet.

  I mean, it has always been quiet, but now it was too silent and for that reason alone, I went on alert. I made my way slowly up the stairwell, casting out all my senses and got back nothing, not even the normal feel of another being in the area.

  That couldn’t be right.

  There were at least ten other beings who lived in the building right now. Some of them bloodborns, a couple of locs, and even a Fae. Everyone kept to themselves and it helped keep up the pretense of the building being abandoned. It was the perfect place for beings always in transit. I’ve always been able to sense them, like background noise. Tonight, I got nothing.

  The eerie quiet raised my shackles. Something was very wrong. When I reached my floor, it became even quieter. There wasn’t so much as a skitter from the rats. It was like being in a sound proof room. There should be noise, like the dripping of water that leaked into the hallway, the skittering of a rat or two, the distance voices of the other two occupants on my floor, or the creaking of floorboards. But none of it was reaching my little ears. I pushed out my power, trying to check my apartment and found nothing. So very cautiously, I opened my apartment door, pushing the door against the wall to make sure no one was hiding behind it. From what I could sense, there was no one in there.

  Am I being overly paranoid now? I let out a small laugh, feeling silly.

  I went inside, changing quickly into a pajama dress. Why was I becoming so paranoid? Kalen still has no clue about who I really am. Was it because the Consort were around, or to be more specific, Death himself? I have a feeling he was going to pay me a visit. What would he think about me dying for the sake of a slauve? What about El? Surely I was doing something humane, and El would approve of at least my willingness to help someone
else, even if I was doing it in a way he wouldn’t approve of. To him, self-sacrifice was just taking an easy way out.

  The biggest problem with the promise was finding a way to allow Kalen to kill me by overpowering my instincts. Because with my life in mortal danger, my instincts will take over before Kalen even has a chance to wound me enough to kill me.

  I went towards the kitchen, only to find myself shoved against the wall across from the bathroom door. Something wrapped itself around me and searing pain scorched my skin. I barely kept in a scream, not wanting to give my attacker that satisfaction. The smell of burnt skin and smoke became noticeable and a part of me was screaming, yelling at me, telling me I was the source of the smell. I was being cooked. I grunted from the pain and clenched my teeth, tasting blood. I tried to untangle myself, all my limbs useless against the net. I was truly captured liked this.

  Over the roaring in my ears, I could hear a loud, wicked laugh. I moved just enough to see Paige Chambers towering over me in a skin tight strapless red dress cut low enough to show her coven tattoo. She looked just like a sensual cat who caught the mouse she’s been hunting for far too long. Unfortunately, I was the mouse.

  I tried phasing, but whatever was over me prevent me from doing it. It didn’t take long to figure out that the net was able to cut me off from my shadows and made me more useless than at high noon on a sunny day.

  I stopped struggling. There was no point. I was completely caught. As soon as I stopped, the burning stopped too, to my relief. I laid there and did the only thing I could do best, considering the situation. I glared at the witch, mentally promising her demise. I made the look a challenge.

  Release me and lets see who defeats who. Lets just end this. She saw the look, understood it and only smiled more, her face nearly cut in half with that smirk.

  “So quick to realize struggling is pointless, how disappointing.” She did a fake pout that only made her look spoiled.

  “What do you want?” I put power into my words to show her I wasn’t giving up just yet. I was a huge acquaintance of torture and pain. I even grew partially immune to the pain, treating it as only another sense I could dim a little.