Darklight 5: Darktide
Bella Forrest
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Ready for the next part of Lyra and Dorian’s journey?
Read more by Bella Forrest
Copyright © 2020
Nightlight Press
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Chapter One
We tumbled through flashing, fracturing colors. The force tore at my body, viciously tugging every molecule inside me. I felt as if I were unraveling like a ball of yarn. My hearing bled into my vision, the rushing wind screaming as the searing light grew brighter.
The Gate Maker, Inkarri, and Dorian fell beside me, tumbling through the chaos. The only thing that kept me from panicking was the solid feeling of a hand in mine.
Dorian.
We clung fiercely to one another, a sweet reminder that we were so much stronger without the pain of the curse. The stinging rainbow abruptly darkened, the world whistling shrilly as I struck the ground and sank like a heavy anchor. The Gate Maker panted in exhaustion, but the ground swallowed us in a split second. I sank into darkness and snapped my mouth shut to hold my breath. My fingers found a top layer of arid dirt and grass as I scrabbled for the surface again. Unable to breathe from the pressure on my chest, I started to panic until I burst through the surface with sand in my mouth.
The Gate Maker and Dorian surged from the ground a few feet on either side of me. Dorian dragged Inkarri behind him. Beneath us, the earth gave a terrible shudder. An explosion of energy rocked the dirt as the portal collapsed below us.
I yanked myself out of the sinkhole, feeling sand work its way into my clothing. Grains of sand bit painfully into the raw skin on my hand, a burn from holding Lanzon’s scorching hot stone for too long after it had absorbed an immense amount of magic. The Gate Maker and Dorian had already flopped on their backs, coughing to clear their airways.
We’d made it. My disbelieving eyes found a cloudless blue sky above us. Home. The scorching sun shone down upon us. It was utterly surreal. Everything was clear and bright. None of the landscape in the distance rippled. Nothing threatened to suddenly test my sanity.
Actually, the landscape was almost too bright, too jagged. After only a moment or two, I could barely keep my eyes open, and not because I’d been awake for over twenty-four hours. We had successfully escaped the sanitarium after releasing the captive vampires and hunted down the Gate Maker in the caves without once stopping to rest. I whispered an internal thanks to my body for its strength.
Still, my throat burned from thirst, and a deep hunger gnawed my belly. It had to have been nearly six hours since I drank the last drop of water from my pack’s canteen. I’d been lucky enough to find a hydration tablet and half a protein bar in the bottom of my bag during our ride to the Restless Desert on the skimmer. My head throbbed in unison with my cracked ribs. I’d have to be gentle with my movements. The effects from the vampire blood were long gone.
The Gate Maker let out a weary sigh. I looked over just in time to see his body begin to shrink and wither from his humanoid form to a slender, red-brown snake. The violet eyes turned toward me. He stuck out a forked tongue as he slithered up my arm to drape over my shoulders. I raised my eyebrows in question to Dorian, but he was busy surveying the area. Maybe the Gate Maker preferred a human, after his experience with the Immortal Plane, or it was my sparkling personality and Dorian’s lack of trying to be pleasant. It was growing difficult to think of him as “the Gate Maker.” It felt more dignified than someone currently crawling up my arm deserved, like a title rather than a name. But since he’d refused to share his true name with us, “Gate Maker” was the best I could manage.
“I haven’t done that for more than nine hundred years,” Gate Maker muttered. “I wasn’t able to align our arrival to the surface. Although some of us seem less than bothered.” His tail gestured to Inkarri, who remained unconscious, though Dorian had dragged her free of the sinkhole. Sand clung to the edges of her mouth.
Dorian glanced at the snake irritably. “Yes, I noticed the landing was off.” The exhaustion and frustration radiated off him. “Snakes don’t talk in the Mortal Plane, by the way. You’d better keep quiet if you see any humans.”
Gate Maker said nothing, merely tasting the air with his serpent tongue. It’d be easier if they could play nicely together, but we’d just had a chaotic journey through time and space. I expected more from Dorian, though.
Shielding my eyes, I tried to get a sense of where we had landed. Low hills surrounded us, all of them a similar dry brown with occasional pockets of green. Below us lay a neighborhood of fancy white stucco houses, with aquamarine pools and lush gardens. If there was a drought, the wealthy were oblivious to it. The sight of water made my mouth even drier. From the landscape and architecture, I guessed we were probably somewhere in the southwest.
Someone coughed violently behind me, gagging.
“You,” Inkarri snarled. I turned to see her spit dirt to the ground. She wiped her mouth. “What’s going on?” Her eyes darted from me to Dorian, then to a landscape totally alien to her. She jerked at her bindings and grimaced as she inhaled. Did she feel as discomforted by this place as I had when I first arrived in the Immortal Plane? Gate Maker watched her, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“You’ll regret this,” Inkarri growled, a rattle in her throat. “You’re no match for my father. I’m one of his most valued assets, with years of resources invested in me. He will do anything to get me back, just wait and see.” Her eyes flashed with the same rage I’d seen in Irrikus, except her fury was fiery where he was icy. Her gaze settled on Dorian. “And you, leech—"
“Stop,” I snapped at her. Some restraint, some strand of patience snapped inside me. I’d chosen caution with Inkarri in the Immortal Plane, but the game had changed. “You’re not making the rules anymore; you’re in my world now. I suggest you get used to the idea of being at another’s mercy. My mercy is a better fate than you deserve, but if you prefer death we’d be happy to oblige. Do you understand your situation?”
I glared at her. Fury pricked like hot needles all over my body. The audacity of Inkarri, tied up on the ground, to make demands and threaten us.
“I understand you think you have the upper hand.”
I exhaled slowly. “I would suggest you choose your next words carefully.”
Nobody spoke. Gate Maker remained perf
ectly still; Dorian stared. Inkarri was blissfully silent, forced to accept powerlessness for possibly the first time in her life.
Finally, Dorian’s lips twitched into a smirk, revealing extended fangs. He was responding to the darkness of Inkarri’s presence but managing well enough for now.
“Lyra’s mercy shouldn’t be pushed,” he said. “I’d be grateful for it, if I were you.” It was nice to have something over a ruler for once. Inkarri could make her choice, but her options were limited.
“You’d better go along quietly with our plans,” I told her. “In the Mortal Plane, we are your only chance of survival. Most of the authorities here have no knowledge of your homeland. They’d take one look at your blue skin and hair and assume you’re insane. Once they realize you’re not, you’ll be referred by the Bureau to some government lab to be studied or dissected.”
Inkarri glowered at the serpent Gate Maker for a moment before her lips curled into a look of disgusted defeat.
“Fine,” she said tightly. “I’ll cooperate, but I’m not lying when I say I’m a valuable asset to my father. There will be a time when he requires me again, and he will find a way to get me back. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.”
Her tone was haughty, but there was a hollowness to it. Her vibrant skin and hair were seeming to fade now she was disconnected from her home plane. A flicker of fear swam beneath the proud surface of her eyes. Seeing that emotion brought me a momentary burst of pleasure, after seeing Inkarri wield her power so abusively. But… I imagined telling an enemy that my father would rescue me because I was a valuable resource, not because he cared. What a sad life.
Dorian ran his hand through his hair, dislodging dirt and sand. “What’s our next step, Lyra? We’re in your territory.”
Good question. I could barely think straight as I stared down at the luxurious neighborhood. Palm trees waved as if saying hello.
I tried to count the days we’d been gone, but there was no way to tell. The events of our adventure blurred together in my mind. We were all exhausted. There wasn’t much hope of moving on if we couldn’t procure supplies and a place to rest. My eyes swept over Dorian’s face, worn but still handsome despite the sand and dried blood marring his forehead. It broke my heart to see him so drained. It didn’t help that he’d been standing next to Inkarri all this time. I could tell from the way he avoided looking at her that he was starting to struggle. We both knew that he needed to resist. She wouldn’t survive being fed on and we would have brought her all this way for nothing.
We needed to get back to civilization.
I dug through the pack until I found the emergency beacon given to each of us before the mission. I flicked the switch on the bottom and smiled as the rod glowed blue. There was some good news, at least.
“The Bureau facilities will pick up the signal,” I told Dorian when I saw him staring at the beacon. “Pretty impressive for a stick, huh? They can coordinate a rescue once they pinpoint our location.” I flicked my tongue along my dry bottom lip, thinking of water. Hopefully, the Bureau was available to rescue us and wasn’t busy fighting off revenants. We had no idea whether they’d gone to the VAMPS camp or Moab.
I fastened the beacon to a loop on my weapon belt, a gift from a dead guard back in the sanitarium.
"Bureau?" Gate Maker asked, followed with a little hiss.
"The Occult Bureau. They’re an organization," I replied. "A good one. Well, with a complicated past, but they're working toward good now."
Inkarri glared at me but said nothing. The circles under Dorian’s eyes broadcasted his exhaustion. My normally tanned skin had grown pale from the lack of sun in the Immortal Plane. The sun's rays were a welcome departure from the fickle soul-lights, but I rubbed my eyes, which were aching from the bright light.
My gaze swung once more to the neighborhood below. It would take a while for the Bureau to muster a rescue. I needed water and shade if we were going to wait in this heat. Thankfully, I saw a gas station maybe a quarter of a mile away. A flashing neon sign read Rodney's Gas, an eyesore among the stucco exteriors.
“I need to hydrate,” I said to Dorian, handing him the beacon. “Can you stay here with Inkarri and Gate Maker?” I gently prodded the snake. Gate Maker grumbled but slithered to the sand.
“Be careful,” Dorian said and glanced at me with a humorous smirk. “You’re always beautiful to me, but you look… well, like you just crawled out of a hole.”
I snorted. “Don’t worry. My smell will scare them away before they get a good look.”
The thought of water put some energy into my step as I picked my way down the hillside. The gas station sign grew larger, calling to me with its cartoon logo of a smiling car.
A woman with fluffy silver hair in a coral pink sundress walked her miniature poodle down the sidewalk; she caught sight of me and changed direction from a block away. I kept my head high. A young man jogged past me. He stared but averted his eyes when I glanced at him.
This place is doing wonders for my self-esteem.
I glanced down. The ripped clothing looked like a grunge fashion statement, but the blood was less easily explained. If any revenants had ended up around here, I would stick out like a beacon to them. A seed of paranoia germinated in the back of my mind.
I finally arrived at the refuge of Rodney’s Gas. I zipped inside, ignoring startled looks from the young male clerk and a family paying for their van’s gas. The clerk eyed me pointedly, but I merely made a beeline for the bathroom.
Peeing in a gas station bathroom had never felt so luxurious. I popped over to the sink after I finished and cringed at my reflection. My hair spilled over my shoulder, dirty and tangled, sticking to bloody scrapes on my face and arms. Gently, I pulled my hair back, trying to untangle the worst bits before I scooped water in my cupped hands to drink.
After I drank as much as I could, I hit the soap dispenser a few times and scrubbed my face and arms. The soap stung my cuts, but they needed to be cleaned. Who knows what immortal bacteria is brewing in them? The sensation of clean skin, even if by gas station soap and water, was heavenly. I washed under my arms, attempting to lessen the smell from days of captivity. Smelling of generic lavender, I dried myself with rough paper towels and cleaned up the sink.
When I exited the bathroom, the first thing I saw was a display of chips. Snatching a bag off the rack, I ripped it open to shove three pieces into my mouth at once. My brain only caught up after I finished swallowing. I looked at the bag in horror, with the sinking realization that I had no money to offer the clerk, who was now staring at me with wide eyes. At least the minivan family had disappeared.
I weighed my options. Yes, I was a jerk, but I had no money. Could I get the Bureau to send some along? With a pinch of guilt, I snagged a liter of water and headed for the door.
The clerk opened his mouth with a squawk. “You can’t—" He reached for the phone behind his desk. I turned on my heel, fixing him with a desperate look.
"Please don’t!" I said. "Look, I've been through a lot. I’ll have the Occult Bureau send you the money. I promise. I’ve just had a really long ordeal." His mouth remained hanging open as I sailed through the door.
I tallied the price in my head. Did I just commit robbery? Maybe. The chips settling in my stomach helped nullify a small amount of guilt. The store could spare a few dollars for now, and the Bureau would send a check along soon enough.
I ate as slowly as I could bear as I began the ascent back up the hillside. My shaken stomach from the last days’ adventures might force me to throw up if I was careless. My ribs ached with every step.
Suddenly, a familiar sound hit my ears like music: helicopter blades. I grinned when the Bureau chopper descended toward me. Quickly, I waved, letting them know I was one of the ones they were looking for. That was fast. Color me impressed, Bureau.
Once, an approaching Bureau chopper had been a regular occurrence to me. Then it became a sight I dreaded. Now? It was complicated, b
ut my only thought at this moment was everything I needed to tell them.
I only hoped we weren’t too late.
Chapter Two
“Lyra Sloane?” the officer shouted, reaching down from the hovering chopper to offer me her hand.
I reached for the ladder trailing from the helicopter, but my ribcage was currently on fire. I winced and missed the rung. One of her associates grabbed the bottle of water from me to make the entrance easier. He eyed the chips that I clutched in my other hand. The female officer put out her hand.
I took it, grimacing as she pulled me up. The fuselage of the chopper was large, fairly standard for the Bureau. It must have come from a nearby HQ, if they found us this fast.
“Glad to see you’re well. Chicago HQ picked up your signal and asked us to retrieve you,” the officer said as she made her way back to the front seat. She gave a thumbs up to the pilot. “I’m Sergeant Bhandari from the LA HQ.”
“Where are we, Sergeant?” I asked her and squinted at the bird’s eye view of the landscape. Her companion buckled himself into a seat.
“Southern California,” she said with a smile. “You’re lucky. We got a call from a concerned seismologist nearby who picked up a bizarre reading and wanted to head out on his own to investigate. Thankfully, your beacon signal was strong.”
“The portal,” I muttered. Bhandari furrowed her brow in confusion. “Uh, I’ll explain later. Can we land anywhere?”
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