by Ross Turner
Midnight
Book Three of The Dreadhunt Trilogy
By Ross Turner
©Ross Turner
So much has happened and so many things have changed over the years, come and gone, that this doesn't even feel like the same lifetime,
One day this will all be over, none of it will matter any longer, and I'll never have to worry again,
Just remember, imagination is the root of everything, and succumbing to temptation often leads to the greatest adventures,
There are always more words to be had,
Please can I just vanish,
Always,
Ross.
For my dear Lady Olivia,
Thank you for showing me the way,
Because of you I’ve found so much more than I thought I ever would,
All my love,
Always,
Ross.
Chapter One
The sea of gravestones seemed to be endless, jutting out into the eerie night for as far as any of them could see. Shrouded by invisible fog, the headstones appeared to sway and shift in the grim darkness as if they weren’t really there at all, but instead just passing through.
A freezing cold wind wove its way through the engraved stone forest, touching the face of every one it passed, breathing life in and then out of them again in the space of a single, lost heartbeat.
The young, tangled Marcii Dougherty swept through the scene on footsteps silent as the night itself. Clutched tightly in her one hand was the touch of Kaylm Evans: a young boy of the kindliest nature, though at present he found himself even more confused than she did.
Her other hand, free to wander and explore, scraped lightly over the tops of the rough, icy gravestones, so motionless and devoid of life, even as they swayed ceaselessly in the blackness.
Another two figures loomed in the dark of the night, mirroring Marcii and Kaylm’s movements as they too wound their way mournfully from grave to grave.
One was the figure of a woman. She was slight and touched a little by the hands of time, though that didn’t seem to be the greatest burden weighing down upon her. Her eyes shone with a luminous violet and almost seemed to glint in the darkness, only illuminated ever further whenever they caught Marcii’s vivid yellow gaze.
Malorie’s vast, terrifying, demonic companion, whose enormous hand she clutched as if his very touch kept life flowing through her veins, walked close by her side. Never more than a foot from her, Reaper kept contact with Malorie continuously, refusing to ever again break their bond.
His huge, round, jet eyes, set like filthy coal, saw everything in the pitch black of the night. He kept watch over them all most dutifully, with vision like a hawk and yet even sharper.
The enormous creature’s emotions were mixed as the four of them skimmed the outskirts of Newmarket, floating amidst this newly raised graveyard.
Undoubtedly it was the result of the massacres that had taken place, when Marcii and Reaper had rescued Kaylm, not even a week before.
It had taken the four of them a full three days to make the journey back from Ravenhead to here, for Reaper could not carry them all.
They had left the abandoned citadel so suddenly and so abruptly, following Malorie’s bizarre and unprecedented arrival, that there had been no time for any kind of explanation. It was simply under her instruction that they had now ventured back east.
As a result, without such enlightenment from Malorie, regardless of how much she thought on it, Marcii only felt herself falling deeper and deeper into the realms of the unknown.
Malorie had promised Marcii and Kaylm that, once they had returned from Newmarket, she would explain everything to them.
But for now, they had to save Midnight.
Malorie had warned them that the old man was in grave danger, and that only he held the answers that would stop all these unnecessary deaths and all this dreadful suffering.
Marcii had at first seen no reason why Malorie couldn’t just explain it to them while they walked. After all, it had taken them almost a full three nights to reach this point.
However, as the nights had drawn on, though of course Malorie still had Reaper, Marcii had seen more and more a haunted look creeping into the mysterious woman’s violet eyes.
She had seemed desperate to stay in Ravenhead, for even just a moment longer. And yet at the same time she was so determined to save the old man Midnight that she had torn herself away, knowing that Marcii and Kaylm could not go alone.
It seemed the only salvation for her was the fact that she was close at Reaper’s side, and that she never left it, not even for a moment.
Malorie continued to take seemingly limitless comfort in Reaper’s company and all the while as they walked her hand stretched out unconsciously to brush his massive arm and to cling to his enormous fingers.
Though she didn’t fully comprehend it, Marcii had at least some concept of the intimate connection between Malorie and Reaper.
On the other hand, she still hadn’t the faintest idea what Midnight had to do with all of this.
She couldn’t possibly imagine how in the world such an innocent and helpless old man had gotten caught up in such feuds.
Feuds that, as of yet, the young Dougherty didn’t even herself understand.
Though there was no mist and no damp hanging in the air, only an icy cold wind, it was as if an eerie fog hung over the graveyard in the midst of the night.
Marcii tried not to look, but she couldn’t help but read the inscriptions engraved on the headstones as they passed.
They turned her stomach to see and her hands visibly shook, trembling between Kaylm’s kindly fingers.
He tightened his grip a little every now and then, squeezing Marcii’s hand softly, gently calming her.
No matter what he did though, nor what any of them could do for that matter, they could not take the searing sting from the words that Marcii read, taunting her infinitely and wrenching at the strings of her heart.
Here lies Kathryn Button
Aged Seven
Beloved by her family
Murdered by a witch
Marcii’s blood ran cold, filling her body with the chilling depths of remorseful responsibility. The feeling swarmed up inside of her and consumed her, but it didn’t stop there.
The inscriptions were never ending.
In memory of the Taylor family
Taken from us by evil spirits
May the good Lord wrench their demonic souls
What Marcii felt in that moment she could not describe.
Kaylm’s arm found its way around her and he glanced over at Reaper in the darkness.
The enormous demon and his tiny companion looked just as stricken at the sight laid out before them. Clearly it filled them with much the same rush of emotions that Marcii was suffering.
Eventually, as the four of them passed the final headstones, crossing the invisible barrier between the dead and the living, the strange fog seemed to lift. The flickering candle lights that sat in the windows of Newmarket came into view once again, guiding their way.
From memory, the last time Marcii had returned here, accompanied only by Reaper, she recalled there being a much greater number of dancing flames lightening the market town in manmade blocks of orange and yellow.
The young Dougherty made that painful realisation seemingly over and over again as they descended warily upon the forsaken place. Her thoughts flitted and raced and fell endlessly back to the immortal words inscribed upon the hundred and more headstones they’d left behind.
Guilt consumed Marcii, gripping her heart in a vice.
But she knew deep down, where she felt as if
there was an ever widening hole in her soul, that there was only more still to come.
Chapter Two
Reaper’s expression as he watched Malorie disappear into the night was one of excruciating loss. He made not the slightest hint of movement as she vanished into the blackness. The enormous demon was simply grateful that he could still see her. His body remained tense and poised as he floated just beyond the outskirts of Newmarket.
The slightest hint of danger and he would be there.
He was not about to lose his Malorie again.
Not a chance.
Malorie tried to make Kaylm stay with Reaper for some reason. Marcii’s grip tightened around his fingers in denial at the mere sound of her words.
Of course Kaylm refused. Malorie tried to persuade him otherwise, but he remained steadfast in his decision, regardless of how much she warned him of the danger he would face.
Oddly, the strange woman said nothing of the danger that she or Marcii would face. The young Dougherty wondered silently what it was that so protected them and not Kaylm.
By now it was barely a few hours before sunrise, as Marcii and Kaylm followed Malorie silently into Newmarket, stealing their way through the darkness.
Marcii was growing more familiar with this feeling: being an outsider creeping in to her old home.
But it seemed by the way Malorie acted and by the assuredness in her every movement that this was more than simply something she’d realised she must do, but rather something she’d been preparing to face for a very long time.
The mysterious woman pushed on, surveying everything with her deep, vibrant violet eyes. She knew every nook and cranny of the vast market town, as if she’d spent all her years living there memorising them.
Marcii soon came to realise that, clearly, that’s exactly what she’d done.
“This way.” Malorie whispered, leading them right into the centre of town, approaching the square where the market usually bustled.
Even in the darkness Marcii could see quite clearly the aftermath of the wolves’ attack. Though there were no bodies, there were dirty, black bloodstains everywhere. Along the floors and the walls there were horrible, sticky streaks of human vitality.
Market stalls lay about in ruin all over the place; some were simply overturned whilst others were ripped to shreds.
Evidence of fires that had raged was clear and much of the stone and the wood littered all about was scorched and charred.
As the three of them crept onwards, making hardly a sound as they went, Marcii surveyed the ruins that had been left behind. The wolves had most certainly done their damage, and not merely to the population.
The scars they had left upon the town itself were all too obvious.
The sight of it grieved her deeply.
Why the damage hadn’t been righted since the attack, at first Marcii couldn’t understand.
But then, with a pit of realisation opening in her stomach, a fresh memory of gravestones flashed through her mind.
Horrified at all she’d just realised, Marcii tried desperately to avert her thoughts and her eyes. She kept her head down, avoiding the sight of the worst of the carnage.
The look on Kaylm’s face alone told her all she needed to know and more.
Nonetheless, as they passed through the square, she couldn’t help but to look upon the setting for the first speech she had ever heard Tyran deliver.
So much had happened since then, and it hadn’t even been that long ago.
All the same, she’d come so far that it barely even felt like the same lifetime.
Kaylm looked uncomfortable to say the very least.
But then Malorie’s expression too was a haunted one. Her determined eyes wavered as she walked, clearly speaking much more loudly than she intended.
As the three of them passed like ghosts through the town, they all tried to avert their eyes from the remains of the massacre.
This place held rather rough memories for them all.
How one place could stir such dreadful feelings for so many people, Marcii had no idea.
She imagined though, trying desperately to swallow her heavy nerves, that she would have a much better idea by the end of the day, for undoubtedly there was still much more pain to be had.
Chapter Three
The old man Midnight paced the blackened streets slowly, his steps measured only by the steady clunk of his heavy wooden cane striking the cobblestones.
Though he may have been aged and fragile and deaf and dumb for all to see, his pitch black eyes were sharper than daggers in the dreadful night.
All around him the air hung with the heavy weight of what was to come, and indeed what lurked already in the shadows.
Wracked with guilt and remorse, the old man’s mind and soul wandered the streets so wearily that he felt almost as if they were entirely separate to his body.
Suddenly he halted, resting his cane upon the ground and leaning heavily upon it, peering on through the night with cautious eyes. The black coals set so deeply in his face didn’t miss a thing through the eerie blackness, for the lack of light made not the slightest bit of difference.
Moving not a muscle, the old man Midnight watched as three figures crept through the square and towards his home. He recognised them in an instant and the sight made his aged heart skip several beats.
Without setting his cane down again, so as not to make a noise, Midnight followed them on swift feet through the murky streets. Not even needing to think about keeping to the shadows, for it came so naturally to him, as it had done for so long, he flitted on invisible silence after them.
Soon they headed down into the street where he had lived for more years than Marcii knew.
Malorie and her two young companions turned to face the house that belonged to the old man Midnight, or what was left of it at least, for it was in absolute ruins.
The three of them were altogether unaware of his keen, black eyes rested upon them in the darkness.
Even as they approached his home, Midnight did not reveal himself.
Torn apart from the inside out, his emotions whirred and pulled in infinite different directions. He felt the heavy burdens of guilt and responsibility, but at the same time the toils of confusion, seeing the ghost Malorie, the hunted witch Marcii, and her condemned accomplice Kaylm at his door.
Seeming to hesitate for a moment, Marcii looked back briefly to catch Malorie’s gaze, as if for reassurance.
The murdered witch nodded slowly and seriously, though what she was confirming, Midnight wasn’t entirely sure.
In response Marcii reached out her hand for the door handle. Though he was absolutely certain that he’d locked it, the front door to the old man’s home swung slowly and silently inward.
He looked on with a heavily furrowed brow as the three of them entered his house and closed the door without a sound behind them.
Wondering what in the world was going on, he was unwilling to follow them too closely. So instead, Midnight wound his was around to the back of the tall, narrow, wooden building, creeping from shadow to shadow, giving not the slightest flicker of movement away.
It seemed like barely even seconds before he found himself backed up against the rear wall of the house, peering into his own home like a criminal.
The true villains were inside.
He was the innocent one here.
Frankly though, if Midnight was completely honest with himself, he knew that neither of those statements rang with even the tiniest semblance of truth.
He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there.
After some time and no further sound or movement, Midnight knew all at once that they would not leave until they had what they wanted.
He knew it was him they were after.
Sighing deeply and leaning on his cane again, the deaf, dumb old man pushed the back door open with a slow, nervous creak.
Two murky silhouettes lurked within the walls beyond the doorway and Midnight laid his e
yes immediately upon them. Perfect in the darkness, his vision missed not even a hint of detail from Marcii and Kaylm’s faces.
Their expressions were laced heavily with burden, much more so than they should have been for a couple so young.
He felt the same weight too, though they could not so clearly see the look on his face, for their eyes were not blackened in the ways his were.
The same could have been said for their souls, regardless of the sins they were accused of.
Such thoughts were premature however and words to match would have been nothing short of devastating.
Clunking upon the wooden floor, resonating eerily around the house, the sound of Midnight’s cane as he entered was deathly and hollow. It filled Marcii and Kaylm with a sense of dread.
Malorie was nowhere to be seen.
Not even with his perfect eyes could Midnight pick up the slightest hint of the witch’s presence.
He began to wonder if he’d seen her there at all.
“Midnight…” Marcii breathed. Her voice followed the sound of his cane around the house like an awful shadow.
She knew of course that he couldn’t hear her, but she spoke the words regardless. Kaylm’s gaze flickered briefly between the young Dougherty at his side and the old man before them, whom he knew could neither hear, nor speak.
“What’s going on?” Marcii asked, not really knowing how else to phrase it. “Midnight, what’s happening?”
Of course, he did not reply.
How could he?
Marcii sighed, chewing on her lower lip slightly as the old man’s eyes, black as the night itself, bore into the both of them. Still he leaned heavily on his cane and made not the slightest hint of sound, keeping well his long established façade.
Next, Kaylm’s words echoed through the desolate building. The walls seemed to rattle and scream at the sound, resonating in Midnight’s deaf ears.
