by J Middleton
Beyond the final stretch of the street there was an old run down building. He turned the corner, seeing the library only a few blocks away. Tall brick with security around it. A red carpet covered the walk way in front of the door. He watched from a distance as a figure with a long cape that dripped over his body, followed by a long hood. At that instant, he knew he had to go around back. Ducking in the brushes he crawled along the fence line until he reached the backside of the fence. There was no wind in the air and no sign of life anywhere except for the footprints he was making along the ground. The air was thick with moisture as storm clouds gathered overhead, darkening the pathway. Finally, he seen a red glow that stood in front of a small opening underground. The entrance was shallow, only about three meters of space between the walls, but it was enough to him some reprieve. As he traveled into the small space it opened further.
Vince remain completely silent as always. Slipping though the large hallway until he reached the archives, he hurried and shut the door. The walls were lined up from ceiling to floor of old antique strolls. He walked to the end of the room and in a far corner there was crates stacked up. He opened one and the papers was rotted beyond recognition. He didn’t expect to find anything, but it was worth checking. Many of the crates were already lodged open and apparently empty, but he spotted a few still closed, with thick lids sealed firmly across their tops. Pulling on the lids he knocked the box on its side. It spilled out onto the floor. Several objects crashed against each other, echoing loudly. He froze knowing someone heard the loud noise, he ran and hide behind some crates. His heart pounding hard, as sweat form on his forehead. Waiting for the door to swing open, but it never did. He creeped back out of his hiding place and continue to dig. Most of the other containers broke apart the same as the first. A few had similar objects in it, along with some powered substance. The same kind he’d found in the first box. Several others only spilled piles of dust into the air. Vince covered his face with a rag, but it was no use. He couldn’t keep the musky smell out, and he gagged, taking a few steps back as he waited for it to settle. Once it had, examined the other pile. The objects like a bowl, and brittle. They cracked and well apart when he applied pressure. It looked like a small bowl with a tight lid.
After leaving the archives he walked through the halls, exploring several other rooms identical to the first. He ignored them for the most part and continued his search, hoping for more answers. At the end of another hall lay a set of stairs, which descended into a massive doorway into the next room. This place was at least three times as wide as the other room. With hundreds of books and crates, most of which was sealed shut. Vince started walking down rolls of books. It took him an hour to find the one with his family crest on it.
A loud bang rang through the walls, vibrating the floor. He flinched and quickly turned around. He could feel his heart racing.
He grabbed the book and emerged from the library, leaving the small entrance way behind. Right then another loud noise was heard through the building.
He ran down the dark pathway with no sense of direction. Reaching a small path of woods, he kept on going finding himself at a stream which was swollen by the storm and diluted with fallen leaves. Several trees littered the ground, with rotting trunks drowning in the water. He walked along the sand leaving a series of footprints behind, a trail for no to follow him. Vince passed under the arch of a branch.
A thunderous cry sent a flock of birds scattering from the treetops. His heart jumped as she seen a dark figure burst through the shroud of foliage into the open. Standing there trying to focus on a pair of red eyes fixated on him. Vince took a stop back, as the figure edged forward. The eyes were familiar. Piercing red and calm, he knew them well.
A voice whispered in his mind.
“Come to me.”
The words lingered as a gust blew through the peak. The tree sighed overhead, rustling its leaves.
Vince swallowing the lump in his throat. It was Lilly. He usually enjoyed the visits, but this was different. He sensed fear, as panic rolled through his veins. The book tingle in his hand. It was far heavier than he had anticipated. Vince breath escaped him as moved quickly through the trees. Without hesitation, he began running through the way he came in. He had to get out of this. He had to get as far away from this place as possible.
Her eyes were on his back as he ran, her angry cry drifting from the darkness. He dared not look back, knowing that if he saw her he would no longer be able to move.
The cries and thunderous footprints of the her followed. He neared the beginning of the street, as he kept his fast pace running down the sidewalk. Within minutes he reached Glenda’s door.
He slowly opened it and closed it behind him. Never looking back to see if the dark shadow was following him. Taking deep breaths to slow his heart rate, he ran upstairs to his room. Leaning his back against the door, listening to the thundering of his heart. Sweat was dripping from his cheek. Wiping his eyes, ignoring the sting and burn of the sweat as it slid along his pores. Minutes later he ran to his window and peeked out. The rain came with soft patter against the window. The wind roared so loudly it sounded like a scream. A few moments later the storm had manifested, covering the sidewalks. Flashes of yellow white ignited the ground as lightning flashed overhead reflecting off the concrete street. Rainwater was flowing over the window, too thick for him to see anything. Closing the curtains, he stared across his room. Vince closed his eyes.
“I know this is you, grandmother. Isn’t it?” he mumbled. Waiting for response but there was nothing.
Moments later the rain stopped, just as fast as it started. Then there was nothing but silence.
He wept until a steady flow of gentle sobs bled out of him and poured like rain. The tears fell, distorting the image of her, colliding with the familiar fire red eyes that he knew too well.
Getting enough courage, he moved to his bed and opened the book to the last page.
Last entry:
“The world was changing, with it was humans. Each day progress was being made to bring mankind to their knees. For the first time in hundreds of years, humanity was in danger of her wrath. If the darkness is unleashed on earth it will destroy most of the population, leaving only ones to serve her. The shadow hunters must be called to control the peace and put the evil back where it belongs before all is destroyed. Many will be sacrificed to save others. She must be destroyed and her family be sent away where no one can find them. The war has begun.”
Vince closed the book afraid to read any further.
“What did it mean? Was Lilly going to destroy everyone?”
He buried his face in his pillow, squeezing it trying to shut out what he read.
“I know you are scared.” A voice whispered softly.
He began to shake as he raised his head up. Nothing was in his room. He laid his head back down on his pillow trying to stop his body from trembling.
“They will die alone.” The voice came back with an even lower voice. Nodding his head, he never looks up, he just keeps his face buried. Vince closed his eyes as his mind wondered in to an empty sea of thoughtlessness.
In just that moment he entered a state in which he drew his strength. Where time slowed, and his senses were magnified. In each of his instances where he had done this, he’d felt a thrill of exhilaration. A power so intense it drove him crazy. His eyes snapped open, a surge of energy filled him. Beads of sweat poured down his face, filling his eyes with a sharp burn. His chest was heavy. His heart felt like it was going to explode.
“What do you mean?” He asked, but there was no response. The room was back to silence. Vince licked his lips, he was suddenly thirsty. A cold chill ran through him and his stomach turned into a knot.
“What is going on?” He thought to himself. “It’s nothing” he told himself repeating the words over and over.
Laying his head back against the headrest, closed his eyes. Allowing himself a few seconds to relax pushing away the images of Lilly
’s shadows. A few seconds turned into a couple of minutes as it got easier for him to relax. Finally, he fell asleep.
Chapter 8
Victoria eased Vince’s door open and noticed he wasn’t in the room. With her hand, still on the knob she began to close it and stopped suddenly when she noticed something on his bed. She walked over to it and froze.
“Oh my God, that is the Black Book. Where did he get this?”
She stood there for a minute before she reached down and picked it up. Sitting down on the edge of the bed she opened it and noticed a few pictures she knew. The photo was a tall slender man standing against a brick wall. It was a man named Bron Tamedi. He waits for the deceased to guide them to the gates of heaven. He stands for good and can communicate in all foreign languages. Welcoming people all over the world to the kingdom. Living at the crossroads between the worlds of the living and the dead.
On the left side of the page there stood Pa Leau the gatekeeper to the spirit world. He was the tricky and evil one. He was always dressed like a corpse at a funeral, going unnoticed in either world, living or dead. He was the master of the dead and uses them to do his bedding. When he ushers a soul past the gates into the spirit world, he takes your soul from its living body into the underworld. Looking closing at symbols there that marked their spirit.
Most of the other pictures showed some versions of the top hat with chicken bones and tiny human skulls.
Flipping through more pages of spells and magic her hands trembled just knowing no one had ever seen the contains of this book. Nervously, she flips though some more pages and there was the King of Evil. She went to read on but the remaining pages were worn and crumbled away. There was a small piece of a page that showed part of a photo of a shadow with dark red spot on his face. She couldn’t tell if that was on the page are it was in the picture.
Flipping through several pages before she found a blurry picture of a man. Underneath it was written the King of Evil. All that she could see was hollow eyes. The more she looked at them they burned into her like a raging fire.
“One ushers the soul out of your body and into the afterlife, one ushers you into heaven. The dark ones take your soul to hell.” She read on.
“Lilly can’t summon these evil spirits, can she?” She thought.
“Lilly has unleashed the evil from the spirit world again? The King of Evil will be looking for someone to take. This can’t happen.”
Before she could think of a logical conclusion she rushed out the room and headed to the kitchen. She stopped at the door way watching Glenda and watched her pull a powder out of her Mojo Bag. Mixing it in a small bowl and started to mumble. Victoria walks to the table and lays he book down in front of her.
“Where did you get this?” Glenda jumped out of her chair. “It was on Vince’s bed.” Victoria released a breath that she didn’t realize she was holding.
“What? How did it get in there? No one is to see this book but the high priest. Victoria how did he get this?” she looked straight into her face.
“I don’t know. We have to return it.” Glenda’s face was pale. Her red painted lips stand out harsh and strange against her skin.
“If we return it we will be punished.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Her head dropped looking at the symbols on the front.
At that second Vince walked into the room.
They both turned to face him. The sound of his heels of his boots dug into the kitchen floor. Silence then filled the room.
“Vince where did you get this book?” Her voice full of fear.
“I got it from the archives.” A peering chill ran down her spine.
“Why did you take this book Vince?” Glenda asks.
“I needed answers, everyone is hiding things from me and I want to know the truth.”
A tear ran down Victoria face as she turned to her side with her finger she whipped the tear off her cheek.
“How did you get it? That place is guarded!”
“Lilly showed me a way in.”
“Lilly! What do you mean she showed you? There is no way to get in without being seen!”
“Yes there is.”
“Do you realize what kind of trouble you are in, and what kind of danger you put us in. If they find out, we have it.” Vince cut her sentence off.
“They didn’t see me? They don’t know. Besides I was going to put it back after I read it.”
“Vince don’t ever go there again it is forbidden. I will take it back tell me how you got it.”
“No mama! You will get caught.”
Glenda looked over at him.
“How much have you read?”
“Not very much just the page in the back where it talks about a shadow hunter saving man kind and hell has been unleased to destroy the world. Is that true, has the evil been unleashed to destroy everything.” Pausing for a moment. “Did grandmother do this? Is she going to destroy everyone?”
“You must tell her Victoria.” Glenda said.
She forced herself to look at Vince. Swallowing hard, as she took a deep breath.
“Yes Vince, your grandmother Lilly has caused this and she wants revenge.”
He gazes over at Glenda never even looking at Victoria. Her heart was pounding in her ears.
“Is this true? did Lilly really cause this Glenda?” Vince looks over at her, knowing she can’t lie.
“Yes she did dear. All of it. Now she has come back to kill as many as she can.”
He looked down at the book.
“The answer is in here. I know it is. At the end, it said that her relatives must leave to protect the city from another attack. We can just leave.”
“It isn’t that easy son, she knows we are here so where we go she will come.”
“All she wants is us. She will leave everyone alone if she gets what she wants. Right?”
“No Vince she won’t. She will kill everyone even if we went to her. That is who she is.”
He reaches for the book, Victoria put her hand on the top.
“No Vince it is forbidden.”
He jerked his fingers away. He tied to convince himself that it was for his own good. For a moment, he believed this but quickly changed his mind. Studying his mother’s movement, he noticed she had been shaken by his realization.
“Vince you must not go back to the archives. Promise me that.” Glenda pleads. Vince looks down and away from Glenda.
“Vince,” she pleads again.
“All right, I won’t’ go back, but how are you going to get the book back.”
“I will find a way.”
Victoria quickly covered the book with a towel when she heard Jessica entering the room.
“Morning.”
“Good morning Jessica.”
She could feel that she walked in on something, the room was too quiet.
“So what is going on?” she waited for an answer, but no one said a word. “Well let me see if I can guess.”
Staring at the lump at the table and looking at Vince’s flushed face.
“What is under the towel that everyone is hiding from me?”
“It’s nothing to be concern about.”
“I think it is, so unless you want me to tell you what you have under there, you might want to spill the beans.”
Glenda knew that one of her powers was to see through things.
“It’s a book if you must know.” Victoria snapped.
“I know that, what kind of book.” Jessica answered, but no one replied.
Before anyone could say anything, she quickly sat down in a chair. Her face went pale like she had seen a ghost.
“This can’t be? Tell me you don’t have the black book.”
“Jessica calm down.”
“You want me to calm down when you are hiding the black book! No one has ever seen this book and it is forbidden for anyone to touch or even look at it.”
“No one said it is the black book.”
“No one has to s
ay, everyone know that I see through anything, Glenda.” She snapped.
“Yes we know this. Just calm down.”
“There is still time to confess to the high priest a plea for his mercy.” Jessica then mumbles a prayer under her breath. She wanted to grab the book and run but was afraid to touch it.
“How did you get this book?”
“I got it Jessica.” Vince spoke.
“Vince let us do the talking please.” Victoria said.
“You, How?” Jessica asks short of breath as she turned and stared at him.
“It doesn’t matter how. The fact is that we have it and will return it.” Glenda jumped in the conversation.
Time seem to freeze as the room got silence. Victoria’s thoughts were interrupted when Jessica pulled the cloth off the book.
Out of nowhere, an array of bright light surrounded them. Victoria felt herself being pulled away from the table. Volts of electricity tore through her veins, rattling her entire body.
No pain, no agony, just, energy. Her body felt lighter like it was going to float away
“Victoria!” Glenda called out.
Victoria’s skin prickles as fear was twisted her gut into a not. The kitchen door swings open, then the lights overhead click on and off.
“Momma!” Vince yells as he looks at her pale face.
He yells again, finally his voice snapped her out of her trance.
“What happened?” Glenda asks.
“I don’t know, it was like someone had control over my body and mind. I was being pulled in a different direction.”
“It’s the book?” Jessica snapped.
“Jessica it isn’t the book!” Glenda snapped at her.
Glenda could feel the temperature drop thirty degrees in the room. She quickly mumbled something under her breath and the room returned too normal.
“Victoria, I am afraid this could have been Lilly and her powers are much greater now.” Glenda said as she turned and stared into her face.
