Nameless: The Darkness Comes

by Mercedes M. Yardley

  Nameless: The Darkness Comes

  Book One of The Bone Angel Trilogy

  Mercedes M. Yardley

  Copyright © 2014 Mercedes M. Yardley

  Cover Artwork by George C. Cotronis | www.ravenkult.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Worldwide Rights

  Created in the United States of America

  Published by Ragnarok Publications | www.ragnarokpub.com

  Editor-In-Chief: Tim Marquitz | Creative Director: J.M. Martin

  Also By Mercedes M. Yardley

  Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love

  Dedication

  For Janyece, who has dealt with me the longest. In exchange for everything, I give you Mouth.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Epilogue

  Hello, My Darlings

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The demonic love the taste of little girls.

  Luna Masterson went to her first sleepover when she was six, armed with a Superman sleeping bag and a pink pillow, pigtails and sour candies. Before she left, her dad pulled her onto his lap.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, and looked worried. Even though she should have been too young to tell, Luna could see the anxiety running under the lines of his face. “You’re sleeping somewhere other than home tonight. And I know you see things in the dark…”

  “You don’t want me to talk to the Tiptoe Shadow tonight.”

  His face broke a little. A man’s face isn’t designed to carry so much emotion at one time.

  “Sweetie, I never want you to talk to the Tiptoe Shadow. He’s a bad thing and he lies. But especially not tonight, because I won’t be there with you. Do you understand?”

  She understood. Her mother didn’t see the shadows, and neither did her brother, Seth. But for some reason, her Daddy could, and it made her feel better. Even a child knows about the word crazy.

  “All right, Daddy.”

  He kissed her hair. “I love you, Luna. Don’t let him use you. Now go hop in the car.”

  The night was everything she had dreamed of. They had cake and ice cream, watched a movie, made up silly dances, and fell into bed exhausted. Penelope, the birthday girl, was the first to fall asleep. Luna was the last.

  Her eyes were starting to close when she heard it. The surreptitious sound of something slyly skittering her way. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Oh girl Luna,” called a voice. It was high and squeaky like the brakes of a car. “Luuuuuuuuuna. Let’s, mmm, play.”

  She didn’t move, tried to act like she was asleep. Something leaned over her face and chuckled.

  “Girl is awake. I know girl. I smell girl. Girl smells like fear and dying and oh, oh, oh.”

  Long, tapered fingers ran down her face. She knew them well.

  “And more girls, mmm. Lots of choices.” He pranced away from her, and she cracked open an eye. The demon was tall, hunched over as he picked over the girls sleeping on the floor. He was made of nothing but shadow cast onto the wall. Impossibly tall, impossibly thin, he minced around on his tiny tiptoes instead of walking fully on his feet.

  “Girl smells like happy. Yuck,” he said, and moved on to a brunette. “Girl smells like, mmm, anger. I taste it, yes.” He ran his thick tongue over the girl’s face and into her hair. Luna shivered. The demon tottered to Penelope and inhaled deeply.

  “Girl smells like hurting. Smells like her father. Smells relieved to have, mmm, friends here to sate the father, maybe he chooses one of you, maybe he leaves her alone tonight, maybe he doesn’t come. But he will, oh yes! He will come, and he will look, and he will see her, and you, and all your, mmm, friends, so pretty, so sweet, so little and helpless and small—”

  “Stop it!” Luna shouted, and the shadow whipped its head in her direction. Although it had no face, she could feel the burn of its eyes, sense its grin. “Leave her alone. Leave us all alone!”

  “Luna, who are you screaming at?” Penelope said. She sat up, rubbed her eyes. The Tiptoe Shadow yelped in glee and nuzzled her hair. She didn’t see it. “Don’t be so loud. You’ll wake up my parents, and we’ll get in trouble.”

  “Here comes father!” squealed the demon. It danced around on tiny, broken feet.

  “Girls,” Penelope’s father said warningly, standing in the doorway. Luna looked at him with new revulsion.

  “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch her.” She stood in front of Penelope, spreading her thin arms wide to keep him away. She bared her teeth at him and the groggy girls gasped in horror.

  “Luna, what’s gotten into you?” Penelope’s father asked. He reached for her and she screamed, hitting and kicking and biting.

  “I know what you do. The Tiptoe Shadow told me you’re a bad man. I want my daddy!”

  Luna was never invited to another party at Penelope’s house, or anybody else’s. When Luna the Lunatic’s mother died, her father tried to teach her how to handle the demonic on his own.

  “I don’t think they’ll hurt you,” he told his daughter one day. She was sixteen and had just run a demon down with the family car. “At least, not usually. You’re too much fun for them.”

  “Thanks, Dad. That’s extremely disheartening.”

  He put his arm around her. “Cheer up, Sweetie. We can beat this, you and I.”

  And they did, for a while, until her world was destroyed and she was left alone.

  The darkness comes when she’s all alone.

  Chapter One

  “Dude, that guy has a demon,” I said to my brother. We were sitting side by side on the front porch, but he wasn’t looking at me. I nudged him in the ribs and pointed at the guy, discreetly.

  “What’s it doing?” Seth asked, still flipping through his Runner’s World. He never even looked up. I’m not surprised in the least. I squint at the guy across the street.

  “W
ell, the guy’s carrying groceries into his house, and it looks like the demon’s trying to open the door. And you’re not listening.”

  “I’m listening.” Flip, flip, flip. He wasn’t even looking at the pages, flipping them so fast. Trying to keep his cool, as usual. Sometimes his calmness was maddening. I wanted him to get excited sometimes, to stand and shout until the veins popped out of his neck like Dad’s did. But he’ll never be Dad. He’d die first.

  “There’s a demon, Seth. Hanging around the guy next door. And you’re completely unfazed by this?”

  “Completely.”

  “Of course,” I muttered and took a bite out of an apple. The green kind, my favorite. And suddenly it didn’t matter anymore, if he believed me or not, because that wouldn’t change anything, would it?

  “I’ll be late. Don’t wait up,” I said, and my voice sounded harsher than I intend. It sounded mean. I wanted to turn back and apologize, but I made myself keep walking.

  I think about my brother. I think about him a lot lately, especially since his wife ran out on him six months ago. After the first five, I moved in to help him take care of his baby girl, Lydia. She’s a little over a year old and still doesn’t sleep through the night. Nightmares. I think they’re hereditary. But then, with a mom like Sparkles, I’d have nightmares, too.

  Yes. Seth actually married a woman who called herself Sparkles. Maybe he deserved everything he got.

  “Where are you going?” a soft voice asked me. I didn’t turn to see the speaker.

  “You don’t belong here,” I said, not breaking my stride. “Go home.”

  “Where is home?” The voice floated along at my side. I could see the wispy darkness out of the corner of my eye.

  “I meant your home. You are not invited to mine.”

  “I want to come to yours.”

  “Uninvited, demon.”

  “I want to see where you live.”

  I was getting irritated. I wanted to turn and face the demon so I could yell at it properly, but I kept walking, kept my eyes straight ahead.

  “I’m on to your tricks, demon. You’ll get no sport from me.”

  There was a snorting laughter, and the earlier foggy vagueness was gone from its voice. “Oh, I’ll get plenty from you, Luna.” It faded away.

  The first time a demon called me by name, I about had a heart attack. How does it know me? How does it know? I had thought. But I was young then, only a little girl in school, and I was not wise to such things. They know me because I know them. Really, it isn’t very mystical at all.

  Ah, but knowing a demon’s name? That gives you power. Good luck finding it out, though. Half the time the demons themselves can’t remember what they were originally called.

  I walked all of the way down to the harbor. The air had that heavy scent of fish and soft rotting things that somehow managed to be fresh and almost pleasant. I love the sea. I leaned over the railing and stared into the dark water.

  Something even darker stared back.

  I sighed, shoved my hands in my pockets and turned my back to the railing. Sometimes this gift of mine really sucks.

  My phone rang, and I fished around in my puffy down vest until I found it. It was my brother.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  There was a pause, and then a shadowy voice warbled out, “I am a demon.”

  “What, using my brother’s phone?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t be a moron. Demons can’t use electronics. What’s going on, Seth?”

  My brother took a big breath and let it out slowly. It was purifying just listening to it. I found myself breathing out with him.

  “I don’t want you to be mad at me, Luna,” he said. I could hear splashing and happy noises in the background. He must be giving Lydia her bath. This made me smile.

  “I’m not mad at you. I’m just, you know, frustrated. I’m not lying.”

  “I never thought you were,” he said, and I heard little girl giggling and more splashing. And something different, a kind of low humming. This was a lot closer.

  Great, I thought.

  I turned my back to the humming and stalwartly refused to look into the water. There’s always a lot of activity that goes on near the sea. A lot of things there.

  “You don’t think I’m lying, you just think I’m crazy, right? And this is supposed to make me feel better?”

  Seth didn’t say anything, and I bet he was mentally counting to ten. I try his patience, I know this. At the same time, he’s my brother, the only family I have left, and I almost feel like he owes it to me to believe.

  “Dad used to hear voices,” he said slowly, and I snorted and hung up the phone.

  “You,” I said, pointing to a demon three steps away from me. His eyes were already upon mine. “And you, and you.” I pointed at two others, one of which was trying to reach the phone in my hand.

  “It’s not going to work. You think I’d help you touch something from my world? You, too,” I said, peeking over the railing into the water. “You guys aren’t real. You’re all products of my ultra-deranged mind. What do you think of that?”

  They started laughing.

  “Thought so,” I said and turned toward work.

  Chapter Two

  I’m sort of a jack of all trades, I guess. I do a little bit of everything, and all of it is mediocre. Except sticking people with needles. Being stabby seems to be the only thing I really excel at. So when I blazed into town full of glory and good intentions, I snagged a phlebotomy job, no problem. Something about siphoning healthy-looking blood soothes me. I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with that one.

  I was busy prepping my station for a routine blood draw when a shadow fell across me.

  “Hey, hotshot, I’m not ready for you yet. Wait for me to call you, okay?” I said, not looking up.

  The shadow didn’t move. I bit the inside of my cheek in frustration, and raised my eyes.

  There was nothing there. That I could see, anyway.

  Well, this was new. There was always a person or a demon, but an invisible presence? Something unseen casting a shadow? I don’t know much about physics and its laws, but I’m thinking they’d have a hard time accepting this.

  “So…” I said, waiting for the thing to take the lead. It didn’t. And frankly, I didn’t have time for this.

  “Okay, nice chatting with ya. Obviously it’s time for you to scram. Working, you see.”

  I grabbed the tubes I needed and rechecked my order. Satisfied, I stood up and went to the window at the front of the office. The presence followed me.

  “Reed Taylor,” I called out, and waited until a relatively handsome guy with tragically bland hair stood up. I nodded toward the back room and he followed me. So did the presence.

  “What’s up?” I asked this “Reed Taylor”. He smiled benignly. I suppressed a sigh. Let’s do a quick stick and get this over with. Then afterwards maybe I could go play in traffic.

  “Would you roll up your sleeve, please?” I asked him. He blanched a bit, and then slowly pulled his sleeve up. I could see the old track marks on his arm.

  “I haven’t used in years,” he told me quietly. I flicked my eyes to his, but he was carefully looking away.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” I said, and started prodding at his arm. There was a lot of scar tissue to work around.

  “I know that. I just…” He laughed. “I don’t want you to think badly of me, that’s all. Which is funny, considering you’re a complete stranger. So it shouldn’t be important, should it? I mean, I could be murdering people right and left, and it shouldn’t matter to you.” He paused. “That was so inappropriate.” His head dropped.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I hit his vein and filled the tubes, one after another. The presence moved closer. Its shadow fell across my hands.

  “Back off, I can’t see,” I said without thinking. Reed’s head flipped up, and I froze.

  “W
ho are you talking to?” He asked. His eyes were shining with an intensity that made my spine stiffen.

  “Nobody.” He didn’t look like he bought it. He probably thought he was getting his life’s blood siphoned off by a complete psycho. “Uh…you?”

  He shook his head. “No, you weren’t talking to me.”

  I pulled off the last vial and pressed a cotton ball over the needle. I pulled it out more hastily than usual and Reed hissed.

  “Sorry about that. Here, hold this,” I said, and Reed pressed down on the cotton ball. His eyes were still trying to catch mine, but I made a big show of gathering all of my paperwork together.

  “So you know the drill, Reed Taylor. Drink lots of water; don’t use this arm to lift anything heavy. If there’s any strange bruising or a painful lump that arises…”

  “Hey,” he said, and I finally looked at him. His eyes were vibrant and green. Not bland at all. Kind of almost…beautiful.

  “W-what?”

  Reed spoke slowly and gently, like he was talking to a scared child. “This is very important. We both know you weren’t speaking to me. ”

  Suddenly I wanted to tell him. I don’t know why. Something about guarding myself every minute of the day, being careful not to look at things nobody else saw, to speak to things nobody else heard. It was wearying. But I can’t just say to a stranger, “Hey, you know what? I see demons. They’re everywhere. Everybody else thinks I’ve just gone bonkers.” But he didn’t ask about demons, did he? He only wanted to know what I saw right now. And I didn’t see a darn thing.

  “I didn’t see anything,” I said honestly, and something changed behind his eyes. He looked disappointed and angry at the same time. He turned his face away from me.

  “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Nice meeting you…” he squinted at the name sewn onto my borrowed lab coat, “Bartholomew.” Good heavens, he can’t be that stupid. He frowned slightly, looked at me one more time, and then abruptly stood up and walked away. The presence drifted off behind him. I had the impression it was trying to tell Reed Taylor something, but he wasn’t having it.