Nameless: The Darkness Comes

by Mercedes M. Yardley

  A minute later we were on the road, my brother safely ensconced in his hospital gown and my leather jacket. Hopefully that would be enough to keep us from being pulled over for indecent exposure.

  “How close is this house?” he yelled.

  “Not too far. Relax. I’ll kick up the speed.”

  I heard a shriek as I gunned the bike. I was still angry enough that it gave me a smug sense of satisfaction.

  When we arrived at the house, he took a few shaky steps toward the front porch before he broke into a full run. He reached the door, and then spun to me, his face pained.

  “It’s locked,” he said.

  “Locked? No way,” I answered, but he was already peering through the windows.

  “It looks empty.”

  “There weren’t any humans in it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Close enough.” He used his elbow and broke the front window.

  “Hey! Watch my jacket,” I said. My irritation was getting the better of me. He ignored me and cleared the broken glass away as best he could before crawling inside.

  I took a deep breath before climbing in behind him, steeling myself for what I was going to see. My eyes adjusted to the dim light and I turned to find…nothing.

  There wasn’t anything here. No monsters, no blood, no disembodied voices. It was just a simple house with beige carpet. Not horrifying at all.

  “Where was she?” Seth asked. His body was tensed like a predator before a strike.

  “Here. She was here.” My boots ate up the ground as I strode to the back room. The place was small, harmless. It was almost adorable. I threw open the closet and it was clean. Empty. “This was it.”

  Seth dropped to his knees, examined the carpet. “You said there was a lot of blood?”

  I nodded. “Definitely. Here, and she was attacked over here.” I moved to the center of the room. The carpet was pristine. “This whole area was saturated.”

  Seth sighed with relief and let his head fall to the floor. “The carpet isn’t damp. There’s no way somebody could have got the blood out so completely in such a short time.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Oh, what? I wasn’t lying?”

  He slowly stood up, and I realized he was trembling. He had been terrified and here I was, acting like a jerk. Whether they were physically here or not, the demons were getting their hooks into me.

  I stood in the center of the room and began to shout.

  “Why are you doing this? What can you possibly gain from toying with me, you hateful, hateful things? Oh, it’s fun to torment the sick girl, isn’t it? It’s fun to see if you can drive her mad.”

  “Luna.” Seth grabbed my arm but I shook him off.

  “I’m tired of your stupid games. You’re a bunch of cowards, taking a little girl and then hiding away when I come after you. When I find you, I’m going to destroy you, do you hear me? I’ll take you apart one by one, and you’ll be sorry you ever messed with us.”

  “Stop, Luna. Just stop.”

  My fists were clenched, my chest heaving. I wanted to tear something to shreds with my bare hands.

  Seth looked exhausted. From worry for Lydia. From dealing with me.

  “Seth, I—”

  “No, forget it. You’re crazy with worry over Lydia. I am, too. We’ll find her. I promise.”

  We rode home in silence. At least I comforted myself with the thought that things couldn’t get any worse.

  As usual, I was wrong.

  An unmarked and a black and white were pulled into our driveway. Seth climbed off the bike, looking utterly ridiculous in his I-Just-Sprang-Outta-The-Hospital garb.

  “Busted,” I whispered. “The Segway security guy must have ratted us out. Man, that hospital takes its policies way too seriously.”

  “Are you Luna Masterson?” The detective didn’t even flick an eye at my brother, but the officer looked him up and down.

  “Sure am. What can I do for you, o’ fine enforcers of the law?”

  “We need to ask you a few questions. Do you know where Cecilia Masterson is?”

  “Sparkles? Nope. I’ve been looking for her myself.”

  He looked grim. “She’s been reported missing.”

  That got my attention. “Missing? But I just saw her. Where’s Lydia?”

  “I know you saw her, ma’am. An altercation was reported between the two of you.”

  Cripes. They didn’t know I had actually hit her, did they? Or, and this was even worse, had gone after her with a knife? I felt myself pale. Reed Taylor was right: I had gone absolutely out of control back there. Was he the one who turned me in?

  The detective’s expression never changed. “We’re going to need to ask you some questions, ma’am. Here or at the station, it’s your choice.”

  “Here. Come in, guys.” Hope there isn’t anything incriminating lying around. Body parts, for instance. Demon bits.

  I opened the door and led them inside. The officer turned to address my brother, his brown eyes narrowed.

  “For crying out loud, put on some pants. There are minors in this neighborhood.”

  Seth’s eyes met mine. They were full of worry. “I’m sure Lydia’s fine,” I told him. I grinned, but I didn’t feel it. If even the police didn’t know where Sparkles was, where was Baby Girl?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  They grilled me forever. Then they grilled Seth. Being the estranged ex of a missing woman made him a natural suspect.

  “I’ll answer any question you have,” he said, dignity rolling off him in waves. “Just let me fetch some pants first.”

  After they left, I grudgingly headed to work. I wanted to call out more than anything, but Seth was taking an involuntary leave of absence from his job and the medical bills were gonna start rolling in. Besides, working with needles might soothe me.

  Yeah, that was a nice thought, but stabbing didn’t make me feel any better. I was kind. I slid the needle under my client’s skin with grace and decorum.

  It sucked. Literally.

  I wanted to stab something good and hard. I wanted to find a demon, knock it to the ground, and demand it take me to Sparkles. As soon as I got off work, I was going to do some sleuthing of my own. I’ll track her down, show up on whatever doorstep she was haunting and kindly ask for Lydia back. Who could resist my sweetness? Failing that, I would find other ways to be persuasive.

  I was cleaning up my workspace when a shadow fell over my hands.

  “What’s up?” I said, looking up.

  Nobody was there.

  Suddenly my stomach flew around inside like lightning bugs. “Demon Patrol? Is that you?”

  No answer, of course. Not that I expected any. But still, Demon Patrol was the only angel I could ever sense, and if he had stopped hanging around Reed Taylor, maybe it wasn’t too far-fetched that he’d swing by to see me for a minute.

  “Demon Patrol, if that is you, Reed Taylor has been missing you horribly. I broke up with him. I’m mad as sin at him for Sparkles, and I want to keep him safe and it seems like the right thing to do. It’s…complicated. It’s also making me miserable. I can’t find Lydia. And I caught a glimpse of Sparkles’ demon, and it was the biggest, darkest thing I’ve ever seen. And Seth nearly killed himself thanks to Demonic Sparkles.”

  My voice cracked, and I pulled myself together. I glanced around to see if anybody noticed me talking to an empty space in my office. Not yet. I lowered my voice.

  “And if you aren’t Demon Patrol, sorry. I don’t really know how to deal with angels.” Or people, for that matter. Only demons, and I don’t even do that particularly well. If that isn’t pathetic, I don’t know what is.

  The shadow didn’t move. Neither did I. I just sat there feeling stupid. That’d been happening far too much for my liking lately. Where was the confident Luna who would just waltz into any situation and shoot off her mouth like a Fourth of July firework? I didn’t know where she had gone. I missed her.

  “I thi
nk I suck,” I confessed to the shadow. “I used to be full of smart aleck swagger, and now I’m just full of loss. I was even thinking about knifing Sparkles, did you know that? Do you know what kind of person thinks about that sort of thing? Not me, that’s for sure.”

  The shadow quivered in excitement or agitation, I couldn’t be certain which. But it was most likely an angel, and angels were the good guys, so I chose agitation.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t do it,” I said in my most soothing and reassuring voice. It was my Good Luna voice. My Everything Will Be All Right, I Won’t Slaughter Those You Love voice. “I totally won’t knife anybody tonight. I promise. There. Feel better?” If I had cupcakes, I would have offered them to my agitated guest. It doesn’t get any sweeter or nicer than that.

  Blood. I thought. The image of something red and sparkling ran down the walls of my mind. The immediacy of the thought nearly made me gag. Blood. Blood.

  “You can not be Demon Patrol! What kind of sicko angel are you? Uninvited, I say! Uninvited!”

  Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood.

  “I’m telling your mother,” I admonished, gathering my things together. “She would be so ashamed of you. Bad little angel. Bad.”

  I stood up and put on my jacket. Ed, my boss, appeared behind me, silent as the night except for his heavy breathing.

  “Luna, we have one more draw. Latecomer. Can you take him?”

  The shadow shivered behind him. I sighed.

  “Aw, Ed. I just closed my station. Is anybody else open?”

  His red cheeks wobbled when he shook his head. “Nope. Just you. Do you mind?”

  Of course I minded. I was stuck in a tiny office with a bloodthirsty angelic presence.

  “Don’t mind at all. Send him in.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He dropped the paperwork on my desk. I slid out of my jacket and sat back down to look it over. “I appreciate it.”

  Ed was being decent today. Not lascivious or bug-eyed. The world has officially gone insane.

  “Not a problem, Ed.”

  “Listen, since we’re the last ones here, I wondered if you wanted to—”

  “Bradley Guzman!” I bellowed out. “I’m ready for you right here. Come and get stuck.”

  “Right then,” Ed said, and stepped out of the tiny room. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

  Blood, blood, blood, blood! Blood! Blood, blood!

  Cripes, welcome to crazy town! I felt somebody sit down in front of me, and I automatically smiled.

  “So you must be Brad…” My voice trailed away. The tiny man had dark hair and a beautiful smile. He also had a demon wound around his neck.

  “Hello,” he said. His eyes danced. I nearly vomited on the floor.

  “So, um, looks like a standard blood draw. Ain’t no thing,” I said, and forced my hands to steady as I reached for the alcohol and wipes. “Roll up your sleeve, please.”

  “Okay.” The demon slithered its tongue in and out of Bradley Guzman’s ear. I forced myself to breathe normally.

  “How’s your day going, Bradley Guzman?” I asked. I slid the needle easily under his skin. He didn’t bat an eye. The demon glared at me once and then turned its attention back to its host.

  “Pretty good, I guess,” he said. I filled one vial. Two. I was nearly done, and then I spontaneously reached out for a third vial. It filled easily.

  “Awesome to hear. Apply pressure here, please.” I labeled the vials, taped the cotton pad over the tiny wound. “Good to go, my friend. Have a glorious day.”

  “Thanks. You, too.” He left. The demon raked its claws through his hair. I held the three vials of blood in my hand.

  Why had I done that? It had never happened before. What was I going to do with an extra vial of blood? And what would I tell Ed? “Whoops, I was just having so much fun watching his demon flirt with him, I could have gone on filling vials all day. Thank goodness I came to my senses, ha, ha, ha.”

  I’d have to dispose of it. I ran the two vials to the fridge, and surreptitiously slid the third into the pocket of my jacket. Suddenly I felt a purring sensation, and this time it wasn’t the Mark reveling in my underhanded behavior.

  Blood, the presence seemed to titter inside of my mind. I felt a twinge of emotion, both happiness and a sense of relief. Blood. Blood!

  “Okay, you little savage,” I muttered under my breath. “I could get fired for this. There had better be a darn good reason you have me siphoning from the demon horde. Angel has some ‘splaining to do.”

  Blood. The presence disappeared.

  I drove home carefully. I couldn’t stop thinking about what type of woman would carry around a stranger’s blood in her pocket. It wasn’t comforting.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I was sitting at the kitchen table staring at my ill-gotten vial of blood when the phone rang.

  “Hey,” Seth said. “I made a few phone calls today. I think we’ve been going about it all wrong. We’ll never get Lydia back this way. We’re going to have to make some changes to the plan.”

  I tossed the dark red vial from hand to hand. From the look of things, Bradley Guzman had an iron count that would make Tony Stark blush. He also needed to hydrate more, but it didn’t seem in my best interest to track him down and let him and the demon know.

  “What plan? The fight at OK Corral plan? Where I heroically find Lydia and snatch her away from the jaws of Demonic Sparkles?”

  He sighed. “Yes. That plan. How’s it working for us so far?”

  I growled.

  “Exactly.”

  “So what does the new and improved plan entail?”

  He suddenly sounded very weary. “We have to look as stable as possible. Can you do that? Act like a fine upstanding citizen? I’ll try not to kill myself and you don’t act crazy.”

  I eyed the vial suspiciously. “I can do that.” I think.

  “Good. I’ll be home in a few. Then we can talk.”

  I slid the phone back into my pocket and groaned. Of all the times to turn klepto about bodily fluids.

  “What are you so down about?”

  I shot upright, wrapping my fingers around the vial and hiding it from view.

  “What are you doing here, Mouth?”

  He flowed over, sat in the seat beside me.

  “Hello to you, too.”

  Whatever. I still hadn’t forgiven him for sending me into Hell House. I’d see Lydia’s mutilated body in my mind’s eye until the day I died. You don’t just get over something like that.

  “What do you want?”

  He went even wispier than usual, but I didn’t care.

  “You don’t sound very happy to see me,” he said. The jauntiness was gone and he sounded hurt. Do demons even feel hurt?

  “I’m not. I have a lot on my mind. I’m trying to act as perfectly normal as possible, for some mysterious reason that Seth will elaborate on later. That doesn’t involve talking to you when he walks through the door, so say your piece and get out.”

  “You should be nicer to me.” Simple words, but his tone made my breath catch. It sounded like ice and fog and darkness. It sounded like the voice of a demon with authority.

  It made me afraid. I was tired of being afraid, and that just made me downright mad.

  “Listen, you,” I hissed, and jabbed my finger toward his chest. It was encased in the surging blackness that was building up around him. “I don’t like being threatened, got it? Especially in my own house. I don’t trust you.“ I jabbed him with my finger again. “I don’t like your kind,“ jab, “and right now I don’t like you. If you have something to say, then say it. If you don’t, then leave. You aren’t welcome here.”

  Mouth surged to his feet. He was taller than usual, black and angry. My instinct was to shrink back, but I countered that by standing straighter and putting both hands on the table to brace myself.

  “You forget yourself, Luna. You forget who I am. You forget what I am. Do not anger me, human. I have more p
ower than you.”

  “Get out,” I yelled. The rage in my voice surprised me. “Just get out of here. Uninvited!”

  The darkness blossomed out of him like a burst of pollen from a deadly flower. It filled the room and then receded back to his body, a sickly halo.

  “I was going to tell you how to get Lydia back. It goes against everything I stand for, breaking every oath I took. I was going to do it for you. But you’re not worth the eternity of torment that would have ensued. I can’t believe I was so foolish. I’m only glad I realized it now.”

  The Mark seared between my shoulder blades and I dropped to the floor. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t even pull myself to my knees. I gritted my teeth together to keep from screaming. The vial of blood fell from my hand and rolled across the linoleum.

  Mouth looked at it and smirked. “Clever,” he said. He shouted a word in a strange language and the vial shattered, spraying blood in a small circle on the floor. I closed my eyes and turned my face away, praying I didn’t get any on me, that it wouldn’t work its way into my mouth or my eyes.

  “Look at you,” the demon said, and the disgust in his voice hurt my stomach. “How could I have possibly thought you were worth it?”

  He flowed backwards and through the door. The pain of the Mark and the terror was too much for me. I threw up on the floor, twice, and curled into a shivering ball.

  The door opened again. I cringed, unsure if I would be able to stand another attack.

  “Cripes,” Seth said, dropping several grocery bags onto the kitchen floor. He surveyed the scene and blew out a breath. “I tell you that we need to act normal, and this is what I get?”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Normal is as normal does.

  The very next day I was sitting on a carefully neutral couch, staring into the face of a carefully neutral woman.

  “What are you thinking?” Sheila the Counselor asked me. Her voice was, no surprise, carefully neutral.

  I was thinking that I hated this place, and it was a shame to spend my lunch break doing something so banal. I was thinking that Seth’s idea of playing by the rules totally bites, especially since it meant meeting with a counselor to see if we’re crazycakes. I’m thinking that this broad could use a little pizazz, like some bright lipstick or highlights in her hair. That made me think of Reed Taylor, which made me think that I hate myself a little bit. And that made me mad, which made me hate everything else. A lot.