Howler's Night

by Marie Hall

  The room was dark and the night long, but I didn’t need light. I was a master of the darkness. It was how I created my Gray Man; he was a manipulation of the dark matter in the universe.

  He worked beside me, a silent, semi-sentient shadow who desired only to do my bidding.

  “You take the left, I the right,” I ordered him.

  He didn’t bow or dip his head, but he glided off, hovering over the floor like a black wave.

  I stood in the room, staring at the gaping hole in the wall. Memories clawed at my mind—me holding her, the explosion, and the utter chaos of noise and light. Then dragging my broken body out from under the wreckage only to be set upon by shifters. I’d been disoriented from the blast, unaware that I’d taken a direct hit until I’d tried to punch one of them and my arm refused to obey.

  I’d managed to get away from them just long enough to see Pandora in their clutches, see her panicked gaze and hear her anguished cries. My little demon had never looked so scared, and I’d been too useless to help.

  By the time the shock had worn off, they were all gone, even the ones I’d put down. Luc had packed up and moved the group twenty-five miles deeper into the swamp. He’d bucked me when I told him I was moving the trailer, telling me it was nothing but scraps, good only to build a fire with. And even though I’d known he was right, I also knew that the devastation of losing this trailer would undo her.

  Kemen had been her world; this trailer was a shrine to him, her way of clinging to a love she’d so rarely known in life. So I’d kept the thing, and worked on repairing it during my down time.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the marshy, swampy air, letting the calling clicks of the cicadas ease my strained nerves.

  If she were dead, I’d know it. I’ve loved Pandora for centuries, learning her, watching over her. Becoming one with her soul.

  I rubbed my heart.

  The scent of sulfur filled the room. It was a dark, smoky scent that all demons inherently possessed.

  Though Pandora had never smelled of the stench of Hell to me.

  Luc’s grizzled voice sounded from behind my shoulder. “You know you’ve missed nothing.”

  I worked my jaw, watching as the gray man floated painstakingly over every inch of the room.

  Slowly I turned, so that our chests practically bumped. “I should kill you for sounding so defeated.”

  I still didn’t like him, but I’d learned to tolerate him.

  His nostrils flared as my fists clenched.

  We were bombs, our fuses so short it would take nothing for one of us to explode.

  Maybe it was the ghost of Pandora so close to the surface, but his tension faded, and then he was taking a giant step back, and then another, until he was out of my space and sitting on a corner of the bed.

  Spreading his legs, he flicked his wrist around. “Fuck,” he growled. “Fuck.”

  The more crushed he sounded, the more he disgusted me. Snarling, I swatted the emotion away. “We can’t sit here and do nothing. I will find her, with or without you.”

  His gaze shifted to mine. “We’ve searched through every network of shifter conclaves out there. No one has a clue what we’re talking about.”

  Leaning against the wall, I chuckled. “Yeah, and we can take the word of monsters. Especially ones with a tight familial bond. If you’re not with me, Luc, you’re against me. So which is it?”

  “I have a responsibility to my family, Priest.” He scrubbed his jaw and then rubbed his palms down his jeans. “It’s not like she’s the first we’ve lost. She sure as hell won’t be the last.”

  “Screw you!” I gripped the edge of the beaten up wooden dresser, because what I really wanted to do was cram my fist down his throat and rip his heart out. “You can’t tell me that one year is all Pandora means to you.”

  “Of course not!” He shot to his feet, licking his fangs a few times before he got his heavy breathing under control. “You think I like this?” He pounded one fist into the other. “Think I don’t want to kick my own ass for even saying this? But she’d understand. She’d even tell me to do it. I know her. Look, we’re not safe here. We need to go deeper into hiding. Staying in one place this long is a bad idea, and you damn well know it. Maybe once we regroup we can—”

  I laughed. “You make me sick. All of you make me sick. She’d fight. She is fighting. My woman is not dead, and the fact that you would walk away and let her continue to endure this torment…”

  The anger inside me was a living, breathing thing full of fire and brimstone and righteous fury. Gathering the shadows to me, I squeezed my hand that now rippled with the sensuous slither of the night and wrapped it around his neck like a snake’s coil.

  Gasping, fangs pulling back, Luc glared at me. But he didn’t try to fight it. Maybe deep down he even wanted it. Wanted me to end his miserable, pathetic existence.

  It was a mercy I would not give him.

  I relaxed my hand, and the shadow rescinded. “No, you don’t get out of this so easily. You’re going to suffer. You get to dream about her. About the things they’re doing to her. How she’s probably locked away in a room crying out for you, holding on to the hope that you’ll find her. You know as well as I do that if this had been you, she’d have done everything in her power to find you and she would never stop. Never.”

  Luc’s jaw clenched, but he refused to look at me. “I know,” he said so softly that if I were human I’d not have heard it. “And that’s why she won’t survive.” His jaw clenched hard enough to make the veins in his neck throb.

  I hated him for saying it, for even thinking it. Love wasn’t a weakness. It was strength. One that no demon could ever possibly understand, except for mine. She’d known it to be true; it’s why I would never quit on her. Because she would never have quit on me.

  “I’m staying.”

  “I figured you’d say as much.” Luc got up, but this time when he did, he moved like an old man, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “We’re rolling out now. You can keep this trailer.”

  I shook my head, unable to speak. No wonder Pandora was always so sad. If even the ones she loved most were so willing to give up on her, it could come as no surprise that she was willing to believe it of me.

  He stood with his back to me, before saying, “If you do find her…”

  I wanted to tell him I’d never bring her back here, never let her be with those who’d so quickly discarded her, but Pandora would never allow it. For reasons beyond me, she’d always loved the ones she shouldn’t.

  He traced without finishing his thought.

  The gray man stood and turned toward me. He’d found nothing.

  Luc was right. The trail was dead. But he was wrong to give up, and I wouldn’t stop searching until I’d breathed my last. I knew she could handle herself. She was a born fighter. But my gut told me she’d been taken by the Triad, and there were things that could break even the strongest of us.

  “Pandora.” I whispered her name with all the passion within me. “I’m not going away. I’m not giving up. But you have to help me. Help me find you.”

  Exhaustion laid claim to me. Once I’d called the gray man back inside me, my power pulsed beneath my skin and I attempted something I’d not attempted before.

  Mainly because the amount of power required to do it wouldn’t just leak energy, it would create an explosion that would leave me weak and vulnerable until I could recharge. I’d never had a moment’s peace within the confines of this group, and they’d never left me alone. As if they felt I was somehow in on all this and were just waiting for me to slip up.

  But now that the Nephilim were leaving, I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone coming in and doing my weakened body harm.

  Lying down on our bed, I closed my eyes and slipped into a trance, shedding my metaphysical body until I floated free of myself. I was nothing but a soul and a conscience, moving above the clouds as I searched for the pulse of her life. But I had to get higher t
han the clouds; I had to move above the world. Beyond Earth, into space.

  I could only locate someone if I knew them so well it would be like searching for my own soul.

  Because I had to feel them. Had to know their taste, their scent, the way they thought. Only then could I call to their spirit.

  And as I thought these things, I brought my little demon to mind. The taste of her strawberry lips, the honey of her skin, the warmth of her light. Her love of children and the down and out. Pandora was a band of dark glimmering onyx with a golden thread of light at its center that pulsed brighter than the sun.

  As my mind filled with thoughts of her, I stopped floating, stopped moving, and called her to me. If I knew her half as well as I thought I did, then I would find her. I just had to wait. I stared at the North American mass, waiting to see her.

  I waited and I waited, until finally I knew she would not come to me that night.

  But I was determined, and regardless of how this drained me, I would come back the moment I could. I would find Pandora, even if I had to burn the world down to do it.

  Chapter 3

  Pandora

  What is time?

  Day and night, perhaps?

  Light and shadow?

  But when those don’t exist for you, time begins to feel like a myth. Because there is no beginning, no middle, no end. There just is.

  For me, time was never ending, unceasing, and cruel.

  I was broken.

  A body, a shell, full of nothing. There were no more thoughts. I’d purged myself of them so long ago—hours, days, years. I didn’t know how long I’d been there. It no longer even mattered.

  The man in the white lab coat stared at me, his look concerned, mine empty. Because they had stripped me of life, of soul, of everything.

  I wasn’t sure which parts of me were real and which were just imagined. But I guess in the end that didn’t really matter either.

  Maybe I did kill Kemen. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe there was a death priest who loved me, but probably not. I could barely even recall my former life. Always I had one memory I clung to that let me know at least one part of me was real: Luc stabbing me.

  It’d been real and visceral. A tangible memory because of the scar. I was so grateful to him for it now. Grateful I’d goaded him into doing it. Grateful his demon came out to permanently mark me.

  Because at least that I knew was real.

  “Talk to me, Pandora. The tests are done, and you’ve passed admirably. Aren’t you excited to leave?”

  I wondered that I’d never taken the time to learn his name. I cocked my head. He had a mustache.

  When had he started growing one?

  I blinked. His hair was thinning. He looked like he’d lost a little weight too, and his skin was a healthy tan. Maybe he was running?

  He repeated my name sharply.

  I jumped, and the manacles on my wrist jangled. “What?”

  His lips thinned. “They said you were strong enough for this, but seeing you now, I have my doubts.”

  I didn’t like failing him. It bothered me. I scratched at the white dress they’d put me in. No more black, they’d said. Black was for devils. I wasn’t a devil. I was something else entirely. But they hadn’t told me what yet.

  I couldn’t remember what he’d asked me.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, and then I remembered.

  I nodded. “For what?”

  “To leave.”

  “Oh.” I tapped my broken nails on the metal desk. The walls were so barren. This place held no life. Everything was dead. Just like me. “I guess so.”

  I vaguely recalled a moment of sheer terror when the thought of leaving had left me breathless with fear, with the secret knowledge that they’d done something to me that would make me dangerous to those I loved. It seemed silly now of course. I loved no one. The doctor was smiling. His eyes were so blue behind the glasses.

  “This will all just be a dream. You will remember none of this. I think you’re strong enough, just”—he swiped at my cheek with his thumb—“go East.”

  “Why did you take me?” I asked him the one thing I’d always wanted to know.

  The girl across the cell died the other day. The one with the melted face. I saw them drag her out. Her head had flopped lifelessly. She’d told me no one ever left alive. It was why she’d given me the journal. So that I could write it all down. To remember, so that my loved ones would know my ultimate fate.

  But I didn’t like remembering, because I didn’t know what was real and what they were feeding me. So I’d written it all down, the truths and the maybe lies; I didn’t know why. But it was the only driving compulsion left to me, writing it all down. Like something inside me knew it could be important even if I wasn’t really sure how that could be. Then last night the journal disappeared from my cell. I knew the guards hadn’t found it, so it made sense to me that I was coming to the end of my journey here.

  “To make you strong, Pandora. We cleaned you out and made you new. Don’t you feel like new?” His smile was nice. There was a big gap between his two front teeth.

  “I guess so.” I shrugged when he frowned. “Yes?”

  He agreed. “Yes, you are. And tonight we will make you like new.”

  “Why can’t I remember you?”

  “Because you can’t.”

  “Will I see you again?” I’m not sure why it was bothering me. Very little did anymore. I felt so empty and numb, as if my soul had been shot through with Novocain. I knew I used to care about things, but this—this weightlessness of being unemotional—it was freeing.

  I didn’t wonder. I didn’t love. I didn’t feel.

  I simply was.

  “No. We will never see each other again, but I have one final question to ask of you, Pandora.”

  “What?”

  “Who is Asher?”

  “A dream.”

  “He will find you. He will tell you things that aren’t true. You have to forget him, Pandora. Let him die, and then you can be truly free.”

  I nodded. They kept telling me this, and I thought it sounded good. I didn’t really remember the death priest, but he was a death priest. I wasn’t sure why I’d brought him into my life. Priests kill Nephilim.

  I was really stupid in my other life.

  “Okay,” I said.

  His smile was huge. “Exactly right, my dear.” He got up to leave.

  “Wait.” I held my hand out to him.

  “Yes?” He stared at my outstretched fingers quizzically.

  “What will you do to me tonight? Will it hurt?”

  “All the best things do.” With a nod of his head, he turned and walked out of the holding room.

  I sat there forgotten, staring at the blank wall and wondering if I could count to a million in my head before they came to get me.

  I got to twenty-three thousand, nine-hundred and fourteen before two men in white lab coats finally came.

  I didn’t fight them when they took me to the torture room. Or even when they strapped me down to the table.

  The doctor was back, and he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Close your eyes, Pandora. This is probably going to hurt. A lot.”

  I closed my eyes, and then something sharp and horrible stabbed straight through my heart, and I screamed as the fires of Hell consumed me, as the souls that’d been stripped from me were shoved back in. But not just Lust and Pestilence—there were more. So many more, and I couldn’t stop screaming…

  ~*~

  Asher

  This time when I floated above the Earth, I saw a band of black that glittered with a streak of gold deep in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, but my excitement was tempered by the knowledge that something was wrong with her colors.

  There was a slick, oily sheen to her that hadn’t been there before. Something dark and oppressive, something menacing, marred her, and I worried that whatever I’d find, it wouldn’t be Pandora at all.

  Chapter 4

&nb
sp; Pandora

  I stared at the sky above me. I was dressed in a white dress. My feet were bare.

  I had no idea where I was. I’d woken up in a pile of dirt and leaves, with brambles pushing into my cheek. My muscles snapped and popped, and when I moved, I felt the cold steel of metal on my wrists.

  Lifting them up to my face, I stared wide-eyed at the manacles. My skin was bloody and bruised. Blinking, I tried to remember what was going on, what had happened to me.

  But as I sat there thinking, my heart began to race because something was very, very wrong. I felt it viscerally, deep in my soul.

  Biting my lip, I stared around at the empty forest, straining my ears to listen for any signs of life. I heard chirping, the song of crickets and insects… it was all so normal.

  So why did it feel like a mirage?

  I wet my lips as my pulse raced out of control.

  “Red rain. Red rain.” I moaned the nonsensical words over and over. I couldn’t understand why, but I felt that if I didn’t say the words I would burst.

  A squirrel scampered up a tree, and I screamed. I didn’t know why I’d screamed, but the scratching of its claws on wood and the brushing of its tail as it wrapped its little body up the trunk felt like torture. My ears were ringing, my head pounding, and my pulse thundering.

  Jumping to my feet, I knew I had to get away from there. Away from the ghosts that were clawing at my back, trying desperately to remind me of hazy, murky things I didn’t want to remember.

  I didn’t know where I was or why I was there…

  “Why are you here?” My voice sounded uneven and scratchy to my own ears. “Why are you here? Why? Why, Pa…paaa…” I trailed off and choked back a sob because I couldn’t even remember my name.

  I thought it started with a P. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it started with a Y.

  “Oh, God, help me.” I covered my lips with cold fingertips, cast one last frantic look around the woods, and then I did what I’d wanted to do since the moment I’d opened my eyes.