The Depths of Darkness

by Laurie Bowler

  I felt alarmed, as I somersaulted through the air and landed on top of a tree branch, with my feet sticking up in the air, the trunk to my back.

  “Ouch!” I complained as quietly as I could, I scrambled around to sit up, so I could see everything the right way up. “Luke,” I whispered searching around for him.

  He wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and I couldn’t hear anything, not that I expected to.

  The steps of a vampire were silent; they were made for the hunts of humans centuries before. This was one of the traits that hadn’t left them although time had evolved, but it had put me on edge. I felt around to find my way down and saw no other way but to elevate myself until my feet touched the ground.

  I used the remainder of my strength and I felt my body become as light as a feather and the air around me captured me in its embrace. Gently, I was lifted from the tree and I rotated myself around to see if I could glimpse Luke anywhere, and I was equally as careful not to let the Cerberus see me.

  I distinguished shapes in the darkness but it wasn’t easy. The three headed beast’s stench was closer than I had anticipated than it might be; their fierce growls in the darkness were terrifying and I was afraid they’d captured Luke; I shivered with fear.

  “Luke,” I whispered into the darkness. I listened keenly for anything that might tell me where he was. “Where are you?” I felt exasperated and worried that he might still be inside the vortex and it hadn’t accepted as his vampire being.

  I heard nothing! Mysteriously he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  I elevated down to the ground, my feet softly landed on the blades of grass and eventually I felt my entire body gracefully came back to me, and I began to feel my own usual weight rather than the airless impression elevating caused.

  “This isn’t right,” I muttered out loud, fearing for Luke’s life. “Where the hell is he?”

  “Is it really necessary to keep referring to me as hell,” he grinned behind me when I jumped around to face him, “I mean...” he cocked his head mischievously, “I know vampires are historically supposed to be from hell, and we are supposed to be as evil as hell but I think so far I’ve proved I’m nothing of the sort.”

  I thumped him on the shoulder, one for not answering me and two for scaring the daylights out of me.

  “It worked,” I said stupidly. “You came through the witch portals with me.”

  “Well I am standing in front of you,” he replied facetiously, “how come no one has tried it before?”

  Before I could summon a relevant answer to him, the sound of paws thudding the ground heading in our direction made us scramble into the over grown thistles beside us. The thorns sunk into my skin and tore sections of my skin away from my body, causing more blood to ooze; my head was still bleeding slowly from the impact earlier.

  “You’re bleeding,” Luke commented quietly, watching ahead of us as the Cerberus beast that had appeared began prowling around the area we’d just left. “I can smell it, and if I can, then so can that!”

  His head jutted in the direction of the Cerberus that had lifted its head to sniff the air, snarling in our direction. Three heads and six pairs of eyes stared at us; it had found us.

  “Crap,” I muttered as I covered my arm with my free hand and placed the healing spell on top. “The spell will take a few minutes to work.”

  “We don’t have a few minutes,” Luke hissed in my ear, “move this way.” He shoved me gently in the other direction. “We’ll have to keep moving until you’re healed and he can’t smell us anymore.”

  “How about we just fight the damn thing,” I suggested. “We have to kill them eventually.”

  “Not right now,” he growled at me. “Just listen to me for once without arguing back and thinking you have a better idea, would you?”

  I grinned and slapped him, my hand still held the place where the blood ran freely between my fingers, more than one thistle had caught me and the blood was freely flowing, steadily covering the ground and it dripped from between my fingers. The Cerberus followed the stench, and then stood on its hind legs and attacked with a forced speed I’d never seen them do before, or even read they could.

  According to the documentation held at the realm headquarters, these creatures weren’t built for speed, because of their size and the implant of three heads. Their speed was supposed to be diminished by their size which caused them to be slow paced and easy to capture and maintain. By the look of how fast he moved it told me he’d been placed under a magical spell, most likely submitted by Lilly.

  “It's coming,” I cried quietly beside Luke gripping hold of his arm. “We’ll have to fight this one,”

  He sighed heavily. “If we fight this one, he’ll call the others and all hell, as you call it, will break loose right now.”

  “So....” I shrugged not entirely following what he was trying to say.

  “So,” he mimicked my voice, “we can’t fight them all. There are two of us and about a dozen of them. Make any sense now?”

  I smiled and nodded instantly; I accepted this momentary defeat. His words made sense. With more than twelve or so of them we stood no chance, and especially if Lilly resided inside with her spells and mischief. We’d only accomplish in giving ourselves away to her antics and cause her to take flight where she would be able to finish her plan uninterrupted.

  I watched as the Cerberus collapsed beside me; his eyes stared into mine and his jaws breathed heavy on my cheek. Almost as if it had sensed my exact location it sprinted to its feet and stood in a fighting composure, pawing the ground angrily and it kicked up a cloud of dust and dirt. Luke appeared behind me and pushed me backwards.

  Luke’s own hissing at the beast frightened me and mesmerised me knowing he was ready to stand and fight this beast to protect me.

  I watched as he launched himself onto the beasts back and grappled with his hands around the large expanse of its neck, the larger side with the beating pulse.

  Luke’s fingers felt around the fur for the beating pulse, while I remained in an untidy heap where I’d landed, watching him bravely battle with the horrible animal.

  “Patty,” he snarled. “A little help here hmm?” he said.

  I shot towards him and pounced onto the beasts hind legs, pulling him down to the ground with all my might. His limbs gave way beneath the pull of my weight hanging off him and his own weight being unable to sustain such an endurance and heavy attack. He whimpered and fell with a thud to the ground; my legs were stuck underneath him.

  “Ouch,” I said, trying to shove him off.

  I watched when one of the heads turned to face me, the jaws opening and closing as it tried to snap at me, relentless in its approach to the person who had endangered its life. It was born to survive and protect its master until its own death was summoned. There had rarely been a written document on the defeat of one of these deadly animals. Lilly knew what she was doing in summoning their life back to earth to defend her.

  “Patty,” Luke heaved, “come round this way. Grab anything sharp and kill it would you? Or can you use some magic to do it?”

  “There isn’t any magic to kill a living thing,” I whimpered dodging the large snapping teeth and the drool that was flung at me every time it decided to attack me. “That’s dark magic and I only use white magic, I thought you knew that.”

  “Yeah that’s typical,” he moaned, “what are you doing?”

  I felt exasperated and I was getting irritated by the impatient tone he was using.

  “I’m filing my bloody nails, what do you think I’m doing?” I retorted dryly.

  He laughed without humour, while he continued to grapple the beast, as if he was at the rodeo. His arms pulled this way and that, his bottom was being thrown around and landing every time with a sickening effect back onto its neck.

  I struggled to free myself from underneath him, covered with drool that dripped from my hair onto my shoulders; the stickiness was unyielding and plastered me.

 
“Coming,” I puffed scrambling and edging my way past the third head that turned to snap at me.

  His lips pulled backwards over the gums to reveal protruding large razor sharp teeth. I edged around slowly and with as much care as I could, the gap between us was around an inch, moved steadily or find myself to be his dogfood today.

  When I rounded past him, I searched around frantically to find a sharp object, and then slapped myself, what an imbecile I was, when all I had to do was summon a sharp object with my magic.

  Without thinking I summoned the dagger belonging to one of the greatest witches of all time, aside from Matace before his reign. There had been great leaders that had made their own impact and impressions on the realm with their goodness and new spells they’d added to our circle.

  I heaved myself towards the neck of the beast where Luke’s hand still remained and forcing the dagger into the folds of skin that kept it alive, heading for its heart, the dagger slid easily into the skin.

  I stood beside the neck and watched it struggle to maintain its hold, and then finally it released a last shocked breath and the head thundered to the ground. Luke jumped down and shook the dirt from his trousers and wiped his hands on the front of his shirt.

  “Well,” he commented, “you took your time but you did a good job.” He stopped short at the sight of me, “What happened to you? Did you get swallowed or something?”

  “Nope,” I remarked. “I was at the other end trapped under its legs while it drooled on me.”

  “Nice,” he said.

  We quickly moved away from the beast, the smell of death controlled by another one of my spells I placed around the beast I had just killed. Sending through the fragrance of nothing to the others so they wouldn’t be alarmed enough to come and take a closer look into the missing comrade of their pack.

  “What do we do now?” Luke asked grabbing me and diving again into another hedge. “How do we know she’s here?”

  “Trust me,” I smiled, “she’s inside. I can feel her magic; The power is overwhelming. I wondered why I felt queer earlier, and now I know,” I commented. “Matace told me a while ago when a large amount of power is being expelled all at once it causes other witches in the vicinity to feel queer, almost ill to a certain extent,” I explained.

  “I see,” he said thoughtfully. “The magic you just used,.does she know you’re here because of it?”

  I shook my head in answer. My eyes stared ahead as I watched for any sign of a portal being used or any movement from inside the house.

  “No,” I answered. “It wasn’t enough for anyone to be able to trace the location or the source. The magic I used was relatively small compared to other spells I could have used.”

  We moved alongside the grounds, so that we were parallel with the walls of the house. The Cerberus were feeding noisily, their mouths chomped and crunched through the bones of their meal.

  I shuddered; I felt horrified at the thought of the morsels of food that were produced for them. It looked something akin to the remains of something, or someone. I wasn’t sure, and since I didn’t trust Lilly anymore, I wasn’t entirely sure what they were eating.

  “Look,” he nudged me and nodded his head in the direction of the movement.

  In the small light I could see Lilly moving hurriedly but rather gracefully down the corridor inside the house.

  “Where is she going?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said thinking of the layout inside the house. “The library is that way but nothing else.”

  “I doubt she’s about to read any kind of literature,” he snorted. “Are you sure there’s nowhere else she could be going”

  “No nothing,” I replied. “At least not that I’ve seen, unless there’s something hidden by magic inside there that I wasn’t ever privy to.”

  “Oh great,” he answered sarcastically, “not only do we have a crazy witch but now a hidden area that we have absolutely no idea about what she’s cooking up in there.”

  “At least we’re outside and this close,” I pinched my thumb to my finger, “to seeing what she could be doing and we can watch her without being seen.”

  He smiled and turned away to watch Lilly. She continued her journey down the corridor. Her dress floated gracefully behind her; her hair was perfectly groomed, but her eyes were dark and evil lurked around her. Her aura was blackened by her own hatred and the lure of the dark magic that surrounded her. Without her recognition, it had swallowed her and ensnared her soul ready to take her into the pits of the burning hell that belonged to the evil witches and the ones the realm ordered to die.

  Chapter Nine

  “So do we just sit here and wait?” Luke asked as he settled to sit himself down to watch for a while longer.

  “No,” I said. “We have to go inside. We have to see what she’s up to or we don’t stand a chance of doing anything even remotely good.”

  “Are you serious?” he gasped watching me closely, his eyes screwed into slits; he was trying to figure out if I was joking or being serious.

  “I’m deadly serious.” I said and sneaked out of the hedge towards the long wall.

  The Cerberus were so involved with their meal, they snorted and guzzled down while fighting off the one next to them in an attempt to regain their territory over their meal. We both flattened ourselves against the wall and headed towards the other side of the house where I hoped there would be a way we could gain entry into the house.

  We reached the rear side of the house, and to my astonishment there was a small door which must lead into a section of the house. Whether it would be the place where Lilly was located, remained to be seen but at least we would have gained entry and would be able to see whatever it was she was up to.

  “This way,” I tugged Luke’s sleeve and pointed to the door. “I think we can get in here. Do you think you can open it?”

  He looked at it, and measured its size. The solidness of the door seemed to stop the thoughts inside my head that we would be able to enter discreetly. The light above the door held my curiosity for a while longer; it seemed to be some kind of alarm mechanism, one that I hadn’t ever encountered before and Matace certainly hadn’t told me about any alarms he’d placed around the house.

  “Luke,” I said pointing. “It's an alarm. We’ll have to disable it first or she’ll know we’re inside,”

  “I’m not a trained burglar,” he remarked. “How do you plan on disabling it?”

  “Watch!” I said and I produced the tools required to help me.

  When I was growing up with my adoptive parents one of my friends had been a very dodgy character and had taught me the ways and means of entering houses without being seen. He’d located the houses of the rich so he could sell off the stolen goods to feed his siblings. I felt an intense amount of pity for him for a while, that had been coupled with the helplessness I’d felt, not having the amounts of powerful spells that I’d accumulated now; I’d only been able to listen and console him.

  Every story had been detailed to a vast extent where I knew how to disable alarms before I was twelve, and if I had any aspirations of becoming a burglar then I’d certainly have a huge step onto the ladder and a good standing of being able to invite myself into anyone’s house. I could move around using the stealth and the darkness like he’d dictated.

  “How do you know how to disable an alarm? Is it something they teach you at witch school?” he chuckled while giving me a boost up towards the alarm.

  I removed the tools from between my teeth and held myself steady against the wall while my foot was safely inside Luke’s hands where he’d clasped them together to make sure I had a good chance of reaching the alarm.

  “I didn’t go to witch school like the rest of them,” I muttered crossly. “And for your information, back at home with my parents, well, my adoptive parents,” I corrected quickly, “I knew a lot of strange characters that are most likely in prison by now, but they did teach me a hell of a lot of the tricks of the tr
ade and offered me a chance to join their gangs of criminals, to which I respectfully declined.”

  “Oh,” he laughed softly, which wobbled me slightly and I had to grip the wall in response, “I can see that.”

  “Will you stop laughing and pay more attention to holding me steady,” I snapped. “This isn’t exactly easy to do, you know.”

  He stopped instantly, his smile still firmly fixed on his face, and I looked down to find he winked up at me cheekily. My hands moved rhythmically, as I reached for the wires located underneath and behind the alarm box, cutting them expertly and slicing the light in two without cracking the glass that surrounded it.

  “Nearly there,” I said hastily moving the box and dropping it down to Luke who caught it expertly and held onto it while holding onto my legs.

  “There,” I said pleased with my job. “I’m done! We can go inside now, providing you don’t make a whole lot of noise. We should be able to enter as silently as we can.”

  “Me make noise,” he guffawed, “I’ll show you how quiet vampires can be.”

  With both of us acting humorous at a time like this, it provided the necessary cover up of the seriousness of the situation and the unknown that lay ahead of us. It was uncanny that I would be able to disable an alarm manually without using powers but once upon a time I had been brought up entirely by mortals, in the mortal world where magic didn’t exist; it was an accident that I found out who and what I was. A complete and utter surprise to my already darkened and depressed existence, the one I’d tried and successfully hidden from my parents, they would have worried themselves senseless if they’d have known. But no matter what I’d been taught at school or the amount of shady characters I’d met, I always felt like I remained a part of something but I was never sure what.

  “Are you ready?” he whispered. “How come you didn’t use magic to disable the alarm?” he asked curiously.

  “I was once brought up in the mortal world where magic didn’t exist,” I replied as I scrambled down to the floor. “And I learnt a few tricks, besides which she would have sensed the spell I’d have to use to disable it for us to go inside; it’s a lot more powerful than summoning tools to help with something.”