Resisting Darkness

by Kate Wendley

  Ethan said something, but Anthony’s focus was on the strange energy flowing amongst these four. He tersely asked, “What’s going on here?”

  Ethan frowned and looked around.

  Anthony fixated on Ethan. “What is that I feel? Something strange is going on between you four. Why don’t you tell me what it is.” Anthony narrowed his eyes at him, angry that Ethan was hiding something from him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re the one who said you saw something in Nala. You tell us what’s going on.” He hugged Harmony tightly against himself and Anthony was stunned to realize Ethan was telling the truth. He really didn’t sense anything.

  Harmony seemed just as confused, and when he turned his attention back to Seth and Nala, Nala became alarmed while Seth looked crushed.

  Seth’s face crumbled the longer he stared at Anthony. “It’s my fault. I couldn’t let Nala go. When she was killed, I was able to pull her back from death’s grasp because we’d performed the bonding ceremony so many times over the years.” He shook his head and said in disbelief, “Death must be coming back to claim what belongs to him.”

  Anthony sourly sighed at Seth talking as if death were a person, as well as the fact that no one seemed to know what the energy was that Anthony sensed flowing between them all. He chalked it up to another change in himself that he couldn’t explain, but that he supposed had to do with whatever the Vampire Mother did to him with her ‘gift’. The tiny spider that carried a fragment of the Mother’s energy had burrowed under his skin and was doing strange things to him.

  Feeling even more unsettled now, he decided he just wanted this over with. He sat down next to a wide eyed, scared Nala, and got extremely uncomfortable when Seth became overly emotional with him. He begged Anthony not to let death take Nala and to ask death to take him instead. He and Nala argued between themselves for a short time about who would go when the time came.

  “Enough. No one’s going to die if I can help it, but I am going to find out what’s going on.”

  He turned to Ethan. “I warn you against getting any ideas while I’m concentrating on your friend. If you make a move against me, the peace between our families ends here and now. If you actually kill me, be prepared for the next in line to take over my family, which would be my father. And he still has many allies, even after being gone so long.”

  Ethan grumbled, “Don’t mention him in my home.”

  Anthony cocked an eyebrow. “Just so we’re clear.”

  Ethan bobbed his head once. “I’m sorry I took my frustrations out on you all those years. It was never you that I was upset with, you just look and sound so much like your father.” He sighed and ran his hand through his short hair. “Please just help Nala. I give my word on my honor that I’ll protect you with my life, if need be, while you’re in my home.”

  Anthony blinked in shock. That was the last thing he’d ever expected to hear come out of Ethan’s mouth. Unsure how to respond, he inclined his head and turned back to Nala.

  He was wary of her, though, mostly because he’d never heard of a vampire having the ability to be a ghost. Or was she a ghost with the ability to be vampire? Regardless, she was a stunning beauty and he assumed he’d have to touch her in order to get into her mind. He was still getting used to his new power, so he was hoping for the best and trying this the way that had already worked twice for him so far.

  “Will you give me your hands?”

  She took a deep breath and did as he asked. Her hands were delicate like Kaia’s were, but nowhere near as warm. He closed his eyes so he didn’t have the distraction of her distraught features while he tried to concentrate.

  He wasn’t entirely comfortable doing this with her since he wasn’t sure if he could block Nala from reading his thoughts while he was in her head. With Echo, he’d known her long enough to trust she’d be discreet with whatever she saw. He didn’t have that same relationship with Nala. He didn’t have time to worry about that, though, not now that this thing inside her had been discovered. Who knew what it might do now that it knew they were aware of its existence.

  Anthony took his time calming his mind. He focused on some tricks he’d taught himself back when Sebastian hadn’t been able to control his own mind reading abilities. Anthony had occasionally been able to block him from reading his thoughts, and he hoped he could do that with Nala as well.

  He took a deep breath and let some of his power flow. A breeze picked up in the room and he was quickly pulled into Nala’s mind. He searched for the image of the creature that Echo referred to as death, but he couldn’t find it. He was definitely not an expert at this process, though, so he kept trying.

  He read from Nala’s thoughts that she didn’t understand what Echo had seen in her, but she knew it had to have something to do with Seth bringing her back to life. She’d tried through the years to remember what happened while she was dead, but it was always foggy and didn’t make sense. And the harder she tried, the more upset she always got because she felt like she’d better understand how she was able to be alive now if she could only remember what had happened to her back then. She knew drinking a lot of blood made her more physical, but what kept her spirit here? Was she really just a confused ghost?

  When she’d first died, she felt like she finally understood everything there was to understand about the world around her, and it was a wondrous experience. As soon as Seth brought her back to life, though, that knowledge was too vast for her physical self to be able to comprehend and it frustratingly slipped away.

  Anthony thought all of that was interesting, but it wasn’t what he was looking for. He focused on what Nala felt like instead, reaching out with all his senses. He felt the room full of people, and again that strange energy between them, like they were all connected somehow. Everyone except Anthony, anyway.

  He tried to forget about the others and focused on Nala. Her hands in his felt solid and her nervous heart beat felt real. Her attention was on him, watching him…

  He jerked but kept ahold of her hands. The creature was looking at him, not Nala. It knew Anthony was here. He tensed and tried to stay calm, forcing himself to stay focused on his task. His worries over his own safety were second to making sure he was keeping his family and this territory safe.

  With that resolve firmly in his head, he calmed his heart and said through his mind, ‘Who are you? What are you?’

  An image of the Vampire Mother Anthony had met over two months ago popped up and he tensed even more. In his memory, the wild, extremely powerful woman was telling him it was better for him to not know much about her. Just seeing her in his mind sent him into alarm mode, though. Was this creature connected to her in some way?

  A cacophony of memories of random people saying ‘no’ started playing in his mind, and the background imagery was always either him in his office or out in the club. There were too many voices, all popping up and overlapping each other. He cried out in his head for the noise to stop, and almost let go of Nala’s hands to cover his ears. There was abrupt silence in his mind with nothing but grayness surrounding him.

  Anthony was out of his realm with this creature. He tried to calm himself, but he could feel his hands lightly trembling against Nala’s. He didn’t like it that this being could pull thoughts from his mind, and it didn’t calm his fears for the memory that it pulled to be that of the Vampire Mother. She was the only creature he’d ever met that he hadn’t been stronger than. She was also the only creature that had ever scared him during his life as a vampire.

  His thoughts focused sharply when the dull gray nothingness smoothly morphed into the strangest thing he’d ever seen. He was in a dark forest, so dark he could barely make out the trees, even with his sensitive vampire vision. What was clear were the strange looking people, a soft glow around them all. He finally made out that the trees were doors, and the ghostlike people were walking out of or disappearing into them as if this was normal.

  Anthony struggled to make
out anything specific about the doors, so he focused on the men, women and children as they came and went. Some looked lost and scared, some looked sad, others were calm. As they moved further from the doorways, their forms became more and more transparent. He got the feeling they weren’t disappearing into nothingness, but instead merging into the energies that surrounded all of them. The whole feeling of the scene was order and purpose. Things were happening as they should in this place, and it strangely calmed him.

  He decided to forge ahead and try to talk with this creature. The being was obviously able to communicate with him, but the images were confusing and made Anthony impatient because he didn’t like riddles. He preferred straight forward communication, but he still didn’t know how powerful the creature was and didn’t want to offend it.

  He carefully asked, ‘Can you use words to communicate?’

  There was silence for a time, but finally a voice that alternated between male and female said, ‘This is not my normal realm. I don’t know how to guide you.’

  ‘What?’ He wasn’t sure what he’d expected for an answer, but that wasn’t it.

  The creature repeated itself, word for word.

  Anthony said, ‘What’s your normal realm?’

  ‘The place where life goes to be reborn. I am a spirit guide.’

  The images of the ghosts in the dark forest were suddenly incredibly vivid. It was disturbing how much control this creature had over what Anthony could see in his mind, but he didn’t feel anything malicious from it yet.

  ‘Were you Nala’s spirit guide? When she died?’

  ‘Yes. I am her guide.’

  ‘You’re still her guide? Even though she lives again?’

  The being was silent for a time, then said, ‘Seth pulled her back, but I was already assigned to her. We do not move on until we’ve guided our assignment to their next phase of life experience. She has not moved on to that next phase yet.’

  Anthony said mostly to himself, ‘So you’ve been tagging along until she dies again.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you the reason she’s able to be a whole person?’

  ‘No. Seth is. He bonded his life energy to hers, and his bonds are strong. Nala can’t move on until Seth also dies and is welcomed into the arms of Mother Gaia. Then, if the Mother deems me ready, I’ll guide them both.’

  ‘Guide them where?’

  ‘Wherever they should go. Everyone has their own deeply rooted idea for where they think they’ll go when they die.’

  ‘And all those places exist?’

  ‘Perception is reality. They can go where their beliefs take them until they feel they’re ready to be part of the physical realm again. They have that power. I do not. I exist only in the energies of the earth.’

  ‘Yet you live in Nala.’

  The spirit was quiet again, and Anthony had the impression it was thinking.

  After a time in silence, the spirit said, ‘I do not live. I simply exist. Nala is the one who lives as a physical being.’

  Anthony didn’t see the difference, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t know enough about any of this to have an educated opinion either way.

  ‘So you can’t kill Nala?’

  ‘No. I have no physical form. If Seth dies, though, he will not be able to move on until she dies.’

  ‘If Seth dies will she die?’

  Anthony got the feeling the spirit was suddenly disinterested in the conversation, but it answered anyway. ‘Seth’s death would not immediately cause her death. His absence may cause it, though, if she grieves enough to choose to die after him and join him in the forest. She loves him deeply.’

  That was a good enough answer for Anthony. Even though he couldn’t see the spirit’s aura, he felt truth from the creature.

  When Anthony was about to end the conversation, the spirit curiously said, ‘I am a creature?’

  Anthony stilled, the being obviously reading his thoughts. ‘You are… something I’ve never seen before.’

  The image of what Echo had seen inside Nala suddenly popped up in Anthony’s mind.

  The spirit cautiously said, ‘That is what I look like? I have form?’ The question sounded more like a musing, so Anthony waited as the spirit studied his memory of what Echo had seen. Her emotions flashed through him as well, and he felt the spirit jerk in his mind.

  Sounding like it was on the edge of being upset, the spirit said, ‘My form is not pleasing.’

  Anthony didn’t answer.

  ‘She thinks I am a male. That I have gender.’

  Anthony still didn’t answer.

  ‘You worry I could harm people.’

  ‘I protect people. It’s my job to worry about such things.’

  The spirit was quiet, and after a time, Anthony said, ‘Thank you for speaking with me.’

  ‘I have never spoken to someone in the physical realm before. Not even Nala.’

  Anthony stilled at that. This meeting suddenly felt a lot more significant. ‘I hope I didn’t disappoint you.’

  The creature was quiet a moment before repeating Anthony’s words back to him. ‘Thank you for speaking with me.’ He then thrust Anthony out of Nala’s mind and forced his eyes open.

  He stared at Nala in shock. The creature had power, but how much, he wasn’t sure.

  He quickly put a sound barrier around the two of them. “I’m going to say this fast and only once. I respect the fact that you’re Ethan’s friend, and even though he’s been a pain to me for years, he’s also always been an ally to me so I’ll help him with your issue. But if I hear one word of gossip about anything that seeped out of my mind and into yours, I’ll come looking for you and I will not be kind. Do I make myself clear?”

  She nodded and said with large, worried eyes, “Yes Master Anthony. And I very much appreciate your help.”

  Her sincerity helped relieve some of his tension, though he still wondered if it had been such a good idea to go into her mind in the first place, especially when he didn’t know how much control he had over exposing his own thoughts and memories to her. It was too late now, though, so he released her hands as well as his sound barrier, then turned to the group and told them what the spirit said. And the entire time he had the unsettling feeling of the creature watching him through Nala’s eyes.

  Ethan worriedly asked, “So now what?”

  “Nothing. I don’t believe it’s malicious, so as long as it’s not bothering Nala, and she’s unaware of it, then there’s nothing to do. It’s simply part of her.”

  Ethan seemed surprised by that answer. “Nothing. You’re going to do nothing.”

  “Is there something you’d like me to do?” Judging by Ethan’s silence, he clearly didn’t have any answers either. “If that’s all, I’ll be leaving now. I’m going to pick up a few things from Kaia’s apartment before I go.”

  Ethan nodded, then shockingly put his hand out for Anthony to shake. “Thank you.”

  **

  As soon as Anthony stepped out of Seth’s apartment, he knew he hadn’t been imagining the strange energy between those four. He sighed in frustration because he still had no idea what it meant.

  He took his time trying to settle his thoughts while he walked to Kaia’s building. After gathering the things she said she wanted, he’d barely started towards his car in the parking lot when Ethan raced up to him.

  “It’s asking for you.”

  “What?”

  “The spirit. It’s talking through Nala, or trying to. It wants to talk to you.”

  Anthony frowned as he followed Ethan back over to Seth’s. Nala looked terrible as she sat crying and rocking herself back and forth in the living room.

  Seth said, “She thinks it’s trying to communicate with her, but all the images and noises are blending into a nightmare in her head and she can’t make anything out. She can’t think through all of it to figure out what it wants.”

  Anthony looked at Nala and angrily snapped, “If you want to talk t
o me, then stop harassing Nala. You’re hurting her.”

  Nala instantly went calm. Too calm. She sat stock still as she stared into space, and he wondered if he’d accidentally put her in a trance.

  He didn’t take his eyes off her as he sat next to her and commanded, “Turn to face me.”

  Nala did as she was told and he reached for her hands.

  Ethan said, “Can I help? If I touch you I can talk to it as well, right? Isn’t that how Sebastian’s power works?”

  Anthony was already holding Nala’s hands as he turned to Ethan and somewhat carefully said, “No thank you.”

  He scowled. “Anthony, dammit, she’s my friend.”

  “I’m very well aware of that, Ethan, but if it’s all the same to you, I don’t want you in my head.”

  Ethan’s jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed, but he briskly nodded and sat back down.

  Anthony closed his eyes. It already felt like the spirit’s attention was on him, but with his eyes closed and the skin to skin contact with Nala, he felt like the creature was trying to seep into him.

  A cacophony of memories of people saying, ‘Can’t,’ came to a crescendo in his mind, then quickly flowed away.

  He asked through his mind, ‘I thought we moved past this and you could speak for yourself. What do you want?’

  ‘I’m still learning how to put words to some of my thoughts. It’s easier to show you.’

  His stomach turned inside out as images poured into his head almost faster than he could keep straight. First he was walking the streets of a busy town sometime in the long ago past, window shopping with Seth, Ethan, and another woman. They were laughing and having a good time before a loud noise startled them. A carriage tethered to out of control horses raced around the corner, and the next thing he knew he was being carried… except he was in two places.

  His stomach violently lurched when he realized he was Nala in this memory. Ethan carried her head while Seth carried her body as they all ran from the nightmare scene.