by Elle Lincoln
Panic lodges itself in my throat. I don’t know which I came from. The car spun and I can’t see the skid marks. I don’t even know where I am.
“Run.”
My entire body freezes, my feet backpedal, and my head glances around me in frightening jerks. Whiplash scores my spine with crunches and my heart pounds erratically.
“Run.”
My legs move, I don’t tell them to, but I’m running through the forest. Twigs slap me. Fallen branches trip me. My face falls into the mud and rotten leaves. My lungs wheeze with strain. I can’t stop, fear possesses my body.
The fog is closing in on me, surrounding and blanketing me in its damp embrace. I run blindly, my body slamming into obstacle after obstacle. I fall to the earth, as my body succumbs to exhaustion. Tears leak from my eyes, I don’t know what’s happening. My throat convulses.
“I told you I’d see you again.” The stranger from the bar steps into view. His body still dark, though no shadows exist in the world of mist. He’s dark against the light. An optical illusion that defies physics.
I can’t process what I’m seeing. I don’t understand.
He crouches before me and I don’t run. I’ve given up.
“You won’t be missed.” He leans in to brush a stray lock of hair off my sweaty face, the gesture unreflective of his words. His features are hidden inside his cowl, yet his voice is laced with a kindness tinged in regret, as though this pains him just as much as it pains me. “Will you?”
A whimper escapes my lips at the truth his voice speaks. I cannot argue the truth.
I stare as his body shatters into that of a Raven, and hundreds more join him as they take flight, their wings echoing through the fog filled night. The sound is far too loud. Their movements spool the fog into waves that roll over me, up against me, and crawl to halo my head.
It pulses as though alive. Pushing at my skin, testing me—for what? I don’t know.
Not until it dives into my nostrils, my mouth. I can do nothing but inhale.
I breathe in the cloud of acid. The burn coating my mouth, my esophagus, and my lungs.
I have no time to think. No time to visit my worthless life. I can only exhale my last breath.
Chapter 2
The Stalker
Moments Earlier
Hunger wraps around me like an emotion, potent and damning. I can’t hush the need, their voices only grow louder and louder.
So demanding.
They scream as they singe my veins. My time is running out.
I watch the condensation build on my glass, the little droplets of water mesmerizing me. The voices in my head dull and I take another sip of the shitty beer. I swallow, feeling the cool bitter liquid slide down my throat. Then I take another just as the voices rise once more.
Something is coming.
They sense it and without fear, the excitement thrums through me like a live wire. Electricity courses through me in anticipation. I am nothing without their need, and I’m lost to their desire. Even if all I really want to do is drown myself into oblivion.
I wrap the shadows around me, my gift, and sink farther into the booth. All around me humans drink and indulge. Consumed by their gluttony, drinking until their senses dull and their inhibitions lower.
Fucking human bars.
They are easy prey and I hardly have to do any work. Though it dulls me, bores me even, my life was nothing but a drag and my death is more of the same. Don’t get me wrong. I live from one kill to the next, but in between?
Snore.
That’s when she walks in.
I exhale in a rush as my body tenses. They scream in my ears. Their need for the first time in centuries the same as mine. It isn’t her beauty that has my body humming with need. No. It’s the dark oil that coats her soul in naughty, naughty deeds.
My cock hardens as she shifts her hips, her dark pleated pants hugging every sensual curve of her body, her silk shirt lying like a second skin. But those eyes. Those dark chocolate eyes. They assess, they observe, and they judge. She doesn’t miss a thing as she smiles with her pouty pink lips. Lips that would flare beautifully as she...
Yes.
The voices scream. Their victim chosen. She is perfect. I almost pity how her night will end. Shame I don’t let myself enjoy her first. But my mama always told me never to play with my food. Fucking pity.
“See something you like?” The voice taunts me, and I slowly turn my head to the woman sitting beside me. Her bloodred lips quirk into a knowing smile.
I adjust myself and turn toward her. “What do you want crow?”
“Oh, come now, don’t be like that,” She laments, pouting, her eyes flicker over to the mystery woman. Her dark hair cascades over her shoulder as she leans down, the curve of a strand lies perfectly under a breast. “She’s something, isn’t she?”
I jerk my head back to the crow, a fitting name for one such as she. A phantom that lives neither here nor there. I guarantee these humans don’t even see her and I look like a fool talking to myself.
“Indeed.” I look to the dark-haired beauty beside me. “Again, why are you here after all this time?”
“To give a warning.”
My body seizes up as the room pauses, and everything slows to a crawl. No doubt the effect of her magic. “What is it?” When the crow gives a warning, you fucking listen.
She leans in, too close. The hair at the nape of my neck stands on end and my body shivers. I don’t like her this close. “She will change everything.”
My eyes settle back to the woman the crow speaks of. Why her? What’s so special?
I pause.
“No.” My voice is laced with panic. My palms sweat and my mind makes the connections. “After all this time?”
“Indeed. Her.” She shrugs a delicate bare shoulder, and my eyes are drawn to her cleavage as it pushes from her corset. But it does nothing for me. Not this woman. I may seek out those diseased with darkness, but she is the darkness embodied. “War is coming.”
A chill spreads up my spine. Didn’t I just say how bored I was? Fucking Fate, those twisted bitches are having a laugh at me. “Isn’t that something you revel in?” I sneer.
Her face becomes drawn, haunted. “Not this war.”
I turn back to the beauty and I know it will start with her. I glance back to the crow but she’s already gone. Time snaps back and the world around me speeds to catch up. My prey moves toward the back.
I can do nothing but set into motion what the fates have decreed to happen. I am nothing more than their pawn.
Chapter 3
Bette
Lost
I pant, my lungs burn and my body aches. I don’t know how long I’ve been running, only that I must keep going for survival. At least until I find the next shelter, like that luxurious cave where I can rest.
Until I wake up again.
I’m lost amongst the trees that loom over me like dark sentinels. They watch me. I feel they don’t know what to make of me, just as I don’t know what to make of them.
Then there are the ravens. Their squawks echo across the forest, and I don’t know if it’s to lead me in the right direction, or the wrong one.
Crying is but a wasted effort. I don’t grieve for the life I lost. All I do is hunt for food, forage. Yet the hunger I feel never quits, it twists my stomach with the demanding pangs. No matter how much I eat, nothing dulls my need.
I don’t even know what I am anymore. Pieces of my life fade from memory. I only exist somewhere in the mist that cloaks me like a second skin. It moves with me, inside me. I’ve become the mist, and it has become me.
Unless I’ve gone crazy and I’m hallucinating.
I woke after it tried to kill me. I rolled over, coughing into the leaves that made my bed. Blood flung from my mouth with each spasm—and the pain. There is nothing in this world that could ever describe the pain. My body felt flayed, my skin tender to the touch. It was as though someone peeled my skin from my bod
y, then they cut away my muscles, removed all my organs, before putting me back together again. Piece by fucking piece.
I’d passed out, my brain no longer able to comprehend what I was feeling. When I awoke, it was considerably better. Until I moved, and it all started again.
Over and fucking over again. I couldn’t say how long I lay there, only that I eventually woke up and I could move without passing out. I could sit up without nausea rolling through me, without my stomach clenching in agonizing contractions.
Alive. I had survived something I couldn’t even process. I didn’t even understand.
But I wasn’t. I got up and walked only to disappear and reemerge somewhere else. Shock raced through me each time, and denial spread through me like a plague. I just needed to get out of here.
No matter how far I walked, or how many times I moved through the mist as though I were a part of it, I couldn’t leave. It held me prisoner. I was but a fly on the unknown’s web.
I had more time to think than anyone should. More time for the regret to seep into my newly formed bones and settle there like cancer. His words sunk into me, plaguing my every thought until my mind broke with the truth.
No one would miss me.
That life I led died and I couldn’t allow the wounds of my past to fester enough to poison my system into a septic toxin. My survival demanded more of me. The mist demanded more of me, and the ravens.
They’ve been getting brave. Flying down to inspect me with those soulless, beady eyes that saw right through every mask I had ever worn. I couldn’t look too long before I felt their pull, yanking at my core to bring forth something dark inside of me.
Something they created.
I haven’t seen the stranger again. Small blessings and all that shit. He did this, and I couldn’t determine what I did to him to deserve this.
The fog parts, leading me as it always does after I’d wandered for too long and ahead sits another small cave. Though tonight a fire crackles, smoke rising to mingle with the mist in a lover’s embrace. I stare at it for far too long, watching the legs move together in an intimate dance. Rhythmic pulsing makes me feel like the voyeur I am. I once had no shame, but now I look away, as though I were encroaching on a moment I wasn’t privy to.
I walk forward, knowing I’d find a bag of food, water, and a ratty blanket. Tonight a lone raven sits upon a fallen log. I stare at him, unfeeling yet restless. These creatures are far too intelligent, they see everything. Including more than I’d ever want them to see in me. Down into my secret thoughts, past the actions of my sins, and to the unnamable. The taboo.
Do they see the rot my life had been? Do they see something good inside me? I snort at that. No. There wasn’t anything good there. We both know that to be the truth. I know what they saw, and I don’t like it.
I open my mouth to speak, but my voice cracks. Still healing from the acid that crawled its way inside me, into my lungs with the intent to kill. It slowed my heart until it stopped beating. I know. When lying on the ground and death is imminent, all you can hear is the sound of your heart beating. The whoosh of it through your ears becomes deafening. When it stops?
I shudder, my focus going back to the damn raven.
I point at the black devil. “There’s a joke in here somewhere.” It hurts to use my voice. The cords unused after their acidic abuse. “‘Tis some visitor…” I trail off.
The raven’s answering squawk gives me a rare pleasure. The emotion is foreign to my new life. An inkling of a memory rife with emotion sends a trail of pleasure down my spine. Yet the events are but a faded photograph in my mind’s eye.
“What do you bring me today?” I walk forward on bare feet, now hard and calloused, into the cavern. The fire feels odd against my skin. Almost too warm for the person I was becoming. I didn’t like it, I didn’t need it. “What is this?” I gesture toward the fire while crouching down to inspect the bag of food. Some days there was nothing but a few berries and nuts. Other days there was jerky of some kind. I didn’t question it. My stomach was always too hungry to. Today there was that rare piece of fruit. An oddity to my past, but a delicious treat I revel in when he awards them to me. I peel back the rough bloodred skin, the outer coating like an orange. Inside the juice runs red, tasting like nothing my tongue has ever experienced before. I moan as the juice runs down my face with the first bite.
With the second taste the raven squawks. Its small little body shimmers in the firelight before contorting into the man I swore I’d kill. With more restraint than I have ever possessed, I place my treasure upon the sack it arrived in. I move my body around to situate the fire between us.
Fury rises within me, the unbridled darkness flaring to life.
“None of that.” He holds his hand up. That one small movement keeps me in place, and the invisible restraints prevent me from my vengeance.
I open my mouth to yell but nothing comes out, my voice manacled with my body. Only the smallest of whimpers, which fuels my anger. I will destroy him.
“We need to talk,” he states and I eye him. He still holds himself in that blanket of shadow, an invisible cowl upon his head hiding him away. But now I am able to see just a hint more of him. Those beady eyes of the raven reflect against the fire. I can just make out the hint of scruff against an alabaster face. But nothing more. He wears his shadows like a cloak, his armor against me.
I growl my displeasure.
He tsks, the sound so human for this being that was anything but. “They kept you.”
Those words explain nothing. Mean nothing. Yes, I was alive, but I died in the process of living.
He paces, his movements fluid. The back and forth of his legs flutters the fire, stoking my ire.
“They won’t allow your sacrifice. Instead, they want you.” He pauses to facing me. “Why would they want you?”
I don’t have an answer for him. Not that I can reply anyway.
“You are nothing. A meaningless spot of scum upon the larger picture.” He stalks toward me. I feel the fire inside me swell. Knock, knock, knocking against its confines. “Why must I share my existence with you!” His roar scatters the hidden ravens. Their flight of a thousand wings clapping the air as they escape the predator in their midst.
I can’t help the spike of pleasure at his misfortune, though I don’t understand his anger.
He left me for dead.
“And yet,” he throws his hands to the cavern ceiling, “I’m drawn to you. As their need for you grows, so does mine. I wasn’t ready for you.”
I can’t reply. My vocal cords still stuck in his imprisonment. I can only stare at him as he stalks me. He comes closer, and I hear the long inhale of breath as he breathes me in, scenting me. My body heats beyond my control, my subconscious reacting to him without my consent.
“You stink.” I can hear the sneer in his voice and my heart pounds. “Yet deep down, beneath the rot, is the sweet scent of citrus. Bitter lemon doused in sugar.” He pauses, his anger at me growing. “I hate it.” He backs away from me.
I let the darkness break through a crack in its prison. I allow it to consume me, seep into my veins. My body dissolving, breaking his hold over me.
In one blink I’m standing in front of him. My body floating so I can see him eye to eye. A smile cracks my parched and broken lips. “You are nothing,” I snarl.
He roars, throwing his body into mine. But I’ve dissolved into the mist. I turn back to him. He won’t win this battle. Not today.
His anger is palpable, thickening the air. It won’t suffocate me, not this time. I call upon the mist, the fog that is always around me, and I allow it to cloak me before I launch back toward my captor. Forcing the mist into his face, imagining him breathing it in, coating his lungs and killing him slowly.
I’m thrown back against the cave wall. My body grunting from the force, my skull ricocheting against the rock. My head throbs, I’ve bitten my lip and blood seeps down to coat my chin.
“Haven’t you figure
d it out?” Once again, he stalks toward me. He crouches down to look at me. I see his beady eyes glinting at me. “You cannot kill me.”
I refuse to cry, my tears have long since dried up. I allow the fury to spread through me. My words sharp, like a viper, I reply, “For now.”
His laugh grates down my spine like claws, tearing the flesh open. I feel the blood seeping down my ratty shirt. From his ghost-like fingers or my tryst with the wall, I don’t know.
“You can never kill me. We belong to them, and they would never allow it.” I flinch as he brushes a lock of matted hair from my face. The memory of him doing this the day I died haunts my eyes. “You must figure out who they want you to be.”
He backs away, his words lingering in my ears. In one flawless movement, he takes flight as a raven and departs my cave.
His words leave me confused. His hot and cold touch scrambling my emotions. He is nothing but a nuisance I will see dead.
The fire dies down, and my body is too sore to crawl to my treasured fruit. I lay down, staring out at the mist. My mind is full of questions. The answers that lay in torment and death remain out of my reach. I’m still lost inside this pocket where nothing exists except for the Ravens, my killer, and me.
What could they want from me? I’m nothing. We are nothing. I wondered so many times if this is Hell. If that crash had killed me and I awoke in Dante’s Inferno, made specifically for me. But the pleasures of the fruit render that impossible. There is no pleasure in Hell.
And if you feel pleasure in Hell, what does that make me?
This doesn’t feel like Hell. Not that I’d know what it should feel like, eternal damnation and all. No, the fires of the underworld spat me out, my soul too rotten.
This is much more sinister than that. The darkness swells inside me, evil and tainted. I wasn’t perfect in life. Not even close. But now, I’m something that nightmares are made of. I’m the creation of murder and sacrifice gone wrong.
