Dark Rain: Book 1 of The Aetherium Saga

by Jilly MacKenzie

  They reeled from the force, ears ringing. After some moments, the sound of Cat’s screaming reached Lenore’s ears, and she looked around in disbelief.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ she turned to Cat, patting her arm to try and console her. Cat breathed heavily, touching the red splatters on her dark blue clothing.

  ‘N-no. Madame Cavere…’ she squeaked. Lenore struggled to her feet, her skin was flushed pink from the heat, and she quickly helped Cat up. There's no time, we need to leave.

  Another explosion somewhere above them, shuddered their surroundings, and pieces of ceiling and plaster fell about them in a white mist.

  Lenore held Cat firmly, as she assessed the situation. Where are all the staff? Then it dawned on her. They’ve evacuated, and left all the residents…

  She turned to Cat with urgency, ‘Cat! Go and get Axel. Be as quick as you can. Meet me back here. And stick close to the walls!’

  Cat was shaken, but she managed to nod with teary eyes and sprinted off in the direction of the male quarters.

  Looking around herself, Lenore noticed that all windows were energy barred. And so was the main entrance. Not good. The security desk now lay in ruins, which meant that the controls for the engaged energy barriers, lay somewhere outside of Drakestoke. The IGS knew that the Anuna was here. Why else would all this happen so soon afterwards? They have ordered a systematic destruction of the institute, and everyone inside. By killing the Anuna's chosen, they can kill the Anuna.

  However, something in Lenore's core told her that this particular Anuna was not part of the impending apocalypse that ECIT are trying to stop.

  He's a rogue. Acting alone for a reason. Separate from the other Anunnaki signals. Which means, Anubis is probably the most important human on Earth right now.

  Chapter 12

  Retribution

  Cat sped past fleeing and fighting male residents, sticking along the smooth walls like Lenore had advised. It was a good call, as it allowed her to move unhindered past all the commotion. With the absence of authority and order, panic had begun to erupt in the frightened residents. Taking their fear and confusion out on each other.

  She threw herself into Axels door, but realising it wouldn't budge she knocked rapidly.

  ‘Axel!’

  ‘Kitten!’ A muffled response came from within.

  Relieved, and suddenly overcome with the need to be in his arms, she slid down his door, and collapsed onto her knees.

  ‘Open up, wolfie! It's terrible out here!’ she cried into the steel-reinforced wood.

  ‘I can't, the bastards have locked me in!’ he growled, his low voice vibrating through the solid door. He could smell blood on her, and he tensed.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he demanded.

  ‘No,’ her shaky reply did nothing to ease him. ‘Can we break it down?’ she continued.

  Axel managed a huffed laugh, ‘Steel bolts, my kitten. Only a keycard will open it,’ he explained, leaning his head on his door in longing, listening to her exhausted breathing.

  ‘But we need to go, this place is blowing up bit by bit!’ she pleaded, tears streaming down her face. His head snapped up at her words, and he grumbled loudly in frustration.

  Cat heard a sinister chuckle some way down the hallway to her right, and she turned to see Deryk regarding her with an unnervingly mischievous smile. Then he ran at her.

  Fear gripped her and she screamed in terror, and scrambled to her feet.

  ‘What!’ Axel yelled, firmly gripping the door with intense concern. But Cat has already bolted out of the male quarters and towards a section of recreation rooms.

  ‘Kitten!’ Axel yelled through the door. ‘Cat, what's wrong?’

  He heard a set of heavy boots fast approaching, and stop outside of his door.

  ‘I'm gonna fuck your little kitten to death,’ a voice taunted him through the wood. Then the heavy footfall raced off again.

  Axel was left alone, howling furiously. Consumed with mad helplessness he violently clawed and pounded his door, like a trapped animal trying desperately to escape.

  ***

  With curiosity getting the better of her, Anubis made her way out of the isolation section and into the main body of Drakestoke. The place was in complete meltdown. With two previous explosions, a gaping expanse was now present, spanning several great rooms and two floors. She could smell a fire from somewhere, and smoke was filling the upper levels, billowing down through the hole.

  A female resident was writhing in pain a few spaces from her, both legs broken, and the tibia of one was protruding through her navy pants. White and jagged. The results of the crushing impact of her unfortunate fall through the hole above.

  Anubis regarded the woman coldly, until she grabbed Anubis' leg, pleading for help. Shoving her aside in irritation, Anubis moved on through the labyrinth of chaos, unfazed, as another distant explosion rattled the chateau. She could hear screams and bellows from every direction.

  She noted a young woman crying over a book in the burning library, and in the corridor beyond, a boy tried to protect his face from a hysterical woman seemingly wanting to rip it off.

  The facial attack seemed to trigger Anubis in some way, and she was compelled to stride up from behind the woman, and with a clenched fist, swung her arm hard. The powerful backhanded strike knocked the woman to the side forcefully, and she fell unconscious beside the boy. He eyed Anubis with shock and wonder.

  A scream nearby pierced the dull ambience of crackling fire and distant yells, and she turned to see a small, terrified girl scramble madly around the corner and race up through the next hallway, ducking into a room at the far end. She was followed closely by a man. A man whom Anubis was sure was dead.

  I killed him, she recalled in horrified bewilderment, as she watched the form of her dead husband enter the fleeing girl's hiding place.

  I was so sure I... she noticed he had been wearing Drakestoke attire. He's not a ghost... Anger seared through her very being. He's been here, this whole time! Living alongside me! Her body rippled with fury, and she marched towards the closed door, in a daze of mad hatred.

  She burst into the room to find the small blonde girl screaming in terror, cowering in the far corner. Her large fearful eyes were fixed on Deryk, then flicked to Anubis. Deryk spun around to see Anubis' imposing figure fill the doorway.

  His eyes met the icy gaze of fury personified, and fear suddenly shuddered through him, stealing his grin, and replacing it with terror and confusion. He never fathomed that Anubis would ever be loose. And now, here she stood. The memories of his past injuries began to flare their painful reminder across his face, and with it, the sudden realisation that he may truly die this time.

  ***

  Lenore couldn’t find a way out. Every exit from the sprawling institution was blocked with impassable energy. Although it had been only minutes, Lenore began to get impatient, and her worry about Cat was growing, as another explosion detonated.

  Everybody was panicked, cowering by windows, rummaging for things, calling and yelling, fighting. Smoke was beginning to spread down some hallways.

  Lenore arrived at the male quarters to find all the rooms empty except one, and she stopped outside of it.

  Hearing her footsteps, Axel moved closer, and recognising her scent he hit the door with impatience.

  ‘Lenore! Have you seen Cat?’ he blurted.

  She was relieved to hear a familiar voice in the ensuing chaos.

  ‘I sent her here to get you! Only minutes ago,’ Lenore explained, exasperated.

  ‘Shit! Please go help her! Deryk is after her!’ he pleaded, ‘They headed towards the rec rooms! Go!’

  Lenore wasted no time and sped off in the direction he gave, ‘Try and get out, somehow!’ she yelled behind her.

  ‘I've been trying...’ Axel murmured softly in resignation.

  Lenore sprinted along the hallway, and out of the male quarters, coming to a stop at a junction. Shit, which way?

  ‘Are you loo
king for Anubis?’ an Irish voice enquired. Lenore turned and eyed the boy suspiciously. Why would he think I'm looking for Anubis?

  She had seen his face many times, but did not know his name. He was a slight young man, around her own age, and was leant against a wall, wiping his scratched up bloody face with his sleeve.

  ‘Did she do that to you?’ quizzed Lenore.

  ‘No,’ he answered plainly, then nodded his head to something behind her, ‘She did.’ A female resident lay motionless on the ground.

  ‘It was Anubis that did that to her,’ he revealed.

  ‘Have you seen Cat?’ Lenore blurted impatiently.

  He chuckled to himself, ‘Cat-girl…’ he nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. She was running away from some dude and they all went in a room up there,’ he nodded his head to a long hallway to his left.

  Lenore left him, racing down the hall, and she suddenly halted as Deryk tumbled out of a doorway at the far end. Anubis stepped out after him, landing a powerful stamp close by his head, which he avoided with quick roll. He scurried off down the stone staircase at the end, and Anubis silently followed.

  Shit. She's found him! Lenore's heart clenched with foreboding. She's going to kill him.

  Upon entering the room they had left, Lenore was suddenly enveloped in a constricting hug from Cat, who was trembling in fear.

  ‘Cat! Are you alright?’ Lenore demanded with worry and relief.

  ‘Yes, Anubis saved me,’ she blubbered through her tears.

  Pretty sure she had her own motive for intervening.

  ***

  Run all you want, I'll get you.

  Anubis was enjoying the pursuit, but remained stoic, as she followed Deryk's frantic race against the inevitable. In his desperation he took little notice of his heading, and had realised much too late of his current whereabouts. The isolated section. My domain.

  He sped along the dark hall. Not even the moonlight graced the brickwork with light tonight. Not tonight. Not for you.

  His hot exhausted breath billowed out frosty veils into the dark before him, and he stopped dead in his tracks as a figure emerged from the darkness ahead.

  An arm, quick as lightning, grasped Deryk around his neck, turned him, and held him firmly. The impossibly strong, and immovable, stranger handled Deryk with such ease, the iron grip holding him still. Making him observe the approach of his reaper, in the guise of someone familiar yet strange. His wife, yet a predator. An angel turned demon. One and the same. And for the first time in his life, Deryk felt regret.

  The stranger suddenly thrust Deryk out at arm’s length, still keeping a vice-like grip upon him. Holding him out like an offering for the God of Death. Anubis was closing in, striding forward at ease. In her hand she held a jagged piece of reflective glass, picked up from a broken mirror along the way.

  A fire had begun to spread in part of the chateau, causing its glow to penetrate the darkness through the large windows. Anubis’ shadow man eyed her intensely, his masculine face was partly lit by the dim orange light. Anubis was momentarily awestruck at her first sight of his full face. Unobscured, unmasked, for the first time. His fair skin bathed by the golden blaze of the growing inferno, and his eyes smouldered viciously as he waited for her to claim her prize.

  She came to a stop in front of Deryk, and he pleaded for his life, apologising and begging. He knew what she was capable of, and what she intended to do. He was her unfinished business. His legs trembled as a darkening patch of fear spread humiliatingly across his crotch, and down one leg. A glimmer of a smirk crept onto her shadow man’s statuesque face.

  Deryk continued his cries for mercy, using her real name as an attempt for familiarisation and sympathy. But then he made a mistake. The fatal mistake of mentioning one particular name.

  ‘Leo.’

  Anubis' makeshift dagger plunged into his abdomen. It easily penetrated his thin white shirt, which began to turn crimson around the embedded shard of glass. He bellowed in pain and tried to push her away, but she quickly repositioned her hands on the weapon and forced it horizontally across his middle. His flesh tore open, and blood spilled out. She could see a couple of intestinal loops teasing at the edges of the gash.

  Deryk gargled in agony and his legs went limp with shock, but her shadow man’s tight grip on Deryk’s head, held him up. Unable to move his head, Deryk's eyes strained downwards in horror as Anubis proceeded to drive her hands into the bloody maw in his midriff. He croaked out a difficult scream, as she pulled out his bowels, letting them slap to the floor, as he coughed up blood.

  Her shadow man’s eyes blazed blue with pride, and he beamed a sinister smile as he watched her eviscerate her enemy, both unfazed by the pungent smell of bowel contents.

  Deryk's legs and arms reactively twitched and flailed as Anubis dug around inside of him, tearing organs from their holdfast. Yanking, and clawing.

  Deryk’s eyes rolled back and forth, as he suffered through his last moments. Blood streamed from his mouth in bubbled gargles as Anubis squeezed his lungs. She brought her face close to his, meeting his eyes, as she tore her fingers into their delicate pink mass. He wheezed, and she tore off the lower parts of his heaving lungs, and threw them at his feet. And she watched him die, millimetres from his quivering face.

  Deryk’s last vision of the world was hell. A black jackal head, grinning at him, within a fiery orange hallway. And Anubis hoped he was on his way to an eternal hell.

  She stood panting for a few moments, letting the sight of his lifeless, ravaged body sink in. His gaping abdominal gash now a dark bloody cavern. Her shadow man released his hold on Deryk's head and let his body collapse hard into the pile of his own organs and bodily matter.

  It's done. Finally. She breathed, feeling a weight leave her heart, and a sense of euphoric accomplishment and purification. When she looked up from her handiwork, her shadow man was gone.

  Thank you.

  Chapter 13

  Escape

  ‘Wolfie! I'm okay!' Cat announced as she raced to his door, swatting it with her hands. Lenore followed her, anxious with the increasing sense of urgency. The smoke was becoming denser and the sounds of frantic screams could be heard from every direction.

  ‘Wolfie?’ Cat asked desperately as Lenore joined her.

  ‘Axel! You there?’ demanded Lenore with a couple of hard knocks. Silence. Cat frantically tried to peer under the door into the darkness beyond.

  ‘He can’t be died! Lenore!’ she shrieked, through teary eyes.

  ‘No, it's not that bad up here yet,’ Lenore explained, ‘He must have gotten out another way. Perhaps his window.’

  ‘From this level? It's too high!’ Cat whimpered.

  They braced as a boom close by shuddered the floor, causing them to crouch low for stabilisation. They felt heat begin to creep up the hallway, along with thicker billows of dark grey smoke.

  ‘We have to go. Now,’ Lenore urged. Cat momentarily resisted, not wanting to leave Axel's door, but soon allowed Lenore to lead her away, back out towards the social rooms.

  The fire was raging through the chateau now, and all of the hallways were quickly filling with a thick veil of deadly smoke. Lenore tripped on a body in the grey haze, dragging Cat down with her. Checking the pulse, Lenore confirmed the young man was dead. A sad face, with red hair like her own.

  The heat could be felt emanating from everywhere, and the sounds of collapsing walls and crackling wood was all that echoed now. Lenore's throat tightened in horror and despair. Is everybody dead?

  Keeping low to the ground to minimize smoke inhalation, Lenore and Cat carried on. With their vision greatly obscured with grey, they ran into a balcony overlooking reception room. The vast room below was engulfed in a blazing inferno, and Lenore identified lifeless bodies beginning to char among the flames. She had no time to mourn, and she looked around desperately for a way out. Cat began to whimper, and covered her mouth and nose with her hand as she began to cough. Nothing but grew surrounded them.
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br />   Lenore pictured the institution layout in her mind. Come on, I can do this. She moved quickly, relentlessly pulling Cat along behind her. Lenore dragged her fingers over the wall beside her, following its route, assessing the distance and direction. The smoke began to thin out, and their line of sight improved. They passed the bright, crackling blaze of the library, but Lenore stopped suddenly. Did I see someone in there?

  Quickly backtracking a few steps, she looked upon a bedraggled female resident scrambling to save a pile of books. The heat was almost unbearable, and the roaring flames were fueling themselves furiously on the paper fodder. They towered to a great height, and began to spread towards the entrance. There isn’t much time. She will be consumed!

  Upon entering, Lenore winced at the heat-haze, and the acrid smell of burnt paper and wood hit the back of her throat. She strode over to the girl and grabbed her arm. ‘Come on! You've got to leave here!’ she demanded.

  The girl resisted and continued to gather books close around herself, ‘No, please! I've got to...’

  ‘Leave them!’ Lenore implored, pulling her along with some help from Cat. The girl managed to shove three hardback volumes into her jacket before allowing to be torn away from the library.

  The hallway outside was now thick with fumes, and Lenore continued on, leading her two followers. Somebody else materialised out of the deadly fog, coughing, and joined them on their frantic run to freedom and fresh air.

  After almost tripping over another dead body, Lenore noticed the haze cleared a little up ahead and they burst out of the smoke and into a high vaulted stone passageway. The isolated section.

  As the newest extension to the main chateau, the IGS seemed to have overlooked the installation of underfloor explosives. It was therefore the last part of the institution to feel the force of the fires and destruction.