The Darkness in You (The Darkness Series Book 2)

by Diane Ashley Nortje

  “Where is it?” Bishop says to me as he lets me go. But not enough that I stumble away from him.

  I let out a few more heaves before I’m able to stand up and face Bishop. I should have dry heaved over his shoes; he wouldn’t be having that smug ass look on his face.

  “There under the tree.” I say, pointing to the pine tree in the back of the yard, as the six other men materialize behind me.

  “You can’t just up and take her like that Bishop. Fuck, we don’t know what’s after her.” Weyland says to him while shaking his head.

  “You underestimate her.” Bishop says, surprising the shit out of me. “And no one would have dared to come near her with me here.”

  “You say that, but they came for Jacin.” Tray says.

  “We both know he allowed them to take him.” Bishop says back.

  And the bickering between the two of them continues, as I watch Bus, Even and Lynx shift into their hounds form to sniff out the area.

  “Aren’t you worried someone will one day see you guys do that?” I ask Haven who is standing beside me.

  “There is no one about. We would have heard them. It’s the things in our human form we can’t hear, we are worried about, and they would already know what we are.” He simply answers me.

  “Fair enough.” I nod at Haven and look over to the two who have now stopped bickering.

  “What?” I shout at Bishop. He is really starting to get on my last nerve.

  “Let’s go, Natalie, we don’t have all fucking night to stand around here. Show us where you buried it exactly.”

  I curse a few words under my breath at the existence of Bishop. And walk over to where I remembered digging a hole under the tree like some crazy person late at night.

  “There, where the new sprouts of weeds are growing.” I indicate to Bishop.

  “Dig.” He says out loud.

  “Are you serious, you want me to just whip out a spade from somewhere and start digging!”

  “Dig.” Bishop says again and this time it wasn’t directed at me and I’m starting to think that the first time he said it, also wasn’t directed at me.

  Bus comes looping over like a playful giant dog and pounces onto the floor where I had indicated and starts to dig with his front paws. Well that is kind of handy. He doesn’t dig far, only enough that his entire head has now disappeared into the hole and then he abruptly stops and moves out of the way of the hole.

  The rest of us peer inside the hole Bus just dug, while he shakes off the excess sand that clung to his body. There in the centre of the hole, is the answer to our problems. And the cause of mine.

  The Gem of Danté.

  I bend down to pick it up. The gem pulses in my hand and warms to my touch. This small thing has caused a lot of problems in my life, but also it brought me back to Jacin. My thoughts are soon disturbed by growling. And not the growling I have come accustomed to either. Where the five in their hound form would growl low and quietly every so often. The growling now, is amplified, it vibrates off the trees and the ground starts to shake with the intensity of it.

  Something is out there.

  My eyes snap in the direction of where the three hounds are growling in. Their coarse hair is standing on the tips of their body, their glowing yellow eyes pierce the darkness that has now fallen around us, and their claws scrap against the ground.

  Something is definitely out there.

  My eyes turn to Weyland, as his eyes start glowing from within. He sees something I clearly can’t, and I shuffle on my feet as I’m not sure what it could possibly be, I’m too afraid to make a sound and ask them. I watch as Tray, Haven and Weyland morph into their giant hound forms, their sharp claws are the last thing to hit the ground with a loud scrape.

  I feel Haven move behind me, his tail hits my leg as he does so, letting me know he has my back while Tray has moved directly in front of me. Pacing up and down, his eyes never leaving where the other three hounds are watching. A blur of white is all I see and then Weyland disappears and appears in front of the three. Clearly the leader of this small army we have somehow formed.

  Bishop appears next to me in a blink of an eye, and his arm snakes around my stomach and pulls me in close to him. I want to fight against his restraints on me, but I second think it as I don’t know what’s out there and they clearly do.

  His day-old scruff scratches my cheek as he leans down to my ear to whisper to me.

  “It’s the same as picking up a knife off a surface.” He whispers to me, I’m slow to follow as my eyes are darting around me, trying to figure out where the threat is coming from. “You place your fingertips against the tattoo and your dagger will come forward. You just have to think it.” Bishop continues to say.

  “Think it, will it, fucking kill what’s in front of you, never second guess, never over think.” He continues to whisper into my ear. “Slit its fucking throat before it slits yours.”

  I nod my head in acknowledgment of what he is saying. I still dare not make a sound.

  Bishop pulls me even closer to him, the gesture meant as a comfort, but in reality, there is nothing comforting about it. Because I don’t need it.

  “They are coming.” He says to me and the floor begins to shake, as a crack in the surface of the ground opens up, as if the gates of hell are located in this spot and the spawn of hell are coming through it.

  And they do.

  Deformed heads and then hands appear out of the hole in the ground, which is slowly followed by their bodies, until they have climbed completely out. They are not the ghouls that I’m so used to seeing from my nightmares. These are worse. Much, much worse.

  They look almost human, except for the dead skin hanging off their bodies and face. But the more I take them in, the more wrong they seem to be. Some of the things crawling from the hole have their heads smashed in, dried blood coats their bodies, which has turned a deep red almost brown which is a contrast against their blue skin. Some of these things have limbs missing, but that doesn’t seem to deter them in the least.

  They make their way forward, while more of them pour from beneath the surface. Chaos erupts around us, as Weyland and the other three charge ahead and dive into the first row of monsters tearing them limb from limb.

  “Natalie, get ready.” Bishop shouts at me, his hand coming to close over mine and he removes the gem from my grasp without any fight from me and then disappears from my side and appears with his own weapons a few feet ahead of me.

  “You two, fucking protect her!” He shouts again, clearly at Tray and Haven.

  But I don’t need protection. When will they understand that?

  I call her forward. I coax her out of her slumber and once she smells the blood in the air, the sound of bones crunching. She leaps to the fore front of my mind.

  “Well, well. What do we have here?” She whispers to me.

  “Are you ready?” I ask her.

  “We can never go back, make sure this is what you are ready for.” She whispers to me.

  “I’m ready, it is time I accept it.”

  And then she releases the power flow between us. It hits me. I’m instantly high off the feeling of it as it runs through my blood. I’ve never experienced anything like this. It combines with me, mixes with my blood, it becomes my own. And then I charge.

  Tray and Haven that were guarding me are left behind, as I move quicker than ever before. My fingertips touch on my opposite arms and I pull free my daggers that have been itching on my skin to do some damage.

  I slice.

  I cut.

  I stab.

  Whatever these things are I move through them and they drop at my feet.

  Some look on stunned, others are quicker to recover and think to take me.

  I slice.

  I cut.

  I stab.

  And one after another they are falling. But it’s not enough. Even with my five, who have now moved in beside me. We are somehow a well-oiled machine. We move together, kill
ing the monsters that are pouring out of the ground. I see Bishop moving in front of me. But he is faster than me and bodies pile at his feet, along with Weylands body count.

  It’s still not enough. More and more pour from the ground below us. The never-ending stream of them coming through. We will all tire at this rate and then they will eventually gain the upper hand.

  A streak of white light crashes into me and Weyland is on top of me. No longer in his hound form. But a very naked and very sweaty man. He breathes heavily onto my face, his warm breath and sweat dropping onto my face as I lay in the dirty ground beneath him.

  “Call Natalie.” He shouts at me, as the five moves in to protect us against the never-ending streak of dead.

  “Call what?” I bark out at him, trying to move him off me, but it’s no use. He has landed solid onto me and I’m unable to get him off.

  “Call in the fucking army. Now!” He shouts at me.

  “What army, did something hit your head?” I ask him amongst the chaos that is surrounding us.

  “Call Jacin’s army forward. I gave you the call. Now call them. They won’t stop coming up from under there. We need to push them back.”

  “How? How?” I shout at Weyland. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “It latched onto your vocal cords, the moment I took it away from Jacin and gave it to you. All you have to do is need them, call them and they will come.” Weyland says to me. His breath still hot on my face and his sweat still dripping from his naked body.

  “You took it away from Jacin!” I shriek out at him. What the hell! What if Jacin needs it!

  “Temporarily. It will return to him once he is back, make no mistake of that. The hounds loyalty still lies and will always lie with Jacin. You have it so we can get him back. Now make the fucking call!”

  I nod like a crazy woman at him. And I try feel for the call that has latched onto my vocal cords. Nothing feels different and I don’t know what I’m looking for.

  So, I will this army of Jacin’s to come to aid. My mind willing it, my body willing it and my mouth opens before I even know what I’m doing.

  “Come.” I whisper out. And then nothing.

  Weyland hops off me and stands to his full height and glares down at me. “Good, now the fun begins.”

  The ground starts to shake again as I’m pulling myself to my feet as Weyland shifts back into his hound form. Another hole cracks the surface and men and hounds start to escape. Hundreds of them come pouring to the surface and attack the monsters that had outnumbered us fifty to one.

  I have a chance to look about, the entire neighbourhood is watching from the street, the windows in their houses, from their front porches. All their eyes are locked onto the scene before them as they watch the monsters from hell battle each other to the death.

  Bishop appears next to me, with blood running down his face and body and for the first time I feel the blood that coats my own body. Is the monster inside me so fucked up that she enjoys the feeling that I didn’t even feel it coat my body? Clearly. And I now must come to terms with the idea that instead of sharing a body with another being, we have become one. Our thoughts are mixed together to cause its own kind of chaos within me.

  “Are you hurt?” Bishop asks me as he checks my body for any injuries.

  “I’m alright. Thank you.” I say to him.

  “Fucking hell, woman. You fight like a woman possessed.” Bishop says to me.

  “We have bigger problems than me being possessed.” I say to Bishop and indicate to the neighbours who are completely crazy and stay glued to the violence before us.

  “I’ll take care of it.” Bishop says as the last of the monster are taken down by the army I called forward.

  “Bishop, my parents, please don’t let them know about this.” I say to his retreating form.

  “They won’t remember a thing. I’ll make them think you are home every day. It’s time we get Jacin back.” He replies to me, but he doesn’t give me a second to ask him what he plans to do, before he is barking orders off to everyone again. “Take her home, Tray.” Bishop says to Tray while he continues to walk towards the staring neighbours.

  “But I am home.” I call out to him.

  “Not anymore.” He says back to me without even looking back, as Tray’s hand grabs mind and I’m pulled back with him to wherever it is I’m going.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Try me!”- Natalie

  ~Natalie~

  My landing is a little smoother with Tray than it was with Bishop. I don’t feel the sudden urge to throw up as our feet touch down on the hard-wooden floors of Jacin’s home. He turns to look at me, both of us are covered in blood with bits of skin and whatever else managed to latch itself onto us.

  I look down to assess Tray, to see if he has any injuries, when I realise that he is butt ass naked. My eyes snap to his before than can travel lower than expected. I drop my hand from his as I realise this little detail. I don’t want to be holding a naked man’s hand. A wave of nausea hits me and here I thought I was getting a hang of this fading nonsense. But clearly, I was mistaken.

  A voice clearing comes from behind us, which startles me a bit, that I forget my sudden nausea and turn to look at who it is.

  Hades.

  An amused look crosses his face as he takes us in. His eyes flick down Tray’s nakedness and then back up to me. But once his eyes take hold of mine, they don’t let me go. I watch as he brings a teacup. Yes, an honest to god dainty teacup, which is covered in tiny flowers and leaves, up to his lips as his other hand holds the saucer and takes a sip of his tea.

  It is the most out of place thing I have ever witnessed. And I have witnessed a shit load in my short life. From his tattooed hands and arms, his short dark hair and the nose ring that loops in his nose, to the insanity that is held within his dreamlike eyes, which comes off the man in waves, to the tiny fucking teacup and saucer he is holding. My mind can’t comprehend how odd the whole scene is.

  “Had some late-night fun, did we?” He asks us, the evil glint of insanity in his eyes speaks volumes on their own as he continues to sip his tea and lean against the wall of Jacin’s front room.

  “Hades, what the fuck are you doing here?” Tray asks him, as he steps closer to me as a sign of protection, from the man with the dainty teacup. But I happen to glance down, as Trays naked butt cheeks get way to close for comfort, I step away as he steps closer.

  “Looking for Jacin. I don’t buy your lots bullshit. Now my turn.” He says with a wicked curve to his mouth. “Why the fuck are both of you covered in blood, and why are you butt fucking naked standing next to your masters mate.” Hades hisses out after taking another sip of tea. The whole thing is just disturbing.

  Tray then glances down and swears under his breathe like he forgot his dick is just hanging out for everyone to see.

  “Stay the fuck away from her.” Tray warns Hades. “I’ll be right back.” He says to me and walks off in the direction of the rooms.

  “Hades.” I say in greeting, not sure what else to do, but the sudden nausea is starting to creep back into my system, and I feel I might have to run for the bathroom.

  “They call you Little Lady, correct?” He asks me and takes another sip of his tea. His eyes never leaving mine, and I can’t seem to break away from his either.

  “Yes, except Jacin.” I murmur out to him while I battle to regain control of my gaze and my stomach, as I try to swallow back my spit that keeps forming in my mouth.

  “Yes, he calls you Little One.” Hades says. “So, tell me, Little Lady, why are you covered in blood.” The way he says Little Lady makes me shiver. It’s like he is testing the words on his tongue and finding them sour. What the hell did I ever do to this man.

  “There was an-.” I’m about to say to Hades, but the sudden burst of nausea demands to be felt and I turn to rush to the nearest toilet I can find.

  Once I plough through the door of the bathroom. I fall onto the floor and
empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I heave and heave my entire stomach up and shove my hair out of my face as to not get vomit in it.

  Strong hands come to my hair and pull my hair back gently as I continue to throw up into the toilet bowl. Once I’m sure there is nothing left in my stomach, I continue to hug the toilet just in case something else wants out, until I realise that my hair is being held back.

  My eyes shoot open and I see Hades dark penetrating gaze on me, as he continues to sit there on his haunches and hold my hair back, like he has nothing better to do than this. I freeze. I don’t say anything to him, and he just continues to study me, with his weird as hell gaze. I slowly unlatch my hands from hugging the toilet and slowly wipe away the sides of my mouth.

  “Um, thanks.” I say to Hades, as he slowly releases my hair from his hold.

  “Don’t have the stomach for blood then?” He asks me and I shake my head in no.

  “No, it’s not that. I don’t know what came over me.” I simply state and try to move out of Hades space since he isn’t moving from mine.

  “Has this happened before?” He asks me and I nod my head in reply.

  “Yes, it must have been something I ate or something.” I reply and try to move out of the way and try to get back on my feet.

  But Hades hand flies out and catches my jaw, effectively holding me in place. “Where do you think you are going Little Lady?” He asks me, as his grip doesn’t waver.

  “Why are all you men so rough with me?” I ask as I try bat his hand away from me.

  Hades doesn’t bother to answer me. He stares at me in that otherworldly way these men have about them and I become helplessly entranced with him as I my eyes get hypnotised by his and I start to stare dreamily into his. His eyes are really beautiful. Like they shouldn’t belong to the monster before me.

  What feels like eternity, but in reality, must have been a few seconds, Hades cracks a smile at me.

  “That motherfucker.” He whispers under his breath more to himself than anyone else. But I’m still caught up in the dreamlike state of Hades to pay much attention to what is happening around me.