Hunted by Darkness

The Escape

Gabriel

The drawer slid open, loose objects inside rattled noisily. The moonlight shining through the windows was not enough to illuminate the contents he was sifting through. Still, if his phone was there, he would have felt it already. He moved on, only papers in the next one.

Moving away from the desk, he continued with the cabinets against the walls.

Only when he wandered the floors, now mostly empty, did he realize this was where Elsebeth’s office was. He’d been coming here for years and didn’t even realize.

The hollow thud of steps came from the corridor and he dived under the table. If they caught him here, Elsebeth would find out and put two and two together, and he didn’t want that. The last thing he needed was for her to be on his back again.

It would all be easier if he could sleep.

It would be easier if he didn’t feel Sarah’s energy thrum in his veins like a distant melody. Like a call, floating through the wild.

It would be easier if he didn’t feel her lips on his mouth every time he closed his eyes.

The steps faded in the distance and he got back on his feet. Nothing is locked, which was be a fairly good indication that what he was looking for was not there. Although, it was only his mobile phone, after all.

Still, nothing there.

‘Damn it,’ he swore under his breath.

He’d have to do without.

Quietly, with the silence afforded by bare feet and thick carpets, he made his way back to his room.

For a split second, he considered leaving a note. But what would he say?

Discarding the idea, he let the door swing shut behind him and made his way to the stairs. Taking them two by two, he preferred to get out through the back. It might be the middle of the night, but that was no guarantee there would be nobody in reception.

The cold was biting as he stepped outside for the first time in days.　A soft drizzle tickled his face, and he pulled the collar of his jacket closer. He needed to go home, and he wasn’t sure what he would find there.

Maybe a dead dog.

He swore under his breath again. Did he even have any money? His hands dampened the fabric of his jeans as he slid them in his pockets. Just a handful of coins. Not enough to get back.

The inside of the phone box was as cold as the street outside, but at least it protected him from the rain. The coins slipped between his wet fingers, one by one, falling down the slot, before he dialed one of the three numbers he knew by heart.

And then the double tone offered a rhythm for his wait, until somebody might pick up the phone on the other end. It was late. Even if he didn’t know exactly what time it was, he could tell it wasn’t any time any human was awake.

The thought alone made his heartbeat quicken as his eyes darted back over his shoulder, making sure there wasn’t somebody there.

Or something.

It rang and it rang, but he knew he would be home. He would pick up eventually.

It took forever, though. Or it felt like forever.

Finally, a thick, sleepy voice answered.

‘What?’

‘Come and pick me up.’

Silence.

‘What?’

‘Jason, come and pick me up, now!’

‘Jesus…’

Gabriel heard a thud and loud swearing and then another thud.

‘Where?’ Jason cleared his voice.

Half and hour and four blocks later, the beat-up Volkswagen rolled around the corner. They had arranged to meet up at a well-known restaurant, which was safer than staying close to the Licht Institute, where they were likely to find him straight away.

Water had sipped into the edges of his clothes, the collar of his jacket. The bottom of his jeans was heavy, and his socks were pasty, water sliding through his toes every time he took a step. The handle slipped as he opened the car door.

‘Wait, wait, wait!’ Jason shouted before he could sit in. Leaning back between the front seats, he pulled a plastic folder and threw it under Gabriel. ‘Here, I don’t want you to get the car soaked, just got it cleaned, for crying out loud…’

‘You’re in a good mood…’ Gabriel pulled the seatbelt across his chest.

‘It’s half-two in the morning, mate…’

‘Aye, I guess… Thanks for coming to get me.’

‘You’re lucky I was half asleep. No chance I’d have picked up the call if I had been lucid enough to see it was unknown.’

‘That’s encouraging…’

Jason stretched over the console and cranked up the heating.

‘What happened to you?’

Gabriel did his best to explain, without mentioning the shadows. Jason was his oldest friend and as open-minded as it got, but even he would have trouble with this. And there was no point on freaking him out.

‘Told you not to get involved with that lady, didn’t I? Told you…’ he waved a finger at him as he took the next turn.

‘Your actual words were “she’s too hot for you, she must want something…”’ Gabriel rolled his eyes.

‘Well, and I was right, wasn’t I?’

Gabriel shrugged. Maybe his friend was right, but he was in no mood to admit it. Part of him wished he never applied for that bodyguard job. Then again, he needed it.

He never expected anybody like her when he went for the interview. Curls of blond hair falling over her shoulder, big blue eyes, perfectly defined lips, she would take anybody’s breath away. Like a black and white movie star, every movement so casually elegant, effortless. He was smitten straight away.

He liked her. Elsebeth was a goddess, so unattainable, the day she put her hand on his thigh he almost had a heart attack. He was concerned he might be hallucinating.

The more he was with her, the more involved he got, the more intimate their relationship became. The woman was intoxicating. When he was with her, he could barely string two thoughts together.

And he had to stay by her side. He was her bodyguard; he couldn’t just disappear and take time to think.

He couldn’t remember how Sarah came into their conversations. The words blurred in his mind. He could recall the place, their positions, what Elsebeth was wearing and how she smelled. But the sentences were a string of constant murmur. Like watching a movie in a foreign language without subtitles.

But he remembered everything about Sarah. Everything. Every word she ever said. Every look she ever threw his way. Even if the first time he saw her he wondered what was so special about her. What a fool he was. Sarah was everything Elsebeth wasn’t. Warm, funny, likeable.

Vulnerable.

And the closer they got, the more he recognized he knew nothing about Elsebeth. She never showed herself to him. They’d be having dinner, they’d be in the car, they’d be in bed, and she was always this flawless, self-sufficient, heavenly creature. She barely felt real.

Sarah was real. The kiss they had shared was real. It might have felt different, but it was.

‘I need a favor, Jason,’ he asked, his eyes watching the lights speeding past. ‘I need you to track a phone for me…’

Because he had lost her again. Except that this time, he wasn’t going to just watch and wait. He was going to find her, and he was going to get her back.

 *********

Sarah

It had been days since Damian stumbled out through that door. Days in which the only person she had seen was Karen. The woman was as friendly and caring as usual, but less willing to share information. Was she mad because of what she had seen that night?

Then again, what had she seen? Nothing had happened. He was just drunk.

That’s what she kept telling herself, all while ignoring the images flooding her mind.

In the fields of her imagination, a large hand wrapped around hers. Giggling rang in the air like the bubbling water of a creek. They turned a corner into a timber building, the light dim, and the air cool around them. Long strands of blond hair tickled her cheeks. Warmth, as skin touched her face. The spark in crystal blue eyes, a blinding smile, the heat of his breath on her lips.

When it happened the first time, she tried to dismiss the apparitions as hallucinations, but it became harder as they kept happening. They didn’t feel real, not as if she was actually living it. The images were more like a movie, like a projection in her inner eye.

Like memories.

But not her memories, certainly.

‘I keep feeling I have forgotten something,’ she told Karen that night.

The woman straightened up, her face devoid of expression, as she placed a cup of tea on the coffee table.

‘It’s probably not important, then,’ she said, a smile on her lips.

Was she imagining it, or her smile looked tense? Karen shuffled under her gaze as Sarah’s brain tried to figure it out. Did the woman know something she wasn’t telling her?

Many things, actually. What had they told her? Nothing at all. Essie had said more to her in the few minutes they sat together on that bench than Damian or anybody from the Institute had told her in weeks.

Essie!

She hadn’t thought of the old woman since she left her house.

That was a reckless thing to do though. Where did she even stay? She couldn’t remember.

Was she alone? That seemed unlikely, but she couldn’t remember who she had been with. What did she do during that time?

She was attacked, that much she remembered. The Old Ones found her and hurt her. But she was fine, back in London. She was walking about. That time, in the room next door, with that poor man and his face eaten away by the scars…

A flash of red overwhelmed her thoughts. A sense of relief came with the vision, a feeling of ‘I got it!’ She wanted to grab it and hold onto it, examine it. Figure it out.

But before she could even form that idea, it was gone, and she felt empty again. What was it? It made her heart hurt.

‘No, it is important,’ she mumbled.

‘What?’ Karen asked.

She had almost forgotten the woman was there. What was wrong with her? Her memory seemed made out of holes.

‘I can’t remember things again…’

Karen frowned; her mouth tight. She was about to say something. Her lips started parting, she took a breath, ready to let it out and form words, when a thud so loud the windows vibrated, echoed into the house.

‘Stay here,’ she said, before speeding out of the door, slamming it behind her.

Another break-in? she wondered.

Sarah stared at the door and she felt it. For the first time since she had arrived, she felt that energy pulse inside her body.

Stay here, Karen said. Was she the dog?

‘Nope,’ she said out loud.

She had stayed here for too long. Pushing herself up, able to move much more easily and painlessly than a few days ago, she walked to the door. The wood was slick against her ear as she tried to listen. It was all quiet.

Until the next loud thud. This one made the furniture shift.

Her heart racing, she turned the handle slowly and leaned out of the room. Another thud made the lights flicker, and she started hearing voices coming from downstairs. Not quite shouting, but in firm and commanding tones. She couldn’t make out what the voices were saying though.

Slowly, her bare feet making barely any noise as she walked down the hall, she started taking the steps down. As she reached the landing, the voice became clearer.

‘Hold that door!’ Damian’s voice ordered.

‘Who was guarding the fence?’ That was Karen. ‘How did the wards fail?’

‘That’s what I want to know,’ Damian grunted.

Sarah didn’t dare go any farther just yet. Her heart was beating a manic rhythm in her chest as another thud made the door rattle on its hinges. On her knees, she peaked out between the spindles of the bannister. It was dim, in the hall, but she recognized Damian and Karen. Three other people stood, their hands on the door, a faint shine surrounding them like a halo.

Another thud came, hard enough for the people holding the door to take a step back and lose contact. As soon as their hands left the wood, the door started to open, but they jumped back and pushed against it until it fit back in its frame.

And it was more than elbow grease. She could feel it. It was faint, nothing like the voltage throbbing inside her. Nothing like the energy she had felt that night, coming from Essie either. She knew, without understanding how, that they were not strong enough to do the job. Damian and Karen must have realized too because they joined their effort at the next hit.

Silent, shoulders set and jaw tight, Damian held against the door, his halo much brighter than the others next to him.

The air vibrated with tension as the next thud came again, this one duller, because of the added resistance on the inside.

Damian’s back tensed, muscles like cords sticking out through his thin shirt.

The blows started coming faster now, but they held on. Five of them, holding onto the door, while whatever pounded at it on the other side. Why were they not trying to break through the windows?

As if they’ve read her mind, a glass shattered somewhere to their right.

Harder, they slammed against the door, while another glass broke, shards falling onto the floor, singing like distant windchimes.

The energy throbbed, whining, fighting to get out, deep inside her, as the air became heavy and dull.

Faster, harder, the door shaking, more glass breaking, a symphony of disaster echoing inside the house. How was she ever supposed to stay in her room like this?

The noise became so loud she had to cover her ears. Her heart was about to burst out of her chest. As she closed her eyes, a bitter taste filled the back of her mouth.

‘Please stop, please stop,’ she mumbled, unable to hear her own voice as the whole house quivered under the assault.

And then, once more, as if doing her bidding, complete silence shrouded the house. And not just the quiet. There are always noises, sounds so faint we take them for granted and push them into the background, things we ignore.

This was not that. Because there is always some sound, the complete and utter absence of it was much more obvious.

And it wasn’t good news. Sarah’s stomach clenched as she felt the tension downstairs dissolve. Distracted by the sudden break in the attack, Damian, Karen, and the other people stopped, let go, their energy dwindling in the night air like cigarette smoke.

‘No,’ she gasped.

Jumping to her feet, she leant over the balustrade to yell at them. ‘Get ready!’ ‘They’re coming!’ ‘Get back to the door!’

None of those words came out. Before a shred of voice could escape her throat, the door exploded, chunks of wood flying inwards.

To say it was dark outside would be a mistake. It wasn’t dark. It was nothing. The sight alone terrified her to her core, and, at the same time, awoke a force in the pit of her stomach she had never felt before.

A current, like static electricity, ran up her spine, and her muscles tensed, contracting hard under her skin. Her teeth grinded as a large piece of wood stroke Karen, her feet disconnecting from the floor. The woman’s body hit the marble tiles with a deafening cracking noise.

Ready to jump down to her, Sarah climbed on the banister, stabilizing herself with a hand on the polished wood. Before she could drop down, though, the smell hit her.

The rot, the moldering smell of decay. The cold wrapped around her like a glacial wind, and her mind blurred, as her skin tingled.

Not this time, she thought. Not now.

She readied herself. It was coming.

They came at her like a single, gargantuan fist. The electric power inside her writhed in excitement, or so she thought, anyway. She could take it. She wanted to take it.

The utter silence made the scene surreal, like a strange dream.

It hit her. She was prepared for the pain, for the agony, for the burning, but it never came.

The cold hooked into her body like burning snakes. It expanded from her gut, through her torso, down her legs. Fast, climbing her chest, her neck, her throat closed gasping, gagging at the putrid blackness sliding down, until she was engulfed by it.

The light went out. Everything stopped. Time, space. Her heart. Her breathing.

Because the Old Ones are not darkness. They are nothing. They are nonexistence, the opposite of genesis. They are death.

But she didn’t panic, because it wasn’t the end. Somewhere, deeply buried into her core, was the answer she had been looking for all these months. She knew it like she knew the Old Ones wanted her and only her and would leave everybody else alone if they got her.

She could just give herself up. Save everybody. Save Damian. Save Karen. Save…

And yet, that’s not what she was going to do. As the darkness took every most of her body, only one part remained untouched.

Bright, harder than diamonds, it kept her together. The force she had felt in the past, the strength she had fought with, it seeped from the dense sphere of light hidden in her. All she had to do was break the seal.

As the ice penetrated deeper, the bubble burst, and the light spread. It warmed her soul first, and then her muscles.

And as it burst through her body like a hurricane through a dessert, disturbing every grain, every atom, it changed her whole being.

Then, she remembered.