Hunted by Darkness

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Sarah

Warmth fluttered on her cheek like the wings of a butterfly. Something tickled her chin, but she didn’t feel awake enough to do anything about it. Comfortably sunk in into a mattress, the sheets felt warm and soft, the duvet full and heavy. It was like sleeping in a cloud, except that she hadn’t been sleeping.

She had been away, away in that place she didn’t like, the place where there was nothing and nothing left. But she had left, she was here, in a bed and there was warmth, not cold, not emptiness. She closed her fingers around the edge of the duvet, and the feathers rubbed inside their pockets.

The air smelled cold, though, like a bright winter day, the sun shining but the air biting. She didn’t want to get out of bed. She didn’t want to think, except that her brain was waking up now and she remembered about the gap on Gabriel’s side and then about his energy coming back and his breath on her lips, and then the pain and the blood and nothing again. She pulled herself out of that thought, but she couldn’t help getting back to it. It was easier to open her eyes.

She had expected to find herself back in her room, at that hospital or whatever it was, but she realized quickly this wasn’t it. Her heart pounded, not knowing where she was. Though it was very dark, a single ray of sun came through a window to her left, which was already a sign of her change of location. In her hospital room, the window had been to the right. The bed felt much bigger.

The little light penetrating the darkness didn’t allow for detail, but it was obvious the room was much larger too. Sarah considered getting up and opening the curtain, but she was afraid to make noise and bring attention she wasn’t ready to receive. Not without knowing where she was.

Before she could think any further, the sound of a soft click told her the door was opening. Whoever was coming in was very quiet, very careful. They didn’t want to wake her. She followed the sound with her eyes, only able to distinguish an indistinct shadow. The smell of jasmine-scented soap reached her as the person came closer, and she thought she recognized the smell.

‘So you’re awake at last,’ Karen’s voice said. ‘Do you think I could open the curtains a bit?’

‘O… Ok.’

Less carefully, Karen crossed the room, her feet now making determined, yet muffled noises on the floor. The number of steps it took for her to get there confirmed her sense of size. The woman didn’t open the curtains fully, just enough to see her surroundings.

Sarah gasped. She was in a four-poster bed, probably king size. The door on the right, through which Karen had just come in, was double cherry wood door. Next to it was a large chest of drawers. The opposing wall was covered in bookshelves from ceiling to floor, wooden columns separating each steepled shelf unit, topped with what looked like carved images. Sarah tried to sit up to see more but pain shot through her side like a small explosion inside her guts. A faint grunt came out of her lips.

‘Now, careful. Here, let me help you.’

Karen ran to her side and slowly pushed a hand under her back, pulling her up. She kept her upright as she arranged pillows behind her. Even the position hurt her abdomen, and her breathing became fast, waiting for Karen to finish. After a couple of more pillows, Karen let her lie back into fluffed cushions, and it felt like heaven. It also gave her a chance to see the rest of the room, the two Versailles sofas facing each other across a coffee table with bowed legs. The floors were covered in several rugs of different, though coordinated, motifs, which explained the muffled sound of Karen’s steps. There was another chest of drawers between the two windows, heavy damask curtains hanging on both. There wasn’t enough light to appreciate much of the colours, but it was the most grandiose room she had ever been in, even if it was in greyscale.

‘Where am I?’

‘You are in a… private hospital.’

Sarah looked around with a raised eyebrow.

‘Why am I not at the other hospital?’

Karen stopped fidgeting with things she couldn’t see and turned to face Sarah. The set of her jaw was tense.

‘Mr Vogel felt that your behaviour had been ill-advised, as he put it, and you required more supervision than he had at first estimated.’

‘Ill-advised.’

‘It means reckless.’

‘I know what it means…’ she grunted. All she had done was save Gabriel. Or did she? He had woken up. They had kissed… but after that, nothing. ‘Where is Gabriel?’ she asked, a cold panic running down her spine.

‘He is fine, he is still in London, with Miss Vogel.’

She didn’t even know the hospital had been in London, though she supposed it made sense. Kind of.

‘Didn’t he need extra supervision too?’

‘I don’t know,’ Karen shrugged, ‘he is not under the care of Mr Vogel.’

As if he knew he had been mentioned, Damian walked into the room. He wore light grey wool trousers, and grey tie on a black shirt that made his hair look a platinum blond. He didn’t have a clipboard but a small book, barely larger than his hand. He looked at her, and she started to smile, but his expression remained cold. Surprised, her face froze halfway before she could compose herself. She decided to stare at her hands instead. Damian crossed the room and decided to fully open the curtains and light flooded the room in an explosion of colour.

‘Help me here, Karen.’

They each took one side of the bed and took a corner of the duvet. Though Karen pulled it down gently, Damian seemed to be in a rush, and the cold air covered her body with goose-bumps despite the pyjamas. They both touched my forehead in a gesture she had become accustomed to in the ‘other’ hospital, then touched her wrists in a similar manner, and proceeded to move their hands around her body feeling for who knew what. They ended with a hand on her hip and one on her ankle. This was a routine Damian had done by himself before, though he had contented himself of doing only one side. Sarah’s eyes went between them as they completed what she had come to understand as a checkup. Of a kind.

The thing is, for days, they had denied her information about, well, everything, under the pretext that she needed to get stronger, that she needed to rest. But all that had happened is that she had gotten worse. Though she suspected that was her own fault. She did feel herself empty as she tried to save Gabriel.

Damian took a step back when he was finished and let Karen pull the blankets over her again.

‘I’ll come back tonight,’ he mumbled to Karen.

‘Damian,’ Sarah called.

He was half out, the doorknob still in his hand, only stopping for a quarter of a second. He walked out without looking back.

Sarah sank back into the cushions and wished there was darkness again.

‘He’ll get over it.’

Sarah didn’t reply, picking at a broken nail instead.

‘Though it was pretty stupid what you did. Giving away your life like that…’

A lump formed in Sarah’s throat.

‘I didn’t know that’s what I was doing… I just… He died, right in front of me. But when I touched him, I could feel his energy, him, still there, just hanging on by a thread and I could connect to it. The more I tried to connect to it, the stronger it became, and then he came back. It was just… easy.’

Sarah saw Karen nod through the corner of her eyes.

‘You were so focused on the boy you didn’t see the darkness coming for you. As I said, stupid.’

Hot blood climbed her collar up to her cheeks, and her shoulders tightened. The image of Gabriel jumping in front of her, impaled, had been embedded in her mind since that night. She hadn’t forgotten either the bitterness in her mouth or her heart pumping so hard against her ribs; she thought her chest was going to explode. Why were those things following her? What did they want from her? Images of her parents’ bodies, Lucy’s body, Gabriel’s eyes as he died, circulated in her bind in a never-ending roundabout, increasing the beating of her heart. The more she watched the images the faster they got and she didn’t think she could stop them even if she wanted to. It wasn’t her will, nor Karen who got her out of that carousel but the sound of glass breaking. She looked in the direction of the noise with a start. There had been a mirror above one of the bedside tables that was cracked. A small lamp lay now crushed on the floor. Karen stared at her, one eyebrow raised.

‘What did you expect me to do?’ her voice was hoarse when it came out now.

‘We told you you needed rest.’

‘He was dying. Because he saved me. Me. Why would he do that? I wasn’t going to let him die,’ her voice trailed off.

‘I know,’ Karen said after a few seconds.

The woman went back to tidy up the invisible mess. After checking around the room to make sure nothing was left out, she reached into one of the chests of drawers and pulled out a book, the same she had been reading before. Karen left her promising to be back later. When she closed the door, the silence fell like a curtain. Beyond those doors, she had no idea what there was or where she was, but Damian said he’d come back later, and she was determined to get out of him all the things they had not been telling her for fear she would do… what? So far she had been harassed, chased and attacked by creatures she had very little understanding of. She wished she could find him now, but even trying to get in a more comfortable position sent bolts of pain through her side and chest. She rested and opened her book but only because she had no choice.

It wasn’t until the sun was setting that Damian came back. Karen had made a couple of appearances to bring her food and help her go to the bathroom, but there had been very little conversation. She had been in a rush to be somewhere else, but she wouldn’t explain.

‘Hi,’ Sarah said as he walked into the room.

‘Miss Morgan,’ he replied without looking at her.

He did a quick check-up, much shorter than the one he had completed with Karen and one that didn’t need her duvet to come off. Sarah was aware she didn’t have much time before he left again, but she didn’t know where to start. Damian took his fingers off her skin, the smell of citrus lingering and turned to leave.

‘Where is Gabriel?’ the words burst out of her lips before she had time to think about it.

Still, it seemed to work. Damian froze, his back turned to her.

‘I’m sure Karen told you he is with Elsebeth in London.’

His voice was low and cold, and a shiver ran through her.

‘You seem to care a lot about your… friend.’ He mumbled, and she wasn’t sure he was really talking to her.

Her friend. Her fingers lifted to her lips of their own accord. When she raised her eyes, Damian had turned. He was now watching her hand, his eyes wide. It took him only two strides to close the space between them. He towered over the bed, looking down on her, his brows forming a deep V over his nose.

‘He… he just… helped me. He saved my life…’ Sarah managed to say. Why was her voice shaking?

‘Forget about Gabriel,’ he almost grunted, his eyes digging into hers. Or maybe whispered, she wasn’t sure, ‘you need to concentrate on your own health.’

She watched him, almost mesmerized, and half afraid, as his blue eyes reflected the orange light coming through the windows. For a second, she couldn’t snap out of his glare, it had her anchored to the spot, unable to look anywhere else or even think.

What were they even talking about?

‘Is Elsebeth your wife?’ Karen had said Gabriel was with Miss Vogel. Same surname, even if the title didn’t work.

Damien’s eyebrows shot up high now.

‘No, my sister,’ he muttered, his face relaxing. He took a deep breath. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’m… better, thank you.’

Damian seemed to stand there and Sarah, still shaken by whatever that look on his face had been, didn’t dare say a word.

‘Very well… I will see you in the morning, then.’

‘I finished the book.’

Damian stopped halfway through opening the door and looked at her over his shoulder. He dropped his head and seemed to stare at his shoes before letting out a soft sigh.

‘And did you like it?’

‘The writing was a bit dodgy, but I enjoyed the story,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he smiled, ‘the prose is clumsy, but the plot is gripping. I’ll bring you another book.’

Sarah smiled, and his expression softened.

‘Do you give books to all your patients?’

Damian frowned, found something interesting on the floor for a tenth of a second, and took a step towards her.

‘You’re my only patient, Sarah.’

It was now Sarah’s turn to frown.

‘I thought this was a hospital,’ though a fancy one, she thought.

Damian laughed and came to lean against one of the posts of the bed. He crossed his arms over his chest, still smiling.

‘Is that what Karen told you? This is not a hospital, though I suppose I’ve healed many people here. It’s my home.’

‘And where is your home?’

A shadow travelled across his eyes.

‘Liege, Belgium.’

‘What!’

Her muscles tensed as her body involuntarily wanted to sit up further, but the pain went through her like an arrow, making her scream.

‘Please don’t do that,’ he helped her lean back into the pillows.

‘Why would you bring me to Belgium?’

Damian pinched the bridge of his nose. He brought a chair close to the bed and sat down facing her, resting his elbows on his knees.

‘I needed to come home, and you weren’t well enough to be left with a less… skilled Healer,’ he looked up into her eyes, and she met the crystal clear of his irises. ‘You almost died.’

‘I just…’

‘You don’t need to explain,’ he sighed.

She stared at her lap. There was something important she should say right now, but she couldn’t come up with it. She was forgetting something.

Damian didn’t seem to have anything else to say, but he didn’t move.

‘What’s happening to me? What’s all this?’ She opened her hands towards him as if he would be able to read the answers there.

The man adjusted the cuffs of his black shirt methodically before raising his eyes. He leaned back into the chair and crossed his legs.

‘Where did you hear of the Old Ones for the first time?’

She frowned at him, but he nodded. She wasn’t sure how he knew, but either way, she told him about that night, that first night she had been attacked and found herself in Southwater, where Essie had saved her life and made sure she made it home. Damian nodded at her story, satisfied with her explanation.

‘Do you know her?’

‘I don’t believe I have the pleasure, no,’ he said with a soft smile.

Sarah looked to the window, night had fallen outside, and the windows were now mirrors, reflecting the light of the lamps.

‘What are you?’

‘I don’t understand your question.’

‘You healed me without medicine. I’ve spent a long time in a hospital, I know what medical care looks like. No blood pressure machines, no thermometers, no sisters, no nurses, no pills… And Essie, Essie destroyed one of those things with a single hand.’

‘You did the same thing. And you did something four of us hadn’t been capable of doing. I think it might be more important for you to tell me what you are.’

Sarah stared at him blankly.

‘Isn’t that… what you do?’

‘Partly,’ he said with a half-smile, ‘but none of us can do it to the extent you have. Very few of us can destroy an Old One by ourselves.’

‘Who is ‘us’?’

‘That’s a good question, actually. I suppose we are something, but I am not sure we’ve had one unifying name as such. We’ve had many. Angels, fairies, wizards, druids, gods, even. We stand against the Old Ones. You can imagine what sort of names they acquired over the centuries, though.’

‘Vampires? Monsters?’

Damian nodded.

‘Are you… their boss?’

The question sounded childish, and she felt stupid for asking it, but she didn’t know how else to put it. Did he have a proper title, like Prime Minister or Grand Master?

Damian’s laugh didn’t make her feel any better.

‘Not at all. We are a small group, the Licht Organization, some of us who have been together for a long time. Do you know what Licht means?’

Sarah thought for a moment. If they stood against the Old Ones, they must be opposites, somehow. Essie had said the Old Ones were part of the darkness. Not the darkness of a shadow or the darkness of night, but rather a primordial darkness, something where there was truly nothing.

‘Licht must mean light.’

‘Very well,’ he said, ‘very bright young girl.’

Sarah winced at the condescension but didn’t say anything. She needed to know as much as she could, and Damian seemed to be in the talkative mood now.

They had some power, he explained. He could heal and some others too. He also had power in his voice, and others could use this power for physical prowess, they could jump higher, run faster, hit harder. Some could become so utterly attractive, he said, they couldn’t be resisted. Sarah figured he didn’t need that sort of power. Damian thought there might be other types of power, stories he had heard way back when -there was no telling when ‘way back when’ was- but though he had met others like him and his friends, they had fairly similar powers to theirs and nothing like the rumours he had heard.

‘There was a time,’ he said, ‘when Old Ones were common, at a time when people were more vulnerable to ideas of evil activity and quickly determined they were demons and other similar creatures, until one day their appearances decreased and we barely had one every few years. And then, suddenly, they came back. Several of them. I…’

Damian’s phone rang, interrupting his train of thought. He looked at the screen and tapped the screen.

‘Excuse me, I have to take this,’ he stood up, turning his back to her, walking towards the window. ‘Yes…’

His shoulder’s tensed, and he leaned over the window, a hand on the windowsill, fingers gripping down.

‘I’ll be right there,’ he put his phone back in his pocket and crossed the room in two strides. ‘Stay here,’ he said before closing the door. His steps sounded quick and loud on the floor outside until they faded in the distance and left her alone with the silence.

He left, and the room became cold again, and she still felt as if she had forgotten something important. Maybe she’d remember when he came back.