Page 10 of Darkness

Through a haze-like heat rising from hot pavement, a hideous, grinning maw overlaid the man’s face. A droplet of blood spattered Morrisey’s cheek, wrenching him from the vision.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Morrisey chanted. Pain seared through his brain. Oh, God! He grabbed at the asshole’s hands, blindly fighting for his life. Where was Agnes?

The hands wouldn’t move. Instead, Morrisey grappled for purchase around the asshole’s neck, need now consuming him. Need for what? How in God's name was the man so ridiculously strong? Images flashed against Morrisey’s eyelids: purple sky, horrifying creatures, horrifying deeds. Killing Bob just to enjoy his fear. Morrisey’s stomach lurched.

He rolled them with the last rally of his strength, landing on top, broken asphalt digging into his knees. Those vise grip hands held tight. Stars danced before Morrisey’s eyes. Would he die from having his head crushed like a walnut? He gasped for breath, tried to scream, to claw at muscle-corded arms.

“Let go of me, motherfucker!” Morrisey’s blood-slicked grip wouldn’t hold. He plunged his knee into the guy’s groin with all his might. The man didn’t even flinch.

“Let me in!” the man hissed through gritted teeth.

Let him in?

White light exploded down the alley, chasing back shadows, pure, brilliant, blinding. Surely not a car. No car had such bright headlights. For one long moment, time stood still, then the man beneath Morrisey howled and went still.

Morrisey collapsed onto the putrid, dirty asphalt. Air! He needed air. Clutching the sides of his head didn’t ease the pain. “Oh, God, it hurts!”

A concerned face peered down: crystalline blue eyes, golden blond curls, handsome face.

An angel. Was Morrisey dying, and a divine creature came to take him to the afterlife like his mother once told him would happen? He’d not lived a good enough life for Heaven.

He reached out his hand, needing to touch the angel to prove it was real.

And possibly lose himself in those eyes.

All went dark.

Chapter Five

Atlanta at night, so different from Farren’s old home: lights, cars, noise. The city never stopped, no matter what time of day or night, though the hectic pace slowed a bit after sundown. A yellow sun. Still weird even after ten years of basking in its warmth.

The stars were different here. And only one moon. How odd to look up at night and not see three.

He strolled down a nearly deserted street, listening to the beat of his footfalls on the sidewalk, interspersed by beeping from a nearby crossing light. There were no sidewalks back home. Or asphalt. Also, no car exhaust polluting the atmosphere. Sometimes, a moth caught in a streetlight’s glow evoked thoughts of a flitter. No, not a flitter here, though fireflies were similar. If fireflies were as large as his hand.

Not exactly the same thing, but close enough for him to pretend.

Home. Family. Friends. Gone now. So much loss. Nobody would be waiting for him if he somehow returned, anyway.

Which he couldn’t.

But he could remember and honor the loss deep within.

Longing for his parents’ words of wisdom, their good-natured fussing—his sibling’s teasing. His lover’s embrace. And a purple sky. Remembering better days.

The city was quieter at night than during the day, darker, with plenty of time to lose himself in his thoughts. No one judged him here on the streets or viewed him with suspicion, though the heavily tattooed biker on the corner sized him up as a likely target.

Farren pulsed bad idea at the man, who turned and scampered the other way.

The hair on Farren’s arms rose, and he froze, shifting his focus to the left, then right. The goosebumps gave way to the sensation of crawling skin. A portal? Here? Now?

Farren turned down a side street, guided by his body’s reactions. Something had come over. Either he’d find a disoriented soul with no idea where they were, an opportunistic parasite, or a shocked entity summoned away from their normal life to serve some nefarious purpose.

Summoning rarely worked the way many humans thought and often left the summoner with a blubbering mess of an individual who just wanted to go home.

The second option, the reason Farren walked the street at night, scared him the most. The portal couldn’t be more than a week old. While the traveler might stick close to its point of origin, more often than not, they got their bearings and distanced themselves.

By sacrificing someone from this world. Willing hosts were one thing, unwilling hosts another thing entirely.

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