Page 3 of Somber Prince

I stopped by the laundry room to get Dad’s favorite blanket that I’d washed earlier that day. “Hey, where is Dad’s Afghan blanket? I had it folded on the top of the dryer.”

Elaine jumped off the couch. “Sorry, I put it in the guestroom. I thought it was from the bed there. I’ll get it.”

A shiver of unease ran down my spine as Elaine ran into the guest bedroom.

It’d been years since Ciana disappeared. The police had never found her or any information about who took her. Dylan had pleaded guilty to the charges of domestic violence and abuse during their marriage, but he insisted he knew nothing about her whereabouts and had no contact with her after Mom and Dad had taken her from him.

I was the only one who’d seen the black smoke in her bedroom that day. Dad had been too focused on searching for Ciana to notice the bizarre smoke curl around his feet before it’d been sucked back into the walls and the carpet. But I was only twelve back then. Adults had quickly dismissed my story about smoke that came without a fire and disappeared without a trace.

The smoke hadn’t been entirely odorless, however. I remembered it smelled like heat, like sand warmed up by the sun, that was the best way I could describe it. But that had proven too vague for the authorities to take my words seriously or to do anything with that information.

Eventually, Ciana’s disappearance had been tossed into the pile of unsolved cases, and the world had moved on.

Nothing else had happened since then. The black smoke hadn’t come back, and no one else had disappeared from our town. Ever since that day, however, I’d been avoiding the basement bedroom. I would only come down here to do the laundry. When Elaine visited, we stayed downstairs to watch TV, so as not to disturb Melanie, who’d been working on a presentation for work, even though she was supposed to be on vacation this week.

A high-pitched scream cut the air. Elaine was screaming from the cursed bedroom.

Panic exploded through me with a painfully familiar jolt of terror. It paralyzed me, rooting me in place.

“Dawn!” Elaine grabbed onto the door frame, the colorful blanket falling out of her hands.

A thick tendril of ink-black smoke wrapped around her middle, dragging her back into the room.

“What the fuck?” Melanie muttered in horror. Her stupor lasted for less than a second before she whipped around and dashed for the stairs up to the main floor.

Instead of following my sister, I ran to Elaine. I couldn’t let this—whatever it was—take another loved one from me.

“No!” I grabbed Elaine’s arms.

A shadow emerged from the guest room, enveloping me from behind. The smell of heated sand wafted from it like a blast of desert air.

Dread creeped up my back as the shadow took a vague shape of a person, complete with two arms that wrapped around me tightly. They looked like tendrils of thick smoke but felt far more tangible than that. Solid and strong. Inescapable.

Another shadow separated from the darkness inside the room. It dissipated into a fine, black mist that blew across the basement, then solidified into a humanoid shape in front of Melanie, cutting off her escape.

“Get away from me!” she screeched, kicking at it.

The basement door slammed open.

“Children?” My father rushed down the stairs, tripping over his feet unsteadily. “What’s going on?”

The shadowy shape in front of Melanie twisted at the torso. A long, curved sword emerged out of nowhere. The blade glimmered with red sparks, like twinkling Christmas lights as it descended on my father. With a strangled, gurgling sound, he crashed down the stairs.

Dad’s neck bent at an odd angle when he hit the ground. A dark-red puddle immediately formed under him. The pungent coppery stench of blood blended with the scent of the desert.

“Daddy!” I cried.

Horror and anguish gripped my chest so tightly I couldn’t draw a breath. My fingers shook, letting go of Elaine, and the shadows took her.

I flailed my arms, trying to grab on to the door frame or to the bed—anything that would keep me anchored in my house, in this world.

But it all slipped away from me. The room was gone.

All that remained was darkness.

Chapter Two

DAWN

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