Page 1 of In the Dark

CHAPTER 1

One month to the eclipse…

Karsia Cavaldi woke with a scream in her throat and her hand clutched to her chest. She bunched the paper-thin blankets against her, taking a moment to breathe. In. Out. Her lungs pumped oxygen into her body. It was simple mechanics.

Adrenaline coursed through her until her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. It worked double time. What was left of her heart, anyway. There wasn’t much.

Within moments, it had slowed to a regular rhythm and her fight or flight reaction stilled. Already her mind blurred the details of the dream. More like a nightmare. She’d stopped having good dreams the moment she’d…no, she wouldn’t think about the transformation. Not during the night when bad things pressed their faces to the window panes and screeched for attention. Night was the time to check for monsters under the bed.

She should know.

Karsia rose with a sigh, her slender body clad in a pair of boy shorts and tank top, and stretched her arms to the ceiling. Dark auburn hair cascaded down her back in a tangle. She bent forward to work out the kinks and dragged her fingertips along the carpet, staring at herself. Small ankles, slim legs, and delicate arches greeted her. She hated everything. Not in the conventional I-hate-my-body-because-I’m-not-good-enough way. She sincerely hated everything about her weak mortal form. Which happened to hold great power inside of it.

Once the veil tore apart on the eclipse, she would finally shed her human body and take her place as keeper of the balance. A physical barrier between this realm and the plane of existence known to the witch community as the world of ancient magicks.

She couldn’t wait.

No, hold on a minute. She shook her head until her ears rang. Those were the thoughts she needed to fight against. They weren’t hers. They belonged to the dark passenger curled around her soul. The essence of The One Who Walks in Darkness.

They aren’t mine, she repeated. Trying to make it true. Trying to remember the person she was. The person she was supposed to be.

The filthy hotel room was a random stop on her path, the same as the hundreds of other roadside haunts that came before it when she felt the rare need for rest. Her body didn’t require much sleep anymore.

A glance at the clock determined it was three-fifteen a.m., her personal witching hour. She never slept past it after the few hours she got each night. That evening, she’d managed to fit in a whopping sixty minutes.

It was a personal best.

Sleep had abandoned her at the same time her humanity flew the coop. Every morning at three-fifteen she woke with a scream tearing from her insides. If, of course, she actually made it to the point of closing her eyes. Her body had adjusted to the change as though she’d spent her whole life living a lie with her need for eight solid hours.

Those restful nights were a thing of the past. She’d been chosen for Dark, after all. If she had to guess, she’d say her body ran on the fuel of chaos and depravity in the world. Luckily, those things were always in plentiful supply.

Karsia walked to the window, her bare feet padding across the shabby carpet. This motel, like the others before it, was the quintessential image of nothing more than a place to rest her head. They all looked alike, from the economy flooring to the particle-board headboard nailed to the wall. Thrift store prints in cheap frames were scattered around the four walls in an attempt to cover the deplorable wallpaper and any holes punched through the sheetrock by less than desirable occupants.

Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like this, with dubious stains and a mattress with a sinkhole in the middle. Niggling doubts and worries would have plagued her, her imagination conjuring images of bedbugs in the sheets and mildew on the ceiling. Maybe a corpse or two hidden inside the walls.

That was the old her. It was another life. Another person. Now, she jumped from place to place, choosing cheap rest stops without thought. The dirtier the better. Those were the chocolate-covered cherries with surprising juicy centers.

Pushing aside the curtains in an odd shade that were more a dusty brown than green, she surveyed Miami at its brightest. Certainly not its best. The skyline in the distance, the hint of lit buildings reaching for more height, more glitz, more glam. Somewhere beyond those structures was the ocean crashing repeatedly to the shore. Packed with garbage from the bloated masses who didn’t care if they strangled their earth.

Karsia drew in a breath she felt with her senses. There was a healthy dose of raw magic seeping through the thinning veil. Those like her, witches and wizards with the genetic capabilities to handle the energy, fared as well as possible given the circumstances. They felt the flow and tried not to lose their minds in the process. Humans, however…those poor souls. Especially ones with diluted blood. They didn’t know what was going on, only that something was wrong. They were angry—well, angrier than usual. Hungrier and greedier and merciless.

Those were the people drawn to her.

On the vernal equinox, during a lunar eclipse, the Harbinger witch would come and close the veil. Restore balance from those frayed and ruined pieces. And Karsia would become the new barrier.

She scowled at the flash of neon signs, the rush and push of humanity. The lowest of the low trod below her on the streets and she felt them. Every dirty deed or thought. Every evil inclination. Each was a dark nudge at her mind, constant and never-ending.

Those were her bedtime stories.

She saw herself reflected in the mirror-like glass, the blackness of her pupils swallowing the rest of her eye color. They used to be beautiful, an interesting mix of blue and green and gold. It was a trait passed on through the generations on her father’s side of the bloodline. The Cavaldi line. She shared those eyes with her sisters.

No more. That was one of the first things to go.

Standing there in the glow of a nicotine-yellow street lamp, Karsia closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of degradation.

The city had a pulse. It was what drew her there in the first place, a constant thrum of energy coupled with a pressing need for distance. No matter how far or how fast she ran, she couldn’t escape herself.

Each evil act caused an echo inside of her and she was intimately aware of them the instant they occurred. She followed each scenario from a tiny kernel of thought on to fruition. Nurtured them like children until they flowered. A man beat his wife until she begged for mercy, and Karsia stood alongside him. Not quite egging him on but doing nothing to stop him.

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