Page 21 of Dark Rapture
His beautiful eyes narrow slightly as he contemplates me. He releases me then, taking a step back so that I can slide off the altar and stand on my own two feet.
“I will give you a gift, little witch,” he promises.
“A gift?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself once again. I feel as though all this information is going to overflow inside of me, crack me open and end with me falling to pieces right where I stand.
“The gift of vengeance. To prove my devotion to you, tous.”
An image flashes in my mind, one I can only assume he planted there. The image is a hellish nightmare. My uncle, Jake, screaming in a lake of fire. I shudder, stomach acid rising in my throat. It burns, but I swallow back the pain.
“On the night of the blood moon, six days from today, you will return here,” he explains as he turns away from me, abandoning me at the altar to consider all that he has offered me.
He doesn’t regard me again as he heads straight for the exit, his voice disembodied and drifting around me. “It is then that you will bind yourself to me.”
“Where will you be until then?” I call out, taking a step forward. The desire to follow him is overwhelming, and I don’t understand it. I am drawn to him, that much I can’t deny. Our meeting here today made him real in my mind, less of a threat and more like… a potential ally.
My dark companion.
Everything is different now.
I watch in awe as dark wings like black smoke spread from his back, and he lifts up into the chasm of darkness above the church doors, the place he descended from at the beginning of this whole encounter.
“With you. Always with you,” his voice fades into the emptiness of the church, and just like that, I don’t feel him here anymore.
God almighty, if you’re out there, please help me.
Of course, there’s no answer. God has never taken the time to connect with me, or give me even a whisper of his guidance. Perhaps he really is dead.
Hit with a wave of bone deep exhaustion, I step away from the altar and walk down the center aisle. The once lit candles diminish as I pass them by.
I am so overwhelmed, the exhaustion is the only thing I can focus on as I exit the church and head back in the direction of home.
The walk home is dark and cold, the biting winds of winter seem to have arrived tonight.
Though as promised, I am not alone. That owl, with his dark feathers and frighteningly intelligent eyes, follows me every step of the way.
***
I don’t know what late hour I finally crawled into bed at last night, but the insistent ringing of my phone has my eyes drifting open to my bedroom bathed in late morning light.
I groan, rolling over towards my bedside table and grabbing for my phone.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I answer reluctantly. “Hello?”
“Honeybee,” Mom’s voice trembles, the single word accompanied by a gentle sob.
“Mom?” I immediately sit up in bed, gripping the phone to my ear with both hands. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, honey. Uncle Jake passed away last night.”
Her words hit me like a baseball bat to the gut. I recoil away from the phone feeling all the warmth from a restful sleep drain from my body, before bringing it back to my ear.
“His roommate found him having a seizure, and he died before the ambulance could get him to the hospital. They think it was an aneurysm from an injury or something.”
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” I tell her, working hard to hide the fact that I want to vomit. I can’t even begin to process the emotions I am feeling in the wake of this news.
“The doctor says he has bruises all over his body, like he has been in a fight. The police said it looks like there was foul play. They’re doing an autopsy. It’s just terrible, sweetie,” she says, her voice cracking as she cries softly into the phone.
“What can I do?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.
