Desiderium, Monsters the First Ch 15

My #WedPeeks post for this week is chapter fifteen of my new novella, coming soon!  Desiderium is a dark fantasy/horror and is for mature readers.

*Warning: There is violence, sex, and a lot of profanity in these pages.

 

~ FIFTEEN ~

Dissolution

 

The sky is raining blood. Deep copper tears of rust run down buildings older than old, and pools of ruddy liquid gather in the pavement cracks. It is raining, and I am freezing. Not that it matters all that much. I am numb, tortured beyond caring.

I am awake, lying buried in soggy boxes at the end of a dark alleyway. Somewhere far in the distance I can hear voices and traffic. The noise of the real world. The world of light, of sun, of warmth. Where monsters don’t exist and the world does not smell of rotting meat and maggots.

But they may as well be on another planet for all the good it does me. I am no longer a part of that world, and I can’t reach it anymore. I know what happened to Blake. I know how he died. She had promised that she would tell me at some point, and she kept her promise. She showed me. First-hand. And now I know that Sophie had every reason to fear for me. Kate had every reason to come to hate Blake, even as she continued to love him at the same time.

“There are things that go bump in the night,” she had told me. She had warned me then that she was one of them. I had known she was one of them. My gut had warned me. She had warned me with that menacing look when I had first reached out to touch her. I had known, but I had been fascinated, and had gone forward anyway. Forward toward Blake, toward the truth, I had tried to tell myself. But the time for lies was long gone. Blake had had nothing to do with it. I had wanted to walk into the darkness. He was involved only in that he had done it first. I would have done the same, if she had found me first. Gladly. And then Blake would have been left to deal with the doctors, the media, our mother, his own questions.

The rain kept falling, still the color of blood. I opened my mouth to the moisture, and tasted the coppery red flavor of blood. It felt like everything was dying. I was dying. She had not returned me to my apartment because she knew I was dying. But she had not taken the last of me, either. She left enough to ensure I knew. A kindness, or a cruelty? Maybe those are one and the same to such as she.

I looked up and saw Sophie’s face hovering in front of me. Her eyes teary and filled with compassion and love. Her lips moving, forming words I could’t hear, but I knew what she was saying.

Think only of me, Terryn. Don’t forget. 

“It’s too late, Soph. I’ve forgotten. I’m lost,” I uttered into the bloody wetness around me.

Behind Sophie’s floating face I could see the window from the Chartres cathedral—the place where Sophie had shuffled the labyrinth as I sat staring up at that beautiful pink glass. Her mouth continued moving.

Think of me, Terryn. Don’t forget. I love you. I am waiting for you.

“Stop waiting, Sophie,” I said. “I am lost. Just leave.” My heart lurched in my chest as those words left my lips. A thump of love. What I had felt for her so long ago. Or it felt like so long ago. A lifetime ago.

Her eyes chastised me, and she shook her head in dissent.

I am waiting for you still. Will always wait. Think of me, come back to me.

I looked away from her and up at the rose window once more. My eyes meandered through the paths between the images in colored glass. Around half-moon scalloped edges, around square saints and fleur de lys, doves and wings, color and darkness. Follow the darkness. Follow it, until you see the light.

I am waiting for you.

“I am looking for you,” I heard myself reply.

The cold disappeared as I lost myself in the patterns within that window and the sound of Sophie’s voice. I felt warmth inside. Deep inside. A small flame at first, but as I traversed the dark spaces within that bright, sunlit window, it grew. Red, blue, yellow, white…more colors than I could name.

I love you.

“I see you.”

Think only of me.

“I love you.”

Sunlight. The sun is yellow. Light.

The dark began fading away, those dark paths getting smaller and smaller until the dark bled into light. Black became white. And I was warm again.

I opened my eyes to a bright blue sky free of all clouds. I was still buried in damp cardboard and covered in garbage. But all I could smell was light, and I could see clearly for the first time in months.

I pushed the garbage aside and got to my feet. Aching, sore. I had an open wound in my side where Annabel had fed off of me. I shuddered at the thought, and I knew what I had to do. I thought of Sophie. Her beautiful face and warmth and generosity. I thought of Blake, my big brother, my hero. And I thought of his wife Kate, broken now. Raising a child alone. How many more lives had been broken because of Annabel Lee?

I made my way home. I needed to eat. I needed to clean the sore in my side. I needed to get strong. There was work to be done.