Dark Fantasy

Ipswich, England 1942

Anthony Sinclair raced down the long white corridors of the hospital. The world was a blur, his mind focused entirely on his destination. This couldn’t be happening, he told himself over and over again. He rounded the corner and paused. Henry Griphan, his best friend and closest confidant, sat in one of the hard wooden chairs, his arms folded across his chest and head between his knees. He looked utterly miserable and covered head to toe in guilt.

No, it couldn’t be.

“Henry,” he breathed as he neared him.

The former General of Her Majesty’s Army looked up with tearful eyes and, for a moment, there was no recognition. Then he blinked and the haze slowly moved out of his dark grey eyes. Henry struggled to his feet, still unsteady with his new prosthetic leg. He’d only got it a month ago and still could not seem to function at his former level.

“Andy? Andy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I tried to save her. I—” he babbled almost incoherently.

Anthony grabbed the taller man’s arms and shook him. “Where is she, Henry? Where’s Xyan?”

Henry gazed to the door he was seated next to with a forlorn look, but said nothing. He didn’t need to. Anthony let him go immediately and headed for it in a long, determined stride. He ignored Henry’s apologizes as he opened the door and stepped inside and stopped.

The room was private of course, he paid for nothing less, after all, his family sponsored the hospital and even helped in its construction over a century ago. Such favors were rarely forgotten, even today. The only occupant of the room lay on a sterile metal bed in the center of the room, her head propped up on numerous pillows. A lone sheet covered her pale petite body, her tan long gone by the shock of the accident. Whoever pushed her down the stairs would pay, Anthony silently guaranteed.

He moved cautiously toward the bed, fearful to awaken the small woman, yet unable to stop himself. This wasn’t his beloved. This wasn’t his beautiful wife who never harmed a soul in her life. Her ebony black hair was limp and covered in sweat. The pallor of her flesh was tinged with hints of blue. She looked deathly pale, but there was no doubt she’d given birth and he feared for both his wife’s and child’s well being. Nonetheless, Xyan was still breathtaking.

“Xyan,” he whispered as he stroked her cheek.

Her brows bunched together before her chocolate brown eyes opened. She smiled tiredly up at him. “Antonio…what took you so long?” she teased. Her eyes closed and for a moment Anthony feared she passed out, but then they reopened and she winced in obvious pain before she smiled past it. “So, what’s a hunk like you doing in a place like this?”

Anthony smiled softly at her. Despite her obvious pain, Xyan kept upbeat. For his sake more than her own, he suspected. He brushed her sweat soaked hair from her eyes. “Checking on my baby.”

Her eyes sparkled in mischief. “Naomi’s in the nursery.”

“You know what I mean.”

She sniffed and tried to stretch, only to cry out in pain. Instantly, Anthony bent over her. She shook her head. “No, Antonio. I’m – I’m all right. I just hurt.”

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked gently.

Xyan reached up and touched his chiseled cheek. His long blue-black hair fell over his shoulder to brush her arm. Her smile broadened. “No, my love. The damage is too severe, even for magick.”

“But—”

Her fingers brushed his lips to silence him. “Our best healers have tried. It is a curse we cannot counter so there is no point to fight it.”

“Xyan,” he breathed. Tears burned at the back of his eyes.

“Lay with me,” she pleaded. For the first time since she awoke, there was real fear in her voice and tears threatened to spill from her eyes.

Nodding, he took off his glasses. He placed them on the small nightstand next to the bed, then placed his jacket on the chair. Climbing under the sheet with her, he gently pulled her near, fearful of her internal injuries. Xyan cuddled up close, her head tucked under his chin as he wrapped his arms around her petite frame and drew as close as their bodies would allow. Her slim form shook in his arms, but she said nothing in complaint. Xyan was one of the strongest women Anthony knew. If only he could take her back to Spain, back to her parents so she could be surrounded by her family, but there wasn’t enough time and he didn’t possess the power to teleport her such a distance. He didn’t know what to do.

Her aura fluctuated and patches of black appeared here and there, a sure sign she was poisoned and soon her aura would deteriorate and then her soul would leave as well. This was no mere accident. There must be something he could do to save her, something his magick could do.

She gazed up into his tri-blue eyes and caressed his cheek. “Hey lover, what are you thinking?”

“How much I love you.”

“Liar.”

He laughed but it sounded hollow. “I was, too. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She lifted her lips to his in a gentle but tantalizing kiss. She pulled back but only for a moment. “Make love to me.”

His eyes widened. “We’re in a hospital.”

“So, let’s get out of here.” She winked suggestively. “I was thinking some place warm and secluded. Just you and me.”

Anthony was so tempted. She looked so wanton, so needy and utterly gorgeous no matter how exhausted she appeared. He cupped her cheeks and kissed her forehead. “What about Naomi?”

“She’s safe. Please, Antonio, I need you. I want you. One last time.”

Anthony closed his eyes. He wanted to say no, but he could never deny her. She was his wife, his life and if he was about to lose her, he would see to it she received her heart’s desire before she passed on to the next life. With barely a thought, he teleported them away from the hospital to a small clearing in the woods just outside of town where they picnicked only a week ago. They lay together under an old oak and listened to the sounds of life all around them.

Anthony’s mind worked franticly for a spell to cure his beloved as he slowly stripped her of the plain hospital gown she wore. She lay beneath him and smiled lovingly up at him as she tried to assist in disrobing him, but she was already tired and weak. He stripped off the last of his clothes as she watched with an appreciative eye. She often teased him about his football player build, how perfect his broad shoulders and slim waist were and how pale of skin he was, so unlike his cousins from Spain. Now Anthony felt more awkward than he did the first night they made love. But Xyan only smiled and opened her arms to him with a sultry smile of encouragement.

They made love slowly on the cool, damp grass on into the night with all the passion of any young couple. Anthony made sure to kiss every square inch of her, to bring her as much pleasure as humanly possible and then some. He made it last for hours and her cries of need and pleasure were like music to his ears. She writhed beneath him, clawed at his back and begged for more until finally there was no more to give and they lay curled together on the soft bed of grass.

Xyan’s head rested on Anthony’s chest as they fought to catch their breath. Her breathing was shallow and, if Anthony didn’t know better, he would have thought she was about to fall asleep. But she didn’t. She held him as tightly as she could, but grew weaker and weaker by the moment. He pulled her as tightly to him as he dared and fought the urge to crush her to him.

“We’ll meet again,” he whispered against her hair. “I’ll find you and we’ll be together again. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she breathed, her eyes closed. “It may be life times before we find each other.”

“I will find you, Xyan,” he promised.

She sighed in agreement before her body went limp in his arms and her soul fled. Anthony continued to cradle her lifeless body nonetheless, and repeated the oath over and over again like a mantra. He would find Xyan again, even if it took lifetimes.

A sickening crack filled the small spilt level house, followed by the tearing of flesh. It was a glorious sound he could have sung to. The feeling of raw flesh brought back the blood lust he had not felt in ages. It came like an old friend you would never turn away. He yearned for more. The feel, the taste. The smell was intoxicating and arousing in a perverse sort of way. The man, if you could call him a man any more, quivered in his arms, his shattered spine allowed only his neck to move in a jerky shiver of muscles. He would die soon, leave this world as he came, crying for mercy. Sinclair was as pitiful as those who came before him.

"Michael, please! I'm your father!" the middle-aged French man cried. He was podgy around the sides, years of limited exercise and tobacco taking its toll. He was perhaps the most pitiful of the great line of magicians.

His cries for freedom fell on deaf ears as the man, once his son, leaned close to his throat. "Michael's dead," the vampire purred, slowly licking his jaw line. "My name is Henry."

Sinclair sobbed as he was fed upon, his magick and strength being stripped of him. In this form, Henry was not as large as he had once been, not by half. His soil drenched tuxedo made him appear like the devil himself. Long brown hair clung around his shoulders. It was a style Henry had always despised, but beggars cannot be choosers. The smaller form had the strength of the gods. He was a god.

Henry held Sinclair close, allowing their bodies to touch as he pulled every last drop of power from within the dying man. His lips made their way to Sinclair's throat. He felt the large man stiffen as he pierced the flesh with his teeth. Henry almost stopped. He really didn't want it to appear like a vampire attack.

It would alert the wrong people. But a frenzied hunger gripped him. First, he would drink from the husband and then his perky little wife who was cowering across the room.

He felt his loins tighten at the thought of her blonde hair.

Dropping Sinclair's lifeless form on the bloodstained beige carpet, he crawled on his hands and knees toward Mrs. Sinclair. She was young, too young to be Michael's mother. The body hosting his spirit was eighteen. Sinclair's wife could only be in her late twenties or early thirties. She was such a small thing, golden blonde hair, and petite body. It was her chest that must have caught Sinclair's attention. She was well endowed and had the feel of a cocktail waitress or former stripper. It was possible then, more than one Sinclair had fallen for such girls. Nevertheless, there was magick within her. Not as strong as her husband's, but still there. She was a seductress, using her gifts to gain money, fame, and love.

Henry's new senses told him all this in less than a heartbeat. When Michael was alive, he had resented her and at the same time, secretly desired her. Today, those dreams would come true, even if Michael were no longer alive to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

She did not scream, to much shock even to think clearly. It was how Henry liked it. He was a wolf stalking his prey. The boy would not be like this. No, the child would fight, so would his friends. Nevertheless, one by one, they, too, will become his. The faery and angel will bow before him. They will lay under him, crying out his name in passion, and he would give them a pleasure they could never have dreamt.

The woman whimpered as he reached her. It was impossible to believe she could ever have mothered the body he now inhabited. She was so young, so very tasty. He nuzzled her neck, drinking in her fear.

"Please, Michael. Don't do this," she sobbed as he undid her soiled blouse.

 "Lynda. May I call you, Lynda?" He grinned down at her as he sat on the edge of the bed and caught her leg before she could pull away. "That's a very pretty name. I guess you know by now your husband's dead and I'm not Michael. Well, not any more at least. And no, I'm not a demon, not quite at least." His hand started to travel up her naked thigh. "We're going to be very close for the next few weeks. Very close. You see, I've been dead this past week. A coma of sorts. A crazed Warlock switched bodies with me at the last moment." He indicated the closed bullet hole on his forehead. "Should've killed me. I'm not quite sure why it didn't or why Michael's memories led me here, but there's a purpose behind everything, I suppose. Now I'm just hungry. Very, very hungry."

She screamed then, long and as loud as the gag would allow her. Henry smirked as he lowered himself upon her. "I like my food lively," he teased before striking. Soon Elijah Hawke will scream in agony as he, too, lost all his loved ones to Henry Griffin.

Unnaturally smooth walls rose fifty metres to where sunlight filtered in through a stained, but once clear, perma-glaz dome. The chamber appeared to be some three hundred metres in circumference with several openings to the outside. To his left, a broad staircase swept up to a gallery. He checked carefully for signs of Priest or Activist. Finding none, Rhyka started across the floor for the gallery. About halfway across, a harsh booming noise froze him in his tracks.

From the corner of his eye, Rhyka spied a gigantic predator rushing out a tunnel mouth, wings spread, arcing downward, thrusting with long tearing claws. His jaw dropped. Its wingspan must be forty metres from wing tip to wing tip. Cruel cat-yellow eyes, the size of a cartwheel, fastened him with a malevolent stare. Filled with unimaginable terror, he stood rooted to the spot. With a sinking stomach, Rhyka realised that his sword would be no more than a thorn to this brute. The beast must be some sort of Priestly watchdog.

The creature’s head was a metre and a half-long, supporting a bright blue crest. Its neck continuously twisted this way and that. Shades of light brown flecked the upper and under wings. From claw to blue topknot, Rhyka put the creature anywhere from fourteen to sixteen metres in height. Its beak was bone yellow as long as a small canoe and mottled brown beneath the jaw. Loose blue flesh hung about the eye pockets. Narrowly avoiding a snapping beak, Rhyka heaved himself to the right. His shoulder went numb when he hit the hard rock floor. Ears ringing, he got up and staggered through an opening to the outside, away from the beast. Weak and confused, Rhyka was vaguely aware that the creature was pursuing him.

Rapid movement caught his eye. It was the beast. He had to move faster. Startled, he started to slip and slide on the cloud-wet rock. Blind panic set in when before him, floating in and out of fog clouds on silent wings were hundreds of the creatures. He fought to maintain his balance and slow his momentum. Still sliding, he looked down the Spire to a flat outcrop directly below. It was a drop of five metres. Under normal circumstances this would prove an obstacle, but with a bung shoulder and fractured ribs, impossible. A fiery pain lanced through his foot like a sword through flesh as he twisted his ankle. His back arched involuntarily, causing him to over balance. He felt himself free falling through space. Time passed in microseconds. Horrified, he looked back to watch the creature pursuing him. It had launched into the soft-wet clouds.

A wake of air buffeted him further into space. As he fell, he turned over just as an incoming beast skidded to halt on the ledge below him. With a bone-jarring thud, he landed directly between the monster’s shoulder blades. The beast let out a squawk as it lumbered up the ramp with a sorely winded Rhyka clinging to its lightly furred back. Hissing loudly, a snakelike neck permitted that enormous beak to snap at him. As he pulled away, blinding pain surged through him. The monk’s world devolved into a nightmare of pain, rock walls, rippling fur-covered muscles and cries of animal rage, accompanied by dizzy body spins as the creature tried to dislodge him. Rhyka fought to maintain control of his senses and, though giddy and disorientated, he sensed the creature pause.

Expecting to be plucked to the ground, sawed in half and munched into pulp, he instead, found himself confined to a rocky alcove twenty metres across and twenty metres high. Coned light and a moaning wind entered via circular holes high up in the wall. The brute that had taken his fall was stationary. A huge head pivoted to observe the tiny human, who must have been no more annoying than tick. A yellow eye blinked twice, a clear membrane followed by a long grey eyelid shuttered down, then up again. A bone-coloured beak speared at him.

Rhyka’s heart hammered. He opened his mouth to scream.

Greythorn had observed many stealthy killers in years gone by, but the apparition, draped completely in mottled grey and black, with a hood that extended from its shoulders to cover its face, sent shivers down his spine, for as the hood billowed slightly, he glimpsed the face within. Dark green, larger than normal, elliptical eyes set wide apart on a pale skinned face above a thin, sharp nose, along with a pointed, cleft chin below a small mouth with thin lips, and no eyebrows, stared at him.

The figures emerging from the bush were uniformly tall, taller than most humans, and lithely built. Even though they surrounded the three companions and were within a stone's throw, they moved with such stealth that Greythorn had still not detected a single footstep. The stark white hair that fell to the warrior's shoulders, within the hood, brought back disturbing rumours of a race long since believed extinct to Greythorn's mind. He could see pointed ears flicking back and forth, examining every sound before the hunter placed a foot cautiously forward. It seemed that the Elwarri were not a legend after all and it looked as if they were going to be killed by them. The figure before Greythorn, lifted one hand off its bowstring to make several intricate finger gestures. In response, the bulk of the band melted back into the forest, and still Greythorn had not heard a twig snap to betray any movement.

The robot got to his feet, facing me. A laser beam shot out of its forehead—hit my face, blinding me with a bright light. I closed my eyes and stood still, waiting for the robot to kill me by burning a hole in my head.

Gradually, the light darkened. Now there was a small hot spot on my chest. I opened my eyes and looked down. Not far from my neck, the robot lowered its head slightly, and the laser beam moved up the center of my chest. I stayed in one spot, trying not to provoke the android while the hot spot started burning my skin.

As the pain increased, I clenched my teeth. At the same time, the beam spread out until it was five inches in diameter. The beam moved to the right, and went down to my hips, and shut off.

For some unknown reason, the robot marched toward its original position. After arriving there, it pivoted, and faced ST7.

I took a deep breath, relieved, and glanced down. Sakra hadn’t moved. His mouth was wide open, both eyes staring into space.

Wanting to know if he had a pulse, I stooped, and touched his wrist.

Nothing.