Into the darkness

  “Sometimes. When it all gets too much. Most nights, I patrol.” He looked down at Amber-Louise, feeling her hard, tensed-up muscles pressing against his chest. She’s safe for now – why won’t she just relax? “The people that are left – I make sure they’re not hurt or anything.”

  Amber stood up, restless, and stared around her. “Let’s go do that, Alex. I’m fed up of being the hunted – I’m the hunter.” Wordlessly, Alex got up and walked around the city with her.

  Chapter 5

  At midnight, she sent Alex home to get some sleep after a rather eventful day. He was worried about her but didn’t try to get her to rest, knowing that it would be useless. There was no way Amber could rest – she wanted to fight her way out of all the guilt she was feeling. She had been weak and surrendered when she should have been strong and protected all the innocent people. But how many innocents have I protected already? How many have I left unprotected? Finding none of the Black Masses on the south side of the city, she started north, looking for someone to take her frustrations out on.

  North Millford seemed to be more strongly affected than the south. A few bare streetlamps lit the streets just enough for her to see their silhouettes moving around in empty shops. Amber decided she would come back with Ales in the morning and sort some of these out. The safety in numbers things seemed suddenly appealing. They were everywhere, in nearly every house and shop, though one or two of them had ventured out into the deadly night. Stupid! I guess brain-sucking really works. Some of them saw her, recognised her as the escaped witch, and advanced on her.

  Richard ran up the stairs and knocked on his daughter’s bedroom door, hearing a noise. “Amber?” Now they had had a talk of sorts, he felt marginally closer to her. Teenagers were generally secretive and cagey, Amber-Louise was just more so than most.

  Is everything alright in there?” he asked and pushed open the door. She wasn’t in there, which didn’t really surprise him. The curtains were flapping at the open window and the shutters were banging against the outside wall, which accounted for the noise he’d heard. It was dark in the room with only a dim light from a bedside lamp to illuminate it. The room felt strange to him, partly because he hadn’t been in there since she was11 but, mostly because he knew so many things had gone on in here that he didn’t know about. He was glad that he had raised an independent young woman who wasn’t afraid to do things alone, but it didn’t make him half so happy as knowing that she was still a little girl who needed him to be her dad.

  In the near-dark, he wandered over to the bed and sat down in the mounds of cushions and pillows. The bedside cabinet held a small cuddly dog called Kermit – I always thought Kermit was a frog - who was propped against the lamp base. Kermit was the toy he had given her on her fifth birthday. The ‘Learn-to-read’ books had been thrown away with her crayons and dolls, and he was glad she had kept one thing from her childhood. Richard smiled as he looked at it but his gaze settled on something glistening in the forefront. He picked up a smallish photograph in a delicate silver frame, lost in memories and wishful thinking. The snap had been taken last summer in the back garden, and was of him, Amber-Louise and Alex. Amber was sitting on the bench curled up between them, with a huge smile on her face. She looked so happy then – she never smiled like that anymore, hadn’t for more than a year. He longed for the days when she was young and innocent. She kept saying that a lot of things had happened to make her grow up fast – she wasn’t his little girl any more. I don’t want... He wanted things to be the way they had been in the photo. A time when Amber-Louise had been happy most of the time; when she seemed to need him so much. Now, she had grown up and didn’t seem to need him nearly as much as she did. Something happened, he realised, when she was away; something to make her so... so cut off.

  He knew she was growing into a woman and needed to make her own choices, but he could help her make the right ones. She, like every other girl her age, wanted to be independent and do things on her own which was understand. But there were things even she couldn’t handle alone – but she had. And no matter how much help and guidance he and her Aunt Kathy and Alex could give her she would always be alone. And that cut him deeply.

  Alone. It was a word that didn’t sit at all with him. He knew what it meant; how it felt to be alone. To always have to rely on yourself. To know that no-one else is going to get you out of trouble.

  Richard, slightly embarrassed, wiped at the tears that had settled in the corners of his eyes. “Big boys don’t cry.” He smiled and gave Kermit a final pat on the head and propped him up against the base again. “See ya, Kerm.” He put the photograph back and switched the lamp off, knowing that Amber-Louise wouldn’t be back for a few hours yet. The room pitched into darkness.

  Leon Allsopp had been turned into this shell of a man along time ago. He wasn’t sure how long, though, because all the days blurred into one now, so he guessed that it was more than a few months. The nights were as clear as anything – he was scared of them. If it wasn’t so serious to him, he might have even laughed about the silliness of this phobia. Being scared of the dark was something his kids were guilty of, but now not being scared could hurt him. And if he stayed out too long, it could kill him. Which is why his eyes kept flicking to the sky.

  He didn’t remember how he had been turned – that seemed to be wiped from his memory. He had seen what his master could do and hadn’t bothered trying to run when they came for him. It would be pointless because he’d seen enough to know that once they had you in their sights, escaping wasn’t an option. So, he just surrendered – simple, easy, painless. It was strange that he had no real memories of his previous life. He remembered that he’d had a job and a large family, but he couldn’t recall important things like names and ages. His only full memories now were from the time he had been changed. Since his life had been enriched and he had become respected. Fighting, stealing and hurting people had become right and no mortal had dared to question this topsy-turvy moral code. He, and the rest of the Black Masses had had the run of the city; they had been unopposed; they had been feared.

  Until she came along, threatening to tale that freedom away. But, no matter how much they believed it, it wasn’t freedom. They were still being ultimately controlled. To Leon, though, it was freedom.

  “Get off me, you son of a – ow!” she gasped as she was wrestled to the ground. “Ever heard of personal space? Oh, and mouthwash! What I wouldn’t give for a can of spinach right about now.”

  “Spinach?” one of them – not Leon - said, confused.

  “Yeah, Popeye. You know. Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have cartoon in your world?”

  “Do what we tell you,” another of them snarled. “And no, we don’t watch cartoons. But you can watch them all day where you’re going!”

  “You? Kill me? So not gonna happen.” Struggling against a grip that wouldn’t hold her for long, Amber gazed into the eyes of her next four victims. Her mouth fell slightly open as a thought hit her. These people were evil – well, not the type of evil she had been fighting for so many years. They were another kind of the badness that Amber-Louise lived for – true evil; the total absence of all good. Just as evil, and twice as deadly, they really were zombies who lived. “Puppets!” she spat. They held her fast and kept her arms pinned to her sides, but there was nothing they could do to stop her speaking. She could feel them weakening as they pressed their full weight on her to keep her on the floor. “That’s all you are. Puppets – and Liatruz pulls the strings.” Maybe it was the things she was saying, or maybe it was just being out in the night for so long. Amber rather suspected the latter, but her speech couldn’t be doing any harm. Words were her only weapon while she was immobilised. “You just –“

  “Invoka de flamma!” a voice yelled. Flames began licking at their clothes. The Black Masses stood up and scurried back to the houses and shops they inhabited,
back to the safety of strip lighting. “Are you okay?” The now fully embodied voice stretched out a hand to help her off the ground.

  She stood up, brushed the dirt from her trousers and coughed from all the brick dust she had inhaled over the last two days. Amber looked up at him through her eyelashes, trying not to make some sarcastic comment. I take back everything bad I ever said about your timing.”

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “No. Well, maybe my feelings a little.” She coughed again. “They don’t even remember what cartoons are. Can you say deprived?”

  They began to walk in the direction of home. It would take an hour or so but they had things to say. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “I wasn’t sure if those were the right words,” he confessed, sheepishly. “But they seemed to work.”

  “Alex, you’re really something. But how did you know I was in trouble?”

  “I was on my way home when I sat down because my shoulder was hurting. Then I heard the shouting and came back.”

  “What shouting?” She didn’t remember shouting.

  “You know: get off me you zombie freaks.”

  But that’s shouting I did in my head. Oh God, don’t say he knows what ‘m thinking now. Amber quickly put up a mental block just in case he was invading her thoughts at that very moment. She would have her fun with this new ability another time. “Thanks for getting me outta that mess. I thought they had me.”

  “Hey, what are friends for.” He smiled that special smile that made Amber want to throw her arms round him and hug him for ages. But, he knew that she was too detached from her emotions for that, so he settled for the next best thing. They held hands as they walked along. “So, what were you saying back there about the, uh, puppets?”

  “That’s what they are. They aren’t evil – actually, they’re more evil than you can imagine – just not the kind you’re thinking of.”

  “Huh? Are you speaking English or some weird form of witchy language?” Alex was visibly confused – to him there was only one kind of evil. It was called evil.

  “Evil is as evil does.” Amber could tell she was making absolutely no sense at all. “Their evil is one of the worst kinds there is. It’s the total absence of good. Liatruz found all the things that made them human and just sucked it out. So they’re basically emoty shells. No compassion, no soul, no humanity.”

  “So, they’re not actually evil themselves but doing what he tells them to.”

  “More or less. You know, I think that’s why their eyes freaked me out so much – ‘cos I realised there was nothing behind them.” She turned her head to the night sky and all the stars twinkling there. “Do you think they’re up there? Your parents souls, I mean.”

  They walked along in silence until Alex answered. “I dunno. I hope so.”

  “Alex, you do understand that your parents aren’t bad? ‘Cos they’re really not,” she assured him, sensing his distress. “They just don’t realise that what they’re doing is wrong.”

  An hour later – an hour filled with idle chit-chat – they were back at the Tully household, climbing through the window. “Sssh! My dad’s probably asleep.”

  “Sorry.” He clambered through the window and thumped onto the floor. “Please tell me you didn’t just see me fall on my –“

  “No.” She giggled at the blatant lie and closed the window quietly after looking up and down the street. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Not really. What’re you looking for out there?” There was no reply. “Are you okay?” There was no reply again and she looked as if she had forgotten about him as she walked back to the bed. “Please talk to me, Amber. Is there anything I can do?” He yawned behind his hand and watched his friend reach under her bed for the leather spell book.

  “You can curl up under those covers and go to sleep.” Amber-Louise opened the book and started to flip the pages. “You look like you’re ready to drop.”

  “What about you? You need to rest too.” Alex whipped his t-shirt and trainers off and started tossing the mound of cushions on the floor.

  “I can’t. I’ve got too much work to do.” She yawned and went on. “There’s a spell in here that can make me go unnoticed, I think. Plus, I’ve gotta try and find something on this bloke.”

  “You’ll be no good to anyone if you don’t rest. You need to get some sleep.”

  “I’ll probably fall asleep in the morning anyway. You don’t need to worry about me – I’ll be okay. I always am.”

  Alex was too tired to argue, but half-smiled as she made a compromise and decided to work on the bed beside him. “Night, Amber-Lou. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  “Yeah, so do I,” she murmured, lost in her reading. “So do I.”

  Richard Tully awoke with a start as he heard a noise come from the second bedroom. He reached for the Mini-Maglite torch he kept by his bed and turned it on. Turning it on, he threw off his covers and edged out of his bedroom door…He scolding himself for thinking it might be anyone other than his daughter but knew that he couldn’t return to sleep until he knew that she was back safely.

  He could hear voices inside the room and recognised them as those of his daughter and Alex. He shrugged at the sound, and shuffled back to bed. He was glad that she was home but wasn’t worried about where she’d been. His attitude was seen as cold and uncaring by some people, but it was more about giving her what she needed. She needed freedom and independence, she needed to feel like she could talk to him (I’m still working on that one).

  “Late for work again, Ms Cotter,” observed her boss as she signed in at the front desk. “My office – now.”

  She followed him down the long corridor and took a seat in front of the big, oak desk. “Mr Sneddon,” she began.

  “Please take your shades off.” Kathy obliged and sank further down in her chair, wishing it would swallow her. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying and worrying. “Katherine. You were told, were you not, to be here at three thirty sharp. I make it now a quarter past four.”

  “I know I’m really late and I’m sorry. I can promise you it won’t happen again.”

  “Too right it won’t because I’m putting you on a final warning.”

  Final warning? That was serious. It meant that if she was so much as a minute late in the next 180 days, she’d be fired on the spot. “But… but…” she stammered.

  “Now, while there us no denying that your work here has been of the highest standard –“

  “I can explain,” Kathy blurted. Mr Sneddon looked at her expectantly, so she went on. “My niece has been missing, and I only found out last night. I was so worried when I heard. Anything could’ve happened.”

  “Oh.”

  “She told her dad that she was staying with me but I haven’t seen her for ages.”

  “I understand how upset you must be feeling.”

  “She slid her dark glasses back on, glad that no-one could see through. No, you don’t understand. How could you when you don’t know anything about us? “Have you ever had a member of your family go missing without trace? It’s the scariest thing in the world.”

  “Maybe, but it’s worse for your niece.. No family or friends to turn to – totally alone. Imagine how she feels.”

  Kathy shuddered and stood up. “Like I said, I’m sorry about being late.” The last six months had probably been worse for Amber than anyone else.

  Alex Watson-Jones half woke up as the sun came streaming in through the uncovered window. He turned over onto his side and threw his arm out. There was nobody on the other side of the bed where Amber-Louise should have been asleep. It was just after eight in the morning and Alex knew that she couldn’t be awake. “Amber,” he grunted, before he discovered he was too tired to open his eyes to look for her. For the first time in weeks, he was having a nice dream. About how Amber-Louise would defeat Lia
truz and everything would return to normal. How his parents would come back to him, remembering nothing of the ordeal, and how he wouldn’t have to make up his stories to cover his tracks at night. Of course, he knew that things might not turn out that way, but anything could happen in a dream.

  In his minds eye, he saw Amber flat on her back on the floor – she was asleep. She looked so peaceful but, even as she slept, a frown of determination and unease creased her perfect features. How could such a young, delicate girl be expected to live like this? But, somehow, she did, she always would because she was strong. Because she had to. And even if she did die young – Sisters usually died in their early 30s after being given their powers at 25 – there was no way she would go out without fight. She had always found a way to win her battles.

  It was coming up to midday when he finally woke up fully. It was harsd to resist the pull of sleep, but sleeping wasn’t going to get them anywhere. He sat up, stretched and saw Amber kneeling by the bed, once again reading the book intensely.

  “Afternoon,” she said brightly and glanced up at him through tired eyes. “Finally woke up then, Sleepy. Where’s Dopey? Oh yeah – that’d be me.”

  “I must have been more tired than I thought. Did you get much sleep?” He knew that the answer was probably no seeing that she had already changed and was drinking a bottle of water as she worked, but he hoped he was wrong. “Or had anything to eat?”

  “I think so, and no. I slept for a few hours earlier but it wasn’t good sleep.” She took another drink from her bottle and flipped another page. “I can’t just sit back and take a nap whenever I feel like it.”

  “Amber-Lou, come here a sec.” He patted the bed next to him and rested his head on hers. “Do you know that you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

  “You’re the only one then.” Idly, Amber clutched Kermit to her and nestled in his warm chest, just enjoying the closeness of someone she trusted. “But that’s why you’re my best friend. I was weak and I didn’t protect the people I should have, but you’re still here.”