softly.
The animal wagged her tail.
Dahlia was happy to see that she still had one; many humans took it upon
themselves to butcher pit bulls by chopping them off. To Dahlia
this was on par with other equally unnecessary displays of
barbarism such as cropping a dog’s ears or declawing a
cat.
“ Where do you live?” she
asked. The dog had no tags, nor even a collar. But before Dahlia
could magically acquire an answer from the dog, a scream of
unnatural proportions split the night.
Dahlia straightened from her stooped
position at once, and the dog let out a second soft sound, this
time of curiosity and concern. The neighborhood around her remained
stiffly quiet. No porch lights went on, no doors opened. It was as
if the scream had never happened, and Dahlia began to wonder if
she’d imagined it.
She looked down at the dog. “You heard that,
right –”
A second harsh cry cut through both her
sentence and the darkness. This time, Dahlia could tell where it
had come from: The same large building she had been headed for
moments earlier.
“ What the hell?” she
wondered aloud. But she was already moving, having broken into an
unconscious run toward the structure. The dog ran beside her, the
animal’s canine speed a natural match for Dahlia’s Tuathan agility.
She didn’t know why the dog had decided to tag along, but it was a
much less pressing concern than the flood of darkness she suddenly
experienced as she neared the building.
It felt like being hit with a wave as you
were making your way into the sea. If you didn’t brace yourself for
the onslaught of water, it would knock you on your ass. This was
the same. She hadn’t been expecting it, and she certainly wasn’t
prepared, so the sudden contact with it caused her to stumble. She
took a miss-step, and in a manner entirely un-Tuathan, she keeled
to the side.
As if to catch her, the dog moved its body
alongside hers, and its sturdy pressure against her leg kept her
just balanced enough to maintain her footing. She came to a full
stop and glanced down at the dog, who panted happily back at
her.
“ Thanks,” she said softly.
Then she returned her attention to the building.
The thing about what Dahlia
called “darkness” was that she simply didn’t know what else to call
it. “Darkness” was admittedly not the best term. It was used for so
many things these days, especially among supernaturals, and most
especially among supernaturals who were also warlocks. But the
ability to sense this thing was fairly new to Dahlia, and she hadn’t had time
to give it another name.
It wasn’t the same thing as
dark magic. Not by a long shot. It also wasn’t the same as night,
which was just the absence of sunlight. It was something she’d been
able to pick up on since she had been turned into a vampire, a kind
of feeling mixed
in with the sense that everything in the proximity of that feeling
was suddenly encased in a miasma of fog-like darkness.
There was that word again – darkness.
But it truly did seem as though the building
ahead of her, and the parking lot and sidewalk and crabgrass around
it, were all at once miss-colored and shaded as if by a dark red or
black camera lens filter.
“ This can’t be good,” she
muttered as she prepared herself for whatever she was going to find
inside. She considered the building’s unassuming façade for a
moment. No windows. One metal door, no doubt locked. Around the
side, she had earlier spotted a set of much larger double doors for
truck loading and unloading, but again no windows. There must have
been something inside the owners wanted to keep safe.
If this was a shipping company, as it
appeared to be, then that something was other people’s belongings.
Worth stealing, certainly, but that wouldn’t explain the dreadful
sounds coming from inside.
A small sound drew her attention to the dog.
Big eyes gazed up at her, one blue, one brown. A sudden flash of
the dog unconscious and crushed beneath something
The animal wagged her tail.
Dahlia was happy to see that she still had one; many humans took it upon
themselves to butcher pit bulls by chopping them off. To Dahlia
this was on par with other equally unnecessary displays of
barbarism such as cropping a dog’s ears or declawing a
cat.
“ Where do you live?” she
asked. The dog had no tags, nor even a collar. But before Dahlia
could magically acquire an answer from the dog, a scream of
unnatural proportions split the night.
Dahlia straightened from her stooped
position at once, and the dog let out a second soft sound, this
time of curiosity and concern. The neighborhood around her remained
stiffly quiet. No porch lights went on, no doors opened. It was as
if the scream had never happened, and Dahlia began to wonder if
she’d imagined it.
She looked down at the dog. “You heard that,
right –”
A second harsh cry cut through both her
sentence and the darkness. This time, Dahlia could tell where it
had come from: The same large building she had been headed for
moments earlier.
“ What the hell?” she
wondered aloud. But she was already moving, having broken into an
unconscious run toward the structure. The dog ran beside her, the
animal’s canine speed a natural match for Dahlia’s Tuathan agility.
She didn’t know why the dog had decided to tag along, but it was a
much less pressing concern than the flood of darkness she suddenly
experienced as she neared the building.
It felt like being hit with a wave as you
were making your way into the sea. If you didn’t brace yourself for
the onslaught of water, it would knock you on your ass. This was
the same. She hadn’t been expecting it, and she certainly wasn’t
prepared, so the sudden contact with it caused her to stumble. She
took a miss-step, and in a manner entirely un-Tuathan, she keeled
to the side.
As if to catch her, the dog moved its body
alongside hers, and its sturdy pressure against her leg kept her
just balanced enough to maintain her footing. She came to a full
stop and glanced down at the dog, who panted happily back at
her.
“ Thanks,” she said softly.
Then she returned her attention to the building.
The thing about what Dahlia
called “darkness” was that she simply didn’t know what else to call
it. “Darkness” was admittedly not the best term. It was used for so
many things these days, especially among supernaturals, and most
especially among supernaturals who were also warlocks. But the
ability to sense this thing was fairly new to Dahlia, and she hadn’t had time
to give it another name.
It wasn’t the same thing as
dark magic. Not by a long shot. It also wasn’t the same as night,
which was just the absence of sunlight. It was something she’d been
able to pick up on since she had been turned into a vampire, a kind
of feeling mixed
in with the sense that everything in the proximity of that feeling
was suddenly encased in a miasma of fog-like darkness.
There was that word again – darkness.
But it truly did seem as though the building
ahead of her, and the parking lot and sidewalk and crabgrass around
it, were all at once miss-colored and shaded as if by a dark red or
black camera lens filter.
“ This can’t be good,” she
muttered as she prepared herself for whatever she was going to find
inside. She considered the building’s unassuming façade for a
moment. No windows. One metal door, no doubt locked. Around the
side, she had earlier spotted a set of much larger double doors for
truck loading and unloading, but again no windows. There must have
been something inside the owners wanted to keep safe.
If this was a shipping company, as it
appeared to be, then that something was other people’s belongings.
Worth stealing, certainly, but that wouldn’t explain the dreadful
sounds coming from inside.
A small sound drew her attention to the dog.
Big eyes gazed up at her, one blue, one brown. A sudden flash of
the dog unconscious and crushed beneath something
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