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Two Weeks Ago

We are the Darkness and the Darkness is us.

I walk towards Paul and place my hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eyes. They are red these days, like the anger inside him. “This is it?”

Paul nods his head, searching my eyes or maybe getting lost in them. “Ryet’s not here yet, but he will be shortly. The girl is being bled out right now. You will have your share in a matter of hours.”

A long exhale comes out and I release Paul’s shoulders. I turn, then walk across the smooth rock cave floor and over to the little pool of cool water that is collecting underneath my trickling waterfall.

I look down into the water—it’s black. Black and shiny. Like a mirror. Like a portal to the Darkness that lives deep below the earth. I can see it on the other side of the water, though this is not how I physically make contact with it.

The Darkness undulates with slow, gentle movements. Like ink. But it’s not ink. It can rise up and be whatever it wants to be. It could be me, or Paul, or anyone. It has been me, many times over. It was Paul too, once upon a time.

I turn back to Paul, smiling now. Because this little witch’s blood will change everything from this day forward. Nothing will ever be the same after tonight.

We are making a new kind of Darkness. Something that hasn’t been attempted since… well. Since the Darkness came to be, I imagine.

“We did it,” I say.

Paul is looking handsome, as usual. Especially surrounded in the misty lavender light of my cave. “We did.”

I can hardly believe it. “He’s going to be born tonight?”

Paul nods. “Absolutely.”

“And how long?—”

“I don’t know. A week, perhaps? You know how slow things move across the ocean. Regardless, the Obscurati will know what’s happening soon enough.”

“Yeah.” It almost comes out as a chuckle. But I turn just in time to hide my smile. The lavender mist cooling my body and filling the cave is making everything glow.

Paul and I met after he tried to kill his maker, as one occasionally does. It’s not a heinous crime, per se, but the Obscurati look down on cheaters. And Paul is nothing if not a cheater. He takes shortcuts.

Well, he did. That was his real crime. Not the killing of the maker. Evolution must be done stepwise—slowly and carefully, over many hundreds of years—so when a talented newborn skips ahead, well. He must be put in his place and forced to slow down.

That’s all that happened back in the Old World. Of course, it’s very easy to see the complete picture from a distance. But in the moment, it didn’t feel like a slap on the hand. It felt very personal. Paul’s banishment to the wild lands of America was only meant to be a timeout. He didn’t understand that and, of course, I didn’t bother filling him in. Punishment is a cure for tarnished character and Paul’s character was in desperate need of polishing.

Paul was energetic, and ambitious, and eager. I was tired, and bored, and apathetic.

I was never a talented newborn, but I had favor with the Darkness. I was singled out in this way. The Darkness has liked me since my birth. It would visit often when I was a scion, following me like an ink-stained shadow through the years. Guiding me forward. Giving me little hints about how to proceed when the ambition to figure it out on my own eluded me.

It had me make terrible, terrible things. Of course, these terrible things were for the Darkness itself, not me. But I was the one responsible for them and the Darkness did not interfere with my punishment from the elder brothers in the Obscurati. They didn’t like the fact that I was favored. That I could, theoretically, get the Darkness to do my bidding by simply asking.

I wasn’t interested in asking for gifts from the Darkness. Not then, not even now. There is a high price to pay when you are blessed with success without earning it. Nothing is free, after all. There is always a cost.

The brotherhood couldn’t force me to use my gift. But they could make my life very uncomfortable if I didn’t.

So that’s what they did.

My life, from the moment I was second-born as a scion, was a series of torturous events at the hands of these brothers, so when Paul came to me with this offer—a vial of dead blood to kill myself in exchange for a blessing from the Darkness so he could complete his project—of course I agreed.

I never wanted to be this thing that I am.

I never asked for the Dark blessing.

I didn’t kill myself. Obviously. It’s funny how it happens like that. You get what you want, your greatest desire, and then… it’s just not as sweet as you thought it would be.

I still have that jar of dead blood around here somewhere.

When Paul was banished, he said, “Come with me.” He wasn’t as congenial back then. He was rather dark, actually. His voice always had a tinge of anger in it.

And of course, I went with him. Because the Darkness wanted to go as well.

It came with me, you see. Like an ink-stained burden on my back. Heavy with anticipation and weighted with expectations.

And now, here we are. After all these failures, success in the form of a scion called Ryet.

“Did you have your visit with the Darkness?” Paul’s voice is different. Angry again. He’s been playing the part of a congenial asshole for centuries and I suppose he’s tired of it. Just like I was tired back in the Old World.

These days I almost never think about killing myself. I think about what’s coming instead. It’s enough. Especially now that we’re so close. But even just the dream of it was enough. If there was a chance we could succeed, I could push on.

I turn to Paul and nod, answering his question. “Weeks ago.” I point to my neck, even though the puncture marks healed almost the moment they were made. “But it’s still in there, of course. All you have to do is bite.”

He stares at my neck, perhaps searching for those puncture marks. Then he goes still for several moments.

I watch him as his mind wanders. Perhaps imagining the news and the faces of the brothers when they hear of our success. Perhaps he is imagining the weight of the crown he will soon be wearing.

Beautiful Paul. He was favored always, as well. In his own way. Not by the Darkness, though. By everyone else but the Darkness.

They had high expectations of him. And did he ever deliver. Certainly not in the way they figured, but he did deliver. Hideous, awful things. All from a single drop of blood in the dark.

Just one drop. That’s all the Darkness gave him.

But what he did with it, my God. Spectacular. It truly was. Even I was impressed and I have made many a hideous thing in my day.

“Yes. Right.” Paul’s stillness breaks and he walks towards me.

There is a moment of awkwardness as he considers how he would like to take my blood, which is not for himself, but a gift to pass on to Ryet and the little Black witch.

It’s been a very long time since he’s bitten me. There’s no point unless I have something to give him. The last time that happened was when we made Ryet. It was Paul’s idea to genetically engineer a witch for him.

But while it was his idea, I was the one who made it happen.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Paul is suddenly right up against me, pressing himself into my body, his hard chest against mine. I press back, as one does when they are about to be fed on. There’s no way to stop the arousal. I gave up trying thousands of years ago.

Then I look Paul in the eyes and bite my lip. He smiles when the blood trickles out and this smile pleases me. My eyes brighten the room with light in response.

Paul inhales, like he’s gathering up my scent, and then my hands slide over his hips and his grab my head, preparing for the kiss.

And then he’s kissing me. Taking my blood into his mouth. He sucks on my lip until it heals and then, tipping my head back to expose my throat, he bites.

I don’t know what it’s like to bite me. I only know what it’s like to be bitten.

It’s a walk in the woods for me. Snow under my feet, lavender mist filling the air around me. It’s a place Paul and I made together over the centuries. This is how we manifest the passing of the blood. It’s just our minds walking in this forest. Nothing more. My body, I know from past experience, is unconscious back in the cave.

Losing time isn’t anything to be worried about though. And soon enough, I’m opening my eyes in the cave and I am drinking Paul. I take the blood back, relishing the newness of it. Closing my eyes and letting images flash past. They do not make sense to me, but I don’t care about the images. All I want is that blood.

When I’ve had enough, I bite my lip and he drinks me again.

We do this over.

And over.

And over.

Until we are the Darkness and the Darkness is us.