There was no way Cass would have left it like that after hearing how upset I was. The house was dark. I tried to switch the lights on, but they wouldn’t work. It was real quiet. All I could hear was the dripping sound from my clothes. I called out. There was a scrambling sound from upstairs. Something heavy — moving fast. My blood turned to ice. I called out again but there was no answer.
I knew that whatever had been bothering me was happening, now…in my house. I ran upstairs and burst into the bedroom. Alex, it was unbearable.
M-my precious girls were heaped in a pile on the floor. There were cuts all over their bodies. Their wrists had been slashed. They were bleeding out right in front of my eyes. Cass had attempted to cover Joy to protect her from whatever had attacked them, but it was pointless.
There was so much blood. It was everywhere. Pools on the floorboards, splashed on the walls. Even the ceiling. Some of it had been used to write the words Chosen must die on the mirror. I had no clue what it meant, and I didn’t care. I only cared that my girls were dying.
I ran over to help them and that’s when I saw it.
The thing stepped out from the shadows in the corner of the room. A Banshee. It had this rough, papery skin and these slick black eyes, like solid oil. Long, lank hair that reached the floor and left a trail of slime as the thing moved. Its mouth was all twisted up and filled with thousands of these needle teeth. And the smell. Christ, the smell. Sickly sweet, like turd covered in syrup. But its hands were the worst part by far. The thing had these spindly fingers the length of an arm that curved at the ends into razor nails.
They were stained red with the blood of my family.
It gave me this teasing smile and then sucked their blood off its fingers with slow pops. I looked at the evil bitch and back at the mangled mess of my family — my life, and the darkness returned. It hadn’t gone. It had hidden away, waiting until it was needed again. It was needed then. I felt rage the likes of which I’d never felt before. It was like a white hot fire of pure hatred.
The Banshee must ave sensed my fury, because it screamed. When a banshee screams, it’s the worst noise you could imagine. It’s the cries of a million tortured souls. Pray to God you never experience it. Only those it wants can hear the sound, so no one can help you. Its hair fanned out as if it had been electrocuted. The sound brought me to my knees. I started to haemorrhage blood from everywhere.
For a minute I was frozen — bleeding to death. Then I saw my blood trickle into and mix with the blood of my girls.
The darkness took over. Somehow, I managed to summon enough strength to stagger over. Then I grabbed it and started smashing it with my fists for everything I was worth, screamin’. It lashed out, most hits missed, but one connected, removing most of the skin from this side of my face and blinding me in one eye. The pain didn’t even register. I grabbed its throat and with a strength I didn’t know I possessed, ripped out it’s larynx. Then screams became a gurgle and the slashing turned into pathetic taps, but I didn’t stop. Because it couldn’t scream any more, my attacks were stronger. I punched, bit and kicked until there was nothing left but lumps of meat and slime.
I was wrenched from my revenge by Cass’s hand touching my arm. She crawled towards me, dragging Joy with her. I scooped them both into my arms. We all knew that it was too late. They’d lost too much blood and the wounds were too severe. It was simply a matter of time. For some reason they were both calm. They looked up at me as I held them in my arms and Cass even managed a smile. I gripped them, sobbing uncontrollably. At exactly midnight my whole world died in my arms.
The Alliance came to me a day later. They’d finally figured out who I was and what I was going to become. Apparently when they found me, I was still in the same position, rocking backwards and forwards with my girls in my arms. It took four of them to prise me away. I don’t remember much about the few days after that. I do know that their deaths brought about my Awakening. I had it less than a week later. The sight in my left eye returned and the wounds healed a bit, but the poison in the Banshee’s fingernails made it scar badly.
Faru told me everything, probably the same things he told you. Gave me the whole spiel. Apparently they hadn’t tracked me fast enough. The SOS has Witches working for them too. They found out about me first and sent a Banshee to wait for me. My family had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I didn’t say a word the whole time. In fact I didn’t say another word for the next three years. I blamed em for the death of my girls. All I could think was how they should have discovered me earlier — should have protected my family like Guardians are supposed to. I didn’t need to tell Faru my thoughts, he saw it all in my mind. He didn’t even ask me to join the HASEA, he knew it was pointless. I didn’t care about protecting the world. There was no one left in the world that I wanted to protect. All I cared about was being with all my girls again.
You know this strength that we have is great at saving our arses, but it’s a curse if you want to die. I took six bottles of sleeping tablets — they only gave me chronic stomach ache. I shot myself in the face — it just broke my jaw. I even jumped off the top of a block of flats. Granted, it put me in the hospital for three weeks, but the point is I survived.
I couldn’t die.
I was trapped in purgatory with my darkness. There was nothing left for me. Every time I looked in the mirror and saw the scars, I was reminded of my loss. So I tried to cover em with a tattoo. I thought it would help. It didn’t. All it did was make other people more scared of me. I decided to use that to my advantage. I went back to my house for the last time and grabbed the only thing I cared about.
A few days later I used the same gun I shot myself with to rob a newsagents. The rush took away the pain for long enough for me to feel somethin’ again — if only for a few minutes. But then it was back again and stronger than ever. I did it again and again. I didn’t even bother to wear a mask. I didn’t care if I got caught or not. I didn’t even spend the money. I left it in a backpack at the end of the crappy hostel I lived in.
It took longer than you’d think to get caught. But still, there’s only so long a six foot nine bald guy with half his head covered in a tattoo can go unnoticed. I went down. Twenty years with a minimum of sixteen to be served. I didn’t say a word through my sentencing.
My darkness consumed me. In the joint I put at least six guys in the med ward for lookin at me the wrong way. I couldn’t feel any remorse. It’s like I sat on the side-lines watching myself. They kept addin’ time onto my sentence and confined me to solitary. The whole time I kept thinkin’ I don’t care, I deserve everything I get.
You see I’d finally come to the understandin’ that it was my fault that my girls had died. If I hadn’t told them to stay at home, then… well things might have gone differently.
I served a whole year of my sentence before the HASEA came back to me again. Faru spoke to me in my mind one evening. I remember thinking I was having a seizure and then he appeared in my cell in front of me. He asked me to reconsider joinin. I told him where to stick his offer, but then he said that he wanted to show me something. An image of a little girl appeared in my mind. My heart leapt into my mouth, apart from the eyes, the girl was the spit of my little Joy. He told me that the girl had lived a life as bad as mine. That she had just had her Awakening and was scared. She needed someone to look after her.
He’s a clever one old Faru. He knew exactly what he was doing by showing me Sophia — there was no way I would refuse. I agreed to join on a single condition. That he never referred to me as Michael Williams again. That man was dead. A new one had been born the moment my family died.
I told him my name was Midnight.
25
My throat had a huge lump in it. Midnight’s eyes were damp with tears. He mopped them with back of one of his huge hands.
“I–I don’t know what to say. What happened to you…no one should have to go through that.”
He sighed. “Sometimes I think about it and it’s like I can’t breathe. I just want to be with them again. But then I remember that I still have Sophia… and the memories of those fantastic eight years.” “Can I ask a personal question?” He shrugged. I pointed to the little girl fighting for her life. “Are you still only with the HASEA to protect Sophia?” Midnight cast his gaze over to where I’d pointed and then looked away again, closing his eyes in grief.
