“You... I— I’ve seen you before,” I stuttered out. “In my dream.”
“It was not a dream, little bird,” he said, as his dark fog snaked over the grass toward me. “You’ve changed some,” he said. Then, he proved even the supernatural can sound lame. “Have you been working out?”
“Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”
“You look just like her. It feels like only yesterday I saw her.”
“Listen you piece of shit, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but you don’t want to mess with me.”
“Oh? But I do.”
“Nope. Who the fuck are you?” I asked. He confirmed what I knew.
“I am Darkness. A nightmare to some, a dark elemental to others. But I do have a name. I am Dub to my brothers.”
Dub?! How could a name that fucking lame send shivers down my spine. So it’s come to this already. I’m face-to-face with my potential killer again. And I’m alone. But what about him?
“Where are your brothers?” I barely controlled the tremor in my voice. “Or are you brave enough to handle a girl all by yourself?”
“Evil and Violence? Oh, they’re always around,” he said nonchalantly, as he advanced on me, although it looked like he never took an actual step – just sort of glided.
I tried to take a step back myself, but I couldn’t move my feet at all. I was being held in place by some invisible force. The fog. I realized it had encircled me, and now, it started creeping up my legs.
“Let me go!” I shouted as panic set in. “What do you want?”
“You.” he stated plainly, as he stopped in front of me. Tendrils of black smoke pour from his arms and climb over my body, leaving a trail of paralyzing pain that spreads like icy liquid metal.
“Do you have any idea what your family did to my mother? Your cursed Morrigan? How do you think we felt? Forced to see Carmen beaten and stripped of her power. See her underlings humiliated, then extinguished. The Morrigan stole our mother’s immortality, and left her to die, chained to a tree. And before we could avenge her, the Morrigan’s spell banished us. She wouldn’t even kill us. Just left us to suffer eternally, sealed away, and only sustained by dreaming of the retribution she robbed from us.”
I felt my face grow red with every word from his mouth, as I tried to squirm out of my shadowy bonds. “I’m sorry my great-great-great-et-cetera grandmother took away mommy’s magic, but why take this out on me?”
Dub laughed – a short, harsh bark. “What’s that old saying? Ah, yes. ‘Even bad men love their mamas’.”
“Har har,” I retorted back to him.
“Speaking of your ‘mama’, my brother Dian did a great many things to her, trying to find out where she put you. I was surprised she managed to die, but she never gave in. Still, Dian enjoyed her suffering, right to the end.”
“Wh-” The meaning of Dub’s words hit me loud and clear. “What did you just say?!” His words were gasoline and was fueling the black fire that was burning inside of me. I wanted to tear him apart, but my feet were held fast. Then he rubbed it in even worse.
“I wonder if your mother knew that resisting Dian’s torture only condemned the Old Hag, your grandmother, to more of the same.”
I tried to call on my little flame app. It was the only thing I could think of to get my feet free of Dub’s disgusting smoke-snakes... but nada.
“Now, that old hag, Edna? She was much more formidable. Both Dothur and myself had to work together to kill her. I fondly remember deciding if I should pull her teeth or her nails first—”
I cut off his sadistic litany, screaming “Shut your gross fucking mouth!”
He didn’t even react, except for a raspy chuckle, which was even worse.
“What?” he hissed. “You didn’t know? Don’t tell me no one had the stomach to tell you what we did to your dear Edna? Oh, she was a stubborn old bird. Incredible, how much torture she could endure. Dothur made sure she felt every cut of his blade, but alas, she too died, and never gave you up.”
“You fucking puddle of donkey shit,” I yelled.
“Or I should say, never gave you up on purpose...” He leaned closer, enjoying my agony as his words cut into me. “But after she was dead? My, how our luck changed. You know, if Edna hadn’t put you in her will, we might still be searching for you.”
A raging fury boiled through my body, a river of deathly poison demanding release. My fist flew toward his nose. The moment my knuckles connected with the middle of his face, he flew back ten yards and hammered into a tree. A blaze of black fire erupted around me and burned away the fog that kept my feet in place. My inner maniac had been released, and there was no stopping her now. “FUCK YOU!” I screamed.
Dub looked surprised, as a trickle of black blood dripped out of his nose. Seeing him wipe at the blood pouring down over his lip was oddly gratifying, but the satisfaction didn’t last long. As Dub bared his bloody teeth, I tried to picture throwing something at
