Penumbra (Darkling Mage 0.50)

“What you’ll understand soon, Dustin, is that the Lorica takes care of its own. When something is needed, the institution, no, this building itself provides. What I needed was sufficient space to learn more about you, to see just what kind of man was awakened when you took a knife to the heart.”

I didn’t like where this was going. I backpedaled towards the corridor, guessing if anyone would hear me if I shouted for help.

“Not so fast.” Thea tutted, then held a hand out towards the corridor. A shimmering wall of brilliant light lanced across the gap, blocking my only path to escape, but also blocking out the sound from the rest of the building.

“What the – Thea, what are you doing?” First that shit about getting stabbed in the heart, now this? I took a running start and rammed the barrier with my shoulder. Bad idea. The thing was as solid as a brick wall. I bounced off and crashed to the floor, crumpled into a winded heap.

“I wouldn’t have done that,” Thea said, cracking the last of her fingers. The rings festooning her hands gleamed in the light, huge jewels reflecting the fires suspended in the ceiling. No, wait, they were glowing, of their own accord. Great. Just great. I scrambled to my feet.

“Our talents are awakened in times of great stress, Mr. Graves,” she said, her tone so business-like that I almost forgot that she was probably planning to kill me. “It seems that your murder wasn’t enough to squeeze it out of you. Shame, considering the swell of power we sensed when you died.” She held up one hand, her fingers spread loosely. “We’ll just have to give the process a little nudge.” The space between her palm and her fingers filled with specks of illumination, a hazy radiance that only stopped glowing so intensely when it formed into something dully solid. It was a sphere, made out of searing yellow light.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“What do you think it is, Mr. Graves?”

“A fireball.”

Thea laughed. “Not at all. It’s a globe of light.”

“Oh. Phew.”

“That explodes on impact.” She tossed the ball upward lightly, then caught it in the same hand. “Better start running.”

“Fuck.”

She hurled the sphere straight for my chest. I rolled across the floor. The ball of light struck the ground, exploding the parquet into a shower of wooden tiles and splinters. Oh, so they were like arcane grenades. Awesome. Just great.

“What the hell are

you doing?” I beat feet. “That’s going to cost a ton to repair,” I added, then mentally scolded myself for even thinking to say it out loud. Know-it-all little Dustin with his middling experience in this or that trade, all his books, who thought he was so smart but still got abducted in a park, sacrificed to some dark god, then marked for murder by a psycho in a white pantsuit. I was angry, at myself, at Thea, at the Lorica, at everything.

I heaved a huge breath, then ran, breaking into a sprint for the far side of the room, then cursing how I’d misjudged the size of it. Reaching the other wall seemed to take forever – it’d make sense for me to have my back to it at least, so I could have one side of me protected, anticipate her next move – which was when I realized that I’d been running for too long.

The room was stretching itself to accommodate Thea’s needs. Well. That was convenient. Another sphere sailed past my head, narrowly missing and piercing the nearby wall, cratering the perfect wood with a hideous bang.

“Well done, Mr. Graves! Wouldn’t do well to have you dead.”

I could hear the laughter in Thea’s voice. Was this a game to her? I kept running. Why would these people go through the trouble of rescuing, then healing me if all they wanted was to kill me in the end? Was I the prey in some insane rich person’s idea of a safari?

The room stopped stretching, quickly enough that the wall came up short just in my face. I slammed painfully into the wood.

“Ooh,” Thea called out, sympathetic. “You all right there, Mr. Graves?”

I tasted blood, possibly split my lip. “How the hell do you think I’m doing?” I yelled. I whipped around, furious, spitting blood and saliva, some of it catching on my complimentary regulation Lorica white T-shirt. “Why are you doing this to me? I don’t know what you want from me but I’m. Not. Magical. I don’t know shit about your Hands and awakenings and your Veils and – ”

Both of Thea’s hands were held up now, one to either side of her, her fingers relaxed and loose. And she was smiling. Motes of light gathered around her hands, drifting into the spaces between her fingers until they coalesced into milky white solidity. Two spheres. This time, she didn’t even have to throw. Thea spread her fingers, releasing the orbs. They floated in midair for the span of a second, then, like a pair of missiles, flew screaming in my direction.

My jaw dropped as the two globes of light headed straight for my head. I looked around – nowhere to go, nowhere to hide – and cursed, knowing that I was seconds away from having my skull and my brains completely exploded. Hah. Joke’s on them, I thought. The cleaning bill was going to be atrocious.

With nowhere else to focus, I set my eyes on the ground. At least I wouldn’t have to look when the spheres hit home and popped my head like a grape. It was then that I noticed my shadow on the ground, looking somehow darker than I’d ever seen it. Inviting, almost, and so black that it looked like a hole in reality, or at the very least, an actual hole in the ground.

What the hell, right? Best I could hope for was that Thea didn’t anticipate me ducking. And that’s exactly what I did, hitting the ground in some fervent hope that her grenades would miss. I threw myself into my own shadow, falling to my knees.

And kept falling, and falling, and falling.

Chapter 7

You wouldn’t think that darkness has a texture, but when there’s enough dark, it closes in around you like a thick, black fog. It was soft, wherever I was. It would have been almost comforting, if it wasn’t so cold.