More fiction? - Dark Ordained

I hope you like this.

I really do, I've held on to this story for a long time so I'm super nervous to see if people like it. If not then don't worry I'll give it a rest after this one.

Let me know what you think, I'm on Twitter @Laurenailie0 :)

L xx

Chapter One Continued...

We had just got out of main town centre and I had been giving directions to my apartment but there were no turns for a while now so we just sat in silence. There was music playing, some alt rock band I’d never heard of. Luc opened his window slightly and the burst of air blew his scent over me. He smelt like men’s aftershave and the outdoors, a pine and fresh air kind of smell. It was familiar and brought back memories of being carried and I remembered what Nancy had told me.

“It was you. You found me last night!” I looked over to him and he spared me a glance and a small smile before returning his eyes to the road.

“Yeah, you didn’t look so good. I figured Nancy would know what to do with a newbie necromancer,” his voice was rich and pleasant to listen to.

“How did you find me?”

“I was – taking a walk and overheard voices. Checked it out and saw you talking to yourself. Thought it was weird so kept watching then the ghosts appeared first the guy and then the girl. I got bored after a while and was leaving when it went quiet, so I checked on you again and you were collapsed on the bench. I couldn’t exactly leave you there,” his voice trailed off towards the end and he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Well thank you. Nancy said I could have died,” there was a nervous pause from the both of us

.

“Anytime,” he flashed me a smile but we lapsed into silence after that. Then it occurred to me that I was staring at him, but he was also sneaking glances at me. Then it struck me, if Nancy was a witch and I was a necromancer was Luc something special?

“What are you?” Not my most tactful and Luc looked immediately uncomfortable and I wished I hadn’t asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you human?”  Despite knowing I should be quiet I kept talking. His face was blank, all the friendly, openness was gone.

“No,” his tone was harsh and bitter.

“Ok, so what are you?” Luc snuck a quick glance at me before he answered. As if he was gauging my reaction.

“Werewolf.”

“Really? Like four legs and a tail?”

“Yep,” Luc sighed and then let out a chuckle as he ran his hand through his hair again.

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We pulled up outside my apartment building, not super swanky but not beat up and run down, it was a comfortable and a safe place to live.

“Well, thanks,” I popped the door and got out clutching the book to me.

“No problem,” he seemed friendly enough, but Luc left so fast that his tyres screeched on his way off.

 

“Bye then.”

I let myself into my apartment. Open plan living room, dining room and kitchen. With a separate bathroom and bedroom. There’s also a balcony out back where I like to sit when the sun is out. Everything about my apartment is lived in but so comfortable and I loved it. I set the book on the kitchen counter and stumbled into my bedroom. Bone tired I crawled into bed without changing into my pyjamas. I was asleep before I’d even got under the covers.

                                                                                *             *             *

When I woke up my alarm clock told me it was five o’clock in the evening, a day later. I had lost an entire day. Luckily I had a couple of days off work so I didn’t have to worry about that. I was, however, absolutely starving. My hair resembling a birds nest and make up all down my face I made it to the fridge and began eating straight from there. 

I had left the fridge and was enjoying a bowl of scrambled eggs when my phone buzzed at me from the counter. I picked it up and I had seven missed calls from my grandmother. Then the day before came back to me.

The ghosts, I still felt the loss of Jeremy, missed him even. Then I remembered the book that was still sitting on my counter and Nancy and her tea. The tea that had lowered my inhibitions so much that I had acted a fool in front of Luc. 

I groaned and began listening through the messages my grandmother had left me. Mariette and Lyle were my father’s parents. My older brother, Joey, and I had lived with our grandparents since I was ten years old, so around seventeen years. We had been staying with them while my parents had gone away for their anniversary. Then the summer house where they had been staying caught fire. The smoke killed both my parents in their sleep long before the fire got to them. It took me a while but I’m finally ok talking about it.

A summary of Mariette’s messages was that she was sorry and we really needed to talk.  I set my phone down and decided that I needed to shower before tackling my grandmother and the whole necromancy, ghosts, her slipping me her secret herbs situation.

Showered, dressed and ready to go I picked up my car keys and doubled back for the book. I was just hopping about putting on my shoes when the door buzzer rang.

“Hello?” I answered the ringing while shoving on my other shoe.

“Evie, hurry up and get your arse down here. Mariette asked me to come over and pick you up on the way,” it was Joey. I’d know his voice anywhere.

“Ok, give me a sec,” shoes on, book in hand I left my apartment.

Downstairs Joey’s four by four was parked at the kerb. He was dancing to the radio as I got in.

“Do you have to do that where people can see you? I live here you know,” my brother and I always teased each other, it was our way of showing affection.

“What? Is this embarrassing?” Joey turned the volume up and began rocking out to the music hard enough to be shaking the car.

“Oh my god Jo, stop!” I couldn’t help but laugh as an elderly woman walked past and in a truly British fashion gave us a dirty look and shook her head disapprovingly. I’m sure if I could hear her over the music she tutted. Joey thought it was hilarious and waved to the old woman, but he did stop dancing and turned the music down to a respectable level. 

Once we were driving Joey glanced at the book in my lap.

“What’s that?”

“A book Mariette’s friend gave me,” I turned it over so he couldn’t see the cover, I wasn’t sure if he knew more or less than I did.

“Which friend?”

“Nancy,” I looked up and I could tell Joey was concentrating, he always frowned when he was thinking hard about something.

“When did you see Nancy?”

“Yesterday,” I scrambled quickly for an explanation. I wasn’t sure Joey would understand if I started talking about ghosts, “I was walking around town and just popped into her shop to have a look. We got talking and she thought I might find it interesting.”

“I see.”

The rest of the drive was in silence, I had a way of doing that recently, reducing a car journey to awkward silences, luckily the drive wouldn’t last long. We lived in a small town outside of London. The town itself was relatively small, it had a supermarket, a coffee place and a few other shops at its centre. On the outskirts were the boutiques like Nancy’s shop and other things such as estate agents and take out businesses. I lived just behind the boutique section, Joey lived closer to the centre and my grandparents lived in the more rural part which was roughly twenty minutes away.

                                                                                *             *             *

We hit some traffic so it was half an hour later that we were parked on the gravel driveway in front of my grandparents’ home. Everything appeared normal from the outside but I had a really bad feeling about going inside the house. 

“Stay in the car until I - ,” Joey had started but I was already out and on my way to the front door. 

Joey called after me in a hoarse whisper as I tried the front door. It was ajar already but wouldn’t open enough to let me in. The metallic stench of blood that seeped through the crack had me ramming the door with my shoulder. Shrill and spine-tingling, unnatural shrieks escaped through the gap making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and my heart leap out of my chest. I threw my entire body weight against the door. Wondering what was going on I finally made enough room to get through and froze as I saw the crumpled and bloodied body collapsed behind the door. It wasn’t anyone I recognised. Hell it wasn’t anything I could recognise. It looked human, almost, where its eyes, nose and mouth should have been was just smooth skin that inflated and deflated as it breathed. Like someone had stretched a fleshy balloon over its face and it was sucked into the crevices where the eyes and mouth should be. Joey swore as he came up behind me. 

I let him shift me to one side so he could get by then he stomped once on the things head crushing it and the breathing stopped.

“What is that?” I asked but Joey ignored me a headed deeper into the house.

 I remained frozen in the entrance, clutching the door to keep me upright as my gaze followed the bloody smear that ran across the pale pine floor to the clearly dead thing at my feet. It was as if my ears and throat were stuffed with cotton wool, the noise around me was strangely muted and I was struggling to swallow. Terror made my heart race faster and harder, where were Lyle and Mariette, my body numb I stepped over the corpse and stumbled out into the central hall. The hall had several doors on the west facing side to the left of where I was standing. Straight ahead and opposite the front doors was an impressive staircase that went to the upper floors. Then on the east side of the hall were the double doors that went into the function rooms, which was where the sitting room, the study and Lyle’s record room were. Between me and everywhere else was a massacre. The hall had been decorated with white drapes and white upholstered furniture, but now it was all sprayed with scarlet droplets and the air had a salty, metallic taste that caught in the back of my throat.

I’m not sure what made me do it but I went over to the stairs and touched the still wet blood on the banisters. The second I touched it images flashed through my mind, like a projector overlaying a film on the current surroundings. It was as if I had stepped into the past to watch the scene take place. It showed me an old man fighting more of the faceless men. He was hurt, bleeding, so when he stumbled backward against the banisters he left a pool of blood behind. I recognised the old man, Lyle. The blood was my grandfather’s. Oh no. My knees buckled and just before I hit the ground a strong pair of arms caught me and kept me from hitting the floor. Thinking it was Joey I turned to tell him I was ok but instead I found a stranger. A man with white hair just long enough to touch the tips of his ears and the strangest eyes I had ever seen; his left was blue and the right was amber and the second I looked into them I was frozen by a strange force. Something that sapped me of my strength. The man leaned over me and his grip tightened, pressing me against his body. His black shirt was smooth against my cheek. This close his pale skin was iridescent. Despite my body being like a rag doll, which must have made holding me up difficult, he managed to embrace me with one arm and take hold of my hand with the other. In an odd gesture, he kissed my knuckles with a light brush of his thin lips over my skin.

“Evelyn, my dear you do look spectacular,” his voice was a whisper; he placed my hand gently on my chest and ran his fingertips through my hair.

He lifted my chin carefully so I was looking him in the face. His eyes seemed to sparkle for a moment then they both went a peculiar red, like rust. Just at that moment I spotted Joey come out of the door that lead to the kitchen. He was walking up behind the man that was still holding me. Joey looked odd and I tried to get my eyes to focus on him, he was spattered with blood and gore like everything else about me, and as my confused brain caught up I realised he wasn’t walking, he was running and he was screaming at me.

RUN. He was screaming at me to run. There was a rumbling sound against my ear, and then suddenly I was set down on the floor and left alone. The eye contact broken I regained some control over my body but it was heavy and clumsy. Moving faster than I could see, the man with the strange eyes had crossed the distance between me and Joey. In one swift movement he slashed at the air, like a matador sweeping back his cape, then a fountain of blood erupted from Joey’s chest and my brother fell backwards in an arc before crashing onto the floor.