Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
In response to what, Josep? Yourself? The madness of this whole thing suddenly hits me.
What if it’s just always been me? What if the Darkness is nothing more than my own insanity?
“What if,” Dark Me says, “you have always been me, dear Josep? What if that were true? What if you are the Darkness? Have always been the Darkness? And this entire life you’ve been living was just your own personal actualization?”
I sit up in the dirt. Mouth full of it. Heart beating so fast, I can’t seem to catch my breath. I can still hear Paul above me. He’s still talking to the scions who didn’t join us in the dirt. “Now go. All of you. Hunt me some wolves!”
There is a small commotion above, then a dispersal.
Paul, in a lower voice, says, “Come with me, blood lover. I have big plans for you.”
What is he doing? What is he plotting now? How will he fuck me over?
Whoever he is talking to, it’s not Ryet because even through the dirt, I can smell his rotting corpse. Ryet’s body has been decimated by the scions all around me.
No, whoever leaves with Paul is someone new.
But it doesn’t matter who this new person is, whatever Paul is up to, it’s got something to do with Ryet. He has an unnatural obsession with that man. Ryet is a tool. That is all he’s ever been, and Paul knows this. But Paul, he’s an ideas man. He has lots of them. He’s always up to something. Something he shouldn’t be up to, of course. But he likes it that way. It’s part of the chase for him. The deception, the waiting, and the angst that comes from the waiting.
I don’t understand him. Not even a little bit.
“Well, Josep,” Little Baby Darkness coos into my head, “haven’t you always been my tool too? And haven’t I loved you the most, above all others?”
But the Little Baby Darkness is wrong. She is the hammer and I am the nail.
The blood bag, not the blood.
“So?” I say back.
“I gave you favors, I gave you magic, I gave you everything.”
“So what?”
“So, this is how Paul feels about Ryet.” Little Baby Darkness pushes some hair out of my face because she’s next to me now. Here in the dirt. Which means this is, again, some kind of dream.
I can’t seem to find reality. And it bothers me. Because Paul doesn’t seem to be having the same trouble.
She leans over me, covered in dirt, pushing it off my face and caressing my cheeks. “That’s because Paul isn’t you.” Little Baby Darkness boops me on the nose with a fingertip when she says this last word.
And why am I calling this thing a she? It’s not a woman. It’s not anything, really. It’s a fucking freak of nature. Well, no. It’s not even that. It’s a freak of… the unnatural. Because it’s not alive, it’s not real, it’s not—
Little Baby Darkness takes my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her. “You’re not listening.”
“You’re telling lies.”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “I’m not.”
“You’re not Little Baby. You’re not her.”
“Well, you’re right.” She smiles at me. “I’m not. I’m just a hallucination. But she’s still here, Josep. Little Baby is waiting for you in your cave. And trust me, I am her. I am all over her. I am inside her. Everything about her is me.”
I let out a breath and some dirt falls into my mouth, but I don’t even bother spitting it out because it’s all around me.
“You want her, Josep? Do you want the Little Baby? Your own creation to keep forever? As your partner? As your friend? As your lover? A blood lover just for you? This is what Ryet is to Paul. A pet. Do you want a pet, Josep? I will be your pet. In her. And that is real. All you have to do is get up out of the ground and come find me. Then we can be together forever.”
I sigh, tired of this conversation with myself. Because that’s what I think it is. Me and my own damaged mind.
“You know that’s not true.” Little Baby’s voice is sweet now. And even though I’m under the ground with dirt all around me, I can see her plain as day. So it’s not real. And I’m not listening.
“OK,” she says. “Fine. I will tell you something true.”
I’m not looking at her. My gaze is focused on a twisted tree root in the dirt above my head. It’s white, and gnarled, and branches off in many directions that lead many places.
“I am the root, Josep.”
I scoff. “That’s your big revelation?” I scoff again. “Of course you’re the root. I’ve used you thousands of times to move across time and space underground.”