Full Dark A Novel Of The Hidden

By Ty Lawrence

Hunted and unable to protect herself, a sorceress named Ashlyn struck a deal with the embodiment of her worst fears, an ancient and powerful vampire named Brennen. In exchange for that protection, Brennen demands blood, and over the years he has grown addicted to the rush of magic inside her veins. They live in a dangerous underground of monsters and supernatural beings. This community, collective known as The Hidden, has only one rule: remain hidden. Ashlyn discovers she's being followed by a young detective named Hayden, who seems to know she isn't human. Forced to play double agent between two rival factions of The Hidden, she desperately tries to protect Hayden before he follows her into the middle of a supernatural civil war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781611606348

Book preview

FULL DARK

by

TY LAWRENCE

WHISKEY CREEK PRESS

www.whiskeycreekpress.com

Published by

WHISKEY CREEK PRESS

Whiskey Creek Press

PO Box 51052

Casper, WY 82605-1052

www.whiskeycreekpress.com

Copyright Ó 2013 Ty Lawrence

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-61160-634-0

Cover Artist: Gemini Judson

Editor: Cherie Singer

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Maynard James Keenan, whose voice has lulled me into a quiet madness for decades.

Anna, thank you for listening to me talk about my imaginary friends. And thanks to Critters.org for making me a better writer.

Finally, I need to thank Gerald Brom, who crushed my dreams of being an illustrator, which directed my life down a better path. But I still hate you anyway.

Chapter 1

I awoke to an explosion of thunder loud enough to shake the windowpanes in my bedroom. The storm’s power crackled along my aura, pressing against me. I only needed to let it in. How could I have slept through any of this? There was enough energy rolling across the sky to feed me into blissful intoxication.

Eager and smiling brightly into the darkness, I rolled over onto my back. I stretched out my arms and legs, ready to feed on the ambient power surging around me. Before I could begin truly enjoying the storm, I realized nature of a different kind was calling. I sighed and flopped out of bed, headed to the bathroom.

I flipped the light switch on and off a few times before my sleepy brain realized the storm had killed the electricity. I stumbled through the near blackness of my bathroom, determined to find the toilet. A flash of lightning flooded through my windows, casting a pale green glow. Movement drew my eyes to the mirror above the sink; a shadowy silhouette of a man lunged for my back.

Dumb instinct and muscle reflex took over. I whirled around, screaming, and landed in the bathtub with a bottle of shampoo clenched in my fist like a weapon. My gaze moved frantically across the blackness and found nothing. I lay sprawled in the silent darkness, my head against the tile, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. All I could think of was Brennen. Surely, he’d heard my scream. He would be here any second, any moment now. Brennen would come busting through the door…any second—

Lightning flashed again. This time, the eerie illumination lasted longer. Long enough for me to be certain of what I had seen. It had once been a man. He’d died in a fire. His skin was charred. Slow wisps of smoke curled from the remnants of his clothing. He stood just inside the doorway. His fists raised at his sides, his mouth worked furiously in silent screaming.

I closed my eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. The spirit couldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t touch me or anything else in this world. I considered throwing the shampoo bottle anyway.

I brought my legs into my chest and laid my head back on the cold tile. I didn’t need to acknowledge the wraith. I usually don’t. I’m not heartless, really. If I could help them, I would. Other than explaining that they’re dead, there just isn’t much I can do. They have no voice that I can hear, and most of them don’t really want anything in particular. They are simply confused and wandering.

I wiped my shaking hands down my face and groaned and growled into the darkness. I wanted to slam my head against the wall. Stupid. In my panic, the only rational thoughts that had raced through my mind were of Brennen coming to rescue me. I no longer felt like a grown woman. I wanted to run to him, and I hated it. I hated him. He was not my father, not my lover, not even my friend.

But on the bright side, Brennen was extremely protective of me. I was his most valuable possession after all—his sole food source. I was his very own pet sorceress, there for him to feed from as much as he liked, within reason of course. He drank my death in small doses, tolerable amounts.

I tried to think of what I should have done instead of panicking like a frightened child waiting for her father to come and save her. Damn him. What else could I have done? I have no defensive powers. If I did, I wouldn’t be here.

Then I noticed the odor. Burnt hair, mixed with smoke and something else, something vile. It was faint, but definitely real. I had never smelled a ghost before. In fact, I didn’t even know that spirits could have a scent.

I rubbed my fingers along the back of my skull. A headache was clawing its way across my brain. I guess I hit my head when I fell. Pain shot down my spine and radiated through my ribs as soon as I tried to move. I still needed to use the bathroom. I considered calling out to Brennen. He would love to pull me out of my awkward position in the bathtub. In fact, he would jump at any excuse to touch me. And, as always, he’d let his hands linger too long as he inhaled my scent. He can feign affection if it makes him feel better, if it makes this relationship seem more civilized. But I know what I am. I’m food, and he smells dinner beneath my skin.

When I finally managed to escape the bathtub, I realized the rank, burning-corpse smell had saturated my hair and clothes. Clothes? What the hell? Why was I dressed? I ran my hands down the front of my body. I wore jeans and my favorite sweater. They were damp, like I had been out in the rain. How…why…did I fall asleep like that?

I thought back to the night before as I finally found the toilet. I remembered the storm forming. The clouds had come rolling in and were just starting to become substantial. I clearly remembered going to bed wearing silk pajamas. What time was it now? It felt like morning to me, and I’m usually right about the time. It’s one of my many strange and mostly useless abilities.

I passed through the angry spirit as I left the bathroom. It gave me a headache to touch ghosts but I couldn’t avoid him as he stood in the middle of the doorway. The battery-operated alarm clock on my nightstand was the only light in the room. It was six in the morning.

What the hell happened? I remembered going to sleep around midnight. Had I done something while I slept? The thought was horribly disturbing but not too shocking. I sleepwalk sometimes, not often. I had never gotten dressed and left the house before. The idea scared me.

I had to tell Brennen. He wanted to know every time I had a sleepwalking episode. God help me, but I was relieved to have a valid reason to go to him. I grabbed a small flashlight out of my nightstand and crossed the long expanse of darkened hallway separating my bedroom from his. I passed William’s door, then Tristan’s. Both were closed. They would already be in the basement this close to dawn, safe inside their coffins.

I pounded on Brennen’s door, then waited before opening it. Brennen? The thin beam of my flashlight showed me his empty bedroom. A blast of thunder rumbled through the house. I crept to the staircase and swept my flashlight back and forth into the darkness of the first floor below.

Hello, I yelled against the static pounding of rain. Hello, is anyone here? Brennen, where are you? Brennen? The ghost moved into my line of sight, still screaming and waving his fists around.

I was never left alone. I knew there was someone home. I sent out my senses and did a complete sweep of the house. If there were anything alive, I would feel it. But I felt nothing except my cat and Tristan’s stupid snake. I sent my senses out into the night for a few hundred feet in all directions. There was nothing bigger than an owl near the house. Nothing that I could feel anyway.

I knew at least forty people waited in the darkness below. The house was always crowded at dawn. Only a few of the vampires actually lived here, but they all slept here during the day. Brennen’s entire bloodline was downstairs. I just couldn’t feel them. Vampires have no life force that I am aware of. I didn’t know why the witches had left, but they would be back soon. Along with Brennen, they guarded the vampires for the daylight hours.

Hello. Someone answer me! A burst of lightning cut through the storm, lighting the house up like a flash of noon. Bastards, I muttered. You’re just ignoring me. I knew they were down there, and I knew they could hear me.

Without warning, the vicious wraith took swings at me, trying in vain to smash my face with his burnt fists. He couldn’t really hurt me, not in the way he wanted, but it was making my headache worse.

I gripped the banister and the entire length of it wobbled. Something popped in the spindly, ornate railing. Oops. I searched with my flashlight and found the new damage. No one would notice, and even if someone did, no one would care. The railing was already busted in a dozen places.

Brennen’s house is a huge three story Victorian. Its last renovation was in the 1970s; the previous owners since that decade hadn’t taken care of the house or the property. It had fallen into disrepair years ago, and continued its steady decline for as long as I had lived here.

I peered down the dark stairway and sighed. I wanted to find Brennen, but I couldn’t bring myself to venture down into the dark house filled with at least forty vampires. Not without Brennen standing right next to me.

I’m not really comfortable with vampires, especially in large numbers, and especially in the dark. They had probably already retreated into their coffins, but I didn’t know for sure. I sighed and walked back to my bedroom. I could wait. Brennen would be the only vampire awake come dawn.

I lit a few candles and opened all my curtains. Rain hammered against the glass, distorting the world beyond. The wraith followed my every move, still screaming silently.

The flickering candle flames comforted me as very few things could. Fire is my element to control—in theory. In reality, I’m not strong enough to command even the smallest of flames, but I still felt a kinship. Today, the flames were empty and silent. Fire is not always so quiet. Spirits live in the flames. I can usually hear them whispering and sometimes I feel their screams cut burning trails across my aura.

I stared into the mirror over my dresser, my reflection dimly lit by candles and the pale, filtered dawn. Thunder boomed, rattling my windows. I ran my fingers through my normally straight, black hair. It was tangled and damp, and it reeked of that pitiful wraith. I pulled the length of it up to my nose and nearly gagged. I looked down at my body; my skin felt coated with the odor, as if I had been dipped in putrid, stinking oil. I needed a shower. If the ghost wanted to follow, he could just watch the show.

I turned my head toward the bathroom and watched the door for a few seconds. Thunder rolled in the distance like a delirious promise and my whole body shuddered. A shower sounded wonderful, but the task seemed far too complicated. With the floating sense of detachment that had been slowly growing since I first woke, I considered bathing.

I knew I should have been worried about last night. I should have been worried about Brennen. It was strange for him to be away from the house at dawn. The pull of the storm was moving through my system like a subtle narcotic. I had resisted its call for as long as possible, and now I could barely focus on anything else. The ambient power rippled across my eager body, like echoes of pleasure that promised to pull my mind into gentle oblivion.

I’d known since the age of ten, with a crushing and undeniable certainty, that I was not, and would never be, like other people. I’d spent most of my time since then wishing I were a normal person. This was not one of those times. In that moment, I didn’t care about anything except the power surging across my aura like the promise of rapture. Distantly, I realized that my body had started to sway.

I could no longer fight the urge to feed. I didn’t want to. The shower could wait. My connection to storms is a driving physical demand that I can only resist for so long before my body will siphon power anyway, with or without my consent. It felt like the storm had raged for hours while I slept, and I hadn’t fed from it all night. I felt drained, like my soul was hollow, and only the storm could fill me.

My eyes rolled back into my drowning brain and I collapsed on my bed, smiling. Time to feed.

Chapter 2

Kaye?

Ummmm.

Did I wake you up?

You know you did. Why are you calling me this early?

Something’s very wrong.

What?

The house is empty. It’s just me and forty-something vampires in the basement. Brennen is gone. The daytime bodyguards are all gone.

Gone? Where are they?

I have no idea; this has never happened before. I looked around the empty house and sniffed at my hair. I had washed it twice in the shower and now it smelled like burnt shampoo, which was definitely an improvement from the stench of burnt corpse. I’m alone with over forty vampires in the basement and no one to protect them. I hope they don’t expect me to stay and guard them. I have to be at work. And plus, I just don’t like vampires.

Yeah. Kaye chuckled; she hated vampires too. Of course, she had never actually met one, but I had filled her in on the more important points of vampirism. You know, the highlights, such as evil, soulless, blood-sucking corpses. That kind of thing.

Kaye’s something of an insomniac and I felt guilty for waking her up that early in the morning, but I needed to talk to someone. Kaye had been my best friend since I was ten years old and she was eight. She was the only human who knew what I was. Not that I could have hidden the fact from her. She knew I was different the first time she saw me.

She’s an empath. She can see emotions, but her power only works on humans. She never saw any emotions when she looked at me. I was the first non-human she ever met. She didn’t know to stay away from me. She didn’t realize what I was when we were children, but then, neither did I.

I’ve searched every room in the house. I even looked in the damn attic. I paced back and forth in the dreary museum that Brennen thinks passes for a home and ended up standing in the great room. The electricity was still out. I opened all the curtains to let the sun in, but it didn’t help much. The sad beams of light fought to enter but seemed to be swallowed by the dusty air and the gloom. Or maybe it was just my dark mood. The ghost was still following my every move; he was still screaming in what appeared to be belligerent rage. He still didn’t seem to realize that I couldn’t hear him.

The great room was actually three smaller rooms with the walls knocked down to form one enormous, though oddly shaped room. No one had bothered to patch the ceiling or floor when the walls were torn down. The entire first floor is wallpapered with bold vertical stripes, an alternating pattern of dark and light gray. Instead of patching up the walls of the great room, Brennen put up long gray curtains that mostly reached from ceiling to floor and mostly covered the problem. Massive rugs hid the mangled floor, but the outline of the three original rooms was still obvious.

Where would Brennen be if he wasn’t at home?

I have no idea. He’s always here during the day, and so are the guards. Brennen wouldn’t leave his bloodline unprotected.

Something’s not right. Have you looked in the basement?

No. I groaned and took a few steps toward the basement door. It stood on the far side of the great room. The basement, the only room in the entire house I hadn’t checked.

I don’t want to go down there. If Brennen is in the basement, he might be…busy. I stared at the door.

Busy doing what? she asked hesitantly.

I don’t know. Every once in a while he stays in the basement with his vampires during the day.

And you never asked why?

No.

You never know what’s going on in your own house, Ashlyn. Doesn’t that ever bother you? Wow, she sounded like Brennen—if Brennen had a horrible Texas accent.

I chewed my thumbnail and watched the door. I don’t really want to know what he does with the lifeless bodies of his vampires during the daylight hours. It’s really none of my business.

You need to find out if he’s even home. Look, it’s your house and your basement. Yes, there are vampires down there, but you’re a sorceress. So march your ass down there and find out what’s going on.

I sighed and ran my hands through my damp hair. I knew she was right. I just really didn’t want to go down there. I’ll call you back. If Brennen was down there, I didn’t want him to see me on the phone. He didn’t mind if I had human friends, as long as I didn’t let them get too close. Kaye was way too close. She knew what I was, and worse, she knew what Brennen was. That kind of knowledge was dangerous.

I slipped the phone in my pocket, then stood with my ear to the thick wooden door and listened. The only sounds came from the great room behind me; water dripped from the ceiling and collected in a large copper pot in the corner of the room. It seeped in from directly below my shower, as it did every time I bathed. Its irregular timing mismatched with the endless ticking of the enormous grandfather clock that stood just a few feet away from me.

The grandfather clock rang out and I jumped. Okay, I screamed. I screamed so loud I actually startled the ghost. The antique clock clanged eight times, echoing through the house. I got down on my hands and knees and peeked under the basement door. I saw no flickering candle light and heard nothing but the dripping of water and the endless ticking of the Grandfather clock.

My hand hesitated on the discolored knob. As long as the sun was up, all the vampires would be helpless, and couldn’t hurt me. They die at every dawn. Or they go into some sort of stasis. Say it however you want, but I think it means the same thing. Darkness falls and Brennen re-animates them to the illusion of life.

I’d never gone down there during the daylight hours, so I wouldn’t know any of this from experience. Brennen is the one who told me, and I would have been perfectly happy to just take his word for it. I never wanted to actually see it.

I opened the door and the faint scent of death poured out around me. It wasn’t an overwhelming stench, but it was unmistakable. None of the coffins could be seen from the top of the stairs. The basement was as old and decayed as the rest of the house, but unlike the rest of the house, it was immaculately clean. I had only gone into the basement a few times and it was always like that. So clean, like someone had tried to scrub away the stench of rotting flesh. It still smelled of death though. It always did.

Brennen, I yelled. Hello? I heard nothing. I crept down the thick wooden steps slowly, quietly, although I didn’t know why. The dead vampires couldn’t hear me. Brennen! I swept my flashlight beam in front of me. I really didn’t want to sneak up on him. I finally took the last few steps and the spacious basement came into view. Coffins completely lined the walls and formed neat rows in the middle of the concrete floor.

Some of the lids stood partially open. I tried not to look inside. I stood on the bottom step and searched the darkness with my flashlight. Brennen, are you down here? My voice echoed off the concrete walls. The tiny beam of light crossed over an open coffin. I looked away, but not quick enough. I saw inside. It was empty. I flashed my light into another coffin that sat partially open. Empty. I checked another, and another. The beam of light quivered in my trembling hand. I descended the final step and my foot hit the concrete.

I crept to the nearest closed coffin and put the little flashlight in my mouth. I heaved open its heavy, black lid. It was empty. So was the next one I opened, and the next, and the next. My eyes darted around the room following the narrow beam of my flashlight. I was alone. The basement was full of empty coffins.

Chapter 3

The vampires, I cleared my throat, "they’re not here. No one’s here."

What does that mean? Kaye’s voice rose in confusion. I thought they were always there during the day?

They are. I don’t understand.

Do they ever stay anywhere else during the day?

No, never. Then I thought about it for a moment. Well, maybe they do, and I just never noticed.

"You mean, you might not notice if forty-plus vampires didn’t show up to your house sometimes? I think you would have noticed this before now."

I don’t know. I can be extremely unobservant when I want to be. I slumped down on the stiff green couch and stared at the stained ceiling. Where the hell was Brennen?

I was so absorbed in my anxiety that I didn’t feel the two humans on my property until a few seconds before I heard the confident knocking on the front door. Someone’s here, I told Kaye. I mean someone’s knocking on the front door. Two humans.

Brennen’s house sits about a quarter mile from Ledbetter Drive, hidden behind a wall of trees. All you see when you’re at the crossroads is a barbed wire fence with large yellow signs posted on either side of the gate that say NO TRESSPASSING.

The fact that anyone would knock on my front door at that time of the morning was strange. Anyone who knows me would know I usually don’t wake up until at least nine in the morning and the only other people who live here are vampires. They’re pretty much guaranteed not to want company at this time of the morning. I’ll call you back, I told Kaye.

My favorite pair of sunglasses sat on a long, narrow table beside the front door. The sunglasses were thrown next to my keys and anything else that happened to be in my hands when I walked into the house. A mirror hung above the table. I slipped the shades on my face and checked my reflection.

I was dressed for work, which means I wore solid black. I’m five-foot-six, with straight black hair down to my waist and pale olive skin. From my hair and skin, you would expect me to have brown eyes. My driver’s license says I have brown eyes. I don’t. My eyes are yellow. Intensely yellow, like all sorcerers. My eye color is startling enough that I would rather wear sunglasses or brown contacts instead of dealing with people staring at me and making stupid comments.

I opened the door, expecting to see Jehovah’s witnesses come to save my soul. The two men standing at my door didn’t look particularly religious.

Ashlyn James? the older man asked. He had mostly iron gray hair with streaks of black peppered around his head.

Yes, that’s me. Or that’s what my driver’s license says anyway.

Good morning, ma’am. My name is Detective Phillips and this is Detective Hayden. He gestured toward the much younger man standing beside him. Could we come in and ask you a few questions?

Police? I gaped at him stupidly for a few seconds before I found my voice. Brennen’s not here.

We would like to ask you a few questions. Can we come in?

I nodded and opened the door.

I’m sorry to bother you. It won’t take too long, he said. He wore frameless reading glasses and had a warm smile to match the disarming tone of his