Darkness of Day Page 2

  “The priests have a closer relationship with the Gods, child. Allow me to take the offering and give it to a priest of the temple. I will have one of them make the offering and pray for your mother.”

  Mallika felt sick. She should be the one to make the offering and pray for her mother, not someone else. She had little faith in anyone. Those priests the captain spoke of enjoyed an existence far above her own. If they truly cared about the people, wouldn’t they pray to the Gods for it to be otherwise?

  “You’re an angry one, I can see it.” The captain smiled at her. “Why are you so angry, little girl?”

  “Nobles, warriors, farmers, cows; everyone is above me. Everyone is above Untouchables. You look down on us for having to do the work you don’t want to do. You call us names and spit on us.”

  “It is your karma, child. You were born into this world with your own karma, and this is the life you must lead.”

  Mallika had no answer to that. She wished she’d been born higher. She and her mother did their best to live good lives, but their karma had cast them into the lowest level of society. She noticed that despite his kind words, even the captain would not touch her. He may have squatted down to her level to speak with her, but he was still far enough away to be careful not to touch her. If it was daylight, he would probably be careful to avoid even her shadow touching him.

  After a few more moments of silence, the man stood and signaled to a man with a thick moustache and an angry scowl. “Take this girl’s offering and pass it on to a priest to pray for her mother.”

  The man recoiled. “My Captain, you would have me touch—”

  “I would have you do as I tell you.”

  “Please,” Mallika spoke up. “I do not trust them. But I would trust you. If I am not allowed to do this, would you see it done, Captain? Please?”

  The captain seemed to think on it a moment, then nodded with a smile. “Of course. I will take your offering to the priests.”

  Mallika looked up at him; into his eyes. She saw kindness there, and truth as well. She knew he would do as promised.

  “Okay.” She sat the basket on the ground in front of him and stepped back.

  “Go home, child,” the captain said, taking the basket from the ground. “And don’t do anything like this again. Okay?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  He smiled again. “Good.”

  It was a shorter trip back to their little shack in the district of the Untouchables. She received a few curious looks, but no one spoke to her. She saw the same look in the eyes of almost everyone she passed. Hopeless, empty, and resigned. There was happiness there as well, when a father lifted his son, or when children chased each other in the street. Mothers teaching their daughters how to weave baskets and carve fruit, while young boys learned how to clean and tan leather.

  Mallika had always been taught that everyone was born with karma, depending on their past lives. Some were born as nobles, dignitaries, farmers. Others as Untouchables; the lowest of the low. The simple touch of one of her kind, was said to be unclean. Even her shadow was tainted. Though the latter was a belief from more ancient times, she knew people still believed it.

  Despite the teachings, she hated it. She hated being born into such a life. She hated that she couldn’t do a thing to elevate her status. She hated not feeling full after a meal, and she hated not being able to pray to Lord Dhanvantari herself. Were the Gods truly so cruel? Mallika’s twelve-year-old mind didn’t know for sure, but if they were, why pray to them at all?

  Her mind clamped shut at that thought. If the Gods could hear her thoughts, they might strike her down, or worse, condemn her to another lifetime as an Untouchable.

  Rounding the last bend in the street, she came to a shabby three-walled shack. Home. She stepped through the curtain and stopped to stare at her mother. Withdrawn and wasting away, the woman was half the size she had been when she was healthy. Her full, ready smile and loving eyes had been replaced with sunken cheeks and sunken, dim eyes.

  In the darkness of the room her mother lay unmoving, her head turned aside. Mallika moved quietly to her mother’s side and rested a hand on her head. She frowned, leaning down for a closer look.

  “Mama?” she said, running a hand over her mother’s long brittle hair. When there was no response she gave her mother a gentle shake.

  “Mama?” she said again, a tiny quiver of fear tinting her voice. Still no response. She placed her hand in front of her mother’s mouth, but felt no breath. She leaned down and placed her ear on her mother’s chest, waiting. After a few moments, she sat upright and stared down at the empty shell that once housed her mouther’s soul.

  Tears streamed freely down her cheeks as she continued to stare at Mama; gone to be reunited with Papa.

  2

  “Mama?”

  Ever regal, ever loving, ever human, little Saaya’s mother looked down on her with adoring eyes.“Yes, my child.”

  “Why do people look at me strange?”

  “Don’t worry about them.”

  “Why? I want to know.”

  “It’s because you’re different.”

  “Different, how?”

  “You will come to learn.”

  The little girl twisted her forefinger in her fist.“I didn’t mean to hurt him, Mama. We were just playing.”

  “I know. But you must be more careful. You are stronger and faster than they are. Your mind is both the same and different from theirs. You have to learn to live as they do. You have to be careful with them, my child.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will, my little girl. One day you will understand.”

  “Will you always be here, Mama? Like Baba?”

  “What do you mean, like Baba?”

  “Baba told me that he will always be here, forever. He said that you can, too, but that it is your choice.”

  “Don’t worry about that right now.”

  “Please, be here forever, Mama. I don’t want you to go away.”

  Her mother hugged her close and kissed her on the top of her head, burying her face in the little girl’s silky black hair.

  “I’m not going anywhere, my child.”

  “Promise?” She hesitated, and when Saaya looked up into her mother’s eyes, there was pain there. “Promise, Mama?”

  “I promise, daughter. Now go to sleep. Your father will be here at sunset.”

  Memories came in a jumble. A flash of children at play. A flash of a boy spinning through the air to land heavily on the ground. Surprise, exhilaration, fear, regret.

  More memories. Adolescence. Cuts that healed almost instantly. Hiding her strength and speed. A tall, imposing figure looking down on her with love. A second, slightly shorter and slightly less imposing figure, guarding. Hunger. Hunger for food.

  Hunger.

  Hunger for more than food. Shock and horror, then sated hunger. Self-loathing, guilt, remorse, fear. Then Baba was there. Love and compassion. Knowledge and understanding. Acceptance and solidarity.

  Coming of age. Knowledge. Understanding. No fear, guilt, or self-loathing. Love, understanding and self-perception. She is her mother, but more. She is her father, but less. She is different from all, and alone. No. Not alone. There is one who will always be there. She looks up into those dark brown eyes. They look down at her and there is amusement and love. The eyes glow lavender. Hers do the same. Saaya smiles. Her brother winks.

  Jelani awoke. It was not an exceptional event, if it could be called an event at all. It felt more like a return to consciousness. He opened his eyes and looked around. The room’s solitary window was closed, the drapes pulled tight, shrouding everything in darkness.

  A darkness where everything was perfectly visible to him.

  “The dead finally rise again.”

  Jelani didn’t move, though he knew the voice. Saaya.

  “You look like a possum trying to play dead, jaan.”

  Jaan. It was a word in the language of her mo
ther—her Indian heritage—that meant love, or, my love. For the first time that word actually brought him comfort, though he couldn’t say why.

  “Don’t look so paranoid, jaan, it might hurt my feelings.”

  “Where am I?”

  “Where do you want to be?”

  “An hour or two before that jog in Stanley Park.”

  Jelani put a hand to his head, but there was no warmth to comfort his clean-shaven scalp. His skin was so cold. And what was that dream? Some little girl and her mother? It felt so familiar, like he was directly experiencing these things but outside of it all at the same time.

  “I’m afraid I cannot send you back in time, love, but I can assure you one thing. Time will come to have a different meaning to you,” her lavender eyes glimmered in the darkness, “in time.”

  Those words brought everything crashing back into place. Being able to see in utter darkness, the strange dreams, his cold skin. He ran his hand back and forth over his head as was his habit. He forced his mind in another direction.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “You have slept for a little over a month,” came the reply.

  A month. Impossible!

  “Was I in a coma or something?”

  There was a stretch of silence before the answer came.

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  Jelani raised himself up on his elbow, and a rush of dizziness passed through his head. He held his head between his hands and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You surprise me, jaan. I hadn’t expected you to rise so soon.”

  “Will you quit using words like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Rise.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, but didn’t trust them enough to hold his weight just yet. “Can’t you just say wake up, like any normal person?”

  “Like any normal person.” Saaya stepped fully into view, moving out of a deeper shadow he hadn’t known was there. “Is that what you think, Jelani? That I, or even you, now, are like any other person?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” he said, putting his face in his hands. This could not be happening. It was impossible.

  “What happened to Daniel and Alisha? And Wen?”

  “They live.”

  “Was Alisha…” he couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.

  “No need to worry, love,” Saaya replied, sitting down beside him. The warmth from her body was both comforting and confusing. “She still walks in the sun.”

  “But he bit her.”

  “A bite is nothing more than that. To turn a human takes a little more … effort. He had been sipping from her for a time, but not enough to kill her. He was saving that for your final torture.”

  “Where is everyone now?” Jelani found that his voice was oddly calm. Calmer than it had ever been since this whole ordeal had begun months ago.

  “They remain together in your home. Kafeel watches over them, though I may owe him a considerable favor for doing so. I think he is a little disgusted with me.”

  “They must think I’m dead,” Jelani said. “What with me being asleep for a month, as you say.”

  “Do not worry,” Saaya said. “I told them that you were grievously injured and that only my help could revive you.”

  “I’m sure they readily swallowed that one.”

  Saaya smirked at him. “It is actually true. Your fate was colored with a darker tone until I found you.”

  “And you saved me from what?”

  “Being compelled to serve a foul creature who would torment you for ages to come.” She shrugged. “To tell the truth, I cannot recall such a thing ever being done; one vampire imbuing their essence into a human who had already been turned.”

  Turned.

  Jelani held up a hand. “I can’t deal with this yet.”

  “You will have to find a way to deal with it,” she replied, and there was firmness in her voice. “You don’t have the luxury of time to digest your new state, or the situation you’re in. This matter with Remy is not finished.”

  Remy.

  Jelani felt his blood light on fire at the mention of the one he hated. Remy had done this to him. Had forever altered his life.

  “So what now?” he asked.

  “I will let your friends know that you are awake when you are ready to see them again.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  He heard her chuckling softly in the darkness. “Jaan, I will admit that you have recovered swiftly considering the special circumstances of your re-creation, but I’m not certain you are ready to meet your friends yet.”

  “My re-creation.” There, he’d said it. Though a large part of him still denied it, he’d said the words. “This can’t be real, Saaya. It can’t.”

  She placed a hand on his shoulder. “You will come to accept your life, Jelani. You will come to understand and you will live on, and become so much more than you are now.”

  Jelani stood and started toward the door, then turned back. “I didn’t want this. I was perfectly fine the way I was.”

  “Of course, but what you wanted and what you were are now irrelevant. I am sorry to be so harsh, but you must understand that there’s no going back.”

  Forcing his legs to hold him, he stood and walked away from her, running both hands over his head. Instinctively, he reached for the switch on the wall and turned on the light. His eyes adjusted immediately, which was both amazing and disheartening at the same time.

  He looked down at his hands, still the same color, but he could feel a strength that wasn’t there before. He turned and looked around the room, his gaze resting on a full-length mirror. He looked at Saaya but the dampeal simply sat in a chair across from the bed with her hands folded in her lap, watching him patiently.

  He crossed the room and stood before the mirror, and let out a sigh of relief at the sight of his reflection. A disgusted snort drew his attention back to Saaya, who rolled her eyes.

  When he looked back to the mirror, the person looking back at him seemed unchanged. Same nose, head, skin. Same eyes. But beneath the surface, there was a difference. Something powerful and unnerving projected from him.

  When he looked again at the reflection of his eyes, he retreated a step. Tentatively, as though he feared his image would reach out of the glass and throttle him, he leaned forward and studied his eyes. They were almost black. He leaned closer, his face almost touching the glass. His eyes were black.

  “What the hell?”

  Saaya came to stand beside him. “What do you see?”

  He looked at her, and she nodded. She was about to say more when a sudden cramp hit Jelani in the stomach. He doubled over, gasping. The pain was like a lance of fire or acid shooting through him, shredding his intestines. The pain shot through his arms and legs, neck, head, fingers and toes. Even his teeth.

  “What the hell is happening to me?” he groaned, dropping to his knees.

  Saaya crouched beside him, resting a hand on his back. “The thirst is upon you,” she said. “You must feed.”

  “I need some food,” Jelani said, shaking his head. He didn’t need to feed, he just needed food.

  “You will find your definition of food is quite different than what it once was.”

  “No.”

  “Jelani, look at me.” She put a finger under his chin and lifted his head. He looked into her eyes and saw something he had never seen before. A hint of sympathy. “You must trust me. If you go out of here now, trying to find food, you will attack someone. Can you live with that?”

  As if in answer, another jolt burned him from inside. His blood was like lava, coursing through his veins.

  “What choice do I have?” he groaned. “It feels like I’m being burned alive from the inside out.”

  “And as the pain increases, so too will your desperation to quell it.”

  She left him and a minute later, returned and handed him a thermos. He looked at it. It looked like it shoul
d have hot chocolate or coffee in it. He went to unscrew the lid, but she placed a hand over his.

  “I would not recommend you look inside until you drink for the first time.”

  “If this is what I think it is, I’m not drinking—” he nearly dropped the thermos when another spasm hit.

  “You were saying?” she replied, arching an eyebrow at him. “Jelani, you must drink. If you do not, you will eventually surrender to the thirst and it will become primal. You would attack the nearest person. Many before you have tried to deny the thirst.”

  “And what happened to them?”

  “The Hunters.”

  Jelani looked at the thermos as though it were a poisonous snake.

  “Shake it first,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “To liquify it again. It begins to clot—”

  “Okay, okay,” Jelani said, patting the air. “I wish I hadn’t asked.”

  He shook the thermos and took a sip. Revulsion gave way to relief, and he drank the rest of the contents in one gulp.

  “How do you feel?” Saaya asked. The fact that she’d even asked indicated her relief.

  “More,” was all he could manage.

  3

  Jelani listened to her receding footsteps and soft laughter as she went back into the kitchen with the thermos. He didn’t know what disgusted him more, that he’d just downed a thermos filled with blood, or that he was sitting here in anticipation of her bringing another one.

  Moments later, she returned and handed it to him. Again, he emptied the thermos in seconds, wiping a stray crimson drop from the corner of his mouth. He looked at red smear on his finger.

  “My god. What have I become?”

  It was a rhetorical question, of course. He knew exactly what he’d become. The true question, however, was what it meant.

  “Are you planning to pray while you’re down there?”