A Toiling Darkness Read Online Free Page A

powers and now everyone wondered how I made
the three hundred pound man disappear. I guess they never thought
to look in his closet. They would find him hiding in the corner,
his mind broken and his body frozen with fear. It was his fault for
seeing me only as prey. I wasn’t prey, not for anyone.
    Little girl, shouldn’t you be suckin’ on
your mama’s tits instead of in a place like this. Hows about you
come play with me, I’ll keep you safe from the big bad meanies.
    Sorry, my dad told me to stay away from
pedophiles, I had told him. Now look where he was. Stuck in a
nightmare and slowly dying in some nasty closet that didn’t show up
on any blueprints for his house. I locked him up with the rest of
his dirty secrets.
    Two guys moved away when I approached,
freeing up the seats near where I was going to sit. I smiled and
hopped up onto the stool, turning my attention to the owner. There
were plenty of nasty rumors surrounding him—like turning others
into dust with just a look. I’ve yet to see it but the rumors
circulated enough to make troublemakers second-guess themselves
before they tried to start anything. He was the owner, the
bartender, and the enforcer of his little pub. He’s had plenty of
time to spread rumors about himself. He doesn’t deny any of them
either.
    Today, his face seemed a little longer, his
eyes wary. His blonde hair was slicked back into his usual
ponytail, showing off his feminine features. On most days he was
brimming with confidence. Tonight, instead of the straight and
proper posture he normally held, his small shoulders were slumped.
There was a little splash of blood on his long sleeve shirt. He saw
that I spotted the blood and rolled the sleeves up to hide it,
revealing his thin wrists and hairless arms. He seemed especially
distant today, as if just a small breeze was all it was going to
take to blow him away.
    Someone must have caused trouble in his bar
tonight and he must have done something heavy duty to make them go
away if he looked like this. He seemed exhausted when he was
usually overflowing with power to back up the rumors he liked to
encourage. His appearance made me wonder what it was exactly that
he could do to instil such good behavior in a bar filled with
beings who liked to eat each other. Even those with extreme
rivalries knew to back off in here.
    “Darkness, I thought you said you were
skipping out while Lord Kay ran his tournament?” Baron asked. His
name described his position in the bar perfectly.
    Kay was a really powerful and ancient magic
user who basically led the beings in this city. He learned to cheat
death during the Middle Ages and has been avoiding it ever since.
We were both members of the False Immortality club and neither of
us figured out how to kill each other yet. He was also a very old
companion…probably. I do hate him most of the time, so it was hard
to say.
    The magic user started an underground
tournament for all beings to enjoy themselves and since it wasn’t
something I was fond of, I was planning to leave tonight. There
were plenty of beings I'd rather not meet and Kay invited most of
them to the city for a few weeks. If they knew who I was, they
would try very hard to kill me and that just wouldn't be a fun
time. I would have made it out tonight if I wasn't so easily
distracted by the view. Then the slauve showed up. I shouldn’t have
stopped to stare at the city lights before I bounced. Shiny things
really do distract me too easily.
    Now I needed to find that slauve’s master.
Otherwise the sluave was going to keep finding me like a honing
missile and it’ll never end until I was dead. Or I guess I could
still skip out, let him try to keep up with me. No. Priorities were
important. Right?
    “I’ve been delayed,” I replied, not
bothering to expand. “Is Seeker around?
    He nodded towards a door at the back of the
bar. It led into a small room used for special guests. “Taking his
dinner right now.”
    “Another