SHADOWS OF THE BLOODLINE

CHAPTER 1

 The Parking Lot

The money felt dirty in my pocket. It always did, but now was not the time to get a conscience. All I had to do was deliver the package and call it a day.

I leaned against my beat-up Honda Civic and watched Steven stumble toward the student parking lot. It was eleven at night, and New Haven High looked like a graveyard. I shivered because, for some reason the energy tonight just felt wrong. I couldn't wait to be done with this.

Steven was already high on something. I could tell by the way he walked.

"You got it?" Steven asked. His eyes were bloodshot.

I pulled out the small worn-down purse from my jacket. "Forty bucks."

He handed me two crumpled twenties. I gave him the weed. The whole transaction took maybe fifteen seconds. That was how it always went. It was just business; I didn't bond with my customers.

Steven walked away without saying thanks. I shoved the money into my jeans and unlocked my car door. The money in my pocket should be enough to buy something to eat. Something warm for the night. Nothing like the cold dinners and garbage bin hot dogs from the closest fast food place I've been surviving on for the past two months.

My parents sure as hell were not going to feed me.

I slid into the driver's seat but did not start the engine yet. My phone buzzed. A text from some kid at Roosevelt asking if I could deliver tonight. I typed back that I was done for the day. My fingers were cold, and I just wanted to be under my warm, threadbare duvet.

I thought about going home. Then I thought about what was waiting for me there. My mom passed out on the couch, her upper arm bruised by needles. My dad probably screaming at nothing in particular. The apartment would smell like chemicals and cigarette smoke. There would be no food in the fridge.

I sold drugs to survive and harsh as it was, that was the truth. But I had one rule, one line I would never cross, no matter how bad things got.

I would never use.

I watched my parents destroy themselves every single day. It was painful watching them choose the high over everything else. They didn't bother about paying rent or buying groceries or taking care of their home; all they cared about was the high. I was not going to end up like them. I would deal to every wasted kid in this city if it meant keeping myself alive, but I would not become them.

The parking lot was empty now. I should have left. But I just wanted a moment of peace before I went to the absolute chaos that was home. As I started the car to drive to the rundown diner where I would buy some coffee and do some homework til dawn, something flickered at the right corner of my eyes. I snapped my head sideways, and really looked, but there was nothing. I pursed my lips,and I saw something moving weirdly. My heart beat erratically. It was the shadows, they were moving wrong.

I sat up straighter and looked around, my fist clenched around the pocket knife sitting in my breast pocket. The streetlight above my car was flickering. That was normal. Half the lights in this parking lot were busted, and some of the twisted metal swung in the breeze which made an eerie sound. The shadows on the pavement were...stretching towards me and moving towards the light source.  

I blinked hard. I had to be tired and it was for that reason that I was seeing things.

The shadows kept moving. Shakily, I pressed down on the gear but the car refused to move. I stomped on the gas again and again, but it gave up on me, which was odd.

The shadows crawled across the asphalt like living things. Black tendrils reached toward my car. I thought about throwing open the car doors and running into the nearest woods. The car door was suddenly jammed, the lock misbehaving. As I tried to pound myself out of there, I noticed that the temperature dropped fast. My breath started making vapour on the car windows, and I started to involuntarily shudder from cold. The streetlight flickered and went out completely.

Darkness swallowed the parking lot.

"What the hell," I whispered.

Something moved in front of my car. A shape that was darker than the darkness around it. It rose up from the pavement like smoke, but it was solid. I blinked twice, thinking maybe I was hallucinating, but when I opened my eyes, it was in front of me, real. It was almost human but wrong. It was too tall and too thin. Its limbs bent at angles that made my stomach turn.

The creature had no face. Just a void where a head should be. The panic rose in my throat and bled out at my eyes.

It tilted that space toward me. I felt it glaring at me, even when it had no eyes.

Every instinct I had screamed at me to move., to start the car and floor it, but my hands would not work. My whole body was frozen. The creature took a step closer. It moved like a puppet on broken strings.

The shadows around it twisted and writhed. They reached for my car door.

A scream tore from my throat, and finally I managed to move. I twisted the key and jammed it into the ignition.  It did not start.

"Come on," I said through clenched teeth. "Come on." The creature was at my car window now, it's long limb against my glass, it's aura malevolent. It smashed against the glass again and again. Even though there were no cracks, I could see wisps of its darkness leak into the car.

Ice spread across the surface and I couldn't see the parking lot beyond the windows. The cold was so intense it hurt to breathe.

The engine finally roared to life.

The creature's limb punched through my window.

Glass exploded inward. I threw my arms up to protect my face. Its limbs wrapped themselves around my arms and I screamed because it was both scalding hot and icy cold to the touch at the same time. My bones were freezing from the inside out.

Fire erupted across the parking lot.

A wall of flame burst between me and the creature. The thing shrieked. It was the worst sound I'd ever heard, like metal scraping against metal mixed with an animal dying. The ice grip on my wrist released. I yanked my arm back and saw frost burns spreading across my skin.

The fire grew hotter and brighter. I watched with my jaw dropped as it formed a circle around the creature, trapping it while it writhed mercilessly against it trying to set itself free.

A man walked through the flames like they were nothing.

He was maybe forty years old. He wore a leather jacket and jeans. His dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. But the craziest part was his hands. They were literally on fire. His hands were spitting fire from his outstretched palms, and for a moment, I forgot the intensity of the burns on my arms and watched mesmerized as he raised both hands toward the creature. The fire intensified. The creature tried to escape, but the flames consumed it. The thing shrieked again and then it just dissolved. It turned into black smoke, that the fire burned away until there was nothing left.

The man lowered his hands and between a blink, the fire vanished. It was just gone, like it was never there.

The parking lot was silent except for my ragged breathing.

The man walked toward my car. I scrambled in my seat. I was even more terrified of him than the mystery smoke. Fear made me freeze at my spot. I should have slammed my foot on the gas and never looked back. But I could not move.

He stopped a few feet from my broken window.

"Rune Weaver," he said. His voice sounded rough and tired.

"How do you know my name?" I choked out, my heart thomping in my chest.

He looked at my frost-burned wrist, then at the shattered glass scattered across my lap, before his eyes focused on me.

"You are an Etherwind descendant," he said, his eyes burning like the flames he welded on his palms a few moments earlier. "And the darkness that killed your ancestors has returned."