Stain of Midnight by Cassandra Moore

Author:Cassandra Moore [Moore, Cassandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-13T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Phantoms of perception drifted through the blackness that dragged Cameron’s mind into the unconscious abyss. Shouts, angry first, then concerned. Heat that warmed his skin but could not touch the deeper cold that lurked in his spirit. Familiar male and female voices that murmured below the threshold of what he could understand. Strong hands under his shoulders and around his ankles as they lifted him. He struggled weakly against the grips, but a voice he knew said, “Cam, take it easy.” He stopped fighting, and unconsciousness returned.

In the dead of the night, the dream crept in. It started with a soft, rhythmic tattoo of sound in the back of his mind. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. An unknown heartbeat, one not his own. The darkness around him throbbed, contracted and released with grotesque motions. A rush of rivers joined the sound, a higher accompaniment over a bass beat.

Darkness stretched out in every direction. Not shadows, but a claustrophobic absence of light. From out of it came the voice. Feminine. Melodious with its Latin accent coloring the words in a way his very American experiences found exotic. “Have you ever seen such darkness before? A darkness so profound, it claims all you are?”

He had no awareness of himself, past the experience of dreaming. No sense of a body. No sense of self. No ability to spin around in search of the speaker. He was lost, floating without anchor, silent, disembodied, alone but for the voice of Teresa Espina.

“Did you know before now what it is like to lose yourself? To lose who you are, to lose all you have known? To have the very essence of yourself taken away?” Cool curiosity chilled her words.

He had no voice to answer. No breath. Just the heartbeat, not his own, and her voice to give form to the void.

“What would you give to regain yourself? Everything?” Laughter then, harsh with bitterness. “But you have lost yourself! You have nothing to give as sacrifice. So then, tell me, how far would you go? What would you conquer, what would you take? Are there any lengths you would not go to, in order to regain yourself?”

Even had he possessed a voice, he would not have used it. He had no answers, only the questions she had asked.

“You have no idea what you are.” Her words cut with a keen edge. “You never have. Everything you hold in your hands wastes away. But I know. I know what you are. Let me show you. Allow me to give you back yourself, your true self, and there will be no more unnecessary bloodshed.”

Bloodshed. That he remembered. Blood spattered over a broken corpse. Blood welling from the chest of a friend. He could not recall the face of the corpse, the identity of the friend, but Cameron remembered the depthless loss left in the wake of death. The dread potential of another friend gone. All he had to do to avoid it, to save his friends, was surrender.

No.

He remembered loyalty. With it came defiance.

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