Dark Time

  Note from the Author…

  Hello Zoë Readers!

  I am excited to be back on track in the Zoë Universe once again. Not only with Zoë, but with two new series running concurrent with Zoë's storyline.

  Dags McConnell is back with a new series of his own. The first two books are available in electronic and print formats. Dance By Midnight and Minutes To Midnight. These books take place after Dominion and Chimera.

  The new character being added to the Zoë Universe is Samantha Hawthorne. A witch and child of the God Mother. Her debut is told in the novella, The Eldritch Files: Chimera. Chronologically this novella takes place between Dominion and Dance By Midnight. Her first full length novel, The Eldritch Files: Mysterious Times, will be available in October, before the release of Seraphim.

  I hope you enjoy Dark Time, and be looking for 2 more novellas before Seraphim.

  1

  "What are you doing?"

  I didn't want to answer him. I also didn't want him to see me like this. I didn't want anyone to see me…like this.

  But…he wasn't going to leave me alone. In fact, the bastard had shown up everywhere, all over the world. But no matter how many times we ignored him, or abandoned him, he kept coming back.

  Ignoring us or abandoning us wasn't TC's way.

  And, true to form, the well-dressed Phantasm knelt beside the body I was currently feeding on. Didn't matter how harrowed, horrible, or downright nasty I looked as I fed from the neck of a dying man…TC didn't draw away. He didn't…he wouldn't…leave me.

  He gently placed his hand on mine, the one clutching the patient's shoulder. I felt the touch, though from a distance. I wasn't in control of my body. In fact…I couldn't remember the last time I'd been in charge of it.

  Inanna held the reigns. She was the First Born that kept Daniel sane, because I drove him insane. But now she was bonded to me.

  Daniel was dead now.

  And Dags…

  "Don't interfere, Azrael," Inanna said with her voice, and mine. I did notice the tone was punctuated with juicy, slurping noises. Inanna had been a neat and fussy eater once. But not lately. "She's given up. I must drink in order to maintain control."

  "You mean to maintain your hold." TC's melodic timber had changed since I last heard it. He sounded…patient. And that was not a word I associated with the old bastard. Well not really old. I honestly had no idea how old he was. Or how old Inanna was. Though on those rare occasions after she'd fed and she let her guard down, it was possible to look into her.

  I did it.

  Once.

  And I wasn't doing it again.

  "Go. Away." Inanna's anger shifted inside. I got out of the way. If he really wanted to make her mad and face the Wraith ala First Born—fine by me. I just didn't give a shit anymore.

  "No. If you want to fight me, Inanna, you'll have to bring out Zoë's Abysmic essence to do it. But…" he shrugged. "I'm pretty sure you don't have that kind of control right now."

  Inanna paused in her meal and turned my head to look at him. I felt blood sliding down my chin. "What do you want?"

  "What I've been wanting for two months. I want to talk to Zoë."

  "No."

  "Why not? Are you afraid if I do speak to her she'll want her body back? That she'll want control again? You like having control, don't you Inanna?" He leaned in close. "You enjoy pulling the strings."

  She lashed out at him, my hand shifting to the old ashen skinned, clawed standby I'd grown to hate. The Wraith part of me. The Abysmal tainted side.

  TC disappeared. He'd done that slight of hand every time he goaded Inanna. How many times was it now? How many places? He'd shown up the first time we went to see that guard—the one I'd torn the arm off. Guilt, combined with the sting of rejection, had guided me to him. Inanna insisted it was impossible for me to give him back his arm. I couldn't regrow flesh. But I knew I could manipulate flesh. Though…I seriously didn't know how I'd known it.

  I'd worked on instinct, along with the need, no the desire, to pull from me the most broken, abused part of myself.

  My heart.

  And when I was done, the man had a new arm.

  And I…was a little less broken.

  Only a little.

  "If you're going to fuck with me, then stand still so I can kill you." Inanna's voice growled inside of my own. She was up off the patient now, and looking around the hospital room. "Leave me alone, brother!"

  "You know I can't do that." TC reappeared behind her and grabbed her left arm and twisted up behind her back. My back. It hurt. I could feel it. But I didn't…

  It just wasn't my problem anymore. You know?

  Inanna struggled but she had one glaring weakness her brother didn't. He was still a First Born. And she…was now a Revenant. A conjoined creature consisting of a powerful spirit and manipulated flesh.

  And me.

  Just…me.

  TC was stronger. Hell, he was joined to the Abysmal Throne. He was the Phantasm. "I want to talk to Zoë. It's important."

  "No…"

  "It's about Joe."

  "No—"

  Joe? Halloran? I hated to admit that I hadn't kept up with Joe. I hadn't talked to mom. I hadn't kept up with anyone.

  Inanna fought him physically but I didn't care. My curiosity was still there. You know that thing of mine that got me into all this bullshit in the first place back in that office in Atlanta? The first night I saw the other Phantasm kill William Tanaka in cold blood and then…eat him?

  Yeah, we're all part of the same dysfunctional family.

  With a sigh I slipped out. It was easy enough—I used to do it all the time. That was back when I had to go out of body (OOB) to see the Astral plane and become a Wraith. Or the Wraith.

  I seriously didn't know if there were anymore like me.

  Usually when my astral self slipped her mortal coil, I looked pretty grisly. Ashen skin, claws, evil black bunny slippers, wings, and Doc Oc hair. But not this time. I noticed this time…

  I looked like me. The swirl of ash that usually covered my skin in all the right places, making my appearance totally PG to fourteen year old boys, became swirls of white mist. It looked like angel hair. Well, like that stuff my mom used to use in crafts. That white, spun glass stuff she told me not to touch because it would get into my skin and make me itch. I never did go back and check to see if it really was spun glass, or she was just josh'n me so I'd keep my sticky fingers out of her stuff.

  Now my hair looked like that and I wondered if it would make me itchy.

  TC noticed me as well, and eased the now sleeping me, the part Inanna inhabited, to the floor. It was quite a contrast. Her me in darks and me me in…

  Damn…I looked like the toping to a Dragon Con wedding cake!

  "That's…new…" TC said as he did a slow walk around me. He wasn't leering like he usually did. He looked…surprised and concerned. "I mean you OOBing and Inanna fainting…and you looking like vanilla meringue."

  I think I liked the leering better. "Screw you. And yeah…it's like…right now new. This is the first time I've tried to OOB since I…" I had to stop and think.

  "Since you remade that man's arm."

  I looked at him. "You know that was me?"

  "Everyone does. Your mom had it biopsied, Luv. Your DNA is all over it. In fact, before she left, Dr. Mulhally identified the flesh as being from your heart."

  "Left? The doc left?"

  "More like…vanished."

  I didn't know what to say. Lucy Mulhally had been vital to the Society of Ishmael's medical facility. She was their expert in all things Abysmal and Ethereal and how it affected humans. Like me. And Dags.

  Damn him.

  "Where…how did she vanish?"

  "How does a
nyone vanish?" He smirked and looked more like my TC. My Trench Coat. "Nona suspects it was against her will, from the condition of her apartment. But the Society's best psychics haven't come up with a clear vision of what happened. They're looking for her."

  Oh. That's good.

  I opened my mouth then closed it. Then, "You said you needed to talk to me about Joe."

  "Yes. He's vanished too."

  Joe? I took a step closer toward him and for the first time felt slightly…repelled. It wasn't like a smell or a feeling, but more like a slight pressure. The only thing I could compare it to was when I was kid and moved magnets around and sometimes they pushed each other away and sometimes they attracted. This was the pushing away feeling.

  From the look on his face, I knew he'd sensed it as well. "What was that?"

  TC's brows rose on his forehead. "It's the polar repulsion between the Abysmal and the Ethereal. Apparently in that form…" he pointed at me. "You're more Ethereal."

  "I am not Ethereal!" I was not happy about that. I hated the Ethereal Plane and all the jackasses in it.

  I used to hate my father because he was Ethereal…and because he'd done a whole bunch of mean things to me. But now…now he just confused the hell out of me. I couldn't remember when it was I talked to him.

  "Zoë? What's wrong?"

  "I don't know. I'm just forgetting things."

  "Because you've been trying to forget, haven't you? That's why you gave up and let Inanna have her way."

  "Her way?" I laughed. "What's that? I don't know what her way is. I just know…" My heart raced in my chest. For the first time in an astral state, I could feel my heart as it pounded. I could feel the air from the room's air conditioner as it touched my face and moved my hair from my cheek. I was…corporeal…outside of my body.

  He was suddenly beside me, his arms around me. And he was warm.

  Oh my God…he was warm! And he smelled right as well as wrong. He was familiar to me. The touch of an old lover, forever a part of me. I buried my face into his chest as his arms enfolded me. My Vin Diesel.

  My Trench Coat.

  "What happened, Zoë. Tell me what happened. Why did you just leave like that? Don't you know what you've put your mother through?"

  His voice vibrated in his chest against my cheek and I sobbed. Oh damn did I sob. And I knew if I didn't say something fast, the last few days, weeks, or how ever long I'd abandoned life would come crashing down into one hell of an ugly cry. "He…he told me hated me, TC. He told me I was a monster and that he couldn't deal with a monster. That…he never wanted to see me again."

  TC didn't say anything. He didn't have too. I could feel him tense against me. "Then he's best forgotten. For now. I need you to help me find Joe."

  "I'm alone…" I was blubbering against him. Whatever planar bullshit had worked to repel me before was gone and I was doing my full on pity party into his nice expensive suit.

  "No you're not alone. You will always have me. You have Nona. And you will have Joe—but we need to find him."

  I pulled away from him and looked up into his eyes. They were white once…like the eyes of the dead. But now they were almost human looking. "Wh-wha about…J-J-Jason?" Man I hated those kinds of cries that took my breath away.

  The look in his eyes frightened me and I knew in that instance—it wasn't just Joe's disappearance that had kept him hammering on Inanna and I.

  There was something worse.

  Much worse.

  2

  Joe's apartment not only looked abandoned, it felt abandoned. It was empty. Devoid of him. Not even his scent lingered.

  "He disappeared not long after you did." TC stepped inside and shut the door behind me. "He looked for you. Didn't want to believe that you'd…somehow dug out your own heart and given it to some yahoo with a gun."

  I heard him, but I wasn't really listening. It felt odd to be back in my own skin. Inanna was quiet, a part of the background noise once again. She didn't like it. Her irritation clung to my skin like a wool sweater in 100º humidity. I was thinner—if that was even possible. I'm a tall girl, with legs up to my ass…as Daniel used to say.

  Sometimes when I thought of him, something stirred deep inside, as if waking for just a second, and then slipping back into a deep slumber. He was there…but he wasn't there. He wasn't in front of me, showing up when I least expected him with that goofy grin and shaggy hair.

  And his glasses.

  I missed his blue eyes and his glasses.

  Joe's apartment was just below my own. I'd moved into the same building after leaving mom's and losing my condo. The same layout was convenient, and I'd been in his place enough times that I knew where things were. A thin layer of dust covered the kitchen counter, the high-backed stools, even the rotting fruit in the green bowl I'd given him as a present.

  The trash had disintegrated beyond smell and into a pile of unidentifiable organic goo. As had most of what remained of the leftovers in his refrigerator, though I could identify what had once been a bowl of grapes. The milk was now cheese. Used K-cups littered the counter, also covered in sticky dust. I moved to his living room as my gaze roamed over the furniture. A half-empty beer rested on the coffee table.

  All of it aged and preserved. "How long?"

  "Two months now."

  I whirled on him. TC leaned against the counter. "Two—how long have I been gone?"

  "Two months. Well, we're moving into March. Joe vanished about a week after you did. But Nona didn't notice he was gone until Mastiff called. Joe didn't come to work and he didn't call. He wasn't responding to email either. When they got here…" he held out his hands. "The Society's been keeping the power on."

  "He…didn't pack a suitcase? No overnight bag?"

  TC shook his head.

  I was not liking the sound of this. I also didn't like all the different scenarios running through my head. "Where's Rhonda? Anyone kept tabs on her?"

  "You'd have to ask Nona. I haven't bothered with her." TC moved from the counter to the windows along the far wall. He pulled the curtains to reveal a rainy, darkening Atlanta skyline. "But I don't think the former witch is part of this mystery. She doesn't have any power left. Remember? You took it."

  "Yeah I know but…" But what? What was I going to say? That I wasn't all that confident? That I'd checked that particular emotion at the door on my way out of my life?

  I ran a hand through my unruly hair. It felt like Inanna hadn't bothered to brush it or wash it in… two months? When I looked down at myself I realized—I looked like something out of a slasher flick.

  My jeans and shirt were stiff with dried blood. Brown. Hard. Nasty. Even my hands had brown stains on them. I wondered what my face looked like and half ran to Joe's bathroom. There it was even more evident Joe hadn't planned on a trip. His toothbrush, tooth paste, brush, shaving kit were all still on the sink. And when I turned on the light—

  "What the hell?!"

  TC appeared at my side and smiled at our joined reflection in the mirror. "What is it? You look lovely."

  "I look like a B-movie vampire. Christ—do your people not bathe? Or use soap?" I grabbed a towel, the dusty bar of soap and started washing the stains off of my chin, nose, cheeks and neck. When I was done my skin was red and raw—but at least I didn't look like I'd been eating brains.

  I grabbed a hairband I'd left in Joe's bathroom on my last visit—I was touched he kept it—and pulled my hair back. It needed a wash and cream rinse but I didn't have the patience for it. TC was back in the kitchen when I emerged and…

  There was something else.

  An old smell.

  Like…cologne.

  Something I'd smelled before. It was spicy. Musky. And it brought back memories. Older memories. Of being young and jumping into the arms of an old man—

  I narrowed my eyes as I tried to see the memory. White hair and beard. White suit.

  White—

  The door burst open and roughly six guys in black fatigues with ma
sks and really big guns burst in. "FREEZE!"

  Before I could react—react being defined as OOBing out of there or vanishing completely—TC jumped in front of me and put himself between me and the armed soldiers of fortune. Or whoever they were. "Stop! There's no need for this!"

  I heard something in TC's voice I hadn't heard in a long time. No wait…had I ever heard it? It was panic. He was afraid of something. And he apparently knew these gentlemen. I assumed they were the police coming to check the apartment because we tripped a silent alarm. After all, Joe was a cop. But a closer inspection of these guys showed no local badges or patches, not even an Atlanta Police Department pin.

  And no big white letters announcing POLICE or CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATORS.

  Or WRITER.

  No…these guys were privately owned. And here on someone else's orders.

  "Get out of the way, demon." The voice was mechanical, kinda like something out of a voice box. I didn't know which one of the masked men or women said this because there weren't any flashing lights or anything. "We have our orders."

  "Whose orders?"

  "Ms. Stephens."

  I'd finally had it. "Who is this Ms. Stephens? I mean seriously? You guys are obviously Society. Is Jefferson with you?"

  "No ma'am. He's on extended leave, no thanks to you." The venom in this guy's voice came through the voicebox. He hated me. And he wanted to shoot me.

  "But I fixed him."

  "You mutilated him." I spotted him because he leveled his weapon at me. That's when I realized these weren't ordinary weapons, these were those L-6 nightmare guns Randall Kemp invented. The kind that scrambled creatures like me. No wonder TC was standing between us.

  "That…was an accident. And I tried to make it right."

  "You're the one that's not right," another voice chimed in. All of them had their weapons trained on me. I could see a dozen or so little red dots on my chest.

  On my blood stained shirt chest. Oh great. They already didn't like me and I looked like an ax murderer or serial killer. "Okay fine. Fine. But who is Ms. Stephens?"

  TC glanced back at me. "Zoë—you know about Ms. Stephens. Vanessa Stephens. Robert Stephens's wife?"