Strands of Darkness 4,5 and 6.

4. – The Detective

They were in a small room, sitting opposite one another, nondescript table between them. Slight wisps of smoke trailed upward from his fingertips. He couldn’t stop staring at her; she was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. Unusually tall (although you couldn’t tell when she was sitting), with long white -blonde locks of hair framing the most intense silver eyes he’d ever seen, she was nothing if not mesmerizing. She wore a simple, strap free white dress that left her lovely cream shoulders bare.

A massive white spear was propped up against the wall behind her.

He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again. Instead he puffed heavily on his cigarette.

‘That’ll kill you one day,’ she said. Her voice was rich, deep, smooth. It rolled over him in waves.

‘Plenty of other things will do that, too. 'Least this way I’ve got a say in the matter.’ His voice, rough and grating, jarred in the aftermath of hers. It was an odd moment for the aging detective, when he wished briefly for a nicer voice.

She smiled.

‘So, where exactly are we?’ he asked. It was fairly obvious they were in an interrogation room, it was the location of this room and the matter of how he’d gotten there that concerned him. It was also a question that had been answered before, at the very beginning of this extremely odd dream. He had discounted it then, but now thought better of it. This was merely a fantasy after all; it might be interesting to see where this went.

‘This room is a construction of your mind,’ she said. ‘A reflexive defense against my intrusion into your subconscious.’

‘I see.’

So she was a nutcase then. It was always best to roll with their madness, he found, it made them less agitated. Given the nature of the weapon behind her, agitating her was the last thing on his mind.

He shifted in his chair. ‘And what are we doing here? What caused your ‘intrusion’ as you put it? I was having a nice dream about the simple life awaiting me after retirement.’

‘You don’t dream, Detective.’

He frowned, irritated. Dreams really shouldn’t be so self-aware, he thought.

‘And we haven’t the time for verbal sparring,’ she finished, ‘so let’s get straight to the point; you’re about to die.’

He stared at her. No witty response, wry observation or cutting remark came to mind. After forty years in the business, that was most depressing. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he said. His shoulders slumped, cigarette fizzling out in neglect. She said it with such certainty, such conviction, that he couldn't find fault with it. There was so much more he wanted to do, so many things he wanted to see...

‘No one does,’ she said softly.

They remained like that for a moment; him, slumped in a room of shadows opposite a goddess in white, who stared resolutely into the distance.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked.

He didn’t know when this had stopped being a silly fantasy, only that it seemed a certainty now. This was real. In his wildest of imaginings he could never have constructed a woman so perfect, so rigid and strong. His mind shied away from actually identifying what was occurring. He dealt with the mundane, the ordinary… not this.

‘You can stop working on the missing-persons case.’

He stiffened in shock. A thousand thoughts ran through his head then, oddly though, he was disappointed, as if for one moment he’d gloried in the knowledge and experience of magic. But it was all a lie.

‘Is that all this is then?’ he shouted. ‘A goddamn scare tactic? Well it won’t work, those people need me-’

‘Those people are dead and so are you if this continues,’ she said bluntly. ‘Its bringing you unwanted attention; you have a part to play yet, detective.’

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Leave the case? In forty years he had achieved the highest success record in department history, and yet… he had to admit that he was close to despairing with this last one. Several people of varying ages, races, religious and political stances had vanished with no common link between them. There were no clues, no evidence, no cause; it was all too clean. Several newspapers had actually hypothesized alien abduction.

He rubbed his temples. And now there was this. A part of him wanted to yell and scream and punch things, while the other was simply too tired. You’re in way over your head, old boy. This was more suited to the up and coming hotshots, he thought wearily.

‘And what’s your part in all this, then?’

‘I hunt the hunters.’

‘Oh really? I hadn’t noticed, what with the seven dead people and all.’

A flicker of annoyance crossed her face. ‘I am doing my best, but the scales are tipped in their favour. As for the dead; they have fulfilled their destiny and that of this world.’

He felt a spasm of anger tear through him, and for a moment he struggled to restrain it. ‘And you can’t help me?’

She shook her head. ‘I remain too far a field to affect matters directly yet; all you need do is lie low—make no mistake, there are forces far more powerful then you and I at play, both supernatural and human. You cannot win this battle!’ She was standing now, arms resting on the table as she stared fiercely at him.

‘Let me show you their power,’ she hissed.

Before he could react, the room shifted and pulsed, suddenly he was gulping in terror as a frightening old man slit his throat. He watched helpless as he was dragged to the back of a room and wailed silently as his eyelids were cut away; skin and bone cut apart and harvested in some obscene ritual. He listened in rapt fascination to a haunting melody that ripped through flesh, bone and spirit and numbly succumbed to a ravenous painting.

They are coming for you.

Just as the vision was about to shift again, he screamed. ‘Stop!’

He was shivering. Sweat coursed down his body over trembling lips and muscles.

‘This is what we face, and the world remains unsuspecting.’ There was a mountain of grief in those silver eyes, a piercing eloquence that went beyond words.

‘What do they want?’ he whispered hoarsely.

‘The Apocalypse; they prepare the way to the End of Days.’

And with that, she vanished.

**

Detective Aaron Gibson woke. The first thing he noticed was the cold; he’d left a window opening and the freezing winter air was blowing in. The second thing he noticed was the shadowed figure rearing over his bed.

For the first time in his life, Aaron screamed.

**

5 and 6 to come soon.