Shadows Darker than the Night

Chapter 2

NOAH

Noah's bed in the tiny cottage creaked when he sat up. And then the third floorboard to the left of the wall when he accidentally stepped on it. Damn that floorboard. He'd been trying to be quiet. He snuck a sideways glance at Rhys in the other bed. His friend continued snoring absurdly loudly.

Noah breathed a hushed sigh of relief. He didn't want Rhys's vulgar jokes today. Noah knew that Rhys's snide, dirty sense of humour was his way of coping, but Noah wasn't in the mood to fake a laugh.

He crept silently to the kitchen, tiptoeing over the creakiest floorboards. When he reached their small kitchen, Noah grabbed a piece of a loaf of bread. He'd bought it from a street vendor the previous day for three copper coins. It didn't taste anything like the fresh white bread his mother used to bake every morning, but it was all the two boys could afford.

Swinging the wooden door open and closing it with a quiet click, Noah strode out into the long grasses and wildflowers that populated the southern tip of Patria. It was safest here these days, because the demons and their horrifying monsters had mostly wiped out the population, and the more dangerous ones had moved on to the north. Rhys and his father had been some of the first people to face the Darkness in Patria; having lived down at the southern tip. When he'd first arrived at the Lynch cottage, Noah had mistakenly asked Rhys why they lived all alone in the middle of nowhere. Noah had joked, was it the smell? Had it driven all of their neighbours away? Rhys had practically bared his teeth at him and snarled that the only thing that had driven their neighbours away was that they were all dead. Noah'd shut up.

Miraculously, Jack and Rhys Lynch had survived. Well, Noah reminded himself, it was not a miracle. It was a combination of hard training and Jack Lynch's firm belief that if you really wanted something, really, truly wanted it, that it could be achieved.

Noah chuckled fondly at Jack's memory. He missed him. Though surely not as much as Rhys missed him. Perhaps Noah was being unfair, running out to his parents' grave early in the morning without talking to Rhys. Rhys knew what the loss of a parent was like. Although, Noah supposed, most everyone did these days. It was too late to turn back for Rhys now. Noah was nearly there.

Ripping off the bread in small chunks and popping them into his mouth, Noah carefully made his way across the meadow, the grasses tickling his calves. However, as peaceful as it seemed, he kept his gaze set on the horizon and fingered the hilt of his iron knife every once in a while. He couldn't afford to be caught off guard. The sun had just risen. Hellhounds could still be lurking in the shadows of the deciduous trees that lined the grassy meadow.

Finally, Noah reached the two small crosses embedded in the ground next to each other in the middle of the meadow. He sat down six feet away from them, legs crossed like a small child.

The day was four years ago. Although he'd been sixteen, and far too old to sleep in his parents' bed, Noah's mother had begged.

"Don't think of it as me protecting you," she'd smiled sadly. "Think of it as you protecting me."

If that had been his job, Noah had failed sorely. He'd awoken soaked with blood-his mother's-and seen his father hovering over the both of them with the knife he kept under his pillow when he slept. He'd been smiling maniacally, Noah remembered, and his eyes, even the white parts, had been black as night.

Noah gave a shuddering gasp to contain his tears, then stood up. He walked to the rose bush near a tree grove and plucked a few, pricking his fingers on the thorns. Gathering them into a small bundle, Noah placed them next to his mother's cross.

He couldn't bring himself to put anything near his father's, even though Jack and Rhys had explained to him plenty of times that his father hadn't murdered his mother, it had been a demon, wearing his father's skin.