Pact

Staring down, Nate twisted at my feet, I saw a lifetime of promises – to protect each other, fight hard, be real brothers, blood be damned. Mine was.

“If he’s dead, so are you.”

“He cannot know your secret. Your power wants out. You must learn.”

“From you? Not happening.”

My father produced a book, covered in familiar symbols. “I will show you.”

“I can read.” My nails dug half-moon cuts in my palms, a trickle of crimson dripping to land on Nate’s ginger-touched hair. “Blood of my blood.”

I calmly watched my father choke to death on what we shared.

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Next

Choices

by Colleen M. Foley


“Even monsters have protégés, boy. Sometimes, they even look human. We kill them, too.” That’s what Jim used to tell me.

“Don’t!” I glared up at Seth as he placed his hand gently on my head. It was a formal gesture. A decision made.

The hot rock of pain in my gut eased, and I stopped spewing blood onto the feet of the thing that looked so human.

I reached for my gun again, raised it slowly, deciding. God help me, he looks human.

I pointed the gun at my brother.

The thing chuckled softly, and then everything went black.

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Next

Cornered

“Seth Boudreaux.” The words were formal, weighted.

Compulsion failed. “That’s not my name, True or otherwise.”

“Clever. Your mother was my finest protégé.”

“She’s dead.” I didn’t admit culpability.

The thing flicked its fingers and ripped open Nate’s chest. “I could pluck his heart like a cherry pit.”

I slapped my hand over the wound, healing it.

“Don’t DO that!” Nate rocked back, pulled his gun, and shot the monster.

I might have been next, but the thing rose. “You will listen, boy, or you will mourn.”

Nate fell, vomiting blood. “Don’t,” he rasped.

But he knew I had to.

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Next

Remembrance

Same dream, every time. His mother in priestess whites walked down the alley, chanting simple protections, building toward something grander, stepping into the circle he’d chalked under her guidance.  His first ritual started well.

In moments, evil things would come, rend the white gown red, leave her empty-eyed and soulless, no hint of his mother remaining in the still form. They’d leave him be.

He called them bandersnatches, because in all his years hunting monsters, he’d never figured out what they were. So he let the dream play, not controlling it, searching for the knowledge that would permit his vengeance.

Cross-Step

At a quaint little pension in the south of France

the prince of midnight came to dance.

Thin and tall, with eyes pure black,

he waltzed the fine young ladies back

into a room with curtains drawn

bewitching them with siren song

of money and status, fame and prestige.

Not a one of them noticed, down on their knees,

the sickly sweet smell that clung to his skin

or the roiling darkness he stirred within,

nor tell-tale plop from the slow drip of blood

that came from the ceiling, tacky above

with the corpses of those 

he would take below.

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Written for the Friday Prediction challenge found here.  I encourage joining the fray or just reading the lovely, dark offerings. At 100 words each, they're like candy. Scary candy.

Early On

by Colleen M. Foley


“There’s no pension, you know," Nate said as Seth, so much younger than he, stared up at him defiantly.

“No one believes you, even when the thing you just saved them from is bleeding onto their nice carpet. These things will bewitch you, curse you… kill you. This life is hard, Seth. It hurts, and it never ends, until you do.”

Seth stood, the hatchet he’d grabbed in terror held loosely at his side, its handle tacky with drying blood.

“I’m in, Nate.”

They looked at the thing on the floor.

“You’re right, though. It really was a nice carpet.”