Swallowing Darkness   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Blood leaked black in the moonlight, but it wasn't enough blood. I needed more, so much more. For the first time I felt no dread of my power, no pain at the call of it, just a fierceness that was almost joy. That fierceness poured over my skin in a wash of heat. It hit my left hand and poured out my palm.

Dawson yelled next to my ear. "What are you doing?"

I had no time to explain. I said, "The hand of blood." I pointed that hand, palm out, toward our enemies. I should have worried that I would hit Doyle, but in that moment I knew, simply knew, that I could do it. I could control it. It was mine, this power, it was me.

Blood fountained in black sheets from their wounds. They screamed, then Cel raised his hand. I knew what he meant to do. Without thinking, I stepped out from between my men, my soldiers, my people. Dawson grabbed for me to pull me back behind the shield of their bodies, but then Cel's hand of old blood hit us all, and Dawson's hand fell away. There were yells behind me, but I had no time to look.

I screamed "Mine!" There was pain. I could feel the nails in my arm and shoulder again; the knife wound I'd taken in a duel; claw marks in one arm and thigh from an old attack. It hurt, and I bled for him, but he could only make the wound as bad as it had been, and I had never had a blood injury that was near fatal.

"What did you do?" Dawson asked. "One minute we were bleeding, now we're not."

I had no space in my concentration to explain. Cel's hand might not kill us, but there were others at his side who could. It was a race now to see if I could bleed them to death faster than they could recover themselves.

I screamed, "Bleed for me!"

Blood geysered from them, and I could feel their flesh tearing under my power, their wounds like a doorway that my power could rip apart. The blood arched, black and shining liquid. The sound of it was like rain on the grass and trees around them.

The brilliant armor in all its rainbow colors began to turn black with blood and gore. They were screaming now, but what they screamed was "Mercy!" They called for mercy, but as I watched Doyle lay motionless at their feet, covered in black blood, I discovered that I had no mercy to give them.

I had never meant them to die for me. The thought came, "What did you think would happen if you sent soldiers against the Unseelie?" But even Cel wasn't supposed to be mad enough to fight the United States Army. I hadn't foreseen this, hadn't dreamed that he would be so out of control. But my lack of foresight didn't matter.