Available Darkness Season 1

sticky fingers covered in red.
    Abi!
    He craned his neck to look around; the car was gone. The bastards who pulled him over were in a cop car, but when they got out of the car, he recognized their black uniforms from the raid at the motel. They’d gotten Abi; now they’d be going for John.
    He’d let John and Abi down. Again.
    “Fuck, I don’t wanna die like this.”
    He rolled to his side and added more blood to the mud.
    He thought of the duffel bags he’d loaded in the car, some which had emergency medical supplies. Always prepared, was his motto, but now he was stuck on the side of the road with a leak in his belly and a well fuck me! for a plan.
    He felt in his pants pockets, praying the cell phone was there. It wasn’t.
    Fuck.
    He remembered the spell John had taught him just weeks ago — a healing spell. He wasn’t sure how powerful it was. John said it was good for “minor injuries.”
    This one doesn’t seem too minor.
    Larry closed his eyes, trying to recall the words. The spells were in the Otherworld’s magicians’ language — something he’d taken considerable efforts to learn. Now, that he actually needed the spell, his mind was drawing a blank.
    Come on!
    His head swam. Maybe it would be easier to just go to sleep…
    No, you fat fucker, you fight this!
    He reached deep into his mind, remembering the night John had said the words. He could almost hear John in his memory, saying the words.
    Larry coughed again, another thick glob in the stew.
    Then the words came. Four sentences, chanted four times.
    He began speaking the words, but by the time he got to the third line, he was chewing on a barbed wire cough. His ribs felt as if they’d been pierced by iron spikes. More blood gushed from his mouth, his mouth filling with a copper taste. He closed his eyes, laying his head sideways on the ground, waiting for the coughing fit to stop.
    He started again. No interruptions, or the magick wouldn’t work. He barreled through the sentences, once, twice, and a third time before he felt the wheezing sensation building. He spoke through it, muscling through the cough, continued until every word had hit the cold night air.
    Nothing happened.
    Larry coughed again, more blood. He wanted to cry.
    Then he felt it.
    His hands started to vibrate, crackling with energy. He craned his neck to look at his palms, bathed in glowing green light. He reached up, running his hands over his gut, as a cold fire spread throughout his body, like someone holding ice over his wounds.
    Something fluttered under his skin. He coughed again, repeatedly, as his guts retched forth what appeared to be damaged tissue. He stared at the asphalt covered with his insides and noticed two dark objects swimming in the warm mess of his guts — bullets.
    The coughing subsided, replaced with a sudden tundra in his throat.
    Then the glow was gone.
    So was the pain, and the cold.
    Larry reached down to feel his stomach, where the holes had been, and found nothing but an incredibly smooth, and rather impressive belly.
    He laughed in the darkness, hopped to his feet, then started running in search of the nearest phone he could find.
    As he ran, he wondered why he had not thought to try the healing spell on Abi. He wondered, with some amount of shame, if some part of him wanted her out of the way so John wouldn’t be compromised. If that were the case, he couldn’t admit it to himself. It was one thing to kill Adam, but another altogether to allow an innocent child to die.
    Whatever the case, he couldn’t let his guilt distract him. He needed to get back to John and find Abi — to prove himself and earn back John’s trust.
    He also had to atone for another sin, one which nobody else had seemed to notice. But he had.
    Given Abi’s wounds and that she’d been thrown back by the gunshot in the motel parking lot, the bullet which hit her had to have come from his gun. Yes, it was accidental, but that didn’t make him feel any less like shit.

    **

    John

    15 minutes later…

    “You sure you wanna do this?” Tiny asked.
    “Are you?” John said.
    “Hell yeah!”
    John liked his gusto, even if they were walking into a suicide mission.
    “Remember,” John said, “nobody moves until I say so.”
    “Got it,” Tiny said.
    John met Tiny’s eyes, “Thank you, Tiny. I owe you.”
    John got out of the van and began walking toward the compound.

    **

    Larry

    Larry raced into the gas station, the first place he’d found on the road,