Available Darkness Season 1

John out, he needed his brother’s cooperation. And killing his lover then would’ve only complicated matters.
    He’d found John after all these years of the man being nearly invisible. He was closer than ever to his goals. So he had to be cautious in whatever he did next.
    Ever since John’s escape from the hospital where the Guardians held him and tried to train him as one of their soldiers, he’d stayed off the grid, almost entirely. If he’d been feeding, he’d been as discreet as Jacob in his hunts.
    But Jacob suspected something else was at work, given that John was walking in daylight, without the aid of his own version of Mr. Dark no less. Jacob had to assume he’d found someone to reverse the curse which plagued their kind.
    Such fixes weren’t permanent—not that he knew of, anyway.
    The only reason Jacob had even found John after so many years, was that John had made the mistake of looking for a death stone from within the network of Otherworlders who trafficked information, magick, and artifacts in a black market so underground, few knew of its existence. The stone’s only use was to kill feeders, and few Otherworlders were brave enough to attempt such a feat. John was a blip on Jacob’s radar 10 minutes after his query.
    Jacob wondered who John planned to kill. It wasn’t as if there were that many feeders out there. He wondered if John had upset one, or, perhaps John had located Jacob, and decided to come after him.
    How ironic it would be if his attempts to kill me led to me finding him.
    If John flew under the radar, Caleb was off of it completely, leaving just one explanation for his complete disappearance. Caleb must have been so thoroughly wiped that he had no idea who he even was. Considering the Guardians’ resources, that wouldn’t surprise Jacob at all.
    There was another alternative, of course, and that was that Caleb was dead. Jacob didn’t think so, or the Guardians wouldn’t waste the energy in searching for the Harbingers. Without Caleb, John’s knowledge of the portal was useless. Both brothers had fragments of knowledge, but neither could access the portal without the other one present. At least, that was the legend according to Guardian lore. Since the Guardians’ main job was to keep the portal closed, Jacob figured they knew what they were doing.
    A waitress brought Jacob another drink. He flirted with her a bit; she was young and her aura strong. He was tempted to wait for her after work. Maybe charm her, then lure her to a secluded spot.
    However, there was something off about her. She was broken in some way. While taking the lives of the vibrant was the closest thing to joy he would ever know, feeding on broken, sad people with wasted lives had the opposite effect. Those people seemed to decay Jacob’s core a little more each time; bringing him closer to the brink, hungry to die.
    Knowing that in the end, nothing good lasted and darkness always won.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 3 — John

    The phone pulled John from another nightmare and into the harsh morning light.
    “Great news,” Larry said into the phone. “I just got a call from a buddy who told me that cops spotted a guy in the act of torching this girl yesterday. Sounded just like a feeder! She died on the scene, and he got away, though.”
    “How is this great news ?” John asked, wiping sleep from his eyes as he headed downstairs and into the kitchen. “Wait, are you saying…?”
    “This happened yesterday while you were with me. And you never left your house last night, though I did get a good look at Hope in her nightie.”
    Ignoring Larry’s crudeness, John paused, then switched ears. “Well, if it’s not me, then…”
    “There’s another feeder,” Larry said, mouth full of sandwich.
    While John had known of other feeders, they were extremely rare, and never careless enough to litter their trail with bodies. He thought of the death stone he’d been trying to get of late. He’d intended to get it as a precaution against himself, for Larry to use on him if he ever got… out of control. But perhaps there was another threat on his horizon.
    He’s here. He’s found you and he’s taunting you.
    John felt a sudden itching in his brain, like a forgotten memory on the edge of discovery. It would surface if prodded.
    “Hold on a sec,” John said. He set the phone on the counter and closed his eyes to see more clearly.
    Something buzzed in the air, at the fringe of his vision—something just out