Available Darkness Season 1

in mind,” John said, thinking of Adam.
    Duncan pulled a knife from his coat pocket, and walked around John to cut the ties which bound him. However, John had already freed himself.
    Duncan smiled, “Haven’t lost your touch for the escape, have you?”
    John smiled, “Never.”
    John walked Duncan to the door. Before Duncan said goodbye, he reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope and handed it to John. “Just in case you change your mind.”
    John opened it as Duncan walked out the door.
    Inside were four photos of a woman he’d been missing for more than a decade—a woman he gave up as forever lost. The pictures showed her in a car, a recent model. Another photo showed her standing in line at the grocery store, tabloid in hand. A third showed her through her living room window, mid-yawn, watching TV.
    A slip of paper kept the photos from getting lonely.
    It read, “We know where Hope is.”

    TO BE CONTINUED…

::EPISODE 6::
    CHAPTER 1 — John

    Two days later
    12 days ago …

    “Are you sure you want to do this?” Larry asked as he stared into the grave where John stood inside his coffin. Larry was leaning on his shovel, catching his breath.
    “No, but I have to.” John said. Larry had already tried to talk John out of it. But he wouldn’t take a chance that the Guardians would kill Caleb or Hope.
    Truth was, John had been waiting to die for some time. He didn’t want to die, but he also didn’t want to live forever. Not this life, without friends, without family, never getting close to anyone other than a pudgy P.I. and a pudgier Golden Retriever. Larry said he’d take care of Calvin, but when John woke this morning, the dog had passed away in his sleep. John surprised himself by crying for the first time in years.
    After he buried his dog, he called Larry and the two spent the day hanging out one last time. They ate well, drank well, and had a memorable final hurrah. Larry tried to suggest alternate methods, including finding Caleb and telling him everything, then going after Hope, so they could all team up and kill Jacob, his Harbingers, and the Guardians. John liked Larry’s gusto, but the plan was a screenplay, not a strategy.
    Larry asked John to show him a few final spells. John obliged. When they’d first met, Larry became obsessed with all things Otherworld. He was fascinated with magick and began spending nights in search for Others, artifacts, and any wisdom he could pick up about John’s home world. He claimed his interests were solely to help John keep away from the Harbingers, but John knew the greedy gaze of obsession. Not that he could blame Larry. For a human, particularly one who never really fit in with others, learning the ancient secrets of magick was intoxicating.
    Within months of learning a few tricks and meeting some of the Others, Larry’s demeanor went from awkward and shy, to outgoing and bursting with life. He swaggered with a sudden self-confidence, stepping into his new, outrageous persona with ease. John was genuinely happy for him. He wondered if Larry would be lost without him, reverting to his former shy self.
    John glanced at Larry, and felt as if he might cry for the second time that day.
    “Goddamn you,” Larry said, bursting into tears, dropping the shovel, hopping into the grave and embracing John like a giant grizzly.
    Adam stood at the foot of the pit, reading a spell aloud from his tattered black book as twilight blotted the last remnants of sun. The box, a modified coffin with locks on the outside, was specially designed to hold John underground for two full nights, after which time he would revert to being a feeder. After he changed, Adam and Larry would return, dig up the coffin and open slots in the lid of the box to let the sunlight in. John’s death would be painful, Adam warned, but quick.
    While John had wanted to be buried closer to his home, Adam picked the field for its proximity to a naturally occurring energy source, something which Otherworlders could sense and use to increase the power of their magick, but which humans had no knowledge of. Well, no actual knowledge of. There were some humans — psychics, the mentally disturbed, and some children — who could sense the energies, though they never grasped the source of the power, or its many uses.
    “I can’t believe this is it,” Larry said, “are you sure?”
    John laughed at his friend’s persistence.
    Larry said, “You realize I’m gonna have to find new