Available Darkness Season 2

turned and tore down her street as fast as she could, away from the darkness. She glanced back just in time to see the dark shape fully emerge from the hole and step onto her street.
    Emilia spun from the asphalt, stumbled onto her neighbor’s dewy grass, then ran through her yard, desperate to lose the thing before it found her. She never saw what tripped her, sending her to the ground and under a blanket of black.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 1 — John

    Later that night

    Branches swayed in the breeze like bony fingers scratching the wind as John waited in the mobile command unit, shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he stared at the bank of monitors displaying news coverage of the event, interviews with frightened residents and Homeland Security officers explaining, without any actual explanation, to the public why an entire neighborhood was being evacuated and cordoned off.
    In the first moments following the event, the news anchors pondered the possibilities — terrorist attack, chemical spill or another in a long line of mass shootings which seemed to punctuate the news every month or three. But none of them came even close to the fact of what happened — the portal had opened, an extraterrestrial and magickal event. The Army had been called in immediately to erect a large tented barrier around the portal, to prevent prying eyes from seeing inside, and anyone else from accidentally walking through the thing — on this side, anyway.
    While the first portal, created a year before, was contained within the walls of Jacob’s compound, and hidden from the public, this one had split open in the middle of a suburban neighborhood to spill its terror in plain sight.
    Within an hour, jittery, blurred cell phone video footage caught by neighbors was being played on all the TV channels.
    Everyone wanted to know what in the hell this “thing” was.
    Experts were trotted out on TV, calling it everything from a wormhole to a government experiment gone awry to some sort of freak natural phenomena. Wormhole was the most accurate description, of course, though nobody could possibly know what John and Omega knew — that this was a portal created by magick, a link to Otherworld, and in all likelihood, the swirling wellspring of a gathering threat.
    “So, who do you think did this?” Commander Mike Mathews appeared behind John. “Someone on this side or the other?”
    John stared at the monitors erected within the barrier, which showed the portal, with various colored overlays measuring the surrounding energy and other stuff John didn’t understand, despite working with Omega for a year.
    “I don’t know who on this side could do it. Is anyone even left in Harbinger who could do this?”
    “So you think Jacob did this from over there? And if so, can he create more?”
    Mathews stared at John as if John was stashing secret knowledge and not sharing. Mathews was a short muscular man in his late 40s, and one of the most deft John had ever seen in shifting gears. One minute he was smiling and working reporters like a used car salesman trying to unload a lemon. The next minute, always behind closed doors, he was an intense, brooding, control freak on the edge of snapping. John tolerated the man because they worked well enough together, at least so far, but he could see their harmony grinding to a stop the minute Mathews woke on the wrong side of bed.
    John sighed, “I don’t know. If he created this, then yes, I’d say he can create more. But isn’t the bigger question, why?”
    Mathews’ phone buzzed from his pocket. He turned from John, fished it from his pants and brought it to his ear. “Mathews.”
    Brow furrowed, he said, “Really? What does she remember?”
    “OK, set up an interview in Unit Seven. Make sure no one sees her.”
    Mathews ended the call and dropped the phone back in his pocket, “The woman who was passed out has come to. She said her daughter is missing and someone came through the portal.”
    “Came through?” John leaned forward.
    “She doesn’t remember much. So we’re going to question her in the Seven truck. See what she can tell us.”
    “Jesus,” John said, heartbeat gathering speed from dread of something bad, like his brother Jacob, coming through. But there was also a bit of excitement at the thought that his good brother, Caleb, lost in the other portal last year, might have found his way back. “Do you think it’s Caleb?”
    Mathews said, “I don’t know, but we’re gonna