Available Darkness Season 2

Every instinct ordered Hannah to run — right past him and into the night without stopping. Surely, he wouldn’t pursue her in public. Then again, it was dark. Maybe no one would notice if he did.
    Instead of running, Hannah followed him to the front of the restaurant, and then the parking lot. There were a few dozen cars in the lot, but no new arrivals, and no one leaving. If she tried to run now, or make a scene, there was nobody around to notice, call the police, or intervene. It would be her versus Greg, and she wasn’t sure she could outrun or overpower him.
    Greg opened the car door for Hannah, and she got inside.
    He got in and keyed the ignition.
    “Get back in there! Go in, leave out the back door, and run!”
    “Oh, crap, I think I left my phone in the restaurant,” she said, seizing on a half-baked escape plan. She could go in and run out the back, getting at least a few minutes of a head start. “Maybe in the bathroom. I’m gonna run back inside and …
    “No, no,” Greg said, laying his hand gently on hers. “You’re sick. Wait here. I’ll go back.”
    Shit.
    Greg surprised her by leaving his keys in the ignition. He got out of the car, then leaned back inside and said, “I’ll be right back.”
    “OK, thanks,” she said, her heart pounding while eyeing the keys.
    “Well, hello, Plan B. Take the car, Hope. Take it and go!”
    As Greg entered the restaurant, Hannah crawled over the center console and into the driver’s seat. She moved the seat higher and closer, then slowly backed out of the parking spot, darting back and forth between her rearview and the restaurant’s front door.
    “Go! Go!”
    Hannah floored the pedal, and tore into the night.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 8 — Duncan

    Duncan sat in the bedroom turned prison, focusing, searching, and probing through his parasite’s psychic defenses. The creature was sentient, and responded to the prodding with short painful bursts to its host’s brain; a message to stop, though it didn’t communicate with anything like words.
    Duncan wondered if it spoke their language, or even spoke at all. He shuddered to think of any creature existing without wants, needs, or desires besides feeding. Jacob was right about one thing: the parasitic bonding was an evolution inside him.
    Duncan could feel the changes in his brain even if he couldn’t figure out exactly how they happened. He was stronger, more aware, and his already enhanced senses felt sharper than ever. From dissections of feeders over the years, they’d found that the parasite connected to its host’s brain, forming an inseparable bond. But when the human, or Otherworlder, died, so did the creature. So far as he knew, the reverse was also true: if someone tried to remove his parasite, they would die.
    The only people he knew who’d been able to pause the parasite’s incursion were John and Caleb, though both used outside intervention of magickal means. And Duncan had not known how either intervention occurred or how to replicate the success, if it could be done. For everyone else, the parasite, and the Darkness it brought with it, were lifelong curses.
    Duncan had found its weakness, though. Everything had a weakness if you probed hard enough. It had a strong aversion to pain, and that pain was shared between the parasites’ psychic bonds, meaning if he hurt himself and Jacob was connected, he hurt Jacob.
    Duncan only needed to interfere briefly, long enough to allow him to connect with John and warn him of the danger to Hope. He’d first sensed John after Jacob showed up demanding the list. Duncan wasn’t sure why he could suddenly feel John in the world, or if the feeling was reciprocal rather than a vestige of Jacob’s ability to sense his brother, passed through his parasite.
    Duncan was reasonably certain the parasite would sense what he was doing once he reached out to John, though. Then the only question was whether the parasite in him would relay the information to the parasite in Jacob. Duncan hoped not, but had a plan just in case.
    He began searching the outside world for John, unsure of what he was doing, and almost certain he was doing it wrong until he felt himself suddenly inside John’s head.
    John , he thought.
    Then, just as if he were on a phone, he heard John’s voice in his head, surprised, “Duncan?”
    “Yes, I have to tell you—”
    Suddenly, he felt Jacob probing.
    Damn it, that was quick.
    Duncan tried pushing Jacob out of his mind, but the