Available Darkness Season 2

she fell back into unconsciousness. With the monster’s strength within him, John could now carry Hope easily. With any luck, they would soon be far from the Building.
    Skinner stood looking down at the beast and then back at John until a smile cracked through his lips. He walked over to the elevators, made the top button glow, then turned back to John and said, “Very impressive.”
    “Eyes are windows to the soul,” John half-smiled. “I just had to break one.”
    They stepped inside the elevator, Skinner first. John’s heart practically pounded as the elevator rose to the roof.
    Come on, come on, come on.
    He stared down at Hope, flashing back to their last kiss. The final nights they’d spent in an embrace before the world flickered and changed forever. It had been more than a decade since then, but it felt like a lifetime apart.
    Jacob was responsible, for every pain that John had ever felt — from the death of his true mother, to the chain of events that sent his brother, Caleb, to Otherworld, forced Hope to have her memory erased and to live apart from John for more than a decade, and turned a child into a vampire.
    Jacob was a cancer that destroyed everything he touched.
    There’s no way in hell I’ll let him do it again, John vowed as he stared at Hope.
    The elevator door dinged open and John carried Hope onto the rooftop, watching her face the entire time, hoping, and fearing, she might wake. Wind whipped through her hair, and John longed to touch it, to run his fingers through it again.
    Skinner followed closely behind, pointing ahead to the building’s southern edge which looked down on a smaller six-story bank building. He had to shout over the howling wind. “If you jump over to that roof, you should be able to escape unseen.”
    “What about you?” John asked.
    “Don’t worry about me, I’ll stay here until the smoke clears. Nobody’s looking for me.”
    “Thank you,” John said.
    Skinner’s eyes suddenly widened at something behind John. The German opened his mouth but was launched through the air, thrown back 10 feet and slammed to the rooftop before he could utter a word.
    John turned around and saw Jacob floating in midair, holding a glowing red sphere in his right hand, wielding it like a power stone. Jacob thrust the sphere hand forward, sending John and Hope both flying back hard to the ground. John tried holding onto Hope, but lost his grip, crying out as she flew four feet farther than John, tumbling across the rooftop.
    He leapt to his feet, running to her, but hadn’t made it four inches before he was frozen in place, then lifted from the ground by Jacob and his powerful orb. John tried fighting it, to push back with his telekinesis, but Jacob’s power had grown too strong.
    “Is that any way to greet your brother?” Jacob asked, grinning with a lunatic’s smile as he spun John around to face him.
    John wanted to spit in Jacob’s face, to reach into his chest and pull out his heart, then shove it down his fucking throat. But he was impotent in the stone’s hold.
    “You can’t fight me, John. I have the wizard’s power now. Well, nearly all of it. I’ve just one small piece still to get.”
    “The hell you will,” John grunted, pushing with all his strength to raise his hands, trying to reach out so he could strangle his brother.
    Jacob laughed as John’s hands fluttered helplessly at his sides. Jacob clucked his tongue. “We’re such a stereotypical family, always trying to murder each other. Why must we quarrel so?”
    “Typical families don’t kill their mothers and try to murder their brothers.”
    “OK,” Jacob laughed. “So, we’re a bit eccentric. But hey, we live and learn, right? Your brother, Caleb, finally came around, after all.”
    “What are you talking about?” John asked.
    “Oh, you didn’t hear?” Jacob raised his eyebrows in what looked like mock surprise. “Caleb finally saw the light, and realized the righteousness of our cause. He is now sitting at the throne beside Father.”
    “Liar.”
    “I’m many things,” Jacob said, “but a liar is none among them. Who do you think created the portal to bring me back here?”
    John swallowed. “No. Bullshit.”
    “Last chance, brother. And may I point out how overly generous I’ve been with my many offers for you to join me, and fight by my side? I’d say that makes me a damned nice, and forgiving, brother, wouldn’t you?”
    John said nothing.
    “Very well,” Jacob spun