Page 1 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
March 31, 20—
Easter Sunday
Hello, human.
I know your kind normally address you as President or Prime Minister, Chancellor or Chairman, or even that most amusing title Supreme Leader—as if you, mere Man, could ever be supreme over us—but I have no use for your silly titles. They are as meaningless to me as your names, nearly as distasteful as your very existence. To me you are one thing and one thing only: human.
Enemy.
I acknowledge there are those among us who disagree with that label, fond as they are of your foibles and farces, foolishly tolerant of your small, petty lives. I imagine they find you charming and adorable in the way of newborn kittens: bumbling about on unsteady legs, blind and weak and helpless. You are all of those things, to be sure, but I admit your charm escapes me, the same way the charm of a virus escapes me. In fact, of all the living things on this planet you resemble a virus the most closely. You infiltrate where you are not wanted. You consume far more than you produce. You proliferate with the mindless speed of a bacterium. You take and you take and you take, until all that is left is diseased and ruined, and then you move on and begin the process all over again.
You have ruled this planet far too long. I will remedy that.
Beginning today.
In our eagerness to be left alone, we have allowed your sickness to spread. We have turned a blind eye to the evil of your ways. We have lived in secrecy and in silence for millennia, learning to live alongside you, learning to dress and eat and speak like you, learning to hide.
Who are we, you ask?
We are Vapor and predator and quick, slinking death, relics of an age when Nature ruled and beauty abounded and magic still lived and breathed. Born in equatorial Africa where all of life originated, we are the firstborn children of Mother Earth, and her most splendid creation.
We have many Gifts you can only dream of.
We can smell a bird on the wing miles away in the winter sky and know if it is hawk or pigeon or starling. We can hear the heartbeats of all the small, unseen creatures, foraging under fragrant beds of leaves or burrowing tunnels into damp earth or clinging to the boughs of trees. We can hunt in the dark and outrun a gazelle and rip out your throat with sharp fangs before you even know you’re in danger. We hold the power of transformation from thought, and I’ve heard it said that to look upon even the least beautiful of us is to see the face of an angel.
We are Ikati. We are your superiors in every way.
You’ll understand that much more clearly in a moment.
You’re about to make history, you see. Undoubtedly you think you already have, with your wealth and your title and your “power,” but all of that is nothing in comparison to the everlasting fame I will bestow upon you.
The kind of fame one can only achieve with a spectacular, unforgettable death.
So be quick now, look up from these words—do you see him, the lithe creature approaching on silent feet? Never mind how he stole past your guards and your pathetic security systems—do you see his cunning smile, the bloodlust in his eyes? Does your pulse quicken, realizing these breaths you draw will be your last?
Mine does. I’m with you even now, here in your final moments, living it all in my imagination just as you are living it in the flesh. I’ve waited a lifetime for this, and I am willing to admit I owe you some thanks.
Because you, by your death, and the deaths of all the other human leaders like you who are at this very moment also reading a copy of this letter, are going to help me rule the world.
Ciao, enemy mine.
I hope you rot in hell.
King of the Ikati
The first time Ember laid eyes on the man who would destroy her life, she knew with a sharp, blood-curdling certainty, like a knife shoved between her ribs, that he was—in a word—dangerous.
It wouldn’t be until much later that she found out just how dangerous he really was, but on that particular evening, amidst the chill of a February thunderstorm, she was standing where she stood six days a week, from ten in the morning until six at night, behind the polished oak counter of Antiquarian Books, the snug little bookstore in the old Gothic quarter of the city. It was near closing time, and through the tall windows that flanked the door she saw the rain sheeting down in a black, sideways slant, bouncing high enough off the uneven cobblestones of the narrow street outside to indicate it wasn’t letting up anytime soon.
Ember was sick of rain. Sick of winter.
Sick of pretty much everything.
It had been a bad day in a worse month in an even worse few years, and she was tired to her bones. Though only twenty-four, she felt decades older, having already survived things that might have sent other people less stubborn straight to their graves. She never indulged in luxuries like self-pity, but she couldn’t escape the bone deep fatigue that would creep up on her on nights like this.
