“Reagan, get up. Please, please get up.”  Annie’s whispering, but something sounds wrong.  When she usually wakes me up to sneak out onto the roof at night she doesn’t shake me so violently, her nails don’t maul my arm, and her voice doesn’t make my gut churn.  Not usually at least.  I surface groggily from sleep, the fog lifting slowly to be replaced by an increasing awareness of the wrongness of the situation.  Smoke is heavy in the air, as is a foreign coppery tang.  Annie’s usually sun darkened face is pale enough that the freckles she tries desperately to hide appear almost as dark as her eyes, the warm, rich brown now swallowed entirely by black.
“What is—” I try to ask, but Annie slaps a hand over my mouth, bashing my lower lip into my teeth and drawing blood.  Annie’s whimper of fear and glance over her shoulder toward the door of my room brings my attention to the roughhewn wood of the walls and floor, and past the door to the hallway lit with flickering orange light. As I watch more thick, dark smoke creeps into the room, and my stomach clenches, heart beating painfully. 
“Annie the town’s burning!” I say, panic contorting my face as I leap to my feet, batting her arm aside.  As my bare feet strike the hard wood, instantly frozen to the nearly arctic planks, Annie’s hand shoots out to grab my arm once more.  She’s frantic now, eyes glazing, her whole body, though stocky and plump from a good summer’s harvest, is shaking like a newborn foal trying to find its feet.  Her woolen night dress must not be enough protection against winter’s bite.
“The town isn’t burning, Reagan, it’s been burned.” She hisses, fingers still not relaxing on my arm.
“What do you mean ‘burned’?”  I hiss back, getting frustrated.  The way she woke me scared me to death, as does the fire, but fires are common in winter when everyone has their fireplaces burning all day and night to fight off the chill.  “Annie, we have to go wake the town, we need help to put the fires out.  You should know this.”  I rebuke her more harshly than I usually would my favorite cousin, but my frustration is boiling over.
“No, you don’t understand.  They’ve come.  The angels with black wings and red eyes, they’re burning the town, they’re killing everyone! Please, Reagan, we have to leave, we have to leave, we—”  Annie’s cut short as an abnormally tall man, skinny with two scars forming  a cross on his neck barges into the room.  The heavy door, meant to keep out the chill, hits the wall with a crack and the thick wood splinters.
“Now, now, won’t you stay a bit longer?” the man asks, his deep voice falsely cheerful, eyes dark.  The smile turns into a sneer as Annie again whimpers pitifully, sways, and collapses into me, dropping like a stone.  “Such a pity,” the man comments, “it’s more fun when they stay awake.”  His voice takes on an edge, and he slowly pulls a sword from its sheath at his hip, metal glinting red in the dancing firelight as he growls, “Pick her up, girl.  The master needs to see all of you.”  Panic has my muscles locked in place, breath stuck in my lungs, and black spots dancing in front of my eyes.  A growl from the man and a menacing step in my direction vaults me into action.  I bend so quickly I nearly pass out as well, and grab Annie under the arms. 
I heave her up and sit her motionless body on the bed, then haul her up and across my shoulder to carry her like I did the sacks of flour that Miller Gershim paid us town kids half a copper each to lug across town from the mill to Old Man Effel’s store.  She doesn’t make a sound as I do it, her head lolling disturbingly as I take my first unbalanced step towards the door. The man stands with his arms crossed, right foot tapping out a fast, broken rhythm.
“’Bout time, girl.  Follow me, and keep up, or we can just ditch the girl and never tell the master that we got rid of one.”  The bored way he speaks of getting rid of Annie causes a chill to worm its way down my spine.  The man strides down the hall, heavy leather boots sounding like the booming steps of the now extinct dragons.  The smoke is thicker in the hall, and as we pass Aunt and Uncle’s room I see the flames eating hungrily at the wooden floor, walls, and furnishings.  The huge bed, with it’s beautiful and intricate headboard that Uncle spent months carving for Aunt Jenna before their wedding is in flames.  Wintry air wafts through the open shutters, bringing with it the smell of burning meat, and I fall to the rough hallway floor retching as I notice the blackened and cracked husk that wears my uncle’s night clothes.
The man laughs heartily, then starts coughing as he inhales more of the oily smoke, his mood souring and his eyes starting to water.  “Get up, girl, and quit heaving all over the place,” he snarls.  “It’ll only get worse tonight.” And he strides off down the hall.  I struggle to pick up Annie once more, feeling weak and shaky from retching.  I’m glad Annie is unconscious; she would be shattered if she had to see her parents’ burnt bodies.  She’s always been fragile, and I’m afraid even learning they’re dead will break her.  Whispering a prayer to the death goddess Arkina to help their souls find the light of Elethera, I turn away and try to hurry down the steep stairs into the kitchen.  It too is ablaze.  The monstrous table where I eat almost every evening meal with my aunt’s family looks like the charred remains of a dragon, haunted and malevolent. 
I can remember the first meal I ate at that table only days after my parents had been killed.  They were discovered in the ditch beside the dirt road that ran from their village to the town my aunt lived in.  I had been found clutching their mutilated bodies, the blood dried, gluing my living flesh to their slowly cooling bodies.  The memories I have of their murder are nothing more than a flash of red and black, then screaming as my parents pushed me into the ditch, yelling for me to hide.  They had run down the road and I was scrambling after them when a shadowy form swooped down, and suddenly they were lying prone, blood rushing from the mortal wounds to their backs and necks.  Their murderer stalked about, kicking their bodies out of the way, seeming to search for something, then with a scream of rage it launched back into the heavens.
The next morning I was found and brought into the town that became my home.  I lived with my only relative, my father’s sister Jenna, and her family.  My parents were buried the morning after I was lifted out of that ditch but I didn’t attend the burial.  For months I was too terrified to venture far beyond my room in the attic of Aunt Jenna’s now burning house.  My aunt and uncle were patient with me as I jumped at every shadow, ran screaming at the sight of birds, and was paralyzed at the mere thought of venturing outside. 
One day I found a mirror hidden away in the attic and I was sent into a panic at the sight of my own reflection.  I didn’t recognize that too-thin girl with a ten year old’s soft, undefined face framing eyes that were ancient and tired.  I was angry then, and shocked at feeling something other than the bone chilling, mind numbing fear.  The more I thought about it though, the angrier I got.  Why did my parents have to die?  Why were they ripped from this earth and from their young daughter?  And why was I left behind, to suffer their loss every moment of every day?  I was angry that I had ever been afraid, that I had hidden like a coward, a spineless coward.
That spark of anger brought me back to life, and my ten year old self vowed vengeance on the being who ruined my family.  I’ve never forgotten my vow, and still carry that angry flame in my heart.  I have been planning to leave town to search for my prey.  In three weeks it will be my eighteenth birthday and I plan on leaving soon after.  Now though it doesn’t seem like there will be much of a town to leave behind.  Perhaps I will carry memories of this night for the rest of my life, seeking vengeance for this violence as well.
I finally find my way through the smoke to the back door and stumble out, tripping down the step and landing sprawled in the muddy lane with Annie’s weight smothering me.  The man’s boots come into focus in front of my nose, and Annie’s weight is suddenly lifted from my back. Someone grabs the back of my collar and hoists me up, the front of my night dress cutting into my throat.  The man doesn’t release me, but continues to drag us, Annie now stirring, the occasional groan escaping her blue lips.  He walks, his mammoth strides eating up the distance from the back of Aunt Jenna’s, past houses and shops, all of them burning, fresh air rushing in through all the open shutters to continually feed the infernos.
My heart feels solid now, like it’s frozen.  Inside I feel empty, seeing the destruction of so much of our town, and from the image of Uncle’s body, red cracks in blackened skin that seeped fluids that started to bubble and evaporate upon contact with the scorching air.  I’m numb from more than the cold.  Annie wakes with a scream and starts to claw at our jailor only to be backhanded by the man’s armored forearm, leaving a fine cut seeping red through her eyebrow.  Despite it all, I still feel dead inside.
Annie hangs limp in his grasp once more, whimpering occasionally as we are dragged over the rough streets of hard compacted dirt pocked with jagged stones.  By the time we reach our captor’s destination, the town square, my knees and shins look like something on display in the butcher’s shop.  We are dumped unceremoniously on the freezing stones at the outskirts of a huddle of the town’s children.  None of them are younger than Annie, who’s only fifteen, and the oldest I can see is Owen Daxler who celebrated the birth of his first child two weeks ago. He is only twenty two, and his wife Danni, seventeen, is clinging to him and sobbing.  Both have blood on them that stains the coarse gray wool of their night shirts.
No others are in the square, and as I glance around anxiously I see the rest of the town is burning like our street.  The faces around me are pale, with fear and cold. Soot streaks everyone, and most are covered in blood as well.  Surrounding the square are men, all dressed like the one who captured us, in black breeches, rough gray tunics, heavy boots, and simple but not inelegant swords at their waists.  Most have grins on their faces.
An unearthly howl shatters the air, and the crying and screaming and moaning from the huddle only intensifies.  A shadow flies over the steeple of the church at one end of the square and a gust of air buffets us as the creature slows its descent.   As the sound of booted feet on the cobbles rings out, the creature becomes visible.  For one moment my heart leaps as I see the outline of feathered wings rising from a broad, strong torso, believing an angel to have come to our rescue.  My hope shatters though, as the being steps into the sickly fire light and reveals wings of the darkest night, of nightmares and death.  Red eyes search the huddle, and as they pass over us my heart hammers unsteadily and I am reminded of the rabbit Annie brought home three summers ago.  I can remember the way it kicked feebly though its back was broken, and when I held it I could feel its wild pulse.
I am that rabbit now, desperate to run and hide, but frozen in fear as the creature stalks closer to the group with nightmare wings held high off the ground littered with ash and blood.  The square disappears as I once more stand at the side of a dirt road, the last moment with my parents, and see a flash of red and black before they are murdered.  “Hello, humans.” the creature hisses, its voice a sibilant rasp.  “Have you been good little pets and behaved for my slaves?”,  it asks, a long black tongue flicking out from teeth that are long, thin, and tapered to deadly points.  Those red eyes continue to scan, and up close I can see a cold intelligence in the fiery pits of its eyes.  It is a predator, full of self-assurance in its ability to control or kill.
“Do you know why I am here, pets?” it hisses, the tongue flicking out to taste the air once more.  “I thought not,” it replies, still watching us, daring one of us to raise our head and meet its fiendish gaze.  “I am here because there is a prophecy,” it says as it begins to pace, “a prophecy spoken millennia ago by the greatest seer to ever live or die.  It says that in a time of war, when night and day, light and dark, good and evil set about to finally extinguishing the other, that victory will only be assured through the procurement of a certain human child.  This child will possess a power of the greatest light and the deepest dark, a child born on the darkest day of the year, in the depths of winter under the great northern star.  He will be known by two birth marks, one silvery like a moonlit scar, the other dark as coal, a soot stain upon his flesh. 
“I know the child is here, eight years ago we searched this land and thought we had found the child but it slipped from our grasp.  We will have the child tonight and any who try to shield him from me will join your town in death.  Those who aid me will be rewarded, both with their life, and the gift of service.”
It must not be real.  No horror such as this could have been visited upon my town, and never would the creature, which I yearn to hunt, find me.  I thought about this meeting endlessly, planned incessantly for how I would kill this creature who is searching for me.  It has found me instead of the other way around.  I am the victim he searches for, and now he is promising to kill people in order to obtain me.  
Most of the children still stare at the ground, but the air feels charged with static.  Many near me flinch instinctively at the threat of death, but my betrayer is Annie, who gasps then shoots me  a glance full of sorrow and hopelessness.  The creature sees it all, and is quick to swoop down, grabbing me around the throat and lifting me off the ground with inhuman strength.
“Where are the marks, girl.  Show them to me or I kill every one of these pests who disobeyed me.”  His hiss is thicker now, anger and excitement amplifying the sibilance.  I can read the death in his eyes, the cool promise that they mean nothing dead or alive.  Before I can speak and save the few remaining members of my town, I hear a commotion behind me.
“They’re on her upper arms.” It is the voice of Tommy Mirkim, the neighborhood bully, though he no longer sounds like the arrogant tyrant.  Now his voice shakes with fear, and underlying his voice are murmurs of assent from the crowd of teens.  Annie lets out a wail as the creature draws a knife, practically a short sword, and swipes at the sleeves of my night dress.  The blade stings as it cuts into the skin of my left arm, but the sleeve gapes and beneath the glistening blood is the silvery oval, like a brand that had scarred.  The creature hisses its displeasure and quickly cuts my other arm, deeper this time as its excitement seems to grow.  The mark revealed is a dark smudge, not a perfect oval, the edges shadowy.  It is dark, seemingly an abyss that hold the worst nightmares, and this time the creature grins, revealing a mouthful of thin fangs.
“Very nice, little girl.  The seer was correct, there is power in you.”  The creature turns to Tommy,  “and you, boy, have pleased me.”  With no warning he springs  forward, knife still at the ready, and quickly slashes it once, twice across his neck.  As the creature steps back I can see the strikes were not a killing blow as I had assumed, but meant to disfigure and differentiate.
“A mark for a mark, human boy.” He hisses in pleasure.  Tommy looks stunned, clapping a hand to the newly carved cross on the side of his neck, trying to stem the river of red that is soaking the collar of his tunic.  The men still lining the square step forward and claim him, each one also bearing a scarred cross, the disciples of the creature.  “Be nice to the new one, slaves.  I won’t have him broken on his first night.”, the creature says jovially.
Something hot and dark is rising up in me, making my jaw ache because I am clenching it so hard and grinding my teeth.  The unfairness of it all makes something snap within me.  First my parents were taken from me, now my innocent little cousin and her loving family, and my town as well.  This powerful being has decided that I will serve in his war, and because we are all defenseless against his power he abuses us at his will, for his amusement. 
My hands curl into fists, and one snaps out and connects with the creature’s nose before I can consider the repercussions.  I feel something give beneath my fist, and blood sprays.  I want to scream and kick and bite and scratch at the creature.  I want to rend its flesh the way my parents were rent.  I’m not given the opportunity though.  The creature just holds me out at arm’s length, not releasing me, and making no move to staunch the blood flow.  As if he doesn’t even feel the injury, he turns his now blazing eyes on me. 
In a voice that resonates, more a growl than actual speech, he says, “You will pay for that, girl.  Prophecy or no, there are ways I can make you suffer without killing you.  I am a Darkkin, born of the darkest evil.  I feed on the nightmares of men and walk only during the deepest hours of night, when not a soul dare wander about and clouds cover every moon and star.  My name has been forgotten so long have I walked the dark.  It has faded from even my mind as every creature who once spoke it died in silence, too terrified to speak.  I am the nameless horror that haunts every shadow and every nightmare.  You will not cross me and escape unscathed.”
The creature’s eyes have sharpened, taking on an evil glint.  “Kill the sniveling girl who came with this one.”, he orders the men. One steps forward, raising his sword.  I am sure it is a ploy, to make me obedient, to make me beg.  I am sure the creature will tell the man to halt at the last moment, or he will do so of his own accord.  What man could execute a small girl lying on the cobbles at his feet, cold and bleeding?  The dull thuds of sword hitting neck and her lifeless body striking the ground reached my ears.  A look of shock is frozen on Annie’s features, and soon half her face is obscured in the puddle of blood that is quickly spreading beneath her prone form.
“No.” I mutter, “NO. No, no, no, Annie!”  The screams ring out and at first I am shocked, before realizing that I was the one to yell.  My knees give way, and my heart finally feels something.  What I feel is the shattering of that vital organ, no longer frozen but a bloody, pulpy mass in my chest that doesn’t just ache, but shrieks in agony at what should be a mortal wound to my own self.  I raise my head and meet the gloating challenge in the eyes of the creature.
I hate this creature of the night, this evil tyrant that has taken my only surviving family, my home, and now my best friend as well. Grief and anger and hate seemed to form a vortex in me, whooshing in my ears like the tide, a ragged beat overlaid by white noise, not a moment of silence.  A groan rattles in my chest as the noise increases in volume, and I clap my hands to my ears, trying to shut out the noise that is only in my head.  Except…except others are doing it too.  The men in uniform and the children of my village who I’ve condemned to orphan hood are also cringing in pain, clawing at their ears.  I glance around wildly, afraid the creature has summoned something to finish off the whole town, to punish me further.
My gaze is drawn skyward and I truly know terror.  Outlined against the now brightening sky are the outlines of tens or hundreds of wings.  My soul seems to die as I contemplate what horrid acts this town will endure before it is finally ended, what this many Darkkin can manage, what evil they can release.  I prefer the familiar terror of the creature who first came to us, and I look at him only to see his face is drawn as if in a mixture of pain and anger.
My confusion is an inky cloud that manages to smother most of the terror, and  as more clouds clear, revealing the waning moon, the beings above are revealed.  Wings like snow, unblemished, beautiful and as hopeful as the Darkkin’s wings are terrible, fill the night sky.  At the forefront of these avenging angels is a blue eyed angel, eyes that are cool enough to soothe the burn of grief and anger in me, perhaps even cool enough to smother the flames of the Darkkin.
The beings are facing each other without a word.  As one the angels draw their blades, gently curved, graceful arcs of a bright metal that reflect the moonlight.  The creature snarls and rips his own blade from its sheath.  The darkness seems to gather, coalescing into an impenetrable fog around him.  The angels move forward without fear, their gazes bright with determination. 
As the immortals clash, the very world seems to shake, the clashing beings so close to gods that every collision produces flashes of light rivaling the sun.  An unholy scream rends the night once more, and as the flashes of heavenly light clear to reveal the Darkkin, body bowed backward, muscles locked tight, suspended in air though its wings are caught in the same paralysis.  One more angry, hateful screech rings out, and from its mouth escapes thousands of specters, all of them oily and dark. 
The angels approach them without fear, their star-kissed blades killing the evil that the Darkkin released into the world.  The cold-eyed leader leaves his comrades to the slaughter, and floats down to a halt in the middle of the square.  The devastated survivors of the town are too exhausted, drained by terror and grief, to do anything but stand where they are.  The blue eyes sweep the crowd, locking on me, and the angel starts my way.  I too am too tired to care, and I won’t leave Annie’s body lying on the ground unattended.
“You are the prophesied one, yes?” his arctic voice asks.  His tone, his face, everything about him is cold and emotionless.  I can only manage to stare blankly at him.  “We regret that the fires had to burn this long unchecked, but the Darkkin are weakest in the earliest and latest parts of night, when it is closest to light.  We prevented a greater loss of life by delaying until now.”  He sounds utterly without regret.  His statement registers slowly, but as it does, I grow angry once more.
“Prevented a greater loss of angelic life maybe.  And what of the families that were slaughtered tonight?  What of the corpses that lie burning in those buildings?  We mean nothing to you, do we, us mortals, here for you to kill, to amuse yourselves with?  Angels, Darkkin, you’re all the same, all despicable tyrants.  I hope you destroy each other in this war you plan on fighting.  I hope not a single one of you survives, because humanity will be better off without you.”
“We have killed no humans tonight, only the evil—”, he begins.
“Liar! You watched us dying, you watched our slaughter, the destruction of our town, and chose the time most convenient to yourselves to intervene.  You disgust me, all of you, Darkkin and angels alike.  Get out of our town; just leave us to bury our dead in peace.”  I start to walk away from him, one weary stride at a time.
“You are the prophesied one, and your allegiance will decide the fate of the war.  You will fight for life and light, for the angels who have been your saviors tonight.  A debt is owed now, and we call on you to pay it.”  His cold tone only causes my temper to burn hotter.
“I will fight for myself, fight for humanity and mortality against all those who abuse it. I will leave this town and start my own army and we will fight all of you.  Every creature you have ever abused will join us, will help us sentence you to death, you and the Darkkin.” I whip around and stalk back to him as I speak, looking him in the eyes as I declare war.
“The angels have never wronged you or your kind.  The Darkkin have injured you personally now on multiple occasions.  They have destroyed your town and your parents.  Vengeance can be yours. Together we can destroy their evil, together we can wipe them from existence, make them pay for every sin.”  His words freeze me in place.   I have sought the blood of my parents’ murderer for seven long years.  Oftentimes that thirst was all that kept me moving forward.  The offer is tantalizing.
“Yes, I can see the idea gives you pause.” His voice is warm now and sweet as honey. “Join us, Reagan, fight with us.  Help us cleanse the evil from this land.  Kill the ones who killed your parents, draw blood for blood.  The Darkkin took much from you, not one family, but two.  They harmed you, now harm is due to them.”
His words are a siren song.  I can picture it, myself a blood-soaked warrior, wading among the hordes of merciless Darkkin and showing them no pity.  Blood would run like rivers, soaking the ground, and like a phoenix reborn from ash the world would rise from that bloodshed a purer place with the extermination of the Darkkin achieved.  I look up at the white winged army encased in a golden glow as the rest of the specters are killed.  They are silhouetted by the coming dawn as the sun burns away the remnants of such a dark and horrible night.  My eyes focus back on the scene around me.  Here in the square none of the reminders of last night have been erased.  The world may move on easily, the sun rising and setting to start fresh and erase the old, but life is not so easy.
“Blood for blood?”, I give a harsh laugh, “Look around you, angel.  There is blood everywhere.  Is this not enough?”  My anger drains now, and like a poison seeping out I feel cleansed.  “No, I am done with blood.  This town needs a new beginning, but not one forged of the fire of hate.  There isn’t much of a town left, but we can start again.  Be gone now, angel.  Go fight your war and spill your blood.”
The angel turns away without a word, only a final parting glare.  He takes two steps then his massive white wings unfold and he leaps into the sky.  The wind from his takeoff buffets me, stirring up the dust and making my eyes water.  When I finally blink away the debris, the flock of angels is flying towards the half risen sun.  The golden orange light washes over them, turning their snowy white wings red.