Elle Pepper
A Prayer in the Dark
Pepper / INK /
CHAPTER ONE
A prayer in the dark.
The young woman came to the building, kneeling on the hard cobbles in the shadow of the building, she lit a candle. "Aye Dede, hear me, please. You know I am an honorable woman, you know that I have done my best to keep the ways of the righteous, and have eschewed the ways of the workers of mischief. But alas, mischief and sorrow have found me.
Please, do not forsake us, your children, send to us a guardian, we ask you to send a Walker to protect us from those who would do us harm. I have here a picture, of my child. Her name is Alana, and she has gone missing from where she was. Those I ask have not seen her, not under sun or moon, and I fear that the workers of Evil have her. Please, protect her, bring her back to me. And if it be that she has been taken, raise up a Guardian to judge those that took her. For she was a happy girl who never harmed another. She was-backward-gifted, a solar among lunars, and she went to school one day, and never arrived, but the new man at the police station, the so-called services officer, has treated me badly, telling me she ran away to be with her own kind and that I should stop looking for her.
I do not know, but I feel in my heart he has done something to her, and those in the city who trust him are under his power. Please, Lord of the Moon, give me peace, send to us a protector."
She rambled for a moment before a cold wind drew her attention and she looked up. In the shadow of a moon lamp stood a single figure, bare-to-waist, he bore the tattoos of the Inkwalker, Cerebus, Azrail, and Charon.
"We have heard your prayer sister." The voice was barely above the sound of the wind, but she heard it. And she knew it was him. He smiled, and then was gone. In reality, he was still there, but a handful of the dream dust, the pollen from the moon lily and she couldn’t see him.
And in this way, he observed those who had come to pray. He didn’t reveal himself again that night, but he did have Bran keep an eye on the young woman who had made the prayer for her daughter. And when the bird had seen all it could see, it flew back to the Inkwalker, and he returned home to sleep a few more hours.
But this had been his routine since he woke. And he could feel that he was not fully healed. But with no Keeper he dared not take his Ink off, for there was no one to watch him as he slept entirely defenseless.
"You still do not judge me for what I did to Max?"
"No, Daniel, your intent was not to hurt him, and your punishment is what we now live." Inkaru said. "Come child, we should rest."
It still amused him that after a hundred and twenty years, the Ink still called him child. But it was sign of endearment from the gruff creature he knew as Inkaru.
He turned and headed home, his mind lost in thought as his body, driven mostly on instinct, made its way home and to the safety or relative safety of his house. But even then all he could do was sleep with the Moon lights on because he had no one to watch him while he slept, mortal and vulnerable.
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