Eleven Months of Night
an excerpt

Prologue, Part One

November 15th, 2007

She didn’t have time for this; they would surely be following her. She needed to go. She needed to get the hell out of here. But where?

Italy. Jack had said Italy. Rome. Pisa. Florence. They were going to Italy.

No, not they. She. She was going to Italy … Jack was going …

Biting her lip so hard that she could taste blood, she fumbled blindly down the streets. The rain pelted down, perfectly reflecting her state of mind. She ignored the stares and whispers that followed. She knew she must look a fright. Wild-eyed, soaking wet, and covered in blood. Not her blood though. It was his. But there was too much of it, and it was everywhere. Everywhere but in his veins. Everywhere but giving him life.

She finally reached Hammond Street, and went through the alley and around to the back of the bar. She let herself in, locking the door behind her. Yes, she knew they’d be coming for her soon, if they weren’t already … but she just … needed a minute.

A minute? No, she needed a hundred minutes, a thousand. Weeks, months, years. Time to figure this out. Time to accept -- no. Not accept. She’d never accept this. She needed time -- time to understand this. To understand how things had gone so wrong, so fast.

Two hours ago, just two hours ago, he’d been with her, above her, inside her. They’d been together, as they should’ve been. Making love and making their plans to leave on the first flight out. He was ready to leave it all behind. They were going to go together, and be together. Two hours ago, things had been perfect.

And now he was gone.

She didn’t know how, but she managed to stumble up the stairs in the back of the building that led to the apartment she had called home for nearly a year. She unlocked the door to the apartment and walked in. Pausing just inside the door, she inhaled deeply of all the scents she had come to know, and to cherish, so well over this past year. The leather furniture, the sandalwood candles, the ever-so-faint tang of cigarette smoke that lingered even now. She’d always gotten so mad at him for smoking … now she would have given anything to have the chance to berate him for it. She pushed the door shut and leaned against it. Closing her eyes, she imagined that this night had just been a bad dream.

Just a bad dream, she told herself. When I open my eyes, he’ll be standing right there in front of me. She opened her eyes, but no one was there.

“Damn it, Jack,” she cursed in a whisper. “Damn it, you weren’t supposed to die.”

Pushing away from the door, she began wandering through the rooms aimlessly, as if she expected him to be there. Like he’d always been there.

To live in a world where he didn’t exist … it seemed absurd for her to even consider the possibility. Jack was strong … Jack was superman. It was supposed to take more than a bullet to bring him down. They were supposed to live a long life together in Europe and die peacefully in their sleep when they were old. That’s how fairytales were supposed to work, anyway.

And damn it, they should’ve gotten the fairytale. After everything else they’d been through … they should’ve gotten the fairytale.

It wasn’t fair that they had gotten to him first. It wasn’t fair.

She reached the bedroom at the end of the hall and stood in the doorway. Just staring. The bed was unmade, the sheets crumpled and bunched at the end. She could still see the imprint of his body, where he had laid just hours earlier. She had the strongest urge to just go to it, and lie there. And wait for them to come for her, like she knew they would.

Let them come. It doesn’t matter any more.

She heard, before she saw, the dog. Kneeling down, she petted the smooth black fur of Jack’s rottweiler, Cerberus. He whined at her as though he were asking her where Jack was.

“Come here, baby,” she said quietly, burying her face in the dog’s neck. “He’s not coming home, Cerb, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The tears finally came then, and she clung to Cerberus as though he were the only thing left in the world that might keep her from drowning. In a way, he was. He had been Jack’s dog. And now … now he was hers.

With sudden, staggering clarity, she stood up, albeit shakily. She couldn’t let Cerberus die. She couldn’t let Jack down like that. She couldn’t leave Cerberus alone.

“We have to go, Cerb,” she said, hurrying to gather his leash. “We have to get out of here.” The dog followed her, faithfully, like he had since she had first appeared in this dark world, nearly a year ago.

When she had arrived, she never would have imagined that it would have come to this. She couldn’t have known that a bar called the Underworld would become her sanctuary, and that the man called Hades would be the love of her life. And she never, never would have thought that in the blink of an eye, it would all be gone.

She finished clipping the leash to Cerberus’ collar, and gathered up her bags. She paused at the doorway and gave the apartment one last long look. Knowing she’d never be back.

Downstairs, she stood in the empty bar for what seemed like an eternity … remembering everything that had happened to her in that room. The laughter she and Jack had shared after hours, and the arguments. The desperate way they had clung to each other the night that his truth had been revealed, the decision to leave this place behind forever … that had all happened in this bar. There were memories in the apartment as well … but all the big moments had happened here.

With a shaky sigh, she tugged on Cerberus’ leash and led him to the door. The bell above the door jingled faintly, almost sadly, as if it knew that no one would be walking back through those doors once she was gone.

With all the will that she could muster, she locked the door behind her. One hand rested on the intricately carved wooden door, and she traced the outline of a pomegranate lightly with her fingertips.

The sun was just coming up when, with Cerberus walking ahead of her slightly, Persephone Dawn Ryan left the Underworld forever.