The Black Eclipse is essentially an existential parable wrapped in a crime drama.
Night falls and snow begins to cover dead concrete as the city known as Perdition enters another winter. Each year, the storms grow more intense, as does the murder and corruption inside the city's walls. A bizarre murder scene and a young girl reported missing bring ailing detective Paavo Harker back from retirement. The dark mystery behind both crimes will unleash secrets that not only threaten his own fleeting life, but perhaps everyone's.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
I was alive in a city of fire. The city was lost, enveloped by dark, towering flames that rose from the earth. I stood there and watched it take place. The street was, for a moment, normal. I stood in the middle, blocking traffic. Amidst the angrily passing cars were people in suits, throwing familiar hateful glances at me as they walked to work under the cloudless sky. The sun sat above the buildings of concrete and steel. The earth moved. Its plates shifted and the ground beneath my feet began to rise. The people began to scream and run away. I felt the ground expand. There were long patches of concrete that began to separate to reveal the darkness of tunnels and the smell of sewers below.
I looked toward the people running. The street had cracked, with fissures that followed those who fled, I saw the cracks overwhelm and surround them. The cracks splintered off and reconnected a few feet before me. Aching from some unknown tension and force, the concrete broke apart and then went back together, almost as if it were driven by breath, a living entity. The darkness beneath the breathing stone grew red. The ground shook. The people all around me fell to their knees but I kept my stance. I looked above and saw the sky turn black. Thunder was deafening, but I could hear the people scream with fear. The tremors and steam had reached a fever pitch.
The screams grew louder into almost shrieks of pain. I saw the reason. The burning air had melted their feet to the ground. They were trapped. I looked quickly down to my feet. A blast of steam before me and yet, they remained unscathed...and then another blast. The street had exploded. Shattered stone blasted into the sky. The largest hole in the ground opened and revealed the core of the earth.
Fire spilled out onto the street, it covered the crowds of frantic people all around me. It passed over them like rushing water. A stray flame had struck my skin, and yet, I felt no pain. The others around me did not share my fortune. It had swallowed them whole. Others who tried to escape could not outrun the flames. It followed them. It moved as if it were alive, breathing. The streets shattered like glass. It covered them, burned them until nothing was left and pulled their remains back into the pits that had collected into the pitch darkness in the center.
The cracks in the earth soon stretched out and followed the path of streets that led away from me. The fires burned through them, pulling in everything within its path until they were out of my sight. It must have
covered the entire city. I began to follow the flames. I walked for what felt like hours. Every street looked the same; open holes into hell, human beings burning alive, screaming. The buildings had cracked and crumbled. The flames had cracked windows and entered. It had burned them from the inside out, and they shattered and fell to the ground before me. Pieces of the rubble and glass had cut me. I did not bleed. The stone and cement walls were lost to the fire. Those who were still alive inside the fire, looked at me in the midst of the agony, they reached out what was left of their hands, pleading for help. I could not face them. I turned away from their screams, their eyes. They were watching as I walked away from them. The screaming did not stop. It echoed in my mind, I felt the eyes upon me, their voices seemed inches away. The fires had begun to connect. From the place where I stood, following the miles I had walked. At last, the fires had all linked together. The holes had filled with the lava that covered and carried the remains of these damned and became a river of blood and flame. I walked along as the cries grew louder as the shells of their bodies floated by. I looked to the black sky. Thunder slammed the dark emptiness above me. My eyes followed the river, until I reached the center of the city.
The tower was massive. It was all that remained of the city. I turned around and saw the burning wasteland. The river of death had run through the landscape, collecting into a pool beneath the tower, the altar that it had become. It had become hell. This is meant to be punishment, their punishment. Why had I been spared this pain and suffering? What had I done to be placed among the devastation, but somehow allowed to escape their fate? The flames gathered at the base. The noise of the people, the screams of damned began to build in volume as the fire climbed up the stone giant, toward the black skies. I began to feel different as the fire overcame the tower. I saw the people within the river, their eyes and their hands, reaching, peering inside me. I closed my eyes. They were inside my mind. I then began to see things, terrible things surrounding those in the river.
I saw their sins, their mistakes. Their every judgment they had passed onto those weaker than they. I saw the businessman, walking down the street as he rushes past a homeless man on the curb. He was there in the river, burning next to the man that he refused to help. I watched the mother too concerned with the night life to take care of her children. She lay in the fire with her own children. They laid there and suffered with her neglect. Each time I looked past another dying man or woman, I looked into their eyes and saw their fear, their cowardice. I began to hate them. They had done so little so save themselves or those around them. I felt no pity for them anymore. I enjoyed being in this suit, walking upon fire and being spared the spears of Hell.
I enjoyed it more and more as I realized that this was somehow my reward. I saw their children in these fires. I smiled at them as they burned. Everything in this world they gained, tainted and then turned away, for this they would dwell in this hell. It can only be theirs and theirs alone. This is not my hell. I could see every sordid scenario with each of them. Each burning face had a story to tell. Young men and women, corrupted by fate and the choices of their creators, they will pay for all they’ve done. It is in their destiny to be punished. This justified my hatred. I could not help but laugh at them. They chose this fate and they will pay for it.
The tower was quaking under the pressure, the pull of the flames. It was the beck and call of Hell. Its majestic grey stone architecture began to fall away, revealing the black steel girders that made up its skeleton. The steel would never stand the fire. The bars bent and burned dark red. The remnants of the tower began to sway back and forth over the wasteland and I. The bars broke in half and the tower finally fell to the ground, with epic crashes and deafening booms, the city had finally been claimed. Hell had made its final signature here, I surveyed the surroundings, nothing had been left, it was nothing but darkness above fire, and I felt good.
There was no remorse, no regret, and no fear of what may come. This was just, and I was glad they were all in Hell for what they had done. The wasteland was endless. I walked on from the melting ruins of the tower through the old neighborhoods, places that I tucked away in my memory as a child. This was where I found my life. I spent my youngest days in the village, away from the city. There were days where my parents would take me to the city to taste my culture. Experience and education were sheltered by the strict morality of the older generation. My family...I came to this city young to escape them.
When my parents could not bring themselves to leave this place, I lived a life on the streets without them. The guidance, the control of other people they could not offer, I found it in these streets now destroyed. These grounds gave structure to adolescence without rules and boundaries. I found myself educated by passing faces, all of them that I remember, giving a child wisdom before disappearing into the grinding machinery of city progress and cutthroat business. I had walked past the main roads of the city and into the park. This place, where I first learned of pain. a scraped knee and my father’s comfort kept me alive. His words were always meant to settle anxiety. They didn’t settle anything except doubt inside his own mind. He helped me back up from off the ground, he said to me:
“No wounds are made without a reason...”
My first memories in this park, running through the swings, laughing at the sun, so many childish things that I had loved were now reduced to ash and black steel. I had not truly looked at myself as the city burned. The crowds of people that rushed the streets were wearing rags, clothes torn by time not by fire. I looked down awaiting the vision of torn clothes and limbs covered with dirt. I saw myself as if for the first time. I wore a white suit, clean and perfect. Through the ruins of the park, I followed a path to the street where I was born. The twisted steel had made a path for me. The houses were rubble and ash. The people in the street were burning and dying before me. I saw the men, the women and children of my childhood, aged now. Torn by time and their avarice, they are now tortured with fire while I look on wrapped in this suit. I could not save them, why was I to remain unscathed? The answer dawned upon me as I walked away from their withering bodies that I chose to save myself over them. I am here because I am alive and they are not. I am here because I chose myself over all else. I couldn’t save them. I didn’t want to save them.
They were already dead, the moment they chose to run from their punishment. They knew the choices they made, the sins committed on this earth; to neglect, to take for granted. I had seen them my entire life. They deserved the fire.
A sharp cry scorched my ears, it shook what remained of the ground and I felt my spine tremble. I tried to keep away from it. Somehow, I was drawn to the sound. Horrible screams emanating from some dark place. This was different than the screams of the others, I could feel it. I followed it. More and more the noise grew louder, as if the scream was coming from two inches away. I could not find it. The pain was searing, I stopped at this old woman rolling in the streets. I walked toward the woman, knelt down to look at her. She was naked, clothes either lost in the fire or permanently embedded into her skin. The smoke that seemed to flow off her shoulders hit my senses. Her chest covered in black, the shawl that she wore was burned into her. Her screams turned to whimpers as I approached her, I placed one hand on her back, and the whimpers stopped. Her body rolled over to reveal her face. Burned, with no hair, two thick black holes where her eyes may have resided. She opened her mouth. A tongue fell out, black and burned beyond use, her teeth cracked and brittle, falling out at the first moments of speaking.
She opened her mouth. “Bless me father, for I have sinned against man.” She spoke as she took my hands, caressing them, looking to me for some kind of comfort. I could not provide any words. This woman had to deserve this, didn’t she? I could not see her punishment. She had no feelings of regret, no desire to be spared. She felt pure to me. Why was she subject to this? The entire city was dying. I had never felt this purity in any of the others.
Their greed, their selfish, thoughtless nature, did not reside in this cursed, old woman. My thoughts were cut short by her pleading words again.
“Please father, bless me and wash away these wounds.” She placed her head into my hands, the blood from the holes in her eyes flowed into my hands.
“I am sorry, but I am not a holy man, what can I do for you?” She began to cry, and she rose off the ground. Her brittle legs gained some kind of strength and she stumbled away from me crying, she threw her hands into the air, and the cries became laughter. I looked at her and rose from my feet. She turned towards me and laughed. She pointed and screamed.
“You did this, didn’t you? Don’t lie to me...I know who you are...you are a devil...you are Satan.”
“What are you talking about?” “You have destroyed us! You have spared yourself the wrath of God.” She came closer to me, pointing her finger, accusingly.
“You have turned away from your own sins and brought this upon us...” She came face to face with me, touching my suit, which I had begun to loathe. This woman was burned alive, and here I stand in perfect white, what had I done? What did I deserve?
“You put this punishment upon the world around you, to protect yourself...you coward.”
“I am not a coward”
“Liar!” I felt a skeletal hand slap my face, I felt no pain. I looked at her with anger. I wanted to strike her down. Some ideal of respect had held me back. Why?
“Do you think that you are better than all of us? Than I? Do you feel you deserve no punishment? Who are you? Who do you think you are?”
I struggled to find my name. What is my name? My name...
“My name is Paavo.”
Her hand grabbed at my throat, her face becoming closer to mine, I couldn’t breathe, and she began to breathe in my air. I could feel the air leaving me, I began to suffocate. I couldn’t breathe. I did not want to die, in front of this woman, here, in this place. Did it matter? If all others were dead and gone, what meaning did my life take on?
“Get away from me!” I threw her hand off of my throat and pushed her to the ground. She laughed again, becoming louder and louder until my ears began ringing. The first pain I felt brought blood that flowed from my ears and tears from my eyes. I screamed for her to stop. Her body began to rise off of the ground. Floating there, she began to speak again.
“This is all it is, my son...All you receive for choosing yourself over all. All you receive for ignoring your sins, your mistakes, your choices...”
She flew towards me with incredible speed, grabbing my neck again. I could not remove her hand. Her grip was built from a new found strength. I was lost under her control. She began to rise into the sky, taking her with me. We reached a point high over the city, underneath the black and endless abyss.
“Look at them! These are the prisoners of hope, faith and belief! Cast away all your notions of right and wrong, behold the consequence for your life. Suffering and death was inevitable. It was inescapable, this human nature.”
I saw the bodies, the dying, all of them were sinners and no saints. I was no different than them. We rose higher into the darkness of the sky. The fires became nothing but red circles underneath the black ocean that we burned past. The city below me left my sight. I looked into the sky. Our rising bodies began to increase in speed.
Wind shredded past us, burning my eyes, I could not see, tears began to pour down into my hands, trying to cover the blinding pain. My body felt the crushing weight of space, pushing down upon it. I couldn’t breath, my chest constricted, I shook uncontrollably. I screamed to stop, but I was helpless under the woman’s grasp.
Faster and faster we climbed the darkness, she spoke again. “Is this what you wanted? A purgatory? A place of apathy where fools reside? Of course, why else would you condemn your own kind...When you take your freedom as paradise, and rape it’s simple truth. You had a choice, and you chose to save yourself.”
“What are you?” Pained words were all I could manage out of my struggling breath. Her body began to change before me, the bones burned and seething grew plain white skin deep from within itself. The skin covered her body. The new shell of white began to glow.
“I can show you things, my son. I will show you price and consequence. I will show you fate and destiny.”
Black hair grew from her head, her arms and legs. The teeth that replaced the open, bleeding mouth were sparkling white. The new eyes that were birthed from the darkness within the two empty spaces of her head, deep and green. This woman let go of my throat, and I floated in this space. The sky of black shattered open, dark clouds stormed around us, revealing white light from above. The woman before me was not the woman I had found begging on the grounds of fire and sin. She was reformed, reborn, now adorned with robes as white and perfect as the suit I found myself in. Her black hair and green eyes struck me with shocking familiarity. It was as though I had known this woman my entire life, in thoughts and dreams and other places.
“Mother? I...Mother, what’s going on? What’s happening to me?” She smiled at me. It comforted me instantly. I felt my defiance crumble and contract into a ball that I put into my pocket to forget, like a child would.
“My child, you must never forget what you are. You have taken your gifts for granted. Even now, those people under you, are paying their own price, as well as yours. I am no different from you or them.”
She came down from her elevated state, her hand graced my cheek, and I felt safe. The white light had now overtaken the darkness around us. I found myself between the white clouds above and the black abyss below, dark red flames that reached and pushed to touch me, dark flames that burned and purged those people to this moment, still they screamed. Mother grabbed my hand and spoke softly.
“Paavo, never forget this moment, you will learn the cost of choice.” Tears filled my eyes. I looked up to the light above us. I saw a man walking towards my mother and I. White robes matching those of my mother, his blonde hair and brown eyes scorched my fears and doubts as to why this was happening. I was frozen again.
“Father?”
“My son.”
His voice was deep and booming. “You have been spared the fire, but you will not be spared judgment”. My mother’s unbreakable grip returned and I was unable to pull away from her. Her hands returned to my throat as she held me down. My father elevating above us, his white robes fly open to reveal a gleaming black sword.
“Be quiet, my child.” She whispered into my ears. My father took the weapon into his hands. I floated there, between the dark and the light. Helpless, dying and facing the punishment of my actions. My suit of white was false, I should have known. The black below and the white above. Heaven and hell.
My father lifted the blade, memories and images flashed through my mind, too quick to cherish, too short to remember. He raised the sword as if it was his newborn son; before he died, before he knew that his son was damned as well as he was. The sword came from heaven and fell to my neck. Then there was no pain, only darkness again...
Willa Goodheart, honest and hard-working white collar worker finds herself connected to a police investigation for a serial killer; and she hasn't a clue why - that is, until she begins digging.
