Painter Of The Night Book Novels & Stories

Zee's POV "There was a hand upon the chains that were self-inflicted upon Him— The Little Prince, O Great Morning Star— And He looked up— And saw the face of a little brother most mischievous And despair He did no longer." ~The Book of Lost Days Lilith 3:1

My father’s book. I took a deep breath and opened it again, making sure to avoid touching any of the pencil prints. I looked at them one by one. Most of them were just drawings of still objects. Then I flipped to the next page and saw a picture of the glowing moth! Just like the other sketches, this one was vivid too, as if it had been captured and trapped in the book. Surrounding the glowing moth were little sparks in an exact shade of gold to represent the light it gives off as it flies. I turned over to the next page. Nothing significant. Just banshee drawings. I flipped and flipped until I got to the end of the book. Nothing of any peculiar interest to me. I closed the book and set it do

“In their castle beyond night Gather the Gods in Darkness, With darkness to pattern man’s fate. The colors of darkness are no monotonous hue- For the blackness of Evil knows various shades, Full many as Evil has names.” Karl Edward Wagner

But that wasn’t what he was drawing today. There was a picture of two girls—rendered crudely in crayon, but still identifiable as girls. One of them had short blond hair and the other had long brown braids. Their hands were on their faces and their mouths open in screams. David had drawn these as big black circles. A huge black shadow hovered before them, a shapeless body with red eyes and clearly defined hands. The hands looked like long silver knives. There were many drawings before this one. Lauren wondered how long David had been at it.

However, I had to be strong and end this dilemma. The polar night— the painting that Hilary completed for my father— was the embodiment of my thoughts and struggles. Although the winter night was trying to cover the sun, it lights never falter bringing majestic colors through the horizon. However, the painting was holding two realms at once, each place shuddered against each other. Our own reality against life's reality. "Hey, what are you doing up?" Hilary's raspy voice breathed into my neck as she embraced on my side.

When he finally reached the last page, he leisurely looked up at me and slurred in a honeyed tone, "Who is the painter of this book? I want to employ him." "!!!!!" To be Continued.........

A king-sized bed sat in the middle of the room, and a recliner was right in front of the glass wall at the other end. I neared the painting, folding my arms and taking in the details. From what I could tell, the painter was telling the story of a man who’d become a darker shadow of himself while walking down a path no one else could. There were what appeared to be dead bodies littered behind him, and it seemed like his soul died a little with each step he took.

A tyrant disguised as a family man. She stayed there, curled up on her bed, her gaze lost in the void. With the curtains drawn, the room was bathed in a ghastly light. The air was heavy, almost suffocating. And the silence… oppressive. --- On the evening of the third day, the door slowly opened. Rhonda entered the room, her face lit with a chilling, mocking, almost triumphant smile. Seeing Chantelle, curled up on the bed, her face swollen, reddened from crying, she let out a contemptuous little laugh.

She had already sprinted past the turnoff for her apartment building; leading these unknown killers to her safe house would be suicide. She needed to lose them in the dark, because if she failed to break their line of sight, she would likely end up as a corpse on an autopsy table by morning. The path ahead was pitch black, unlit by any city infrastructure, but her enhanced night vision handled the darkness without issue. Fortunately, she knew these back alleys like the back of her hand. Reaching the absolute end of the concrete maze, the narrow path finally opened up into the wide, brightly lit expanse of the multi-lane highway.

The night we heard her voice at the falls in Maatua was the only time he’d let even a hint of emotion of losing his sister show, and even then, he’s been acting like it never happened. Something falls over, and dust rushes toward us as Cassian pulls an old sheet free from a pile of burned and shredded canvases. A large, looming field of black painted on canvas swallows the room and takes my breath away. “It’s one of her nightmares,” I say, mostly to myself. I’m beyond words as my eyes roam over each stroke, each dark color she blended into the sucking, depthless black at the center. A figure is barely visible, standing with their head slightly turned to look over one shoulder, but no facial