In The Darkness

 

 

 IN THE DARKNESS

Horror / Dark Fantasy

146,884 words

Jessica Barone

(In The Darkness is unpublished as of 11/15/22)

Every villain is the hero of his own story...

In the Seventeenth Century, CORENTIN, a boy meant for the church, is sold into indentured servitude.  He finds himself in Paris, bound to a tyrannic master, who forces the boy to fight for the pleasure of the aristocracy.  Renamed COEURCHIEN, the boy harbors a dark secret, an imbalance in the brain which grows with every abuse.  One day, he slips his leash and kills his master.  Turning to a life of thieving and addiction, Coeurchien encounters ALEXANDER, a creature of darkness, a strigoi, who takes pity on the young man and gifts him with immortality...and endless hunger for living blood.

At times so close to slipping away into madness, Coeurchien is grounded not by Alexander, or his brothers-in-blood, but by his daughter, ELIZABETTE, whom is also gifted with strigoi blood.  With Elizabette at his side, Coeurchien finds peace...  But soon learns nothing lasts forever. Throughout time, from Seventeenth Century Paris to Twentieth Century America, Coeurchien finds Elizabette and loses her, again and again, struggles with psychopathy, and learns to embrace his own truth.  It's a tale of darkness, of survival, and of breaking free of the chains that bind.  IN THE DARKNESS is an epic origin story which finally gives the villain his due.

 

At 146,884 words, IN THE DARKNESS is an adult horror tale of ambition, survival, and breaking free of the chains that bind; an epic origin story which finally gives the villain his due.