Disclaimer: The Dark is Rising Sequence, characters, and events belong to Susan Cooper. I own five books, that it all.
In Dreams
by Zelda Ophelia
He enjoyed her.
Or at least so much as possible in this corporeal existence that couldn't even be called life.
Again he rejoiced being immortal. Immortality meant that he could not die, and so long as he was alive he was undefeated.
Even in the bare existence where he no longer held a body - long since banished at the Midsummer tree. The Light may have won that battle, but - well - they were the Light. The do-gooders, rule-abiders, the optimistic fools
that never once considered a possible loop hole to the rules of what they
believed to be their final engagement.
But he was of the Dark. He was the Black Rider. And though there was no longer a body for him to control and call his own, he still existed. And he was rising again.
And this time he would win.
Time. That was a plane of existence that held little meaning for him, as an immortal. He could move through it like an eel through the water. Which allowed him his one indulgence.
And, oh, he enjoyed her screams.
He listened to them as a music lover would listen to Vivaldi. Their sweet cacophony was his one true indulgence as he laid his plans of conquest.
She was protected somehow.
Whatever it was - whoever it was - was strong. Hence the dreams he
sent. What he could not do to torture her in real life he could do in her
dreams. And they had become his favorite song.
The End
