Darkness Fair (The Dark Cycle Book 2) (24 page)

“Don’t be afraid,” she says. “But this next part might sting a little.” And I realize she has a small silver dagger in her hand. “It takes your blood now. Are you willing to allow this?”

I stare at her, at the blade, then shift to look at Kara. She’s watching everything with obvious pain in her eyes.

“You don’t have to,” she says.

“Doesn’t Aidan hate this witch stuff?” I ask her. “Why’re we doing this?”

“Not all witches cast darkness, and I need to do this my own way. Mae is a friend and she’s willing to help, if you’re willing to participate. The soul map will show us what piece of the puzzle you have that I don’t. She already did mine.”

“And it’ll tell us how to fix this?” I ask Miss Mae.

She shakes her head. “No way to know for sure, but it should show what’s gone wrong on the underside of things, where human eyes can’t normally see.”

It was
my
destiny that was messed up here, but somehow we’re trying to fix Kara’s instead of mine? It feels so upside down when I think about it all. And yet, it’s the right thing to do. She’s not some girl stealing my boyfriend; she’s a girl who’s in love and she could die from that love.

“Okay,” I say, turning back to Miss Mae. “I’m good. Let’s finish.”

Miss Mae gives me a sympathetic smile. “Good heart, child. Such a lovely heart.” And then she takes a hold of my hand, slicing into my left palm. At first, it’s a sharp pain, but then it begins to burn. And burn.

I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut for a moment as she makes a second cut along my right palm. The two wounds aren’t deep, but it’s like there was salt water on the knife or something. The heavy ache bites through my nerves and travels up my arms.

The blood flows quickly as Miss Mae turns my hands over and presses my palms down onto the white velvet. I watch the stain spread from under my hands; it begins to create a shape over the fabric’s weave as she whispers more words I can’t understand. The fire in the cuts rises and rises. My breath quickens and tears sting my throat, filling my eyes.

But I can’t let myself cry, no way, not in front of Kara.

Finally, Miss Mae lifts my hands off the velvet and Kara stands, looking at the shape left behind.

“Oh my,” Miss Mae says, staring at the fabric. “There it is.”

“Is it angelic, though?” Kara asks.

I don’t look at the patterns left on the velvet yet. I’m too busy staring at my palms, which have no cuts on them. The only sign of what just happened is traces of blood.

“How did I heal so fast?” I ask.

“It’s a part of the spell,” Kara says. “That’s why it burns. You were pretty tough, though. I know how much that hurts.”

Miss Mae hands me a damp towel to clean the blood off. “So, it looks like your blood is somehow blessed. Perhaps this blessing was placed on your mother while you were in her womb?”

“I never knew my mother,” I say.

“Did she die in childbirth?” she asks.

“My dad said she ran off.”

Miss Mae looks back at the dark-red shapes inside the white velvet circle. “Hmm . . . well, then we can’t be sure of this.” She points at a part of the stain that looks like any random bloodstain to me. “For now though, we can definitely be sure of this.” She moves her finger lower down in the stain. “This is your unique bond to Aidan. It’s a Heavenly mark, an anointing for protection.”

“So, does that help?” I ask.

Miss Mae looks over to Kara, who rolls up my soul map and hands it to me. “It doesn’t yet. But at least now we know.”

I put the soul map in my purse, unsure why I’d want a piece of fabric covered in my blood. “What do we know?”

Miss Mae sighs. “Oh honey, Kara’s soul was damaged and broken even before she met this Aidan boy. As his power grows, it’s trying to heal her deepest parts. But in that healing, a lot of power needs to be used, and that much power isn’t meant to be held inside a normal human body. Kara’s body is breaking down from it all, even as her soul heals.”

“But, maybe there’s a way to hold the power back,” I say, wishing I didn’t sound so pathetic.

Miss Mae takes Kara’s hand, like she’s trying to comfort her. “If there is, Kara hasn’t found it.”

I search Kara’s desperate eyes. “Then what’s going to happen?”

She doesn’t look away when she answers. “If I stay with him, I’m going to die. Soon. It might already be inevitable.”

FORTY

Aidan

Sleep hit me hard after I got back from my demon-hunting excursion; my body was exhausted from the crazy encounter. I dreamed about Raul, and woke up wondering if I should’ve done more for him. His spirit was surprisingly strong, considering his soul was so weak.

I sit up on the cot, putting my feet to the cold floor of the vault. The lack of windows in here makes it impossible to know what time it is. I could’ve slept the day away for all I know. And I don’t have time to do that.

I grab my bag and lift it to my lap, then reach in and scrounge around inside it, looking for my toothbrush.

All of a sudden, something shocks me, making me jerk back my arm and jump to my feet. It felt like something bit my fingers, zapping an electrical current up my arm.

The contents of the bag scatter across the floor and I realize I grabbed Ava’s bag by mistake. The pencil box, my sister’s stuffed bunny, Mr. Ribbons . . . all of it’s lying there.

Along with my mom’s grimoire. That must have been what shocked me.

I flex my fingers, trying to shake off the feeling. And that’s when I see the corner of a pink piece of paper sticking out of the grimoire’s worn pages. Pink paper with a pattern of musical notes printed into the background.

I stare at it, knowing it’s not my mom’s, knowing it’s Ava’s, not sure what to do. Does it matter? Do I want to see what it says? It was likely written when she was losing her grip.

But it could also be an answer. And I definitely need one of those right now.

I bend over and gently take it by the edge. A smaller zap hits me, running up my arm. I pull back quickly with the paper in my hand and the sizzle stops. I unfold it and see a note. To me. Written in purple ink in Ava’s familiar bubble script.

Hey Demon Dork,

I know that you’re reading this and feeling betrayed. A sister isn’t supposed to hurt her brother like I’m about to hurt you.

You know now what I am—you know that my humanity isn’t real. Your determination, your goodness, isn’t going to save me. But that’s not your fault. Hopefully, by giving myself to them I can at least save one of us for a little while. Maybe wherever I am now I can stand in the doorway and hold them back. But you need to hear me. Don’t come find me! Don’t try and save me anymore. It’s too late.

The Darkness knows you’re in the wrong place, the wrong time. It’ll do whatever it needs to make you surrender to them.

But that can’t happen. You can’t be brave, Aidan.

I will see you again, I will, but for now this letter will be my voice, my way of telling you what’s next. Don’t throw it away. Don’t, for any reason, burn it. I’ll find a way to write again.

Soon,

Ava

The paper trembles in my grip. My pulse hammers in my head as my vision of the words blur.

Ava
. . . She was preparing to leave me that whole time. She’d always planned to give herself to them. I knew that, but feeling it again, after everything . . . it’s like it happened moments ago.

I rub my thumb against the edge of the paper and start to fold it back up. But then I spot another line of script, below the signature, different than the rest. It’s quick and sloppy, scrawled in black letters, but not ink. It’s more like it’s singed onto the page.

Find me, you’ll stop the pain if you find me
.

A shiver trails down the back of my neck, the hair on my arms rising. I could swear that line wasn’t there a second ago. It just appeared. As if Ava was sending me a message. Right this moment. I look back up to the end of the letter and read,
I’ll find a way to write again.

Could she really have just added those new words from . . . wherever she is?

I look around the vault and reach out with my insides, feeling for her, for anything. It’s a jumble of history and decay, the energy around me dusty, like all the old objects.

Ava?
I whisper with my mind, trying to find her like I used to.

Nothing.

Then everything starts to rattle, items rocking on the steel shelves around me. It’s quick—over after only a few seconds. Another earthquake.

I wait for a moment to be sure nothing else happens, heart racing. I try again to sense or see Ava’s spirit. But she’s not here. Whatever it was, she isn’t close by.

I fold up the note, slide it into my back pocket, and head out of the vault. It’s obvious where I need to go.

There is something strange when I get to the cave: the strong smell of burnt sage. When I walk into the shadows, I see that the crack in the doorway is three times larger, which explains the earthquake. Demon blood spills from the fissure, down the wall, and the sand beneath is coated in the black ooze. It trails out like oily fingers, making its way to the altar.

Whatever Ava’s father is doing, it’s getting worse. And if that demon in Hanna’s office wasn’t lying, there’s more than just black ooze coming through that crack. I don’t even want to think about what might have just slipped across. The image that Rebecca drew of me comes to mind, the one of me standing in front of the cave opening, on top of the mound of skulls. And the dream I had of Ava stabbing Kara—there were skulls in that, too. The two things that link it all together are the skulls and this cave.

This crack has probably already brought death; the waitress at the club was ripped to shreds by a demon that crossed here. I may have killed the demon and brought Miranda back, but God only knows how many more victims there have been that I haven’t been around to resurrect.

I step up to the altar and stare at my sister. I reach out to her with my mind, begging for something, anything, to show me how to fix this. Fix any part of this. I’m tired of the silence, tired of the air that’s empty of her. I need to be sure she’s all right, that she’ll come back to me—

My back pocket suddenly pulses hot against my skin. The note. I pull it out and unfold it just as new words appear in that same burnt script.

It’s time. You’ll find me soon. The secrets like spiders will whisper in your ear
.

Soon. Not sure about the spiders, but as long as I’ll be getting those secrets, that’s all that matters to me.

“Thank you, Ava,” I say to the air that doesn’t feel quite as empty anymore.

Satisfied for now, I leave the cave and run up the pathway, back to the waiting car and driver from the club that Hanna let me use to come here. I consider knocking on Mrs. O’Linn’s door to say hi to the two ladies, but I’m not sure my brain or stomach are prepared for a visit. As I round the top of the rise, something flickers at the edge of my sight. I turn.

Down on the beach a figure stands, facing the water. How did I not see him when I was down there? He’s not that far from the cave entrance.

His dark hair ruffles in the ocean breeze as he stares out at the horizon. He’s wearing cream pants and a cream shirt that contrast with his bronze skin, and he looks so out of place, like a man displaced from his homeland, but—

The figure turns, looking up to the rise where I’m standing.

Even from here I know who and what he is.

Daniel
.

His mouth moves and I know he’s saying my name. I feel it, inside my chest. But he doesn’t say the Irish name, Aidan. He says a Chaldean name with the same meaning:
flame
.

My feet take me back down the path to the beach, slowly. And with each step the feelings of dread and curiosity twist more and more inside me, like a blade carving out my insides. He stands on the shore, waiting, watching me with something mysterious in his eyes. As I come closer I see sorrow. I see a fear that mirrors my own. And I suddenly realize I’m not just looking at some story or icon, I’m looking at a man.

Two yards away, I stop, not able to move any closer.

“You are so much like her,” he says, his voice a pained whisper.

“No,” I say. “I’m not.” Is he not looking at me? Is he blind?

“Your heart,” he says. “Gentle, like hers.”

It dawns on me that he’s
reading
me, looking through me, into my soul and my inner self, like I see people. “I barely knew her,” I say, feeling the sorrow of it all spill out.

But what I just said isn’t true. I understood her better than I understand myself.

He just smiles sadly, like he knows perfectly well what I’m not saying.

“I left you here,” he says, like a confession, “left both of you, alone.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve done well.”

I stare at him in disbelief, my eyes stinging with rising tears. How could he say that? It feels like the words I’ve longed to hear my whole life, but they’re a total lie. “Why are you here now?” I ask, my throat raw.

He turns and looks to the water again. “This is where I lived my heart-life. In this place. It was like a dream, a parallel world where I could believe in the goodness of human nature, believe in innocence. And then I was kept away, I was told of my sin, and I knew I could never enter this world again.” He stares at an approaching wave, watching it curl and push up the beach and then return before he speaks again, his voice more sure. “This journey is not for myself, though. It is as a messenger. I come to warn you and speak to your future and this world’s downfall.”

“You’re a Harbinger,” I say.

“The first that will come. The next will also be brought back to this world by you.”

“Me? No way. No more waking up the dead.”

“It is your path.”

“I have things I need to be taking care of right now that don’t include the end of the world.” At least, I hope not.

“You worry for your sister, the tainted one.”

Anger sparks to life in my gut. What did he just call her? “Her name is Ava. And she’s not
tainted
.”

“Her blood, that is what I’m referring to. Not her soul. But you must leave that alone, Aidan. Your mother’s sin cannot become your own.”

“Sin? My sister is not a
sin
. Her life is not a sin. She’s a human girl who deserves a chance at a normal life, which she’s never had because her mother was so strung out on casting magic that she went bat-shit crazy and then sacrificed herself to save that
sin
that you want me to leave behind.”

“You misunderstand me. I mean the sin your mother committed by believing she was a god. Her life should have been one of peace and joy with you, but she spent it casting out, trying to change her fate through manipulation. Love is the only way to truly change things. And love does not harm, it only heals. I know your mother was in pain, but she chose poorly.”

The words are honest and harsh, cutting through me like a knife.

“I hear in your voice what you yearn to do,” he continues, “but you need to leave that behind. Don’t bring her back, Aidan. You mustn’t.”

“I have to.” My throat goes tight. “I made a promise.”

He nods slowly. “I understand. Then I will say what I must and go. These are the words HaShem has spoken:
Forgive the father of your flesh, or you will be cast among the ashes. Acquit the mother of your blood, or you will drown in her sorrow. Release the sister of your soul, or you will find your hands holding her heart’s blood
.”

He stands silent for several seconds and I take it all in, breathless.
Let go
,
he seems to be saying. Let go of this road I’m on, this path to save Ava. How can I? Leaving her to her fate . . . that’s impossible.

“I know these things aren’t what you wanted for the future, but we don’t control life, we merely live it, searching for Grace. You’ve been given a large weight on your shoulders, but it’s meant to be there, for the glory of HaShem. Not for your own devices. So know that your powers will only bring back human life that your own existence caused to be snuffed out; it will only fix that which you’ve broken in your birth. And each time you resurrect another, you give of your own life. Nothing is free. The life that was taken for a purpose cannot be saved by you. That soul will rise to paradise and wait to be made whole again.”

I stare at him, realizing that means my power has the potential to fix what my own existence has broken, as much as it’s meant to fight Darkness. All these things I’ve messed up with my life, with my birth, there’s a way to mend some of it.

Which means there’s still a way for me to save Ava and help Kara.

“Good-bye,” he whispers at last, his voice full of unspoken things. “There is much I wish we could speak of, but for now I must obey. Know that I see you, that I am not ashamed to call you my son, Fire Bringer. Know that my heart is heavy with yours. Forgive me if you can.”

And then he begins to fade, his body turning ghostly and translucent, until he disappears entirely. I can only watch the empty spot on the shore where he’s been standing. My father. The man who I resurrected from dust. And I know I’ve already failed him. Because I can’t do what he wants. I can’t leave Ava to her fate, I can’t let go. I have to try and save her.