Darkness Fair (The Dark Cycle Book 2) (29 page)

She’s standing next to Hanna, her dark hair framing her face, her light eyes full of sorrow, her familiar sweet energy spilling out around her. So much of it. More than ever before. It curls against her fingers, her shoulders, a lovely summer-sky blue. It’s so bright. Brighter than I’ve seen it. With all that energy, if I didn’t know any better I’d say she was an angel.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Hanna says.

Once Hanna has walked back toward the club, Kara comes closer, concern etched into her features. “What happened? You’re so sad.”

“My God, Kara,” I whisper. “Ava . . .”

But it’s like I don’t have to say anything else, she hears me. She steps forward and touches her fingers to my chest, just over my mark.

The blue light of her energy slinks up her fingers and soaks in, every inch of my skin going warm in a rush. Peace fills me—awareness, and hope. Kara’s peace, Kara’s hope.

“You’re not sick,” I say, my throat tightening from the tenderness of it all, a balm to my crushed spirit.

She shakes her head and then slides her hands up my chest, resting against me. I wrap her in my embrace, clutching her to me, burying my face in her hair. “I love you,” I whisper. “God, I love you.”

She holds me tighter and rises up to kiss my jaw. “I know,” she says, sounding amazed. “I can feel it.”

“How did this happen? How are you not sick?”

She moves to see my face. “Rebecca healed me.”

I stare at her in stunned silence.

“I know, it’s crazy,” she says. “But she sort of passed on her blessing to me, the one that linked her to you.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Sid said that it was Finger who did the transfer. But it was all Rebecca’s idea.” She shakes her head like she can hardly believe it. “The girl is . . . she’s so not normal. And it’s weird, but I feel like a part of her is in me now. Like, I feel different.”

I pull back and look at her more closely.

She laughs and pats my chest. “It’s all good things, Aidan. Don’t get scrunchy face. You’re worried and nothing’s happened.”

“Something always happens.”

She sighs and leans against me again. “Can’t we just enjoy the win?”

“Yeah.” I run my fingers over her hair, and try to soak in the feel of her, try not to think about what could happen. Or about Ava.

After a second of standing there in each other’s arms, she says, “You’re still worrying.”

“How would you know?” I squeeze her tighter into my chest, loving how she fits perfectly against me, reveling in her smell, the way she fills the holes in me.

She giggles.

“What?”

She steps out of my arms and there’s a huge grin on her face. “You are a
total
sap, aren’t you? A big mush.”

“Excuse me?”

She just smiles at me and takes my hand. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“Okay, weirdo.”

She tugs on my arm and pulls me toward the warehouse. “Let’s go pack your stuff.”

I let her lead me inside and back to the vault, and watch as she takes over and starts tossing my few possessions into my duffel. I lean on the wall and study her as she moves around me, focusing on her soul. But as I look over her arms, her neck, I can’t see anything. No silver mark from the curse on her nape, no red handprint around her throat. I try opening myself up more, but there’s nothing on her skin. Either I’ve lost my ability or Kara’s soul is—

Wait. I can see a golden light on her back, at the base of her neck.

A handprint.

Is that really the only thing on her soul? A
golden
handprint.

My hand.

FORTY-SEVEN

Rebecca

Connor walks me out to the cab that’s waiting in front of the house. I’m heading to Samantha’s, since my dad will be home in a few days. I figured it was time to get some space, anyway. Since the transfer two days ago, there’s this odd ache inside me. Like whatever I gave to Kara was carved out with a very dull knife. It might take some time for the pain to fade. I really hope it fades.

Aidan offered to walk me out, an offer I normally would have jumped at. But I declined. I don’t feel like I need him anymore—one of the effects of the transfer, I guess. I can’t sense his emotions anymore, either. That ability passed on to Kara, too. I have to wonder what else did.

I haven’t tried to draw yet. I’m having trouble reconciling that I may have given that ability away, also. It’s too painful to think that I could really be that . . . empty.

The one good thing that may have come of it—besides saving Kara, of course—is that I no longer have to worry about that demon. Sid and Aidan both agreed that I won’t even be a blip on its radar anymore, since the vital part of me that it was trying to destroy isn’t a part of me now. So I can go live my life.

Free.

I wish it felt like that. I keep thinking through it all, trying to figure out if I did something wrong. I knew when I gave away whatever was in me to save Kara, I knew that it was going to be a sacrifice. I knew, I just . . . I wasn’t expecting this . . . vacancy.

Connor matches my pace down the path, not touching me. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says as he opens the door to the cab.

“Yeah,” I say, absently. I toss my bag onto the backseat and then turn to face him.

“Rebecca,” he says, a frown creasing his brow. “What is it? You’ve been distant all day. You know we’ll still see you, right?”

“We?”

“Well, yeah, all of us.”

“What about you?” Have I lost that, too? Even though it was small, it was becoming something.

He reaches out and touches my arm. “Of course.” He moves closer. “Rebecca, what’s going on?”

I shake my head. “What if I gave everything I am, or was, to Kara? What if I’m no one now?”

“What?” He grips my arm and pulls me away from the cab, motioning for the driver to wait. “What do you mean? You aren’t all right, are you?”

“I don’t know what I am anymore.”

“Rebecca . . .” He takes me in his arms, hugging me to him. “Then let me tell you. You’re the kindest, most selfless person I know. You challenge me. You give me something to believe in.”

The phrase sounds so odd coming from his lips about me, I can’t help releasing a small laugh.

“You’re laughing at me,” he says.

“I was imagining that you were about to break into song.”

He pulls back and acts offended. “Hey, I can sing.”

I smile at his fake consternation.

“You know what else you are?” he says, tipping his head in a sly way. “Impossible to resist.”

Before I can argue or even process his words, his hands are in my hair and his lips are on mine. He kisses me with so much delicate urgency my body goes limp and I have to lean against him to keep from falling over. For a hundred years, we stand entwined on the front lawn, not caring if the whole neighborhood sees. And a small piece of me is reborn as I feel myself finding solid ground again. I sense those small sparks deep down that are all
me
: the piece that loved Charlie, the sliver that misses my dad’s lame jokes. And the new speck that’s falling for this guy whose arms I’m in. I’m not empty, I’m not broken, not really. I’m just finding my way like everyone else. And I won’t let myself be afraid of that.

Eventually Connor separates us enough to say, “Don’t be shocked when I pick you up from school tomorrow. We’re going surfing.”

Somehow I find my voice. “Like any good stalker, you know my schedule.”

“Of course,” he says finding my lips again.

FORTY-EIGHT

Aidan

Raul—who I’ll always think of as Scarlet—holds up another shirt against my chest and studies me with serious focus. “Try this one, I think it makes your eyes stand out more.” He turns to Kara, who’s sitting on a jeans display. “Don’t you think, Kara? The green is better, right?”

Kara just stares at him in annoyance, totally not into the shopping spree.

Raul is in heaven, though. Sid insisted we get him a few new things to wear if he might be helping LA Paranormal now and then. From what I’ve told Sid about Raul, he thinks the kid might be a Light. He’s not sure, though, so he wants me to keep the connection for a while. I’m supposed to see if he has any gifts and figure out if we should invite him into the house. For now, he’s staying at a shelter for boys, which sucks, but it’s better than drugs, prostitution, and living on the street. A little at a time.

It’s been a week since I brought Ava back. A week of total silence—I haven’t seen her or heard from her, and I can’t seem to reach her with my mind; she’s doing a really good job of blocking me out. Eric believes that she’s gone behind the Veil, and I can’t even begin to guess what she’s planning. Whatever it is, it can’t be good. She released about two dozen powerful demons from Sheol the day I resurrected her. Demons that are ready to do her bidding.

Eric and I went to the cave the next day and blocked it—the Devil’s Gate dam, too—hoping to stop her from getting to the gateway and releasing more. But I worry that she’ll still find a way.

I put the shirt back on the stack with ten others that Raul’s brought me. “We’re supposed to be shopping for you, not me, Raul,” I say.

“It’s more fun to shop for someone else.” He sighs and wanders off into the forest of racks.

I go sit by Kara. “Stop having so much fun.”

She gives me a sideways smile. “I hate shopping. With a passion.”

“You’ve just never been shopping with me.” I stand and tug her up, leading her to a rack with some dresses on it. I hold up a green one with white daises in front of me. “Too much? It’ll go with my eyes.”

Raul reappears. “Yes, it will,” he sings.

Kara laughs and reaches for the rack beside me, pulling out a pink blouse. She holds it up and her smile fades. Black goop drips from the hem. “Ew, what the hell?”

“Drop it,” I snap. “And get away from there.” She lets the blouse fall and backs up a few steps.

No sulfur smell, no demon, but there’s black ooze dripping from the rack and leaking over the clothes, like a demon was just perched there a second ago.

“Raul,” I say, “we gotta go.”

I turn to him. He’s frozen, staring at a woman across the store who’s sifting through a stack of pants.
“
Dios mio,
”
he whispers.

I follow his gaze. “What?” Nothing about the woman he’s looking at seems alarming.

He takes a step back, eyes panicked. “No, no, no, this can’t be happening again.”

“What is it?” Kara asks, squinting in the same direction as me and Raul.

I don’t see or sense anything. What the hell? I concentrate on the woman and realize that I can’t even see her soul. “Something is very wrong,” I say, pulling off my amulet and handing it to Kara.

She shoves it back at me. “What’re you doing? Put that back on!”

“That lady is going to die,” Raul says. He makes the sign of the cross over his chest.

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“Blood,” he says in a hushed voice. “On her face.”

I don’t see any blood. Could he be on something right now? He told me he was clean, but—

A large black talon bursts from the woman’s chest, blood spraying up onto her face.

Screams erupt all over the store and people scatter, racks tipping over, glass doors banging open.

Kara shoves my amulet back at me. “I’ll get the new kid,” she says, and then she grabs Raul, yanking him toward the exit, blending into the fleeing crowd.

The woman is slumped over the display of khakis, her vacant eyes staring off into the void, blood turning the merchandise under her dark brown. Her body jerks and a small demon scuttles up her back, then moves to rest on her head.

The creature is lopsided; most of the body is the size of a low-demon’s, but its right claw is huge and misshapen. It clacks two of the large talons together like it’s a crab and then leaps onto a rack about fifteen feet to my left.

My mind is still trying to compute what I just saw: a woman killed in broad daylight by a corporeal demon. In the Gap Outlet.

I drop my amulet and pull my dagger from the waist of my jeans. I take a few steps closer to the demon as the familiar spark of my power flicks on inside me. My hand catches fire, light trailing up my arm, into my chest. The store is empty now. A loud alarm is blaring through the space. Hopefully I can kill the demon quickly before the cops or ambulance get here. Before it’s able to kill anyone else.

The demon leaps onto a closer rack, its squinty eyes following the flames sparking up and down my arm. And then it starts to make odd, whispery noises in the back of its throat, like it’s talking to itself.

“You are very dead,” I say to the thing, still moving closer. It’s about five feet away now, black goop beginning to drip from its mouth and . . . from a hole in its chest? It’s wounded. But how would it be—

It leaps, latching on to my arm with its smaller claw as it screeches and tries to stab me with the huge talon that it used to spear the dead woman.

I lunge forward, pinning it between my body and the jeans display, and then I stab it in the throat.

My fire surges into the thing, the power eating it from the inside out, turning it to ash.

I step back, the ashes crumbling to the floor. My blood drips down my arm, then joins the pile.

I hear Kara yelling at someone and turn to see her arguing with a security guard who’s standing in front of the closed doors of the store, not letting her in. I pick up my amulet and start walking over, asking myself what the fuck just happened and wondering what the hell I’m going to tell that guard.

My back pocket heats in a quick burst.

The note Ava left me.

I pull it out and stare at the folded piece of paper. I’ve carried it with me everywhere this week, hoping she would contact me again. Hoping it was all a mistake and that she’d come to her senses.

But something tells me this is not going to be that kind of message.

I unfold the paper and scan down to the new line of writing. My gut drops as I read the burnt script in Ava’s twelve-year-old hand:

Game on, Demon Dork.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have come to discover that writing the second book in a series is like being told you can fly seconds before someone tosses you off a cliff. You sit down to write and squeeze your eyes shut as you dive in, hoping and praying that you and your little book don’t end up as a pile of unrecognizable squish at the base of the mountain. I want to thank all those who kept me sane through the process and made sure I didn’t literally jump from any ledges.

To my agent, Miss Rossner: As always, you are Superwoman. I don’t know how I’d walk this publishing road without your awesome spunkiness and kick-butt attitude. To Courtney Miller, who is always cheering me on and making me feel like I can actually accomplish this professional writing thing: I feel so blessed that you picked my books out of the pile and said yes! To Marianna Baer, who is always so encouraging: your notes and letters somehow energize me and empower me when I read them, and you always help me see more clearly how I can grow. And to the whole Skyscape team, who made my debut year so much fun and very stress-free: so many thank-yous!

Critique partners are a writer’s salvation, and all my critter peeps are
TheBomb.com
for shiz. A million thanks to my peeps at Codex, who magically seem able to make me feel less insane than I am and give me that extra dose of Can-Do attitude I need to finish the race—we have nearly taken over, gang! To my Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI)
roomie gals, Cheri and Catherine, who put up with my constant crazy: there’s no way LA was the same without us last year. And to my LBs: You know who you are. You ladies are my backbone, my safe place; I’m so glad you still put up with me after all these years. And to my core peeps, Merrie, Rebecca, Paul, and Mike: We’re still rolling, guys! Panera Productions strikes yet again.

To my adopted family, the amazing souls who understand when I have to hide or cry or complain (that’s you Cayse and Dave!): thanks for reading stuff over and over, and thank you so much for putting up with me and taking me on vacations when I need it.

Thanks to my mom, a.k.a. Grandma of the Year! My kids would be eating stale bread crumbs and freezer-burnt chicken nuggets if it wasn’t for you. And they’d also never get anywhere on time. You rock!

To my kids: There are no words in this world to convey how grateful I am to God for you. You four munchkins have been my inspiration and my world for the best parts of my life. You give me a reason to smile when joy seems so far out of reach. And when the clouds come rolling in, you allow me to still feel the sun on my face. There isn’t a mom in the world as blessed as I am.

To my husband, my soul mate, my best self, my heart: I am yours and you are mine. I can’t fathom how I was so blessed to be your partner in this crazy journey of life. My cup overflows.

And always, all gratefulness and love to
Elohim Emet
, the keeper of my soul.