Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) (12 page)

I nodded. But a lump rose in my throat. "Mal, I can't."

"Can't what?"

"Keep the shell. Fight. I just--I don't have the energy. And now Suki--"

I couldn't help it. I sobbed, tears running down my face. "I'm so tired of being sick! I wish I'd die and get it over with!"

The tears turned the world into a watery kaleidoscope, but I felt Mal put an arm around me. I leaned against him and cried into his shoulder.

I was too weak to even cry very long. A few sobs later I was finished, resting on his shoulder and panting. He smelled like sweat, dirt and camper--no booze or cigarettes, like most of the other farm laborers.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"For what?" His voice hummed inside him.

"For this. For getting your shirt wet."

I met his eyes. They'd become hazel--all the colors--and human. His defenses were down, and my tears had made him vulnerable. I sat up a little in dismay. "Mal--stop being human. You'll get hurt."

He bowed his head and touched one of the engraved flowers on the puzzle box's lid. "Blame this. When it is nearby, I am nearly whole. This, now, is the man I should be."

"Maybe it's safer to be a lich."

He closed his eyes, sighed and shook his head. "Perhaps it is. And perhaps it is safer to care about no one and nothing, and to lock your heart in a puzzle box where it can never be broken. But while there, it grows small and hard. Safe? Yes. But there lies the end of any human decency."

I folded my hands in my lap and gazed at them to hide my shame. "Oh. I guess--I'm so dumb. I'm sorry."

"Never apologize for honesty." His arm tightened around me. "Libby, I don't care what the weather is tomorrow, we're attempting the healing rite. Noon at the canal."

I straightened and the room seemed brighter. "Seriously?"

He touched the shell and turned its mouth inward. "Keep this directed at your heart. It will form a feedback loop and keep you from losing the life motes you still possess."

His tender tone belied the direct words. I smiled. "You're not Malevolent anymore."

His eyes crinkled. "Of course, I am. But you have been handling my soul." He patted the puzzle box. "To you, I'm only Malachi."

I remained with Libby until her mother returned home. It was not wise to leave her alone, unprotected, with my brother running wild.

After a while, the garage door rumbled open, and Libby's mother returned. She was wreathed in a glimmer of magic. It was the sort that acted as a natural alarm field, and made her unusually perceptive. She sensed my presence the instant she set foot in the house, for she charged into the living room, car keys in hand like a weapon. "Libby, who is this?"

"This is Malachi." Libby's weariness kept her voice soft. "I gave him back his box, and he decided to stay until you got home."

Her mother met my eyes. Distrust. Protectiveness.

I rose to my feet, crossed the room and shook her hand. "I apologize profusely for my brother's actions. He was never the straightest of arrows. Is Suki all right?"

"A broken leg and bruised ribs. They're keeping her overnight." Mrs. Stockton's face remained stony. "Does cruelty run in the family?"

"No, ma'am. I respect all life. I could not keep bees if I did not."

Her magic field probed at me a little, as if testing if I was trustworthy. I relaxed and let it touch me. Resistance made this kind of magic react negatively.

Her eyes were hard topaz. "I heard you've been to prison."

Cold settled through my being, like clouds of chill rolling from an open freezer. Exactly the topic I least wished to discuss, and of course,the one of most tender interest to a parent. "Yes ma'am."

I sensed Libby's eyes on my back.

Mrs. Stockton continued to scrutinize me. "What did you do?"

I swallowed. How could I possibly explain the barrier-prison where the Marchers had confined me for a year? "I stole three books."

"Books?" Mrs. Stockton raised an eyebrow.

"Valuable books." I had also spied on the Marcher's secret ceremonies, trying to learn all I could about motes. I was lucky they had only imprisoned me.

Mrs. Stockton accepted that, although she did not appear satisfied. "If I find you've taken advantage of my daughter, you'll visit the morgue, not prison."

The hate tried to uncoil inside me at this threat, but in the proximity of the puzzle box, it rolled over into sadness. She distrusted me purely because of the bad choices I had made upon my initial encounter with Robert. But if our places were reversed, I would distrust me, too.

"I hold to old fashioned values, ma'am. I will defend Libby's honor, not violate it." I wanted to add that I followed Christ, but I did not want to explain my position as a spiritual outcast.

I glanced over my shoulder. Libby gazed at me with an expression that weakened my knees. If only I could settle beside her and take her in my arms for a while--but no. We were both weak, and I had not had enough honey to mitigate the draw of the death void inside me.

I cleared my throat. "Now that you are home, I shall depart." I scooped my puzzle box off the sofa and headed for the door. As I opened it, I glanced over my shoulder.

Libby gazed after me, sitting huddled and small on the sofa, her chocolate hair in a wild tumble around her shoulders. Shadows lurked in the hollows of her face.

My slow-beating heart made a sideways, painful jerk. She was exhausted, ill, vulnerable--and still she had fought my brother for me. Oh, why must such courage be contained in such a fragile vessel?

I walked back to the bee station and chanted in time with my footsteps, "Befriend many, serve some, trust few, love none."

It did no good. The feeling remained, and I feared it was stronger than a crush. This admiration and devotion ran deep into my being, as deep as the hole where my soul had been--the emptiness that made me a lich. My severed soul adored her--but so did my cold, logical mind. This should not be possible.

I sat among the beehives. My friends swirled around me, and alighted on my clothes. "Hello Mal," they sang. "You are better. Why are you sad?"

"Tell me what happened when Robert met Libby, before I arrived."

While she had faced death, I had limped through the orchards, one grim step at a time, afraid I was already too late.

The bees told me all that had transpired. Libby's magical capacity amazed me. Even as ill and depleted as she was, she still managed a magic blast to rival any Marcher.

I clenched my fists and looked at the cloudy sky. "Weather or no weather, she shall be healed tomorrow."

***

Morning dawned hazy with clouds, but blue sky showed through. Perhaps it would become clear later.

I filled my pockets with chalk and rowan powder, and roamed the canal banks. It was a lovely place--lonely and quiet. A blue heron hunted among the reeds on the far bank, his long, snake-like neck poised to strike at fish or frogs.

My bees darted from the nearby trees to me and back again, offering advice.

"The life is strong in many places! What about here? Or there?"

I studied the water's flow and the plentiful weeds along the steep embankment. The canal was man-made, and yet teemed with life. And where there was life, there was magic.

But there were plenty of dead plants, too, and decaying leaves and insects. Death motes had their place. They performed a useful function and sucked the life energy out of dying creatures, hastening death and decay, always subtracting.

Life magic returned afterward--new plants growing from the compost of dead things, or providing food for living animals. It was a constant cycle, push and pull, life and death. Balance.

Magic was the same.

Supernatural creatures like Robert or myself were created by tampering with our souls. The soul is the breath of life--the part that keeps our bodies awash in life. The spirit is the source of the personality and the sentient mind. But if a skillful death mage--a Necromancer--twisted the soul, they stopped the natural flow of life. Like a stapled stomach, the unfortunate being could no longer properly ingest the amount of life motes necessary to keep the being alive. Instead, they had to feed directly on life sources--other people. Thus, a vampire is born.

A lich, on the other hand, has his soul stripped away entirely, leaving a spiritually bleeding, empty hole. This void fills with death motes, as the body attempts to die. But the soul remains tied to the body with a magic I do not understand, preventing death. The death magic builds, and attracts huge amounts of life magic, giving liches incredible strength and power, while simultaneously multiplying their misery. It is depressing to watch everything you touch wither and die.

Most liches mitigate their draw by using it to raise thralls to gather life magic for them. There is a reason most liches become necromancers.

But instead of thralls, I opted for bees. I did not have to use death magic to raise them, and their companionship kept me human. Eating life-imbued honey so balanced my death magic that I could touch living things without killing them.

Still, I was a lich, and if I disliked the trouble my emotions gave me, I could remove them.

I hid my puzzle box behind the air conditioning unit at Libby's house. Robert would not think to look for it there.

With my soul at a distance, my warm feelings faded. Libby was a wonderful girl, but involvement with her was too dangerous to continue. I would heal her and depart.

Befriend many, serve some, trust few, love none.

My cold, logical mind chewed through the reasoning behind my ill-fated attraction--for even without the puzzle box, I thought about her constantly. Libby was nothing more than a friend. Healing her was serving her--but I must not trust or love her, for trust and love had been what led to my lich conversion in the first place.

***

Libby arrived in her golf cart at noon, when the sun was bright and warm. She had made an effort to dress today--jeans and a sweater rather than a baggy sweat suit. She was so thin, she had almost no figure. Her pale skin against her dark hair and eyes made her look ghostly, as if she'd already succumbed to the infection.

Once that happened, next came thralldom. It would not happen to Libby.

She gave me a weary smile as she stepped out of the cart. "Hi, Mal. You're looking Malevolent today."

Weak but still retaining a sense of humor. My distant soul sang. "Hello Libby. Are you able to climb the canal bank? I've decided on the most powerful spot."

I helped her up the steep slope to a circle marked with twigs. "Sit down. This will take a few minutes."

She sat with a groan of relief.

My chalk would not draw on dirt, so I had crushed it into powder. I sprinkled it in a circle around her, and marked the compass points with rowan.

Then I had to play the part of a Marcher, and walk a border to seal the magic in with her. I carefully walked a ring around her, clockwise, and had to cross the canal in two directions. I used the bridge one way. Returning, I ran with supernatural speed and jumped the water. It was only fifteen feet, but Libby applauded as if I'd crossed the Grand Canyon.

My heart swelled with emotion I shouldn't have been able to feel.

Once I completed my circle, I returned to Libby and knelt beside her chalk ring. I concentrated my death magic on the four compass points--tiny amounts--and gave it a nudge. It began to pull magic into the circle, and Libby's own death motes drew the life into her.

She inhaled and lifted her head. Pink flooded her cheeks. "This feels amazing!"

I held up a hand. "You're not well yet. Shh."

I had not eaten any honey in so long that my own death magic pulled at the life like a suction pump. It took all my concentration to control it. My sluggish heart began to pound, and sweat prickled on my back. If I became distracted, and my own power fed on the surrounding life, I would kill everything for acres.

But I would have so much power, I could raise the dead.

Therefore I focused on Libby and tried not to dwell on what might happen. She beamed at me. Life motes sparkled all over her face and hands, golden, like living fairy dust. The sun glanced through the white cumulus clouds that sailed overhead. The ambient life magic strengthened as plants drew life from the soil, and nature exulted in the shift to spring.

Unexpectedly the magic flow slowed and swirled, as if tugged in another direction. What was this? I was not drawing it off--it was as if a person were dying nearby and life motes were being consumed.

Libby glared over my shoulder. "Robert, get lost."

Fear and hatred combined within me like sodium and water. I spun around.

Robert stood at the foot of the canal embankment, the sun shining on his perfectly-groomed blond hair, wearing a white grin like a mask. But his death aura rippled about him like a cloud of black gnats, reaching toward the trees, the grass, and especially Libby. What had happened to make him so strong?

I slid down the embankment. "Robert, you must leave at once. I am in the middle of a rite."

His grin widened. "I know. That's why I came."

My hands doubled into fists. "Are you trying to destroy Libby?"

"Yes, because it'll destroy you."

Shock sliced through my hatred like a spear through boiling water. "She was your girlfriend!"

Robert's smile warped into a sneer. "She's not anymore." He swept one arm toward me.

Invisible force struck me in the chest and hurled me into the tops of the almond trees. I crashed through white blossoms and branches that clawed my flesh and broke beneath me. I finally struck the ground and lay still for a moment, stunned.

"Mal!" Libby shrieked.

I whipped to my feet as if her voice was an electric shock. Robert leaned against the outer circle that I had walked. Both hands flattened against it, as if a wall of glass stood there--then it gave way, and he stepped toward Libby and the chalk circle.

The outer circle should have repelled him. How was he so powerful? Had he killed someone and drank all their life?

Robert kicked at the chalk circle with the toe of one sneaker. Libby stood inside, teeth bared and fists clenched, unable to stop him.

I leaped up the embankment. "Not during a rite! No!"

He broke the circle.

The incoming life magic and the death magic pulling it lost their alignment. The circle exploded in sheets of dust, and a shockwave that threw Robert and me backward like leaves in a tornado.

Libby's scream tore my heart in two.