Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) (13 page)

When the magic exploded, it was like sitting on TNT. The world jolted, shattered, spun briefly through empty space--then crashed back together.

My body vibrated like a bell, and a ringing noise echoed in my head, like speaker feedback. I opened my eyes. I lay face down, and dirt crunched between my teeth. I lifted my head and moved my arms and legs. Everything worked, but I'd be sore later. Cautiously I sat up.

The explosion had kicked up a massive cloud of dust, and I couldn't even see the orchard twenty feet away. But nearby were the sounds of scuffling feet, blows, grunts, and swearing. I was still so befuddled by the explosion that it was a while before I identified the noise--Mal and Robert were duking it out.

I coughed in the dust and wiped my eyes. The partial healing remained inside me, and I stood up with more strength than I'd had in days. But the marsh grass along the canal was brown and wilted. Was that supposed to happen?

A breeze cleared the dust. Robert had Mal pinned against the embankment with his hands around his neck. I drew a sharp breath, and hot rage flooded my chest.

Robert had tried to kill me by breaking the magic circle. He'd bullied me, sucked away my health, broken my dog's leg, and stabbed Mal. I clenched my teeth on sand and looked around for a sharp stick I could use as a stake. What a time to leave my knife at home. The only weapons available were rocks.

I did have the shell necklace in my pocket.

I pulled it out and put it on, then grabbed a rock. "Hey, jerkwad!"

I'm a pretty good shot. Robert looked up, and I bounced the rock off his forehead. He swore and reeled backward. Mal sprang to his feet and shot me a grateful look.

Robert charged toward me, but Mal tackled him and they hit the ground, kicking and punching. It made my stomach squirm. It's one thing to read about violence, or watch it on TV. But to see two people you know doing their level best to hurt each other--it's nauseating.

Robert was stronger than his brother. He threw Mal around like he weighed nothing, and Mal's blows glanced off him. Had Robert been sucking blood in preparation for this fight? Or was Mal still weakened from his stab wounds?

I gathered a pile of smooth, heavy river rocks and hurled them.  Each one thudded into Robert's head or shoulders, and it was immensely satisfying. Not many girls can say they've thrown rocks at a vampire and lived to tell about it.

My assault only made him punch Mal harder. After he took a stone in the eye, he grabbed Mal and threw him into the orchard's treetops. Mal crashed through the branches, snapping them, then hit the ground and lay still.

A tree limb would make an effective stake through the heart. Maybe that's why they kept tossing each other in there. But Mal couldn't die unless his phylactery was destroyed ... which meant that he could be hurt an awful lot. When he didn't move, my heart began to thud painfully. "Mal!"

Robert stalked toward me with a toothy smile. "What, you think he can save you? You're smarter than that."

I held up the shell like a crucifix.

"Oh, come on," he laughed. "I'm beyond being hurt by a seashell. I'll just snap your neck and we'll call it even."

I didn't answer him. Part of me whispered that he wasn't serious, that this was the guy who bummed money off my mother, and spent hours on our couch in front of the TV. But there was a bright intensity in his eyes that I'd never seen before, like an animal with rabies.

I backed away from him, my breath coming faster as my body advised me to run. He followed me along the canal bank. Mal still lay in a heap, unmoving. I was alone.

Robert's hands flexed, as if anticipating the kill. "Nice rock throwing, by the way."

My heart crawled up my throat, but I managed to reply, "Too bad I forgot my wrist rocket. I'd have put holes in you."

His smile seemed painted on--a mask designed to fool pretty girls. His entire friendly facade had been an act. I had fallen for it and dated him, like who knows how many others. What a moron I had been.

His steps slowed, as if the shell's power still hurt him, despite his mocking denial.

I called, "Uh, Mal? A little help?"

Mal turned his head and slowly began to roll over. He was really hurt this time.

Robert followed my gaze, and laughed. "He can't help you. I've gotten power from the Necromancer." He raised his voice, so Mal could hear. "Try summoning your stupid bees again. I'll suck every particle of life from their miserable bodies." Then he gave me the strangest look--almost sorrowing. "That's why I'll kill you this way instead, Libby. I've let you suffer for too long, and now it's time to end it."

He lunged at me faster than my eyes could follow, knocking the shell aside. His sweaty hands closed on my neck and shoulder with the strength of a backhoe. He wrenched my head sideways.

The bones in my neck made a hideous crunching sound.

Then I was lying on the ground, looking up at the clouds. My neck hurt like it had a knife stuck in it, but the rest of my body was gone. No feeling. Nothing. Had he torn my head off? I tried to scream, but my mouth didn't work. I lay there in horrible limbo, without breath, without movement.
God, help me!

Robert's face came into view, with his lip thrust out in a pout, as if he'd broken his favorite toy. "Sorry about this. You'll die soon, don't worry."

Mal bellowed, "Libby!" His voice cracked, as if tears had choked him.

I wanted to yell that I was alive, and they might still fix me if I got to a hospital soon. But my throat had a terrible cramp in it.

Robert moved out of my line of vision. "It's over. I snapped her neck like a twig. Go back to Pennsylvania and play with your bees."

"No." Mal's voice was so soft I could barely hear it. "You will suffer as she did."

The ground shifted as if an earthquake had hit. The orchard rustled. The breeze rose to a wind that rushed past my face, and birds flew away, chattering alarms.

Robert began to scream.

I concentrated on moving my mouth. Whatever Mal was doing, it was terrible--and all because he thought I was dead. Again I tried to force air past my lips, but nothing happened.

Something black swirled past the sky. Dust? No, more like ash. Death motes. I was seeing them without Mal's viewing device, so I must be almost dead. But more and more motes rose until they blotted out the sky with blackness. Frigid cold touched my cheeks. Whatever was happening, it was bad. I tried to get up, to run, but I could only move my eyes.

Why did Robert keep screaming like that? He sounded like he was impaled on a spit, roasting slowly over hot coals. Although, come to think of it, that was too good for him. My feelings seemed so distant--all I felt was a sort of vague inconvenience. Why didn't Mal hurry up his revenge and help me? Holding my breath this long was making my vision turn red, and once I blacked out, I wouldn't wake up again.

The screaming stopped. There was a lot of ominous crunching and ripping, and the ground shook as if someone was delivering heavy blows to someone else. I closed my eyes. Maybe it was a good thing I couldn't look.

Silence fell. Someone panted in the distance. Then footsteps climbed the embankment toward me. I opened my eyes.

Mal leaned over me. His outline blurred into smeary black, like the man in the fog, but the motes didn't reach for me. Maybe I was too far gone. I tried to cringe away, but all I could do was squint.

His eyes widened. "Libby, you're alive!" He smiled for the first time--a real smile of elation. It infused his thin, pointed face with human warmth--heck, he was cute, even. But the black motes ruined it--he was simply too menacing.

His cold hands slipped under my neck and his smile vanished. "He did break your neck." His voice faltered, and he blinked rapidly, as if holding back tears. "I'm sorry, Libby. I'm so, so sorry."

I thought he was sorry that Robert had hurt me. But he was actually apologizing for what he did next.

He placed one hand on my forehead and cupped the other around the back of my neck. Then he pushed. The blackness in the sky, and the blackness around him, both swirled downward into my face.

I went blind. Nothing but darkness, deeper and deeper darkness, like sinking in the ocean. I tried to scream or struggle, but my body was gone.

The black shaped itself into dead things. Dead leaves, curled and brown. Dead mice and birds and snakes and insects, all dry and skeletal. Dead trees, leafless, their bark peeling off. I was drowning in death.

"Hold on," Mal whispered nearby. "It's only for a moment."

I struggled to trust him.

Wintery cold. It worked through my arms and legs, as if my veins were filling with liquid nitrogen. My muscles shivered. Wait, I could feel my body! Had he fixed my neck? But my arms and legs still refused to move. The chill spread inward, freezing my organs, headed for my heart.

Oh no, not my heart. I'd read the books--that was how they made monsters. "Mal, stop!" I screamed inside my head.

But he didn't, and the cold pierced my heart. It beat once.

Thud. I was made of stone and ice.

Thud. My neck popped.

Thud. A tiny point of light glowed a million miles away in the darkness.

My heart shuddered in my chest and raced like a spooked horse. Warmth spread outward through my body as the blood resumed circulating. I sucked a breath into my empty lungs. The point of light expanded and became the sky, amazingly blue. Mal still bent over me with his eyebrows drawn together with a worry line between them, but he no longer smeared black at the edges.

"Can you move?" he murmured.

I shifted my feet inside my sneakers, and curled my fingers into cold, gritty soil.  Pins and needles stabbed through my limbs. "Yes." My voice worked, too. The pain in my throat and neck had vanished.

He slipped an arm around my shoulders and helped me sit up.

I drew a deep breath. Instead of the air bouncing off the inside of my lungs, oxygen poured into my bloodstream. The remains of the icy cold fled my body, replaced by glorious, healthy warmth. I rubbed my arms and legs, which tingled like mad. Then I touched the back of my neck, where the bones had crunched. "You healed me?"

Mal's eyes were a bright, alien green with his concern. "In a manner of speaking."

The chalk circle still surrounded me, and he'd fixed the spot Robert had broken. I stood up, stretched, and laughed when no dizziness struck me. No problems but the fading tingles. "You completed the spell, didn't you? I'm well!"

Mal's eyes slid away from mine.

For life motes, it had certainly been dark and cold, and there had been all those dead things. I rubbed my neck again, and despite my energy, a little shiver touched my shoulders. "I'm well ... aren't I?"

"Yes, you're well." But his tone was unhappy.

I stepped out of the circle and faced him. "What's wrong?"

"I ..." He stared at the trees rather than at me. "I had to draw upon my lich power to restore you. You needed more life quickly, and therefore, more death to summon it."

"That's why it got cold and dark. And you had ... black motes swirling off you."

He ducked his head and hunched his shoulders. "I seldom use that power. But today it was necessary."

I grinned and patted his arm. "Why are you so hangdog? I'm well! You can't imagine what this means to me--I have my life back!"

He looked at me with gray, sad eyes. "Look at the orchard, Libby."

I turned and stared. Slowly my hands crept up to cover my mouth.

The white flowers had withered into brown lumps. The branches drooped under their own weight, and everywhere the bark was peeling. The once green weeds had turned gray and mushy. The grass along the canal was brown, too. A fish rose to the surface and floated on its side. Dead centipedes curled in the dust.

"What did you do?" I whispered through my fingers.

He folded his arms, as if trying to keep warm. "It took all the life motes in the area to restore you."

"Did you kill the whole ranch?"

"No. Only an acre."

"A whole acre of the orchard?" I gestured to the dead trees. "We only have seven acres!"

Mal said softly, "He broke your neck. You were dying. It was the only way to save you."

I had been dying. I touched my neck again with warm fingertips. My heart beat hard and fast, and I struggled to think. He killed the orchard, yes, but he saved my life. Was it worth it?

But the dead trees, withered blossoms and drooping branches blasted a terrifying reality through my brain--how would I explain this to my parents? It was too big to hide anymore. And because Mal put me in this situation, I focused my anger on him.

And Robert. Where had he gone? I looked in the direction of their fight, but there was only an area of churned earth, as if a plow had sneezed.

"Did you kill Robert?" I snapped. But I was terrified of the answer. Robert had screamed, and then there'd been so many ripping noises ...

"In a manner of speaking." Mal glanced at the churned earth.