Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) (19 page)

The Necromancer's power dragged me back to consciousness. One minute I floated in the darkness of sleep--the next, a cold hand grabbed my throat and yanked me upward.

Gasping, I sat up. Dead trees all around, lit by moonlight, like the set of a horror movie. The orchard? How did I get back home? Ropes dragged at my arms. My hands were tied behind my back. Pain throbbed through my wrists and fingers.

A man in a black coat stood with his back to me, a skull held above his head. He was so dark that I hadn't seen him at first. The moonlight bent away from him, as if he were a living shadow. I was willing to bet he was the creepy guy I'd seen crossing the street in the fog. I tried to inch away from him--the sight of him sent cold sweat prickling down my neck.

A short distance away, Mal and Robert carried on a boxing match with claws that flashed and clinked. They moved too fast for me to follow, but neither looked hurt.

Tiffany groaned beside me. She struggled to sit up with her tied hands.

"Tiff! Are you okay?"

"My arm!" she wailed. "Ow! Ow!" She dissolved into incoherent cries.

The man with the skull turned and looked at us.

Yep, creepy fog guy. Except now his eyes actually glowed red. His edges blended into the night, and his face was withered and dead. My first thought was that he was wearing a mask. Then he grimaced at Tiffany's bawling--his face actually moved--and I flinched backward. I stared at the ground and clamped my teeth on my bottom lip to keep from screaming. Cold poured from him like an open freezer, and my survival instincts whispered that I should run away, hide, do anything to avoid the gaze of those glowing eyes.

"Silence," he said.

Tiffany gasped and shut her mouth, staring at the Necromancer. If Robert's power had been like a storm's pressure, the Necromancer's was like trying to stand on the ocean floor five miles down. The breath was slowly crushed from my lungs, and my body felt weighted.

"Robert!" The Necromancer's voice snapped like a whip. He could probably hurt people by speaking their name the right way. "Untie her. She is injured."

I sat perfectly still, head down, the good little prisoner. Robert abandoned his fight with Mal and trotted toward us. I was lying on my side, and my long hair formed a curtain across my face. I peered through it at Mal. He inched toward me, panting, eying the Necromancer as one might watch a rabid dog.

Robert walked up with three nasty knives protruding through his fingers. He sliced through Tiffany's ropes and hauled her to her feet. She screamed with her mouth shut.

Robert turned her to face the Necromancer. "Her arm's broken, Dad. I know you can fix her."

"Please don't hurt her," I said, and cowered as the Necromancer's glowing red eyes swung toward me.

His voice was surprisingly kind. "She is already hurt. I will mend her." He held the white skull up to Tiffany's face, so she stared into the eye sockets.

Tiffany exhaled, slowly. Her shoulders slumped and her whole body drooped. Black shadows peeled themselves off the Necromancer and wrapped around her broken arm. The bones popped.

"There now," the Necromancer said. "How does that feel?"

"Better," Tiffany said. Her voice was flat. No inflection.

My breathing went quick and shallow, and my leg muscles tensed to run. Sure, he had healed her arm--but what had he done to her mind?

I needed Mal. He was twenty feet away and still coming, menacing as the other two--but he was on my side.

I gathered my nerves and tried to project defiance--which was better than turning into a quivering bowl of Jello. "What did you do to her? Is she a zombie?"

"A thrall," the Necromancer said, as if he explained his dark magic to victims every day. "Similar to a zombie. When I give the command, she will awaken and resume her daily life--but I can command her at any time."

A sleeper zombie. I stared at Tiffany's blank face, and twisted my wrists inside the ropes. "That is so sick."

The Necromancer turned the full horror of his attention on me. It crushed my head to the ground, and I was forced to stare at his boots rather than his face. His boots even had tiny skulls stitched in the leather.

"And you, Elizabeth Stockton. Would you like to join her in thralldom?"

Fear fluttered in my throat. It was like a game where I didn't know the rules, and anything I did would end in failure. Failure meant becoming a thrall.

I gathered my courage and took the longest shot available. "Actually, could I talk to Mal for a minute?"

Dryness coated the inside of my mouth. I had known fear before, but never had I faced terror of this magnitude. Libby's life balanced on the edge of a knife. Yet, she had the temerity to defy my father!

Admiration stirred under my panic.

The Necromancer lifted his hand and began the calling. Dark power flowed around me like a river, threatening to sweep me straight to my father's feet.The infected would arrive momentarily, and when they did the dreaded diamond bottle would emerge.

But my father laughed at Libby's question. Perhaps he, too, admired her spunk. He gestured toward me. "Speak to him all you like, Elizabeth."

Libby sat up, and scooted around to face me, hands doubled behind her. Her eyes glimmered with fear, but she was still in control. "Mal, which is stronger? Life motes or death motes?"

Of all the things I expected her to say, a technical question was not one of them. I floundered through the terrified mush of my brain. "Uh, it is not a question of which is stronger. Death magic only manipulates. Life magic is the true power, but drawn and sometimes twisted by death magic. And often--" I swallowed. "Often death magic consumes life magic so that equilibrium is maintained."

Libby shrugged. "So who is stronger? You or them?"

Oh. That's where this was going. Dad and Robert smirked at me.

My jaw tried to lock, and I had to force out the words. "They have saturated themselves in death so as to draw even more life. They are stronger."

Footsteps crunched in the distance, from the direction of the road. The infected had arrived.

I dashed forward with my magic-fueled speed, snatched Libby off the ground and ran. Robert shouted something, but my father only laughed.

He still possessed my phylactery.

I had nearly reached the far end of the orchard when the current of death dragged me to a standstill. My strength drained away. I sank to my knees and set Libby down on dead grass at the orchard's edge, near the canal.

She gathered her feet under her, and looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. "What's wrong?"

"He has the puzzle box." We exchanged long looks. She knew the implications of this, and simply shook her head. I cut her ropes with quick swipes of a claw. "Go. Run."

Rubbing her wrists, Libby scrambled to her feet, and staggered. "What's going on? It's like--like the whole world is tilted downhill toward them!"

"The magic draw. The Necromancer has lifted his hand." Despair weighed on me worse than any magic. Only a tiny flicker of hope remained. "If you can walk a circle around the orchard, you will keep the Necromancer's power from spreading."

She looked right and left, as if calculating the distance. "Do I have to draw a chalk circle?"

"No. Merely walk." I laid a hand on her shoulder and turned her to the right. "Always go clockwise."

She stood so close, hair blowing about her face, so frightened and helpless. I wished so badly to draw her close and protect her, but there wasn't time. "You are a Marcher, Libby. You have magic. Any route you walk will become a magical barrier against deadly creatures."

She gasped and faced me. A new light shone in her eyes. "I have magic? The lightning in my blood?"

"Yes." Footsteps approached us. I stepped away from her and curled my claws.

She moved as though to catch my arm. "Come with me!"

"I can't. Father has my soul." I could almost feel his cold hands clutching the box. "He's commanding me to halt, and I have to obey."

The footsteps were nearly upon us. Libby gazed over my shoulder and gasped.

I leaped and spun in midair, striking outward with both clawed hands. One of my claws struck flesh. A woman screamed.

My pursuer was not Robert--it was a woman I had never seen. She wore a pants suit, and her gray hair was pulled back. My claws had torn across her blouse, and blood was soaking the fabric.

"Mal!" Libby exclaimed, hurrying to my side. "That's Miss Hill, my science teacher!"

"No." I indicated the woman's hands, limp at her sides, her blank eyes, and the blood flowing down her front. "That's who she used to be."

"You hurt her!" Libby jumped forward and pressed both of her hands against her teacher's wound.

"It was an accident," I said with regret I should not have been able to feel. "I assumed it was my brother." I laid a gloved hand over Libby's and released a puff of life magic. The bleeding stopped.

"Touching," the woman said with the Necromancer's inflection. "Return to us."

"Libby, run," I whispered. "I will return to him."

She looked at me with anguish in her wide eyes. "But won't he kill you?"

"Maybe. But he will certainly turn you into one of these, and that is worse than death." I looked into the woman's sightless eyes. "I will come."

Libby shot me one last look, and struggled the magic's pull into the darkness. The remains of my heart went with her.

I squared my shoulders and accompanied the enthralled woman back to the Necromancer.

Moving away from the Necromancer was like running up the side of a mountain. I had to lean forward to stay upright. When I reached the canal embankment, it was like a wall. I turned right and followed it along the side of the dead orchard.

As I walked, I watched for more zombie people. The moonlight made everything stark and unreal, with dense black shadows. The dead orchard was a gray shadow. Things seemed to move when I looked away.

Miss Hill was a thrall? Had Robert bitten everyone at school? Too bad Mal hadn't killed him permanently. I'd long ago stopped liking Robert, but now he was something disgusting, like a cockroach.

And the Necromancer! My skin prickled with goosebumps. That was Mal's dad? No wonder he lived in fear!

The Necromancer had the puzzle box. The idea made me sick.

I reached the edge of the dead trees, and turned right, between the rows. Skeleton trees on one side--living, flower-crowned trees on the other.

The night air made the chill inside me worse. I crossed my arms and walked faster. Mal was going to die. Call it intuition, or maybe I just knew the tropes from reading too much fantasy. When the hero refuses to join forces with the villain, the villain tries to snuff him.

But what could I do? I had enough magic to understand bees. Mal had called me a Marcher. There had been pride in his voice, as if it were a wonderful thing. Now I was walking in a big clockwise circle to form some kind of barrier, but I had no idea if it was working or not.

I reached the dirt road at the far side of the orchard and turned right.

So, I had magic. What could I do? It wasn't like I had time to Google any Marcher magic techniques. The Necromancer's power tugged at me, trying to drag me off the road, into the darkness. But magic circles featured in a lot of the books I had read--including walking them clockwise. Counterclockwise was widdershins, the direction of black magic. Did Marchers have to worry about that? I didn't know. I just didn't have enough information. If only Mal had told me all this earlier--but then, if my magic worked against his, that would make us enemies. I should have been angry at him, but in his place, I'd have kept quiet, too. I just couldn't be mad at a guy who would probably die in the next few minutes.

I reached the far end of the dead acre, down near the street that ran past our house. There were people walking out there. They walked in clusters, as if for protection, but their footsteps shuffled and kicked up dust, and they all stared straight ahead, like sleepwalkers. They were headed into our orchard. I would have to walk through them to complete my circuit. Would they try to stop me? Or were they all zombie-like, like Mrs. Hill?

I sped up, and dashed through the middle of the crowd. None of them looked at me. The weird thing was, as soon as I had passed by, they reached my barrier and stopped. They didn't try to go around or anything--just stood there in a growing, silent crowd.

My barrier was already working. It wasn't just superstition--I really did have magic.

I practically flew around the last corner and back along the canal road to complete my circle. I wasn't sure of my exact starting spot, so I rushed toward the corner. Halfway there, a warm feeling of satisfaction burst through me. I'd completed the circle. The life magic inside me knew it.

Gold specks of light floated through the air toward me. Fireflies? We didn't have those in California, and besides, fireflies were green. I stood panting as the lights zoomed toward me, and circled my head with a familiar buzz. Mal's bees.

"Hello, Libby," they sang.

"Bees don't fly at night," I told them. "And they don't glow."

"Tonight is different." Three bees landed on my shirt. "Your circle harmonized with the protective circles Mal put around us. They are sunlit highways. We will patrol them."

My heart lightened. "Good! The Necromancer has Mal. I think I have to go save him."

"Save him, save him," they whispered. "We will gather our power. Perhaps we can face He Whom We Fear, for a time."

The bees flew off, but I glimpsed them through the orchard--bits of golden light, like sparks, illuminating the circle I had walked.

I gazed into the darkness in the middle of my circle, and dug my fingers into my hair. This was another moment I disliked in vampire books--when the weak, powerless human takes on the supernatural monsters. In the books they always managed to win. I had magic, sure, but no idea how to use it.

I thought of how Mal had healed me. He'd never asked a darn thing in return. And what had I ever done for him, besides hand his enemies his soul?

My body was full of life magic, not to mention the Marcher thing. Maybe I could buy Mal some time--like snatch the puzzle box when nobody was looking and run. But I had to do something or he was going to die because of me.

I crept back into the orchard. It was easy, going back, like descending a gentle slope. Everything about the Necromancer was gentle. Kind, even. I suppose one didn't have to be belligerent to enslave and kill people. I'd have liked it better if he was crazy and laughing an evil villain laugh. The kindness was somehow more psycho.

I crept from tree to tree and pretended I was playing hide and seek. Except I was hiding from zombies, a vampire, and a Necromancer. If they caught me, I was history. Tension made my neck ache, and every footstep on dead grass sounded like I'd stepped on potato chips.

I owed Mal a favor, and what about Tiffany? That was a new level of horror and guilt. I'd packed the honey, intending to give to her at dinner tonight. Where was it now? Sitting in my bag in the wrecked car somewhere up in the mountains? Now she was a thrall, and she had no idea what had happened.

Like those articles she read, she'd disappeared--into the eye sockets of a skull.

I didn't know how to help her. Maybe Mal did. But if Mal died, he couldn't save anybody.

If I died, I couldn't save anybody, either.

Voices murmured up ahead, and feet shifted around. Lots of feet. I peered through the tree branches, and my stomach turned over.

There were about fifty people standing around the Necromancer. They slouched, heads and arms drooping--the people I'd seen walking in from the road. Most of them were girls my age--Robert's victims from school. Good grief, I'd blocked at least fifty more with my barrier outside the orchard. I couldn't tell which one of them was Tiffany--it was too dark.

In the middle of the thralls, the Necromancer and Robert taken Mal's clawed gloves, and Robert was trying them on, slowly flexing his fingers. Mal faced the Necromancer, arms folded, his thin, pointed face looking even stranger in the moonlight.

The Necromancer still held that skull in one hand, but he held the puzzle box in the other. "She won't have gone far, Malachi. She can't resist the call under a full moon. The only question is whether I open this box now, or when she returns."

Mal said nothing, but the muscles in his temples flexed as if he'd clenched his teeth.

Robert held up his hands, fingers curled to expose the claws. "Look at these things! Like a bear!" He made a growling noise and faked a swipe at Mal. Mal continued to stare at his father and didn't flinch.

"Stop playing around," said the Necromancer. "Hand me the diamond bottle."

There was a small duffel bag stowed in the fork of a tree. Robert opened it and produced a tiny bottle, and at first I thought it was perfume--then it caught the moonlight with a violent sparkle, and I realized that every inch of it was studded with diamonds.

The Necromancer took it, pulled out the stopper, and held one of the skull's eyes over the opening.

The fifty waiting girls exhaled. "Ahhh." They seemed to shrink a little, as if something had left them. Their heads and shoulders drooped. The Necromancer capped the bottle and returned it to Robert.

"Handle it gently. The new thralls dislike it when you jostle their souls."

Robert carefully placed the bottle back in the bag.

The Necromancer picked up the puzzle box and held it where Mal could see. "Let's see if I remember how to open this."

His bony hands twisted the box into an L shape. Then another part folded out. Then that part rotated. It was like a countdown, each new part ticking away the seconds until Mal died.

Mal stood there, waiting, still defiant, but resigned. Why didn't he fight? Why didn't he stop it? Then I saw the shadowy stripes encircling his legs and arms. His arms weren't folded--they were bound, straitjacket style.

My temper flashed to life and heat boiled through my body. They were going to kill him without even letting him defend himself, the cowards. Well, they could turn me into a thrall, but they weren't killing him tonight.

The lock blade was in its usual spot in my pocket--I'd put it there ages ago, this morning when I was driving to the beach. At the time, I'd thought vaguely that it'd be good to use against carjackers. Now I pulled it out and opened the long, steel blade. Then, taking a mental hold of the life magic inside myself, I sprinted at the Necromancer's back.

Robert intercepted me halfway there. I collided with him, and the force of our impact drove my knife into his neck. He gargled and spun away from me, gripping the knife handle. It was horrible and satisfying at the same time.

The Necromancer turned with a smile. My legs locked, my arms froze at my sides, and cold seeped into my core.

"Hello, Elizabeth. So glad that you decided to return."

Behind him, Mal's face went slack with horror.

Crap. I'd done exactly what those morons in my books had done. Except it didn't look like I'd get out of this alive.

If I was going to blow it, I might as well do it right. I gathered my courage, and all the bitchiness I'd developed over the course of six months. "Look, I came back because of Mal. I know you're going to kill us, and I wanted to kiss him before it was too late."

The Necromancer laughed. It started out as a friendly, human laugh, but halfway through, two or three more voices started coming out of him. They laughed in chorus. My bravery melted into blind freaked out panic. But I couldn't run away. I couldn't even move as long as he watched me--it was like puppet strings had been attached to my limbs. I couldn't even cover my ears.

Finally the demon laughter stopped. "Go to him," the Necromancer said, flourishing the skull at me. "I will make sure you die in one another's arms. I do enjoy a good romance."

I shakily walked to Mal. The shadows holding his arms disappeared, and he slipped them around me. "Why did you come back?" he whispered.

I leaned against him and held him. He was so thin, and cold. But his chest was warm, as if life still struggled inside him, despite being a lich. Any minute now, that life would be extinguished. I leaned my forehead against his cheek. "I finished my circle, and I wanted to save you. See what a great job I did?"

He laughed a sad little laugh. "Brilliant success." His arms tightened around me, and he nuzzled my hair. "It could be worse. We could be dying alone."

The Necromancer raised the skull a foot away from my face. Death motes billowed from inside it like smoke. I turned away from its vacant stare, and shut my eyes. Even without looking at it, my body went light and floaty.

"Kiss me quick," I whispered.

"Yes, Mal," the Necromancer said. "Kiss her as I undo the final lock on your puzzle box."

The puzzle box clicked, its intricate workings solved, ready to relinquish the treasure within.

The skull pulled, like an unstoppable magnet intent on tearing out my heart.

This was it.
Jesus, take my soul before the monsters do
.

I tilted my face toward Mal's. His cool lips touched mine--dry and gentle. But he trembled, and one of his powerful hands gripped my long hair, as if he could keep the Necromancer from taking my soul by sheer will. I opened my eyes and glimpsed him, an inch away, his eyes a devastated amber in the moonlight.

Then the dark powers ripped my soul from my body.

I actually felt things tear as I went, as if my soul was stitched into my nerves and muscles. I rose a few feet in the air and gasped with lungs I no longer had.

Here on the spiritual plane, the physical world looked like a rave party. Torrents of light and darkness spiraled through the air like colored smoke. Every human body gleamed with gold and white life, but the thralls all had black in their centers, as if their hearts had been removed. Like donuts, I thought idiotically. 

The Necromancer was nearly pure black, but with spots of life showing through--he wasn't completely dead yet. Robert's soul was twisted, like a tornado, around and around, the blue and purple of a deep bruise. He was in pain, I realized. The jokes, the mocking tone, the careless way he threw away living things--all stemmed from this twisting, tortured soul inside him.

The puzzle box flashed with white sparks, burning the Necromancer's black hands. He cringed and dropped it. Cedar--a powerful substance that existed on both the spiritual and physical planes. Cedar repelled evil, and now open, the box streamed with golden, living fragrance that forced the Necromancer and Robert to shield their eyes.

Mal's soul rose from the open puzzle box. It didn't look like his human body--it didn't have much shape at all--but somehow, with disembodied senses, I knew it was him. He was beautiful, all golden light. He looked at me, and sadness radiated from him. Like me, he was hugely, painfully aware of what was happening.