Dark Bound

by Kim Richardson

  Naturally, Tyrius had to put on one of his vocal shows for his paparazzi. He had a reputation to uphold, after all.

  And although I despised banks for my own reasons (mainly because of the overpriced service charges and the fact that as a freelancer, they didn’t want to loan me some money for a car), I’d put on my best fake smile and attitude for my gran. Anything for my gran.

  When we’d first arrived and met with the loan officer, he didn’t sound very optimistic about our offer of paying ten thousand now and giving us some time to come up with the rest. He’d pulled up my grandmother’s file on his screen, and his face pinched as though he was about to give us the bad news. But suddenly, the lights had flickered. The screen on his monitor had flashed, and the faint scent of sulfur had hovered in the air in the tight office. I suspected the man’s computer had suffered a little baal hocus pocus.

  The loan officer had frowned and punched his fingers on his keyboard. Then he informed us, with the same puzzled look, that the bank would accept our offer of ten thousand and gave us an extra six months to pay off the remaining outstanding debt. Well what do you know?

  Before we left the bank, my grandmother had wept. I winked at the bank officer, making him blush. And Tyrius—had coughed up a fur ball the size of an apple right on the man’s clean desk.

  Now if only the rest of my life could fix itself with a little demon hocus pocus. Yeah right.

  It was almost ten at night when we arrived at St. Joseph’s church, Father Thomas’s assigned parish church. It was Thornville’s oldest catholic church, dating back to the seventeenth century, and it was a thing of beauty.

  The sharp-cornered, tidily mortared stones rose up as high as perhaps an eight-story building to look massive and permanent compared to the low shops that surrounded it. The church sat tightly against the curb on two sides, shading the street. There were tall oak trees on the church grounds, and golden light spilled from expansive stained-glass windows that lined the front and sides of the building. I blinked through the light of the lamppost, taking it all in. Perched high atop the towers were ornamental stone statues, stoic, mythical monsters and hybrid stone beasts peering over Thornville’s landscape. Gargoyles.

  Some had their horrid features carved in perpetual boredom while others seem to spit or grimace. What would they say if they could talk?

  My eyes shifted to the parking lot and I spotted a gleaming black Audi A5. My heart leapt. Jax was already inside. So much for my plan of keeping my distance from him. It seemed we’d be stuck together again, at least for a little while longer.

  With my boots clanking on the paved walkway, I stepped to the right and made for the side entrance under an arched oak door framed by lilac trees and then halted.

  I sighed and reached inside my jacket to pull out the charmed pendant I’d made for Tyrius six months ago. I’d come across it while reading the dark witch grimoire, which was now with me inside my messenger bag. The book had brought me a lot of pain and had nearly cost me my life, but it also had its uses.

  “Okay, Tyrius, you know the drill,” I said and dangled a small crystal tied to a pink ribbon. “Hallowed ground and all.” I’d invoked the dark spell into the crystal, a concealment spell that disguised Tyrius’s demon energy from the church, making him appear as a regular cat. It was like a glamour in a way, hiding his true form.

  Tyrius lowered his ears. “I hate that part,” grumbled the cat. “Sucks demon balls.”

  “I know you do,” I said as I slipped the charm pendant over his head. “Sucks demon balls and all—but you can’t enter the church without it.” I straightened. “Don’t give me that look. It’s not a collar. It’s a charm pendant.” I pressed my hands to my hips. “You don’t want it? Then you can stay out here with the gargoyles.”

  Tyrius sat and curled his tail around his feet. “I think not.” The Siamese cat made a face. “Why, for demon’s sake, did you have to make it pink? I’m not a girl baal. I’m a boy. Boys like blue and cars and beer.”

  I raised a brow. “Not all boys. I’m sorry, Tyrius. I had to improvise. It was all I had at the time. Don’t be such a baby. Pink looks good on you.”

  “Don’t be such a baby,” mocked Tyrius, his ears still flat on his head. He lowered his chin close to the ground as though the charm was a heavy metal chain.

  “You know I love you, Tyrius, but sometimes you can be a giant pain in my ass.”

  I waited for his tantrum to settle and then moved towards the side entrance, raising my hand.

  “Any idea who the goblin meant by ‘have they approached you yet?’” blurted Tyrius.

  Shit. I halted, my pulse hammering in my ears. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I fully understand what he meant. I mean, no one else has tried to kill me apart from the archangel Vedriel. Who else could he mean?”

  “But he said it wasn’t the Legion. This is something else,” said the cat, his blue eyes glistening in the soft light spilling from the inside of the church windows.

  I suddenly felt a little ill, as though the Tandoori chicken wanted to come back up through my nose. “What do you mean?”

  Tyrius looked at the door. “I don’t want to scare you, Rowyn.”

  “Too late. What?”

  The baal sighed. “I think, and I could be wrong, this is just a working theory—”

  “Spit it out, Tyrius!” I cried and then lowered my voice when I realized I was shouting. “Just tell me. Okay? You’re freaking me out.”

  “The key is in the words he used,” said the cat. “He said, ‘have they approached you yet.’ Not tried to kill you, but approach you. Like there’s something ‘they’ want to discuss with you or maybe even take from you. I’m not sure.”

  I rubbed my temples. “I must be really tired because you’re not making any sense right now.” Two hours wasn’t enough sleep, and I could tell my body and mind were starting to feel the effects.

  “Ugul said ‘there’s something you should know’ just before he died. I got the feeling he was talking about your essences. Your blood. The only reason the Legion is after you is because of how different you are. It’s only logical to assume there’ll be others.”

  “Others?” I said, feeling numb.

  “Yes, others,” said Tyrius. He waited for the information to sink in. “The Legion tried to keep what they did to you and the other Unmarked a secret.”

  I shrugged and said, “Yeah by trying to kill me.”

  “Exactly,” said the cat. “But you’re alive. And their secret is out. You.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Others will be interested in what you are because of what’s inside you.” Tyrius looked at my blank expression and added, “And I don’t think it’s a good thing.”

  A cold shiver licked up my spine, making me shake. I didn’t like the sound of that. “What?” I said. “That I’m both angel and demon-born?”

  “No, that there are others interested in you. We don’t know what kind of interests they might have.”

  “It’s not like I can hide now,” I said, my stomach turning. “Everyone knows what I am.”

  “Like I said, it’s just a working theory.” Tyrius frowned at that for a moment. “I think I’m right. But don’t you worry. We’ll figure this out.”

  I slid a hand down my face. “Evanora knew. It’s why she wanted to kill me and drink my blood.” The memory of being trapped in that blood circle still made me shiver.

  “She probably did hear about you having both demon and angel blood,” answered the baal. “That in itself is unusual. And powerful to a witch who dabbles in blood magic, which she clearly does.”

  “Great.” I raised my wrists and looked at the thin white scars that crossed them both, just a memory now of what had almost happened. “And she has a cup of my blood.”

  “Thank God it isn’t a liter,” commented the cat. “Don’t worry. A cup is nothing. I’ve seen my share of blood magic. The old crow needed a lot more of your blood to make whatever dark spell she was
planning on.”

  I yanked the strap of my messenger bag higher on my shoulder. The weight of the dark witch grimoire seemed to have doubled in the mere minutes of just standing here.

  I knew dark witches dabbled in dark magic, black magic and blood magic. I had the feeling Evanora Crow knew exactly what she was doing with me. With my blood.

  Blood was the key word here. If my blood, my two mixed essences were a hot commodity, then I wanted to know more about them. And I had a feeling the grimoire would show me how. If there was a book out there that was dark enough, filled with the evilest spells and curses and that dealt with blood magic, the dark witch grimoire was the one.

  Maybe my blood was the answer. And maybe it was just what I needed to kick the fae queen’s ass.

  With a heightened sense of determination, I raised my fist and knocked.

  26

  I heard the muffled sounds of voices followed by the sound of a bolt being undone before the door opened. Father Thomas opened the door, and I blinked at the sudden light. He wore his black finest, the white square of his clerical collar standing out around his neck like a choker.

  “Rowyn.” Father Thomas gave me a tight smile, and from the worried look in his eye I knew Jax had already given the priest all the details.

  “Hi, Father,” I said. “You look just about how I feel.”

  “Come in,” said the priest as he held the door open for us. “Jax and Danto are already in my office. They’ve had lots to say in the past ten minutes, some very disturbing things.”

  I moved past the priest into a small lobby with wood paneling and antique rugs. “I’ll bet.”

  Father Thomas looked down at Tyrius. “I see you’re wearing your collar.”

  The cat wrinkled his face. “I see you’re wearing yours.”

  Oh. Hell. Here we go.

  “Come on, Tyrius,” I said and ushered him in. “This is going to be a long night.”

  We followed Father Thomas down a long hallway. The air smelled of wood, musty carpets and sins, and distant murmurs of voices drifted out. The bursts in sudden pitch told me it was a heated argument, but I couldn’t make out what the voices said. The priest led us deeper into the church and up a flight of stairs to a room, his private office. A long, carved wooden desk sat below a window framed with heavy burgundy drapes. An assortment of swords and daggers hung on the wall below a small bar area. I smiled. I’d always admired his swords. They weren’t soul blades, the blades given to us by the archangels, but these were all made of silver, and sharp, perfect to gut any old demon.

  A laptop sat on top of the desk, looking modern and out of place among the mismatched eighteenth-century style furnishings. A pair of table lamps lit the room in soft gold. Bookcases stood against each wall, cramped with neatly aligned tomes, the spines showing a dizzying variety of languages.

  Jax and Danto sat in the leather armchairs facing the desk. At the sound of our entrance, they both looked angry, like we’d just interrupted an argument. Jax’s face was flushed and Danto’s gray eyes were darker than usual. Curious. I wondered what that had been about?

  There was an extra chair next Jax, and I had a feeling he had put it there.

  “Can I offer you a drink? Coffee?” Father Thomas moved to the small bar area and poured himself a drink.

  “No thank you. We’re fine,” I said, glaring at Tyrius before he opened his mouth. Now was not the time to have a baal high on coffee.

  I sat in the empty chair, aware of Jax’s eyes on me. Heat rose from my neck to my face and I wanted to kick myself for not having better control on my emotions. Once Tyrius was settled on my lap, I stilled my expression and met Jax’s gaze.

  “What did I miss?” I was hoping to get a glimpse into their argument. I moved my eyes over to Danto, but the vampire was busy rolling around the gold liquid contents of his drink.

  “Not much.” Jax leaned back into his chair, his empty glass in his hands. “We only got here a few minutes ago. We’d been telling the Father all about The White Grace and the fae queen.”

  Father Thomas grabbed his drink and sat in his chair facing the four of us. A large leather-bound book lay open on his desk that I hadn’t noticed before. It was old from the musty smell that rolled off of it, probably from the church’s reserved collection. The pages were made of thick paper, yellowed with age, and the edges were worn and torn. Interesting.

  The priest wrapped his fingers around his glass. “If what they’ve told me is true, then God help us.”

  “Amen,” mewed the cat. “‘Cause it’s the truth, Padre.”

  I leaned forward in my chair to get a better look at the book. “Have you ever heard of it? The White Grace?”

  Father Thomas’s brow furrowed deeply. “Not until I read about it here.” He reached over and turned the book so that I could read it. A black tattoo peeked from the right sleeve of his shirt, a symbol of a sword within a circle. Now that was interesting. I made a mental note to ask him about it later.

  “This is Father Albertus Magnus’s journal,” said Father Thomas. “He was a great thinker and scholar in the middle ages, and a Knight of Heaven until he died in 1280. In this entry, he mentions a book that came to the church’s possession, a book written by the Greater Demon Astaroth.” Now I was really curious. “With his studies of the demon languages,” continued the priest, “Father Albertus was able to decipher parts of it. He says the book talks of demon armies and their wars, but near the bottom of the page, he writes about a white stone with immense power. A stone that was created by a race of the first demons. He called them The Faceless Ones. But that’s all there is. I can’t find any records of the stone having the power to transform humans into half-breeds.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said and pulled the book closer to me. “We’ve seen it with our own eyes.”

  The priest took a deep breath and then nodded. “So I’ve been told. You think it’s the same stone?”

  “Sounds like it. I just wish there was more.”

  “Well,” said Tyrius as he crossed his front paws. “Being from that side of the tracks, I can tell you that you don’t have it in your precious book because the demons didn’t want you to find out. Something that powerful, they’d keep it secret and hidden. That’s for damn sure.”

  My eyes scanned quickly over the Latin texts. “So we’ve got nothing.” I pushed the book away. I didn’t care to hide my disappointment. I thought we’d find something about The White Grace in Father Thomas’s private collection.

  “What about Hallow Hall?” I looked at Jax. “Maybe we can check the archives. There’s got to be something about The White Grace in there.”

  “I’ve already checked,” said Jax. “I had Daniel do a thorough search in all the old texts and even in the Deus Septem, the books given to us by the archangels. There’s no mention of a white stone with incredible power. Nothing.” Glancing at the bookshelves, Jax tapped his fingers against his glass. “I was hoping to find something to help us destroy it.”

  Father Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but Danto cut him off. “Should we? Should we destroy something we can use? That can help us?”

  Incredulous, I stared at the vampire. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as monumentally stupid?” commented Tyrius. “I thought vampires were blessed with high intelligence, not cursed with a bag of dumbass.”

  “There’s a reason why Ugul had it hidden in his freaking belly,” I told the vampire. “He knew how dangerous the stone was and how it could be used to do evil. He was protecting that stone but he was also protecting everyone from it. Don’t you get it?”

  “But it holds the power to do good as well,” pressed Danto, his eyes glittering with a fevered intensity. “Think about it.”

  “I don’t have to,” I said. “That stone is bad. Pure and simple. I don’t care if it’s white and it has a really cute name—no way.”

  Jax clenched his jaw. “That thing needs to be destroyed. It’s unnat
ural. If it’s not the faerie queen of the Dark Court, it would have been someone else. Maybe someone worse.”

  “Souls help us,” I breathed, having a hard time thinking of a worse hag than Isobel.

  “Like I said before,” said Jax, anger creeping over his face. “If half-breeds can’t have any more children, that’s life. You need to accept it. Maybe that’s just the way your species will die out. But you can’t go around making more of you with this thing.”

  I raised my brows. So that’s what the fight had been about.

  Danto’s eyes went black. Shit. He was vamping out. “My species isn’t the only one dying out, angel-born. Last I checked, you lot had barely a few thousand left all over the world. The archangels won’t make any more of you and as time goes by, more of your females are becoming barren. You can breed with humans, but your angel-essence will diminish until there’s nothing angel left in your angel-born. You’ll become humans.” Danto lifted his chin. “What if it can create more angel-born? An army of angel-born that can defeat more demons.”

  Jax’s knuckles where white, but I could tell he was thinking it over. Hell, even I was.

  “If anyone’s dying out,” Jax said after a moment, “your kind will be first.”

  “Enough with the pissing contest, boys,” I said, my own temper flaring at their stupidity. “This isn’t helping. We are all in danger. All of us. Angel-born, half-breeds, and humans. We need to work together.”

  “Tyrius,” said Father Thomas suddenly. He’d been watching the exchange silently. “You’ve been around much longer than most of us here.” His eyes glanced at Danto. “In your time with witches, you must have encountered other magic stones. What do you make of this one? What can you tell us about them?”