A Shadow Bright and Burning

by Jessica Cluess

  “Why?”

  He nodded toward the painting of the house I’d admired. “You said you never took trips to Sorrow-Fell when you were a child?”

  “I’ve never seen the place.”

  “You have now. That painting is an exact likeness.” Surprised, I turned back to the beautiful image on the wall. Blackwood continued. “You seem drawn to it, which is why the carvings on your stave perplex me.”

  “What’s Porridge to do with any of this?” I said. Blackwood unsheathed his stave—he had not taken even that off—and handed it to me. A twining strand of ivy, identical to mine, was carved on his weapon.

  “The Blackwood family crest is a pair of clasped hands with tendrils of ivy binding them together. In the entirety of sorcerer history, only Blackwoods have ever borne the image of ivy.” His brows knitted together. “Until you.”

  I felt nauseated as I handed his stave back. “Does that mean we’re bound in some way?”

  “I don’t know.” He crossed his arms. “I fear we may be.”

  “Believe me,” I said with a shudder, “my feelings are exactly the same.”

  —

  THE BLACKWOOD HOUSE LAY AHEAD, SHROUDED in mist. The hedge-lined path guided me up toward the front. When I broke through the mist, I found the sky clear and the sun warm. The circle of black forest all around was no more frightening than a make-believe monster in a children’s story. This was home, the surest sensation I’d ever had in my life. The great house was even more beautiful than it had been in its picture. With tears of joy, I ran up the steps to be welcomed inside.

  Someone grabbed my sleeve. Gwendolyn Agrippa pulled me away, shaking her head and shouting. I struggled against her, but it was no use. She was fearfully strong. No. This was where I was supposed to be. This was where I belonged.

  The church bells tolled.

  I stood alone in the center of a circle of standing stones. Gwendolyn had vanished. I walked about, inspecting my surroundings. The stones were twice as tall as I was. There were twelve of them, each spaced several feet apart. Odd symbols had been carved into the granite faces, symbols that I had never seen before. A strange noise made me stop and press my ear against one of the rocks. There was a buzzing coming from inside. It was almost music. Like the stone was singing.

  I stood there as the Seven Ancients arrived, filling in the gaps of the circle. There was no way out for me now.

  The church bells tolled.

  There was Molochoron, a perfect blob of filth and disease. It leaked rancid water, bristling all over with dark, sharp hairs. Black shapes moved and darted within it, like eels trapped in jelly.

  How odd to see Nemneris the Water Spider here. She lived in the sea. She was beautiful, with long, delicate legs and a slender green-and-purple body. Her eyes were three shining obsidian orbs. If only she weren’t fifty feet long and absurdly venomous…

  The church bells tolled.

  Callax and Zem came next, the ogre and the serpent. Callax was twenty feet tall with a flat skull, an extended jaw, and arms that dragged to the ground. Those arms were very good for smashing through buildings. Zem, with his long lizard body and fiery gullet, would burn whatever stood in his way.

  On-Tez perched on the stone above me and cawed loudly. Flapping her vulture wings, she bared her teeth. She was the size of a horse, and deadlier than a pack of wolves.

  The church bells tolled.

  R’hlem the Skinless Man stood across from me. Even though he was the smallest and most human-looking of the Ancients, he was terrifying. Perhaps it was because of the intelligence in his gaze.

  And then there was Korozoth.

  The church bells…

  —

  I WOKE TO A CACOPHONY OUTSIDE my window. Every church tower in London was ringing out a warning.

  An attack.

  I grabbed my wrap and ran out into the hall. Doors down the corridor burst wide, boys spilling out in different states of undress. Dee staggered half blind, putting on a top hat while still in his dressing gown. Only Magnus was ready. He threw on his coat as he raced toward me.

  “They should have listened to you, Howel,” he said, nodding at the sleepy, unprepared young men. “If you and Rook thought there’d be an attack, I saw no reason not to be alert. It’s probably old Zothy himself. Won’t he love this coat?” Magnus took the steps at a rush, whooping with joy. I was stunned by how quickly everything had happened.

  “Miss Howel!” Agrippa came up the stairs, his hair sticking wildly in every direction. “Stay in your room. You’ll be quite safe.” He tried to sweep me down the hallway toward my door.

  “Is it Korozoth?” I suppressed my fear. After all, this was my destiny, or at least I hoped it was. “Let me help.” Below us, I watched Blackwood call for the Incumbents, organizing them as they arrived.

  “Not yet. Stay here. We’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Trafalgar Square. That’s where the Order always meets. Stay here,” he said again, and took off after the boys. There was a flurry of activity, with servants in nightdress rushing about below, lighting the lamps and calling to one another. I didn’t see Rook among them.

  “Rook.” I remembered his black eyes, how that hideous Familiar girl had called him “the Shadow’s chosen.” If Korozoth’s riders had such an effect upon him, this Ancient might call to him especially and irresistibly….

  I ran down the stairs and past the servants, who paid me no mind. I fled to the kitchen, calling for Rook, but didn’t find him. Lilly sped past me in her nightcap. I grabbed her. “Lilly, have you seen Rook?”

  “No, miss. What is it?”

  “I need to find him.”

  We ran upstairs to the servants’ corridor. He was nowhere to be found. We went back down to my room, just in case he should be there. He wasn’t, and I kicked the bed in frustration. “Where is he?” Lilly looked terrified.

  “I need you to help me dress.” I threw open the wardrobe doors.

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to find him,” I said.

  “Outside? The master wouldn’t like that, miss.”

  “I know where he might go.” Sighing, Lilly pulled out my simplest dress. I wished I had a pair of trousers all my own. Corsets were not designed for battling monsters.

  People rushed past me as bells tolled and flame and smoke lit the night sky. I clutched Porridge and stopped to beg for directions to Trafalgar Square.

  I found the sorcerers before the National Gallery. There might have been over one hundred of them with their staves pointed upward. A great glow appeared in the sky, reflected as a glint of light on the underside of a glass bowl. Apparently London’s ward was a dome of energy. Thunder sounded in the distance, and there, somewhere beneath that rumble, came the horrible scream of a beast.

  I pushed through the crowd until I stumbled upon Blackwood, his brow knit in concentration.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” he shouted.

  “Are there any breaches in the ward?”

  “Of course not. Why should there be?”

  “It’s Howel!” Arthur Dee pushed through to us. “He said you’d come.”

  “Who did?”

  “Magnus. He said you’d inspired him.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “What are you doing here?” Blackwood shouted at me again. Older gentlemen turned to glare at us.

  “Rook might have gone to the creature,” I said.

  “He can’t get through the ward.”

  “But if somebody saw an Unclean wandering the streets, who’s to say they wouldn’t kill him?” That frightened me almost as much as Rook actually making it through to Korozoth.

  Blackwood shook his head. “I can’t worry about that now.”

  Bother this. “What were you saying about Magnus?” I asked Dee.

  “He went to fight Korozoth.”

  Blackwood gripped the poor fellow by his shirtfront. “What?” he snapped
.

  “He and Cellini said they were going to the Row. They planned to break through and fight—”

  Blackwood threw the enormous boy away and took me by the arm. “Those fools,” he said, his face twisted in anger. “Where’s Master Agrippa?”

  “We have to go after them.”

  “You’re not going anywhere. I’m putting you in a carriage.”

  “I am coming with you,” I said in my best classroom tone. “I’m going to find Rook if he’s there, and you are going to release me.” Blackwood did just that.

  “I’ll take you if you can fly,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He brandished his stave. “Touch Porridge to the ground at north, south, east, and west, then raise it high into the air. This will summon the four winds. If you can’t do it, I shall send you home.” He sounded indulgent, certain I would fail.

  Blackwood placed his stave in four points and raised his arm. A great torrent of wind swirled about him, and he hovered in the air with a natural ease.

  I copied him and lifted Porridge, willing myself to fly. A cold funnel of wind swirled my skirts and nearly dragged me down the square. Blackwood looked surprised.

  “Hold it straight!” he cried.

  The thought of Rook strengthened my arm, focused me. I lifted from the ground, my feet unsteady upon a cushion of wind.

  “Move your arm down,” Blackwood said. He leaned forward onto his stomach, supported by the air. I copied him, feeling as though invisible hands upheld me. “Well done.”

  “Don’t sound so shocked.”

  “Please go home,” he said.

  “Just take me to the ward. I only want to find him if he’s there.” My bargain worked. Blackwood took my free hand in his, and we moved forward, the sound of wild winds in my ears.

  I was flying! I’d never felt so light, nor so aware of my physical body. For the first few minutes, I kept waiting to fall. When the wind didn’t die or shake me off, I couldn’t help but laugh. Blackwood guided me when I had to move the stave left or right or shift to make a turn. We shot over the heads of men and women, two black wraiths on their way to battle. Blackwood’s hand was cool in mine, and he tightened his grip the faster we flew.

  Soon we pointed our staves toward the heavens again and lowered our feet to the ground. I stumbled but wasn’t hurt. We stood at the edge of the ward.

  The streets beyond were alive with hundreds of people running. It was a crush of humanity. “I’m going to find the others. Please, for God’s sake, stay here,” Blackwood said. He nodded. “You did well, Miss Howel.” With that unexpected compliment, he put his stave to the ward, sliced downward, and walked through. I touched the place where he’d gone, but it had closed.

  I pressed my hand against the ward and peered into the crowd beyond, searching for Rook. It was impossible, of course, for him to be on the other side. How could he have gotten through? The idea had only been a panicked imagining, impossible to be real.

  But then, through the crowd, I caught a glimpse of pale yellow hair. The brightness flashed in the dark mass of humanity and disappeared.

  “Rook!” I thrust Porridge into the ward but met an invisible force. “Do it, do it,” I snarled, jaw clenched tight. I dragged Porridge, looking for any tear. “Open up!” I shouted, teeming with frustration. Porridge sliced into the ward like a knife through a piece of paper. I fell forward and landed on my hands and knees on the other side of the barrier.

  I checked; the opening was gone. Racing into the crowd, I called, “Rook, come back!”

  Screaming faces rose up before me. Elbows struck me in the stomach. Feet tripped me. I fought against the current, half insane with desperation. A small body collided with mine, arms wrapped tight around my middle. I pulled the little person away and found myself staring down at Charley. She wailed and sobbed, “I can’t find ’em! They’re not at home!”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Hargrove and the others. Ellie and Billy! They’re all gone.” She wept, laying her head on my stomach. I gathered her into my arms and carried her. Rook’s fair hair was nowhere to be seen.

  “We’ll find them,” I murmured over and over. The crowd thinned as a bright mass of fire spread ahead of me.

  I heard Blackwood: “Magnus, you idiot, you’ll get yourselves killed!” My heart raced as I ran to them.

  As I struggled through the last of the people and into an open street, the beast screamed above me. I gazed up and up into the blackness upon blackness, the Shadow and Fog.

  Korozoth.

  A great black funnel cloud, so dark that it stood out against the night sky. The beast towered fifty, sixty feet, and every time he roared, houses creaked and groaned. When the lightning flashed, I saw a great horned creature’s head perched atop the cloud with fiendish, slit red eyes. Tentacles, like those belonging to some undersea monstrosity, waved wildly from the center. One crashed into a window and sent half a brick wall tumbling down. Those tentacles had given Rook his scars.

  Rook. I still didn’t see him, and I was glad of that. I set Charley down and turned her toward the fleeing crowd.

  “Go with them.”

  “But where’d they go?” she sobbed as I pushed her, begged her to run and hide. When she finally did as I asked, I strode toward the others. My palms were so sweaty I nearly dropped Porridge.

  Their figures were dark blurs, brightened with the occasional burst of fire. I caught sight of Cellini as he went into a deep crouch and rapidly spun his stave in a circle over his head. He sent a cyclone roaring toward the beast, powerful enough to knock Korozoth backward.

  Blackwood stood weaving a net of fire as quickly as possible, his face illuminated in the flame’s glow. Korozoth roared and twisted, filling the air with debris and dust. I ran to Blackwood and leveled my stave alongside his.

  “What are you doing here?” he screamed, so furious that a vein stuck out in the middle of his forehead.

  “How do I help?” I pretended not to hear him. He looked ready to throw me to the Ancient, but I said, “This will go better with another person.”

  With an angry sigh, Blackwood showed me how to dip Porridge into the growing cloud, how to move my wrist to make the fire grow. I was slow and awkward, but not totally inept. On his command we willed it up and out. My aim wasn’t as good as Blackwood’s, but it worked. Korozoth wailed as our attack struck home, covering the mountain of Shadow and Fog with light.

  Overhead, a figure flitted back and forth through the air, shooting bursts of flame. With a scream, the Ancient launched a tentacle in the figure’s direction, but received a blast across the mouth for his trouble. While Korozoth bellowed in pain, Magnus dropped out of the sky, landing gracefully beside us.

  “Give us a light, then, Howel,” he said.

  I built up flame in the palm of my hand. He swirled the fire into the air, waved in thanks, and raced toward the creature. Hovering at eye level with the beast for an instant, Magnus brought his arms down in a mighty swing and delivered another shot across the monster’s face. Korozoth, blinded, lashed out with all of his tentacles. Magnus floated back fast and landed beside us with a victorious cry. With his windswept hair and his coat flapping free, he looked like a hero from a storybook.

  “I’m ready to see the lady sorcerer in action. What do you say?” he called.

  “Yes!” I yelled back.

  Magnus’s laughter was joyous. It didn’t take me long to realize that, for him, battle was a gift. Cellini ran to join us, talking excitedly at Magnus. When he saw me, he frowned.

  “She shouldn’t be here,” he said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Blackwood snapped. “But right now, we can use the help.”

  “Trust me, you’ll need it,” I shouted.

  Cellini took his place near me, but leaned in and said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

  As if he weren’t also here against Agrippa’s orders. We formed a diamond with me in front, Blackwood behind, Cellini and Magnus to the left
and right. After all my difficulties in the obsidian room, I prayed I didn’t falter. My legs trembled; there was no running now. I gave us a small light, and we began. Cellini prayed in Latin as we wove another net of fire.

  “Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum,” he called, and kissed a crucifix that hung about his neck.

  “Italian sorcerers,” Magnus muttered as the net swelled. “They take war so seriously.”

  Korozoth roared and unleashed a tentacle, the fat black thing striking the ground ten feet from where we stood. A voice inside me was screaming, but I couldn’t be afraid. Fear equaled death. It was time to respond.

  “Get ready,” Blackwood yelled. We reached back and, as a unit, threw the fire toward the creature. It blanketed the shadow beast, slowing him down. Giving us time for another attack.

  “Let’s do it again,” I cried.

  Then I saw him. He appeared before Korozoth out of thin air and darkness.

  Rook stretched a hand out toward me. His shirt was torn down the front, putting his pulsing scars on display. I could tell that his eyes were black, even from this distance.

  “Rook!” I broke the pattern and ran for him. Blackwood seized me by the waist. “Let me go!”

  Rook raised his arms and issued that high, unearthly scream. The fog swallowed him whole.

  “No!” I beat at Blackwood. Porridge tumbled to the ground.

  “It’s not real. He wasn’t there,” Blackwood shouted in my ear as Magnus grabbed my stave. “He tries to lure you in. It’s an illusion.”

  An illusion. Not real. Rook wasn’t there. And then I heard her voice, her little voice as she raced toward the blackness, screaming, “Ellie! Billy! There you are!”

  Charley ran to Korozoth, ran for the little brother and sister who she thought had appeared. Magnus and Cellini shouted for her to get back, but she was too far away. The child tried to put her arms around the two phantoms, mystified when they vanished. She looked up as the roaring blackness overwhelmed her, and disappeared beneath the folds of smoke and fog. Her high, thin scream sounded for an instant, then faded away. When the shadow moved back, Charley was gone.

  Magnus attempted to assemble us into the diamond pattern, but I couldn’t join him. Fire heated me, and anger fed the flames. Head pounding, I wrenched away from Blackwood and rushed toward the towering black cloud.