Darkness Fair (The Dark Cycle Book 2)

by Marks, Rachel A.

  “Why do you ask?” I say.

  “No reason,” he says, red sparking in his eye.

  I give him a look.

  His cheeks flush as he realizes he’s caught in a lie. “Old habits. I’m just . . . I’m not sure when the correct time to tell you certain things is. And as things are, with Kara—”

  “You tell me as soon as you know. Don’t keep stuff from me, it won’t help either of us.”

  “Yes, very wise. My apologies.”

  When he just stands there, studying the surface of the table beside me, I prod. “Well?”

  He grips his cane tighter and his nerves spark sharply enough I feel it through the muffled energy of the house. “I may need to show you.”

  I follow him as he walks out the back door to his shed. We stand beside the weathered structure and the dark magic seeping out makes an ache grow in my bones. I hate this place. It’s an oil spill in the middle of a nature preserve, mucking up the air and killing life all around it.

  The blood circle on the door has been freshly repainted—I don’t even want to think of what furnished that. The smell of sage and anguish seems to permeate the wood.

  Sid unhooks the three locks and opens the latch, but before letting me see past him, he turns and says, “Just keep this between us, please.”

  “Sid, get on with it.”

  He sighs, looking pained, and moves to the side, motioning me into the shed. My feet root to the ground, though. I won’t totally immerse myself in the dark casting magic again. The weight of that power is a feeling I never want to relive. Ever.

  The altar is across from the door, covered in dried wax and blood. There’s a pentagram made of black yarn, and black candles stand at each point of the star—the sight of that formation makes my skin crawl even more, reminding me of my mom’s casting habit and where it’s brought us. And to top it all off, a cat skull is sitting to the side with the Chinese character for sneaky etched on its forehead. Scrolls are stuffed into the wine racks underneath, overflowing, with more of them stacked on the floor in the corner. Rows of bottles filled with mysterious objects, liquids, and powders rim the shelf above it.

  Sid’s bed is against the wall to my left, and at the foot sits the trunk, the prophecy stone carrying my destiny tucked inside.

  It all looks the same. “What are you trying to show me, Sid?”

  He pushes the door open wider, letting the light spill higher on the wall beside the bed. The symbols for grounding shimmer in the light, newly painted just like the one on the door. My stomach rises at the sight of so much fresh blood.

  Until I see . . . something else. Oozing down from the ceiling like black tar.

  A chill rushes over me. “What is that stuff?” Obsidian-colored liquid drips down the wall, running in thin lines, as if the wood is bleeding demon blood.

  “As you know, this shed is made to be a talisman that helps me stay in this time. It mimics a doorway.”

  “Like the cave, you mean.”

  “Yes.” He steps into the shed and points with his cane at the red circles on the wall. “And this is why I put these marks here, to weave the time spell into the fabric of the structure itself. But then this began early this morning.” He motions to the black ooze. “It bubbled out after the ground shook under me.”

  “That was an earthquake, Sid. They happen all the time. This is California.”

  “Does that happen all the time?” He points at the tar-like substance running down to the floor.

  “I don’t know what the hell that is.”

  “It’s a sign of crossover!” He throws his hand in the air, looking exasperated.

  A crossover. A demon crossing over? “But that would leave a sigil behind.”

  “Only if the demon crossed over in this spot from a Veil state. And that would be a burn mark. The black blood is a sign that something crossed through the doorway. It manifests in all the linked sites.”

  “And this is linked to the dam.”

  “Yes. This is linked to the Devil’s Gate, where I took you the day I told you about your father. That’s where I came through, so that’s the power I was attempting to mimic.”

  “So the demon could have come through that gate.”

  “Or it could have come through any of the linked sites.”

  “Like the beach cave.”

  He nods.

  “Is there an earthquake every time a demon crosses over? This happens a lot?”

  He shakes his head. “Absolutely not. The Key Keepers are angels of Light. They’ve guarded the doorways since right after the time of Noah. They despise demons and never knowingly let them through. So, no. No demons ever cross. Unless they’ve escaped.”

  “What do you mean, ‘right after the time of Noah’? Who guarded the doorways before that?” I ask.

  “No one. In the time of Noah, demons and angels walked among humans, unhidden. To my brethren and me it’s always been known as the Cycle of Darkness, and it’s blasphemy to speak of it—no one wants to tease the ears of the Key Keeper.”

  “Well, what about the demon I killed yesterday? That thing was corporeal. Didn’t it get called up through a doorway or something?”

  “A demon called over by a human is merely going from a Veil state to a corporeal state. They’ve been on this side of the doorway, behind the Veil, for eons. Some lower-level demons were given leeway to remain here, kept in check because they reside on the other side of the Veil. The stronger and more deadly demons were locked away in the place we call Sheol.”

  “For good.”

  “For as long as the angels stand guard. When a human calls up a demon from the other side of the Veil, the creature will only get a small window of time to become molecular before slipping back across. But if a demon ever managed to break through a doorway, it would have no time restrictions. It would cross as a beast and would remain in a corporeal state, and have no use with being coy.”

  “And so, you think this goop,” I point to the black ooze on the wall, “is a sign that one might’ve escaped.” A terrifying thought by the sound of it.

  Sid nods.

  “But, wait a second, you started all this by mentioning my sister.”

  “Her link to the cave, her blood being the key to open those gates to Sheol, it’s obviously a factor. Don’t you imagine we should consider her as a possible reason for any new shifts in the power of the doorways?”

  “Ava could have done this?” I ask, icicles creeping through my veins. “She might’ve let something loose?” I think about the claws I saw that night in the cave, when the gates opened for only a few minutes. Those claws belonged to some beast, trying to escape.

  “If not her, then someone using her blood.”

  EIGHT

  Aidan

  I grip the steering wheel of the Camaro and try to focus on the road in front of me, not letting the frustration take over. Sid promised me that the spell he cast had hidden Ava. He said hidden, specifically. Like, no one should be able to find her, see her. How the hell could someone use her blood to open the doorway?

  Before I left the house, I reminded him of his promise. But then he reminded me that he’s not as powerful or smart as he once was. Like it’s some kind of excuse for why he just whoops! left the key to the end of the world out in the open. It doesn’t give me a lot of hope for how helpful he’ll be waking Ava.

  And now with Kara . . . damn, I need someone with half a brain to give me a hand here. Makes me wonder where Eric—my absent guardian angel—is for the millionth time.

  I can only hope Sid is wrong about the black stuff running down the walls of his shed. Maybe a demon hasn’t come through at all. Maybe it’s the gross casting magic in that shed that’s gooping up the walls. It’s fairly thick with nasty in there.

  I pull off PCH and turn down the parallel street, parking several hundred yards up the road from Mrs. O’Linn’s house. I take a side path that I found last week. It’s a bit of an awkward descent to the beach, but this way I can
avoid seeing my great-grandma; she still isn’t aware of the blood connection, and I plan on keeping it that way, so the less contact, the better.

  The fog is thick, the noonday sun not warm enough to break through. It never is here. Even now, with July in full swing, this section of shoreline is always shrouded in fog. It settles on the beach, coating the water in a thick grey mist. The sound of the water pushing slowly up the shore is muffled, but I can feel the stillness of it. Everything seems to be waiting. Just like me. Waiting for Ava to wake up.

  Once I’ve made it to the sand, I walk down the beach. The damp air is sharp in my lungs. The familiar smell of salt and sea sticks to my skin. I shiver and tell myself it’s from the cold, but when I approach the cave, I know right away something’s wrong. There’s a strange vibration in the ground. Like the sand is transmitting some sort of pulse. I enter slowly, with my inner guard up, locked tight into place.

  The walls glisten like black onyx in the shadows, highlighting the white stone of the archway inlaid in the wall on the opposite side of the room. I step closer to the altar, the pale form lying atop it a waiting sacrifice.

  My sister.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. She’s still there, the same as yesterday morning, a fragile sleeping beauty. There are no fresh wounds on her arms or anywhere that I can see. Her blonde hair spills around her head like a halo. Her hands are folded over her chest, covering the hole the dagger left behind. Her face, her bare arms and legs, sparkle like alabaster from the flecks of sand that settle in a thin coat over her skin. Perfectly preserved. Still no decay. No change.

  I will her to open her silver-blue eyes. “I’m not giving up, Ava. I won’t.” I know what she would say. I know she would want me to move on and pretend like everything could be normal. But that’s all impossible now.

  I close my eyes and try for the hundredth time to reach her mind with my own, but there’s only a strange stillness answering back, as if the air is holding its breath. It’s unsettling and my gut doesn’t like it. Moving closer, I touch the neck of the violin that’s on the altar, resting at Ava’s feet. I pluck a string to break the energy up a little. The note bounces off the cave walls, high and mournful.

  And it’s followed by a growl that rumbles around me.

  I go still, all senses keying in to the feeling in the air and the vibrations under my feet. The sound came from the wall. Or, more accurately, the doorway. I watch the black stone and pluck the violin string again.

  The growl rumbles once more. Louder.

  I step back from the altar and move to the other side. My shoe slips on something slick. I look down—

  Oh, God.

  I cover my mouth with the back of my hand. It’s a bloody piece of something. Skin? Fur? There are more pieces scattered over the sand. Whatever the carcass is, it’s totally unrecognizable. And the pieces of torn flesh are actually organized. The limbs and organs are set in a pattern of some kind. A triangle, with other bits laid out in a sort of upside-down V.

  Then I see the head. It’s placed facing the gateway. A dog. Its snout points straight at the center of the archway.

  My stomach rises. What the hell did this?

  No, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see what made that twisted piece of artwork, taking such care with each scrap of skin and intestine.

  A noise comes from the opening of the cave. Sand grinding against the stone, like dragging feet. Or claws.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  My pulse hammers against my ribs, beating inside my head so hard it’s all I can hear for several seconds. And then the sound of heaving breath begins echoing off the cave walls, noises of sinus and teeth and phlegm in the throat. It’s not the thing that was growling a second ago, I’m pretty sure. The noise is coming from the wrong direction, by the cave opening. Something grumbling under its breath, the sound of skidding. A shadow moves along the wall, coming closer, until the thing appears from behind the altar.

  The creature is small, shorter than the stone slab my sister is lying on. It has thin, bony arms and legs, wings more like a third set of limbs, linked with webbing. It has a long, pointy nose and large bat-like ears.

  And it’s dragging something behind it.

  Part of a human leg.

  I jerk back in horror, hoping my eyes are wrong.

  The tiny beast comes into full view, and I reach up to grab my amulet, reassuring myself it’s still there. The demon can’t see me. It can’t see. I bite my lips together and try not to gasp, not to gag, not to make a sound.

  A human leg.

  The creature stands beside the pieces of the dog, like it’s observing the demented artwork. The mark on my chest begins to burn, but I can’t act, not with Ava so close and vulnerable. I argue with myself: kill, wait, kill, wait. Until it looks up to study the wall where the doorway is.

  And that’s when I see what it’s really looking at. A crack about a quarter inch wide and four inches long, running across the center of the opening. How did I not see that before? That’s where the growl was coming from. Black tar-like liquid oozes from the fissure. A bleeding wound.

  The demon is staring at it, as if willing it to open, holding that human leg in its claw like it’s a log. The toenails on the foot are painted pink with a daisy on the big toe.

  A gurgle comes from the creature as it lugs the chunk of human flesh in front of the dog head, dropping it unceremoniously to rest along the base of the doorway. Then it clacks its teeth and scuttles out of the cave, into the foggy sunlight.

  I gasp in air, realizing I’ve been holding my breath. I have to focus. On not losing it. I have to force my gaze away from the blood and the death at my feet. And make myself think. Think, I have to think. That thing could be back any second with some other horrifying object.

  I study Ava more closely, worried. Because if I didn’t see the crack in the wall, maybe I missed something else. But she still looks untouched. I go to the spot in the cave where I hid her things and grab her bag and dump everything out, hoping to find something useful. A half-burnt smudge, a lighter, our mom’s grimoire, Ava’s stuffed rabbit, Mr. Ribbons, a Rainbow Brite pencil box, a bottle of powder, and a Ziploc bag filled with what look like dried chicken feet.

  Nothing. Nothing here I can use to block the entrance to the cave so the demon can’t come back in. Dammit.

  I open the pencil box and empty it onto the sand. Chalk!

  I scramble to the cave opening and brush the inches of sand away from the threshold. I uncover the stone floor and find a small circle of embedded rocks, four of them, each one etched with a symbol for a season and its elemental pairing. Summer and water. Autumn and earth. Winter and air. Spring and fire. I’m not sure why they’re here or how they’re embedded so securely into the cave floor, but the formation is obviously not to dissuade demons from entering or leaving. Maybe they have something to do with how the doorways work.

  I take the chalk and begin writing the names of God in Hebrew, the first three that come to mind: El Emet—The God of Truth; El Elyon—The Most High God; El Yeshuatenu—God is our Salvation. I write each one three times, all in a row, marking a line across the threshold. My instinct says that the names will burn a demon’s flesh on contact. Hopefully that’s right.

  I cover the writing back up with a thin layer of sand, and feel that the cave is somewhat secure, at least for now. I hurry back inside to gather all of Ava’s things, shoving them in her bag again. Except for the smudge. I go ahead and light that, then I set it close to the opening, so the smoke fills the entrance; it won’t scare the beast off, but it’ll annoy the hell out of it. I slip the bag over my shoulder and approach the bloody mess of remains. I stare down at the pieces of dog and human in horror before gritting my teeth, holding my breath, and kicking it all to scatter the bits randomly, hopefully ruining whatever spell the creature was attempting to cast.

  I wish I could take Ava with me, but I know I can’t. Still, just because the demon didn’t seem the least bit interest
ed in her doesn’t mean another one won’t be. I need to get help.

  I pull out my cell and hunker down in the farthest corner of the cave, where I can still watch the opening. The line rings and rings. Sid picks up at the last minute. “Hello, LA Paranormal Investigative Agency. How can I be of service? No job is too—”

  “Sid!” I hiss, trying to whisper. “I’m at the beach cave. You need to get your ass here. Now. Something’s wrong with the doorway.”

  “Oh, my. I was correct?”

  “Just get here. I don’t want to leave Ava alone. There’s a corporeal demon making some sort of spell in here—or it was, I don’t—”

  A beep sounds as he hangs up.

  “Okay. Don’t bother asking any questions or anything. Shit.” I shove my cell back in my pocket and settle in to wait.

  NINE

  Aidan

  A half hour passes and the little demon hasn’t come back with any new parts. I listen over the rhythm of the waves, trying to hear if anyone’s approaching. Every sound could be either the demon returning or Sid coming to help, and waiting here for either one is making my nerves raw.

  Several horrifying questions occur to me as I wait, the smell of blood and sulfur like acid in my nostrils. Whose leg is that? And where’s the rest of her? My great-grandmother lives right at the top of the rise; the leg is too young to be hers, but it could belong to her nurse, Fa’auma.

  Panic sets in then.

  What if I’m here, hunkered down, while my own grandma and her nurse are being ripped to shreds only yards away? My insides begin to unravel as I wait. But I can’t leave Ava, I can’t—

  “Aidan!” Kara’s voice comes from up the beach.

  I scramble to my feet, to the cave entrance, panic turning to anger at the realization that Sid brought Kara here to this horror. He knows about the weird energy exchange between us, and she was bleeding from her eyes only twelve hours ago. But there she is, walking beside our slow-moving mentor.

  “What the hell?” I hiss at him when they reach me. “Why did you bring her?”