Darkness Fair (The Dark Cycle Book 2)

by Marks, Rachel A.

  He follows me, looking out at the violet and orange sky. “You think that’s true? She cares about . . .” he glances to his open palms in front of him, like he’s studying something strange, “ . . . me?”

  “I’m pretty positive she loves you.” I lean down, gritting my teeth again to hold in a hiss of pain, and find a spot to bury the pouch.

  “She doesn’t know me like she thinks.”

  I make a small hole for the ward, then place some rocks over it. “Just trust me, Eric. Hanna cares about you.”

  He releases a long breath, like he’s resigning himself. “It doesn’t matter. The Brethren don’t think like that. We’re not entitled to.”

  I give him a disbelieving look. “Sounds like you think like that, at least a little.”

  He pauses, taking in my words, and then he comes closer, asking quickly, “How does it feel, this human love? Aren’t you afraid of it? It seems so . . . powerful and dangerous.”

  He’s right—it is scary. Terrifying, really, opening myself up, only to be torn to shreds if something goes wrong. And if Kara’s taken from me like everyone else I’ve cared about . . . But it’s too late now. I’m consumed by her already.

  “This isn’t about me or Kara. This is about a woman who’s been good to you, good to me—a punk kid—and you haven’t given her the respect she deserves. You didn’t prepare her at all, you just left, and I’m fairly sure she would cross oceans to be with your lame ass.”

  He frowns, like I hit a nerve. “I never promised her anything. There are things she might never know or understand.”

  “So she doesn’t know you’re an angel?”

  He shakes his head. “She believes I’m something more, but she isn’t sure what I am. I can’t speak the truth aloud to anyone unless I’ve been released to, as I was with you. It’s forbidden. And so is attachment. Especially of the sort between a man and woman.”

  “It’s a bit late for that,” I say, wondering how a guy that can read minds in the spirit realm can’t see the truth of what’s right in front of him in the flesh. “Just call her. It’s not huge. Just a word, so she’ll know you haven’t totally left her for good.” I start walking down the path that descends to the beach, looking for another spot.

  “But I have left her for good.”

  I turn back around. “Wow.”

  “I have to follow the Law, Aidan. My attachment to her became too strong, so I felt it was time to move on. I’ve left myself vulnerable to discovery and let my flesh grow too strong. I have new sympathy for the Watchers of old.”

  “For a guy so determined to keep your angelic self a secret, it seems to me like you’ve been leaving her crumbs everywhere. What about that ossuary you showed her?” I ask. “The one you got in Iraq? She said it held answers about why you were here.”

  He goes perfectly still and stares at me, tension in every molecule. “She told you about the bone box?” As if it were some state secret.

  I hesitate before answering, “She asked me to read it. And the stuff I saw—”

  He comes at me, taking me by the arm, stopping my words. Panic bursts from him in a sudden explosion. “You touched it? Did your power spark? Did you link to the energy?” Every question seems more urgent than the one before.

  I stutter, “Just for a second. Nothing bad happened, Eric.”

  The frenzy of emotions bouncing between us seems to grow more frantic with each passing second as he stares, studies me, searching for something, his green eyes wide and panicked.

  “How much—how much energy did you feel?” he asks, gripping my shoulder tighter, each syllable underlined with a jerk of my body. “What did you see?”

  I hold up a hand. “Okay, calm down. Nothing happened. Really. All I saw were some women preparing him for burial. That’s all.”

  “How were you seeing?” he asks quickly.

  I don’t want to answer. Whatever he’s worried about, it’s bad. Very bad, by the feel and look of him. But I say it anyway. “It was like I was inside his body.”

  A chill fills the space around us and he releases me like I’m tainted. “Adonai, help us,” he whispers.

  I stumble back. “Holy hell, what the fuck’s the problem?!”

  “I should have never shown her. It’s too soon for this to happen.”

  “Who? Hanna? What in the hell is in that box, Eric? You’re freaking me out.”

  He shakes his head, his misery a bitter tang in the air. “It’s the Harbinger of this world’s end.”

  “In a bone box?” That makes no sense.

  “You’ve linked to him, reminded him of his humanity.” Eric’s helplessness is so thick around us, it’s tough to breathe.

  “Who?! Who the hell did I just connect with?”

  He looks over to me, weighty desperation in his eyes, as he whispers two words, “Your father.”

  NINETEEN

  Aidan

  All the air leaves my lungs like I’ve been punched in the gut. “What?” I must’ve heard wrong. My father?

  “Your father is in that box.”

  “D-Daniel . . . Daniel the prophet? You mean he’s, like, going to time-travel back again?” My headache grows, my pulse a hammer in my skull now. “He’s coming back?”

  “No, not like that, Aidan. He never traveled again after his punishment. He died an old man, well known and well loved in the court of magicians.”

  “Then . . . I don’t understand.”

  “His resurrection, among others, was prophesied after your birth. And his return was said to be the first Harbinger.”

  “But . . . how—he’s human, right? How can he be resurrected?” It doesn’t make any sense. And the idea is terrifying.

  “This is what I was supposed to prepare you for, eventually. Much later down the road. You were meant to learn to harness your power in order to raise him up and bring forth the first seal. But it appears you were already strong enough and began the process by accident. It’s all happening too soon.”

  “How are you so sure? How’re you so sure that I did a resurrection thing on the ancient bones of this guy in the box?” I can’t think of him as a father, I just can’t. He’s a far-off Bible story in my mind. And I have no father.

  Eric seems to consider my doubt, and I try to muster up a spark of hope.

  Maybe he’s wrong. I mean, shouldn’t it be harder than just touching an old box to bring someone back to life? Especially someone whose bones have probably turned to dust over the centuries?

  “You are his son,” Eric says, like he’s reasoning it through. “You’re meant to be the one to do this; the prophecies are clear. And you’re the only one with the resurrection powers.”

  “But you can’t be sure I woke anyone up from the dead.”

  “I suppose we would be sure if we looked in the box.”

  “Wonderful. You do that. I’m going to focus on one thing at a time; for now, it’s these protections. We need to be sure the demons being called here don’t find Ava’s body. You can take care of the guy in the box.” He’s not my father, I can’t think like that. He’s just a man. And the last thing I want right now is to face that part of me. “Ava’s father is the one making trouble right now, anyway. We should be fixing that first. The dead guy can wait.”

  “Yes,” Eric says, sounding distracted. “Jaasi’el is also a dilemma.”

  “What could the dominion want? It’s not like he cared about Ava all these years when I was trying to protect her from the demons.” Something I failed to do.

  “I assume he feels the need to stop the demons from controlling her,” he says absently, his mind obviously still on the last subject. “She must be neutral or on the side of Heaven. Otherwise, he could possibly see her as a threat and destroy her, if he cannot save her.”

  “Are you serious? Now an angel wants to control her?”

  “Of course. Either side would wish to control her. She’s a key.” But then his features shift, like something is beginning to dawn on him. “Why did
Hanna want you to read the box when you were there?” he asks.

  “She said there were orbs around it in the security feed.”

  “The earthquake,” he says under his breath.

  “Yeah, the morning of the earthquake. It’s connected?”

  “I have to go,” he says in a rush, beginning to walk away.

  “Wait, what the hell?” I yell after him. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Like you said, keep focused on protecting your sister’s body for now,” he says over his shoulder. “And read the journal; you should find the under-passage now that things are shifting again. It will tell you everything you need to know.”

  I growl in frustration, wondering why the hell he can’t just show me this mystery passage. But before I can ask, he leaps over the edge of the cliff, falling into thin air.

  I’m jerked out of my shock by Connor’s voice coming from behind me. “Hey, are you almost done?”

  I look away from the cliff where Eric disappeared—what the hell kind of exit was that? Connor is standing at the top of the path. I motion to the half-full bag in my hand. “I still have to complete the pattern.” But the bomb Eric just dropped is turning my gut numb. These protections feel useless considering everything that’s going on.

  Connor walks toward me. “All the rune combos are in place. How can I help?”

  “I just have to finish the house and then we can work on the cave entrance,” I say, unfocused. I have to pretend like I’m still the same Aidan from this afternoon. Before I was told I might have resurrected my ancient father from a twenty-six-hundred-year-old pile of dust in a box. My father. How could Eric be right? How could I have done something so monumental and not have realized it? It feels even more impossible than anything I could’ve imagined. But I know it’s not. Not in my world. Nothing is impossible in my world.

  When we get home, I sit in the car and call Hanna to ask if I can come back for a few more things tomorrow. I tell her I need sacred dirt and a demon bowl or box for a job, even though that’s a lie. I know that I told Eric he could handle my . . . father, that I wasn’t able to deal with it, but on the way back to the house my curiosity and fear got the better of me. I have to make sure that the box hasn’t birthed something horrible; I can only hope Eric’s wrong or overreacting.

  Hanna seems perfectly fine on the phone. I hear the clinking of glass and the hum of a vacuum in the background, so I figure she’s getting ready to open the club for the night. Always a good sign. It wouldn’t be business as usual if everything had gone to hell, spiritually speaking. She tells me how to open the outer door and the inner vault, giving me the code keys to memorize, telling me not to write them down. I’m supposed to text when we’re on our way; she’ll help out if things in the club aren’t too busy. I kind of want to look at everything alone, though. Just in case.

  I hang up the phone and head through the backyard. Sid is sitting on the back porch swing, looking off into nowhere.

  “Hey, where have you been?” I ask, trying to sound lighthearted as I walk up the steps. But as I study him, my heart sinks. He seems thinner and paler than even yesterday. Is that possible?

  He turns to me and smiles. “Just resting. I hear from Connor that things are going well, that you even saw Eric. I’m glad he’s home safe from his travels. And the Foster job sounded like a nice challenge. I would have loved to have gone and been a part of the process.”

  I sit beside him on the swing. “How’re you feeling?” I don’t want to talk about a job like nothing else is going wrong; not when he seems to be fading away suddenly, as if his time here with us is slipping away more quickly, right before my eyes. The way Kara explained it, I thought we’d have longer to figure things out, make a plan to help him, before he got sick from his time traveling. But it’s obvious the consequences of those broken rules are showing up to take their pound of flesh.

  He keeps smiling at me, like he’s memorizing my face, before he says, “I’m very thankful that I’ve been a part of your life, son. Truly. Your father would be so proud of you.”

  My chest aches at the mention of Daniel. I wonder what Sid would say if I told him I might have begun the resurrection of his old mentor? I don’t want to say the words out loud, though. I can barely allow them in my head without feeling like I might lose it.

  “What was he like?” I ask quietly.

  Sid turns to stare out at the overgrown grass again, his smile becoming listless. “Oh, much like you. He was young and devoted. Strong and stubborn when it came to those he loved. I miss him.”

  Part of me wants to meet him, just to feel his energy, to see him like I can see other people, inside. But another part of me has always been terrified at the idea. In the Ketuvim he was shown as a man who was strong in faith, but the stories only say what he did, not who he was.

  “Someday you will meet him, face to face,” Sid says.

  My nerves jump. “What?”

  “In the afterlife,” he says, his voice trailing away, like he’s only half in this world and half somewhere else entirely. For a moment there I thought he knew about the box, but clearly he doesn’t.

  I stare at his profile, the sunken look of his eyes. I can see the pulse in his neck now, the slow and weak rhythm. His frame is starting to shrink severely, his skin like a shirt that doesn’t fit right, the muscle practically gone. It hurts more than I thought it would, seeing him like this. Fading away. I haven’t known him long, but he’s the closest thing I have to family right now. And I’ve found myself caring about him, in spite of how I’ve tried to keep my distance. He’s a stable point. The idea of him leaving us is more than a little unsettling, with the world around me falling apart more every day.

  “What’s going on with you, Sid?” I ask. “Talk to me.”

  He sighs and leans his head back against the porch swing. “I thought I’d have more time, but since the earthquakes began, I’m feeling . . . stretched thin. I think I’ll be leaving soon. More quickly than I thought I would.”

  There it is. Out loud. A stab of pain in my throat follows the realization that I’m about to lose someone else. “We can fix this, Sid,” I say, my voice tight.

  “No. Not this. I’ve felt the day coming for a while and I pretended I was invincible, that I could play God with time. But I was foolish.”

  “You can’t just give up,” I say, urgency filling me. He sounds so resigned. Like it’s all done already. “Connor, Kara, and I, we can fix this. We can figure out how to keep you here, to heal you.”

  He closes his eyes and a smile fills his face again, like he’s sitting and enjoying the warmth of the sun on his skin even though it’s night. After several seconds of silence pass, he whispers, “I am more than blessed. More than filled. Thank you.”

  But he’s not talking to me. He’s not thanking me for anything.

  He’s thanking God.

  And I envy him that assurance. That peace. I want to find that kind of surrender, that kind of faith. But this weight on my shoulders refuses to allow me to feel anything but urgency and pain about what I can’t change.

  “We’re all hurtling toward it, you know, son,” he says, a tear slipping from the corner of his eye. “When you see it, you’ll understand. The destination is that moment of becoming whole again, but it’s not the destination that matters in the end. It’s the journey along the way. And I have had one amazing journey.”

  TWENTY

  Rebecca

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through my Cosmo magazine, not really digesting any of it. Something about the feeling of the shiny pages on my fingers, the sight of the lovely people who smile as if they don’t have a care in the world . . . I know they’re just acting for the cameras, but it’s a reminder that there are smiles out there. There are happy people, somewhere.

  I’m also sneaking glances at Aidan through the paned glass of the back door. He’s sitting next to Sid and they both look somber, talking and watching the empty yard.

 
When Aidan stands from the swing, I focus back on the magazine. But as he comes in the door, I can’t help looking up in alarm. Emotions follow him in like a storm—anger, sorrow, guilt, and a hundred others that speed through me so fast, I barely recognize them.

  At first I bite my lips shut, but then the tornado starts to make me dizzy, so I ask, “Are you okay?”

  He stops on the other side of the table, staring down at the faded kitchen tiles. I study him for a second, his hunched shoulders, the corners of his mouth drawn down. It’s horrible. I blink back tears, my throat going tight even though I have no idea why. Everything he’s feeling is getting mixed up in my head with my own emotions. I look back down at the magazine, my vision blurring.

  “I shouldn’t exist,” he says.

  My head snaps back up. “What?”

  “I’m not supposed to be here. It’s all gone wrong. I’ve made everything wrong.” A dark feeling billows from him, a cloud of loss. “My sister wouldn’t have even been born. The world wouldn’t be in danger. Sid would be home safe. And Lester . . .”

  Okay, now I’m scared. What could’ve happened? I push the magazine away and stand, moving toward him. “Aidan, what’re you talking about?”

  “He’s dying because of me.”

  I freeze halfway across the room. “Who?”

  “Sid. I may as well have killed him. My life has made his impossible.”

  What’s he talking about? Sid does look sick, but . . . dying? And how could that possibly be Aidan’s fault?

  He turns to me. “You think you know me, but you don’t. You don’t know anything. I’m only good at fucking everything up. Everything I touch dies or ends up hurting someone.”

  I close the distance between us and grab him by the arm. “Stop it! That’s enough. It’s all lies, Aidan. All of it.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I’m killing him.” His misery is palpable; I feel like I’m choking on it.

  “Yes, I heard you,” I whisper, moving my hand over his shoulder, trying to sooth him. “But you’re upset. You aren’t thinking straight.”

  “I can’t watch Kara die, too. And you.”