by Kara Silver
Spotting Emma again outside her staircase cut off her squash-the-panic-down thoughts. “No, wasn’t at dinner.” Emma, back to Kennedy as she meandered, said into her phone. “I just thought… Uh-huh.” Her shoulders slumped.
Kennedy’s intention had been to skedaddle away from Emma into the twilight, but now she slowed. Jesus, Emma means Maja! Maja, whose blood had been drawn at one of those parties. Maja, scholarship student. One who’d been in a local authority boarding school prior to coming here, somewhere Kennedy felt sure the girl had been placed in to get her away from her parents, going by what Maja had said. Meaning she wouldn’t be missed, that she was…disposable.
And that had a red mist descending on Kennedy. This…whatever it was stopped here. Now. The weight of what she was attempting hung heavy about her, her task daunting. She needed all the boost she could get and her footsteps took her to one of the front quads, with its statue of the founder. It was tradition, she’d discovered, to touch it for luck, when that was needed, such as before exams. The feet, she supposed, judging by the patch worn smooth over the centuries. Could have been worse. She chose instead to run her hand down the sword, finding it sharper than she’d imagined it would be. She exclaimed and shook her hand as something jagged on it and cut it, flicking the drops of blood onto the statue’s base.
“Dominus qui sunt eius,” she read again from the plinth. Funny, her first day here seemed so long ago, and yet as if the time had passed in the blink of an eye. Yeah, she trusted the lord did know whose were his. Unable to delay, she walked without pausing through the college, out the back and over the road to No Souls. “Never did find out the place’s real name,” she lamented.
The place loomed and swooped, as menacing as before in the semi-dark, dark greens of leaves, harsh browns of branches and yellow grey of grave markers colliding and circling, forcing her to stop and breath slowly. No. She wasn’t having that. No one or no thing was spooking her. She could do that by herself, thanks. “Now, if I were a group of, well, demons in a graveyard, where would I gather?”
That little house or chalet or lodge, like the lodges at the gates of University Parks…hadn’t been there before, had it? Or maybe she’d just entered from a different bit, or the trees had obscured it, and so she’d not seen it? If it had been there, rock music hadn’t been beating out of it before, making her damn mark throb in time with its insistent beat. She loitered by a tree, suddenly wondering if she should break off a bit of branch for a stake. Concealing what she was doing, she snapped off a goodly sized and pointed bit of wood and slipped it up her sleeve. She tightened her fingers around her penknife, placed in readiness in her pocket. As arsenals went, hers was…pathetic.
“Kennedy Smith.”
And as training went, hers was non-existent. She hadn’t been aware the door to the lodge had opened, nor that anyone had come out. And yet there he was, Mr Shadow Demon, all black eyes, tight leather pants and—wow, interesting move—a bare chest, lounging in the doorway with a drink in his hand as though he were in a bikers’ pub in summer.
“You know my name. What’s yours?” she called across.
He tsked. “Oh, no. I’m not just gonna hand over power like that, honey.”
Ah. Note to self. Never give name to anyone ever again. Go by pseudonym. Mitzy? Baby? He turned his back on her, slow and calculated, she discovered, because it…displayed a mark on his shoulder blade. Kennedy couldn’t stop herself exclaiming. She hadn’t seen another one, not live. Because Janey was dead when I saw hers. And this guy right here? Probably had a lot to do with it. But was his mark exactly the same? She blinked, trying to recall exactly. The tattoos and scarifications in displays and books, the marks on various girls, and her marks wavered and flickered in front of her, all tantalisingly out of reach of memory, and all slightly different? She longed to see.
And he knew it. “I’ll invite you in. This place? It’s not here. Not in this space. So, you’re…safe,” he tossed over his shoulder.
And, of course, he was completely, one-hundred-percent trustworthy. Just as her mark wasn’t burning. That must be why she was following him inside, to what seemed like a normal party. Music, drinks, people… Except they were— “Shadow demons.”
The guy’s head shot back. He hadn’t expected that. “Hey, we’re all demons here. Only, we know what we are. Do you?”
“I—” Kennedy took shallow breaths, commanding herself not to breath in the miasma of the room. Like marsh fog, it lay low, curling and coiling up, slinky and seductive. Won’t get fooled again.
“Look see.”
She followed where he pointed to a wall, one that was no longer stone or plaster or whatever walls were made from. It was mirrored. And showed the guy in his real form, the one she’d seen yesterday, elongated, exaggerated, darkness incarnate.
“A shadow of your former self,” Kennedy whispered. And not just her host. “Your lackeys too.” The room was filled with a host of darkness, all blurred edges and sharp claws.
“And you? Like what you see?”
“No.” Her rejection was instinctive. That was not her. She was Kennedy Smith, boring nobody from Wyebury in the north of England, not that, that creature looking back at her, taller, darker, whose longer curved fingers moved quicker than the human eye could see, power leaking from them in wisps and sparks. Her brown eyes shone an unearthly silver, the black pupils flashing blood-red, her entire face gleaming with the unholy pleasure that came from evil deeds. Her hair curled long and wild, halfway down her back and, oh God in heaven, small horns sprouted from her head.
“You’re deadly.” The guy made it sound like beautiful.
“No!” Kennedy repeated, her voice stronger, and the mirror dulled. The next second it showed her the body she saw every day, boring, normal, standing next to a tall sleazy-seductive guy who sooo wasn’t her type. She caught the flare of surprise in his eyes.
“You wanna pass for human? Keep your demon bone covered?” Kennedy took a step back before the guy could caress her shoulder blade. Her mark tingled already. Purred, sort of. Like a sleepy cat awakening. “That’s your prerogative. Stupid though.” His minions echoed his soft laugh. “But, you wanna deny the best part of yourself…”
“I don’t want to drink blood, like you tried to do to me yesterday.” She was sure that was what they did. The missing girls—
“Blood?” He made a face. “Filthy. We imbibe essence.”
“What?” The rest of her question was lost as the room dissolved, or they whirled away. Like in a tornado. Did she imagine the bump as she landed, outside? “Have you quite finished with the Wizard of Oz homage?” she enquired, getting her bearings, hard as that was in the yellow sulphurous mist and dark shadows.
He scowled. “And just when I was getting to like you. But you know, I admire you? I wanna give you a chance. You’re feeling your oats, little Kennedy Smith. You’re ripe with power. It’s bursting from you.”
“Yeuch?” The grimace she gave wasn’t put on.
“Think you can take us on?” He pointed, shrugging his way into his leather duster as he did so. The shadows parted and the mist thinned—showing her the slab in the hollow where she’d been before. And just as before when it had held a body, there now lay another, facedown. Not tied or chained, it nevertheless struggled and thrashed as if pinned. Not gagged, yet strangulated noises emanated from it, as if it was unable to scream.
“Show us you’re strong enough to walk in there and free her.”
Her? Kennedy stared aghast at the slim body, the thin blonde hair. Oh, Jesus God, Maja! She’d been missing…and here she was. Kennedy had tried hard to think about it, not to make connections, but she’d known. “But—” She broke off to whip to one side when Shadow Dude prowled around her, circling like a shark. “Why?” she whispered.
That did surprise him. “How do you feed?” he queried. “You…don’t? Well, demons do. We live long and well, if we get the right sustenance. The purest food. They don’t miss it. And we giv
e in return. Quid pro quo.”
If that was some sort of grace, or toast, she’d do without. “So you test girls’ blood and whichever is the best, the purest, you…mark her as yours?” The display on demonology came back to her. “With a sign meaning inheritance or heritage?”
“Meaning share as in division, as in birthright,” he corrected, narrow-eyed. “But what are you waiting for? Your friend’s not doing too well. Don’t you want to help her?”
A mocking chorus started up from the dark forms gathered around them that made a circle encompassing them and the slab and Maja.
“And when I free her, that’s it?”
“Yes.” He lifted his hands and spread them wide.
Nothing up his sleeves. Yeah. right. Gathering everything she could, her energy, her anger, her strength, Kennedy put one foot in front of the other and took shaky steps down the hollow to its centre, tensing with every flex of every muscle against sharp claws at her back and triumphant hisses in her ears. Nothing came, but the silence held terror. She reached the slab and its arching, twisting, moaning girl.
“Oh, Kennedy.”
She had to look back at him, didn’t she?
“It’s horrific, isn’t it, that a new girl’s selected every year, because that’s about how long the foodstock lasts?”
“What?” She had to battle down nausea. Threw up a little in her mouth. “Yes. It really is. And I’m here to put a stop to it.” The instant she said that, everything stilled. She didn’t understand. “Maja?” Kennedy stumbled back as the trapped girl rose to her feet. “What…?”
It wasn’t Maja. The girl pulled off a blonde wig and grinned. “Kirsty?” Kennedy gasped, looking from the second year who’d been kind to her to the thick mass approaching, the black forms shrinking the circle to trap her in the middle. Was that Kirsty? She only had one glimpse and couldn’t be sure. Those bastards were probably up to some mind fuckery, anyway. “Whatever. I’m still here to stop this.” Even on her knees, a demon throng surrounding her. She had her bit of twig in her pocket…
“Yeah. Stop it. As in, make it so we don’t need to take more girls? Yeah, you are. Because being a demon mage? Means your blood is the bomb. Could last a decade. More. And with you out of the picture, we won’t have to worry about another mage.”
“No!” Kennedy grabbed out at nothing as a hard shove from perhaps-Kirsty sent her sprawling flat, onto the middle of the sacrificial slab.
“Oh, yes.” The guy nodded, his eyes gleaming blood-red. “I guess that’s what they call win-win. Well, for us, at least. Not you.”
28
“Oh, you idiot.” Kennedy gave a slow, pitying head shake, hoping no one could hear the desperate thump of her heart or smell the reek of her fear. “I’d say, you and whose army, but I see you had to bring one with you. I guess you need so many because you’re all so low down the pecking order, right?” Aeth had said so, and he knew stuff. Didn’t he?
“Low down? I’m a mage, little girl!”
His voice didn’t sound as honey-dripped as it had, so she counted that as a point, ignoring the shadows creeping nearer. It was getting harder to breathe, the shadows stifling the air, but she took a deep breath, hoping it would fill her lungs for long enough. Long enough for what, though, was anyone’s guess. “And you’re subordinate to…? Sorry. Big word there.” She imitated his voice. “Put another way, honey, who’s the head honcho, because it sure as anything isn’t you?”
She tried not to scrabble away as the host advanced. Not that there was anywhere to scoot off to, not with the circle ever tightening around her. Shadow mage dude’s face twisted in annoyance, but then a thin smile hoisted up one side of his mouth.
“Why should we be content with our place? With the hierarchy? You get that. Right? It’s what you’re doing.”
“Oh, of course. Except, what the fuck are you talking about?” She didn’t like the way he was prowling around the inside of the living ring of shadow, that slow, long-legged, wide-stride circling, forcing her to turn to watch him.
“Waiting your turn, knowing your place, letting other people set the agenda… Like you, all your life. You were no different from all those poor little girls, used, lied to, people laughing at you behind your back…. You wanna take back something for yourself. Don’t you?”
She felt the compulsion he threw out hit her on those two last words, but nodded anyway. It was true. If that was supposed to be her fate, she wanted a different one. And a better one, for all women. “Yeahno. What I want is to destroy you and stop you using living people as nothing more than food!”
She sprang to her feet, ignoring his, “Oh, little girl. You have no idea at all, do you?” because he was attacking. As the darkness lunged for her, she whipped the makeshift stake from her pocket and struck. It wasn’t the wood piercing the shadow that offed him, rather the raw beam of light she pinpointed through her weapon into him, making him futz to nothing in one loud crack. The recoil, like a punch to the gut, had her almost tripping.
I poofed him, Aeth! she screamed inside her head. But that hadn’t been ‘him’ or there was more than one him, because he attacked again, forcing her on the defensive, over and over. So, that’s umbrakinesis. An up-close and personal practical. It was more than animating his shadow, as she’d thought before knowing he was a shadow demon. Sorry, mage. This was a dark and deadly control of shadows, of darkness, and her head almost split open as she focused, concentrated, gathering up beams of light and aiming and firing.
With a hiss like serpents, the massed circle pressed closer and she spun, panting, her arm like lead, not knowing where to aim. The anonymous, amorphous huddle took on forms, and faces. Kirsty, again, in the middle of a gaggle of other second years, like Alicia, Kennedy’s ‘big sister’ Emma. Keir. A whole line of people she almost knew, and Heylel’s famous alumni, laughing and pointing. They pressed too close, much too close, and Kennedy was powerless.
“Aeth!” she screeched, hating herself even as the breath left her lips. “Help!”
The crowd stilled, parted, made a gap. And there, just there, right there, was Aeth, on top of a tombstone, part of it still in stone form.
“No!” Kennedy yelled, rushing forward, only to be bounced back, her hands stinging where they hit the shadows. “No! Don’t materialise. Go back!”
Because she’d seen what the black shapes closest to Aeth carried. At first, the light glinting on metal had confused her, but then she’d understood. Hammers. Such simple tools—among the very first used by humans—but how else to attack something made of stone? Something so simple …and so deadly. Then with no sound, no light, no nothing, Aeth was gone. And the mass turned to her, turned and swarmed. She didn’t have enough reserves to fight them, even if she’d known how.
Goodbye, Kennedy Smith, she thought. I wish I’d known you. I might have been a nice demon. Although, looking around her through the tears she couldn’t stop from streaming down her face, she wondered if such a thing existed.
The slab she stood on moved, almost tipping her. She fell to her knees, landing hard with her hands, breaking her fall, and making her drop her stick. It rolled off the edge as the slab rose, quick and sure, as if her weight seemingly nothing and the stone seeming to know where it was going. For a second, she thought she should jump off, down the hole that opened up—maybe it was the continuation of the tunnel she and Aeth had used before. But, no, her transport rose higher and skimmed her over the heads of the dark shadows, but only just. Hands reached up to drag her into the middle of the black shadows, catching at her, tearing her jeans, making her scream in fear before she loosed a bolt of power, scattering them.
“Oh no, baby.” The tallest, deadliest. The mage. He reached for her and grabbed her hand, scorching her. Imprisoning her. His eyes morphed to deep, angry red. He opened his mouth and a hint of pointed tooth showed. Kennedy wrenched her hand free, tipping madly on her stone, and felt the weight of something she’d forgotten about in her pocket. She jammed her hand in to
snatch at it.
“I know, oh no,” came her stupid reply as she jabbed out with her penknife, even more stupidly trying to cut a shadow. But he was in human form and her blade struck and stuck. “How d’you like that piercing?” she screamed, zooming away, only to land, a second later, facing the dark mass. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come here and I’ll make it into a tatt for you. No charge.”
But there was a charge, the scrum pouring over the grass to her. At least she’d gone down fighting, had fought to the end. She’d always wondered, studying history, what she’d do in battle, in a fight. Only they didn’t reach her. Not where the earth moved, opened, in myriad places it took her a precious second to realise were…graves. Occupied graves, whose stink of dirt and decay and death made her retch and whose long-deceased occupants now rose, clawing and pulling their skeletal bones from the gaping earth, to fling themselves into the encroaching army of darkness. It was a cyclone of black shadows and bleached white bones and the stained pearl and faded yellow of tombstones and grave markers smashing and crashing into the demon horde, the sound overwhelming.
“Kennedy!” Aeth, real, human, standing on top of a monument, tall, resolute, directed their hodgepodge army. “There! Now!”
And was as impatient as ever. She stood, not daring to move, as if that would make her invisible to her enemy. Insulting, really, that he advanced on her in human form. Oh. Not insulting. She got when he was within inches of her, beckoning her to come get him.
“You’re not a killer,” he mocked, reaching out for her where she stood, fixed to the spot. “You don’t have it in you, human.”
She recoiled from the saliva that his spitting the last word landed on her. “I am human.” Her voice was the tiniest thread, lost in the thunderstorm rolling overhead, in the rain pelting down. “But did you know I’m also electrokinetic?”
She reached up both hands to the lightning now splitting the dark sky with white-silver streaks over their heads. She had to shout to be heard. “I looked it up. It means I absorb electric fields.”
