Darkness Rising

by Keri Arthur

  White fangs slashed at me. I swung Amaya, her purple fire dripping like venom. The blade hit the serpent’s oversized teeth, slicing through them as easily as a hot knife through butter. Liquid gushed, thick and yellow, stinking to high heaven and stinging like acid. I swore and jumped back as it lunged at me again, this time attempting to use its head as a battering ram. I ducked under the blow, twisted around, and brought Amaya down as hard as I could just behind the serpent’s neck. It felt like I was hitting stone. The force of the blow reverberated up my arm and made my teeth ache. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the blade hissed and burned, her fire crawling across the serpent’s back like a living thing. And as the creature coiled its body around to face me again, Amaya began to burrow down, into flesh and then bone. The serpent screamed—a high pitched, almost human scream—and began to flop and twist its body, trying to shake Amaya off. It pulled me off my feet, throwing me around like a rag doll, but Amaya kept her grip. She kept slicing into flesh—a demon sword with blood on her mind and murder in her heart.

  Then she was through, and the serpent’s head dropped clear of its body. As Amaya’s hissing became victorious, I hit the ground and rolled clear of the dying serpent, coming to my feet, demon sword at the ready once more.

  But the gray fields were suddenly still. Quiet.

  My Dušan pulled free of the coiled form and swirled around me once more, her purple scales battered and bloody looking. I wondered suddenly if they could die, and hoped not. I had a feeling I was going to need her more often as the years wore on.

  I took a deep breath that did nothing to ease the tension still coiling through me and looked around for Azriel. He was standing where I’d left him, in a sea of broken, twisting bodies.

  He looked up and said, “Did you read the book?”

  “No.” I sheathed Amaya and stepped across the snake’s still-twitching body. “A serpent hit me before I could get full directions.”

  “Then get them now.”

  A horn rang across the silence—a long, haunting note that oddly filled me with fear. I bit my lip, my gaze searching through the shadows of the gray fields, seeing little. No ghosts, no reapers other than Azriel, nothing that seemed out of place. And yet, something was.

  “Hurry,” Azriel said. “The Aedh hunt the gray fields. They are coming this way.”

  I swore and stepped closer to the edge of the fields. The book came into view, but whatever magic had allowed me to view the words had dissipated.

  The page was completely empty.

  Chapter Twelve

  I SWORE AGAIN. VEHEMENTLY.

  Azriel was beside me in an instant, his heat and tension washing across me, leaving me breathless. “There is a problem?”

  I flung a hand toward the book. “The words are gone. I didn’t get the full directions for the key.”

  “That is unfortunate, but there is nothing we can do about it now.” His voice held an edge that was part anger and part frustration. “The Raziq grow near. You must leave this place.”

  “What about the book?”

  “It is safer to keep it where it is than retain it in the fields at the moment. The Raziq are as restricted by the magic of the coven site as we are. That is not the case here.” His gaze met mine. “Go.”

  I hesitated, and saw the annoyance flash through his expression. And he had every right to feel that way. Hesitation was stupid. There was nothing I could do against the force of the Raziq, not in this place and not in my own world. Staying here was only putting him in greater danger.

  I pulled free of the fields and stepped back into my flesh. For several minutes I did nothing more than sit there, regaining my equilibrium.

  After a few minutes, the awareness of my surroundings returned. The air was hot enough to burn my skin and it was filled with shouting—Tao and Ilianna, in trouble.

  Fear surged again and I opened my eyes. The clearing was in flames. Everything burned—the trees, the ground, even the air itself seemed to be on fire.

  I blinked, positive that I was imagining it, that my vision was faulty, but it didn’t help. The world was on fire.

  The elementals.

  I scrambled to my feet and twisted around, looking for Ilianna and Tao. I saw Ilianna first—she was running backward, intermittently yelling abuse and flipping the contents of two small bottles at the elemental that trundled after her. Given the way the creature’s fiery form reacted to the spray, I knew it had to be holy water. It kept the creature at a respectful distance, but she didn’t have an endless supply and would need help soon.

  I swept my gaze past her. Tao was on the opposite side of the circle, his body ablaze as he stood his ground, going toe-to-toe with a second elemental, battling fire with fire. His fire didn’t seem to be having much effect on the creature, but at least the elemental’s fire didn’t seem to be hurting him. Which was something to be thankful for.

  The third elemental was nowhere to be seen, but instinct said it wouldn’t be far.

  I drew Amaya free from her scabbard and ran through the circle. This would destroy any protection it offered and leave the book open to attack, but I didn’t have any other choice. Ilianna had just thrown the first of her bottles at the creature, which meant she was out of water.

  I screamed and raised the sword high above my head. Amaya’s hissing was an electric, vehement sound that filled the clearing and made the creature shudder. It turned around, its movements heavy yet rapid.

  I swung Amaya. Lilac fire splattered through the air in a wide arc, whipping around the creature like a leash, burning where it touched. Then the blade hit it. Unlike the white ash stakes I’d used the last time I’d confronted these things, Amaya didn’t slice through the elemental, allowing it to divide and regenerate. She simply consumed it.

  The creature’s flame seemed to wrap around the black of her blade, and then it melted away, as if its energy were being drawn into the sword itself. The blade shuddered and glowed, the ethereal steel glinting and flaring as the purple leash of her fire drew tighter and tighter, until the elemental was little more than a flicker of flame, and all I could hear was Amaya’s fierce hissing and the elemental’s dying screams.

  Then the last of the fire creature was gone, and Amaya felt heavier in my hand—almost as if her belly were full. I shuddered, then thrust the thought aside and looked at Ilianna.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded and wiped a hand across her sweaty forehead. “Just fucking hot.”

  No doubt thanks to both the elementals and fires they’d lit in the forest. Fires the sentient forces residing in this place weren’t happy about, if the seething mass of energy filling the air was anything to go by. “Keep alert, because there’s a third elemental around somewhere.”

  She nodded and bent, withdrawing a knife from her left boot. It looked and felt like silver, and I wondered if it would do any better against the elementals than the white ash.

  Then I turned and ran for Tao.

  He and the second elemental were still trading fiery blows, but Tao’s flames were no longer as bright or as fierce as they had been. I raised Amaya and screamed again, drawing the attention of the creature.

  It swung around and aimed a ponderous fist at me. Fire spat from Tao’s fingertips, forming a rope of flame that spun around the creature’s wrist and snapped it back. Tao stepped away—his flame dying everywhere except for that one band around the creature’s wrist—and pulled with all his might.

  The creature stumbled sideways, arms flailing as it struggled to regain balance. I leapt close, letting the heat of the thing wash over me, feeling the burn flush across my skin as I swung Amaya at the elemental’s head.

  This time, the sword didn’t consume. She simply killed.

  Black steel met with flame and the creature exploded. The force of it knocked me backward, and I landed on my butt several feet away. I grunted as the shock of the landing reverberated up my spine, but nevertheless tightened my grip on my sword and scanned the clear
ing.

  Where the elemental had been standing, there was now a large patch of burned, sooty-looking ground. Several feet to the other side of that was Tao. He looked beat, his face drawn and ashen, as if the force of his flames had drained every ounce of life out of him.

  But he gave me a tired smile when his gaze met mine. “I think you timed your reentry into our world almost perfectly. Another few minutes and I would have flamed out.”

  I pushed to my feet, sheathed Amaya, then walked over to Tao. Every step felt heavy, as if the sword’s weight had somehow become mine. Or maybe it was simply exhaustion. Walking the gray fields always drained me, and I’d done that and battled creatures on both that plain and this.

  I pulled Tao to his feet, then gave him a quick hug and said, “Thank you.”

  He snorted softly. “We are family, and a family stands together.”

  “I know, but—”

  He placed a gentle finger against my lips. He smelled of flame and fierceness and also, oddly, elation. He’d actually enjoyed fighting the elementals. “As I’ve said before, you are not doing any of this alone—”

  He paused and frowned suddenly, his gaze going past me. “What the—” He swore, pushed me aside, and ran. “Ilianna, watch out!”

  I swung around and instinctively bolted after him, fear slamming through me as I saw what he’d seen. The last elemental was forming out of the flames that engulfed a eucalyptus, and it was oozing down toward Ilianna.

  I drew Amaya and flung her as hard as I could at the elemental. The sword whooshed high above Tao’s head and hit the creature in the midsection. But it did little more than make it falter and scream, because the force of my throw sent the blade right through the creature’s body and thudding into a tree at the edge of the clearing.

  At least it gave Ilianna time to get out of the elemental’s reach. While she scrambled backward, Tao launched himself at it, his body arcing through the air like a bullet, flames licking across his skin as he hit the creature hard and ripped it from the tree.

  “Tao!” I screamed, as the two of them went tumbling, a seething mass of flames and arms and screams. Tao’s screams. Horrible, pain-filled screams.

  Oh God, oh God … No!

  I ran past their tumbling, twisting forms, wrenched Amaya free from the tree, and swung her high. But as I did, there was a weird sucking sound—it was almost as if the fire creature was consuming every ounce of air around it. A second later I realized it wasn’t the creature. It was Tao. And his flames were growing brighter, fiercer.

  He was drawing the creature’s energy into himself!

  “Tao, don’t!” I screamed again, but the words were lost to another explosion—one powerful enough to throw me the full length of the clearing. I hit a tree trunk hard, heard a crack, and knew something inside me had broken. Pain washed through me as I dropped like a stone to the ground and for a moment there were so many stars dancing in front of my eyes that I couldn’t see anything else.

  Damn it, it hurt. It would hurt more to move. And yet move I did, wanting—needing—to know if Tao was still alive.

  I pushed to my feet and staggered back across the clearing, holding a hand to my side and feeling pain every time I took a step or drew a breath. The heat of the fires that still burned all around us was nothing compared with the burn inside me. Sweat broke out across my brow and my stomach twisted, threatening to rebel. But I staggered on, my gaze on the unmoving Tao.

  He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t.

  I dropped on my knees beside him. The action jarred my whole body, but I swallowed heavily and studied my friend, searching for some sign of life, but fearful of actually touching him lest I find none.

  I couldn’t see him breathing, but his skin was red and the heat within him burned so fiercely it washed over me like flame.

  He couldn’t be dead. Not when the fire was still burning so ferociously inside of him.

  “Risa?” Ilianna said tentatively, from somewhere behind me. “Is he … ?”

  “I don’t know.” My voice broke as I said it. I swallowed heavily, then gathered the remnants of my courage and touched his neck. It was as if I’d inserted my fingers into the heart of a cauldron. It hurt. Burned.

  I jerked my fingers away before they blistered, but not before I’d caught a pulse. It was thready and erratic, but it was there.

  I closed my eyes and released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  “He’s okay,” I said, even though I knew that wasn’t necessarily the case. He’d sucked in the energy of a fire elemental—consumed it, in much the same manner as my demon sword had. But Tao was a half-breed were, not a sword forged in the death of another demon, and who the hell knew what the merging of his flesh and an elemental’s would do to him?

  Ilianna dropped down beside me. “God, he’s burning up,” she said, her voice still distressed. “Inside and out.”

  “Have you got any holy water left?” I said, suddenly remembering how it had healed my wounds. It might not work on whatever was happening within him, but it sure as hell would help with his outside.

  She nodded and scrambled up again, returning a few seconds later with a small bottle. “It’s all I have, though.”

  “Then drizzle it over the worst of his wounds. His wolf healing capabilities should take care of the rest.”

  I pushed wearily to my feet. Pain rolled through me, catching in my throat and, for a second, sending those stars dancing again.

  Ilianna frowned up at me. “You’re hurt.”

  “Yeah.” And if I had cracked a rib, as I suspected, then there was nothing I could do but grin and bear it. At least until I got my hands on some painkillers.

  “You should let me see—”

  “Ilianna,” I said softly, “the only cure for a cracked rib is rest and time. I can’t afford either right now. Just take care of Tao until I get back.”

  Her frown increased, and her green eyes searched mine worriedly. “Why? Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to find the first damn key and attempt to finish this whole stupid thing.”

  “But that could be dangerous—”

  “Yeah. Which is why you and Tao will stay here for now.”

  “But Tao needs more medical care than I can give him. We can’t just leave him here!”

  “Ilianna,” I said, as gently as I could, “he took an elemental into his own body to destroy it. I have no idea what that’s done to him, and I very much doubt anyone else will, either. I certainly don’t think there’s anything modern medicine can do for him that you and his own natural healing abilities can’t.”

  “But if he’s in a coma—”

  I hesitated, studying him, torn by the need to do whatever I could to help him and the growing desire to protect them both. “Look, if you think he needs it, call in some healers. But don’t leave this place. The Raziq are on the prowl, and this is the only place we know for sure they can’t penetrate.”

  “But we can’t stay here forever!”

  “I know, and we won’t. It’s just for the next twenty-four hours.” I squeezed her shoulder gently. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

  “God, I hope so.” She took in a long shuddery breath, then added, “Be careful, won’t you?”

  “I will.” And bit back the instinctive urge to tell her the same, to warn her that Tao might not be the person he was if and when he woke. But on some instinctive level, she’d be aware of that—and as a powerful witch, she’d certainly be aware of the energy storm deep with Tao.

  I gave her a tense smile, then walked back across the clearing to grab Amaya—and stopped when I saw the Dušan’s book. Or rather, the remains of it. It must have been caught in the last explosion, and it had been all but destroyed.

  Damn it, could nothing go our way for a change?

  I knelt and gently picked the book up. The leather binding crumbled under my touch and was blown away in cindery pieces by the gentle breeze. There was little left of the pag
es inside—just browned remnants as fragile as the cover. So much for Azriel thinking it would be safer here than on the gray fields.

  I dropped it back on the ground, brushed my hands free of its grit, and stood up. There was nothing I could do about the book, and certainly no chance that I’d learn the location of the rest of the keys. I just had to rely on what I had.

  And what I had wasn’t a lot.

  I picked up Amaya and cased her back into her sheath. Her song was a strand of anger that buzzed at the far reaches of consciousness. It was slightly stronger than before, but certainly no clearer. And right now, I was happy about that. I wasn’t sure I was ready to understand the language of a sword who relished death and destruction so much.

  I strode out of the clearing. Many of the trees were still on fire but, oddly, the fire wasn’t spreading. Maybe whatever forces lived and breathed awareness—if not life—into this old ritual site were somehow containing the spread. Right now I was willing to believe just about anything, including a forest that was more than it seemed.

  The gates were closed, but opened as I approached. A chill went through me. Far too aware, I thought, as I stepped through them.

  Azriel was waiting on the other side. His gaze swept me, and a slight frown marred his otherwise impassive features. “You are injured.”

  Which was stating the obvious given I was still clutching my side and breathing as shallowly as I could. And hell, I could be just as obvious. “And you escaped the fields before the Raziq could grab you.”

  He either didn’t get the sarcasm in my voice or was ignoring it. I rather suspected the latter.

  He said, “They were diverted.”

  I blinked. “Diverted how?”

  “The how does not matter, just the result. How is your side?”

  I shrugged, annoyed that he wasn’t telling me how he escaped yet not entirely surprised. “I’ll survive. We need to find those keys.”

  He studied me for a moment, then nodded. “What clues did the book give?”