Black Dawn

by L. J. Smith

  “But—”

  “He’s everything they admire. The perfect vampire, the ultimate predator. He’s ruthless and bloodthirsty and he wants to give them the whole world as their hunting grounds. Do you really think any of them can resist that? After years of hunting mindless, bewildered animals that have to be rationed out one at a time? With maybe the odd creaky slave for a special treat? Do you think any of them won’t follow him willingly?”

  Maggie was silent. There was nothing she could say.

  He was right, and it was scary.

  “And that isn’t all,” he continued remorselessly. “Do you want to hear a prophecy?”

  “Not really,” Maggie said. She’d heard more than enough of those for one lifetime.

  He ignored her. “My old teacher used to tell me this,” he said.

  “Four to stand between the light and the shadow,

  Four of blue fire, power in their blood.

  Born in the year of the blind Maiden’s vision;

  Four less one and darkness triumphs.”

  “Uh-huh,” Maggie said. To her it sounded like just more of the same thing. The only interesting thing about it was that it mentioned the blind Maiden. That had to be Aradia, didn’t it? She was one famous witch.

  “What’s ‘born in the year of the blind Maiden’s vision’?” she asked.

  “It means all the Wild Powers are the same age, born seventeen years ago,” Delos said impatiently. “But that’s not the point. The point is the last line, ‘Four less one and darkness triumphs.’ That means that the darkness is going to win, Maggie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s inevitable. There’s no way that the humans and the witches can get all four Wild Powers on their side. And if there’s even one less than four, the darkness is going to win. All the vampires need to do is kill one of the Wild Powers, and it’s all over. Don’t you see?”

  Maggie stared at him. She did see what he was saying, and it was even scarier than what he’d said before. “But that doesn’t mean we can just give up,” she said, trying to puzzle out his expression. “If we do that, it will be all over. We can’t just surrender and let them win.”

  “Of course not,” he said harshly. “We have to join them.”

  There was a long silence. Maggie realized that her mouth had fallen open.

  “. . . what?”

  “We have to be on the winning side, and that’s the vampire side.” He looked at her with yellow eyes that seemed as remote and deathly calm as a panther’s. “I’m sorry about your friends, but there’s no chance for them. And the only chance for you is to become a vampire.”

  Maggie’s brain suddenly surged into overdrive.

  All at once, she saw exactly what he was saying. And fury gave her energy. He was lightning-fast, but she jumped up and out of the way before he could close his hands on her.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No.”

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  “I’m going to save your life, the only way I can.” He stood up, following her with that same eerie calm.

  I can’t believe this. I . . . really . . . can’t . . . believe this, Maggie thought.

  She circled around the bed, then stopped. It was pointless; he was going to get her eventually.

  She looked into his face one more time, and saw that he was completely serious. She dropped her arms and relaxed her shoulders, trying to slow her breathing, meeting his eyes directly.

  “Delos, this isn’t just about me, and it’s not just about my friends. It’s about all the slaves here, and all the humans on the Outside. Turning me into a vampire isn’t going to help them.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “But you’re all that really matters.”

  “No, I’m not,” Maggie said, and this time the hot tears didn’t stop at her eyes, but overflowed and rolled down her cheeks. She shook them off angrily, and took one last deep breath.

  “I won’t let you,” she said.

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “I can fight. I can make you kill me before you turn me into a vampire. If you want to try it that way, come and take your best shot.”

  Delos’s yellow eyes bored into hers—and then suddenly shifted and dropped. He stepped back, his face cold.

  “Fine,” he said. “If you won’t cooperate, I’ll put you in the dungeon until you see what’s best for you.”

  Maggie felt her mouth drop open again.

  “You wouldn’t,” she said.

  “Watch me.”

  • • •

  The dungeon, like everything else in the castle, was heart-stoppingly authentic. It had something that Maggie had read about in books but hadn’t seen in the rooms above: rushes and straw on the floor. It also had a stone bench carved directly into the stone wall and a narrow, barred window-slit about fifteen feet above Maggie’s head. And that was all it had.

  Once Maggie had poked into the straw enough to discover that she didn’t really want to know what was down there and shaken the iron bars that made up the door and examined the stone slabs in the wall and stood on the bench to try to climb to the window, there was nothing else to do. She sat on the bench and felt the true enormity of the situation trickle in on her.

  She was really stuck here. Delos was really serious. And the world, the actual, real world out there, could be affected as a consequence.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t understand his motivation. She had been in his mind; she’d felt the strength of his protectiveness for her. And she wanted to protect him, too.

  But it wasn’t possible to forget about everyone else. Her parents, her friends, her teachers, the paper girl. If she let Delos give up, what happened to them?

  Even the people in the Dark Kingdom. Laundress and Old Mender and Soaker and Chamber-pot Emptier and all the other slaves. She cared about them. She admired their gritty determination to go on living, whatever the circumstances—and their courage in risking their lives to help her.

  That’s what Delos doesn’t understand, she thought. He doesn’t see them as people, so he can’t care about them. All his life he’s only cared about himself, and now about me. He can’t look beyond that.

  If only she could think of a way to make him see—but she couldn’t. As the hours passed and the silence began to wear on her, she kept trying.

  No inspiration came. And finally the light outside her cell began to fade and the cold started to settle in.

  She was half asleep, huddled on her chilly bench, when she heard the rattle of a key in a door. She jumped up and went to peer through the bars, hoping to see Delos.

  The door at the end of the narrow stone corridor opened and someone came in with a flare. But it wasn’t Delos. It was a guard, and behind him was another guard, and this one had a prisoner.

  “Jeanne!” Maggie said in dismay.

  And then her heart plummeted further.

  A third guard was half marching, half supporting Aradia.

  Maggie looked at them wordlessly.

  It wasn’t like Jeanne not to fight, she thought, as the guards opened the cell door and shoved the other girls in.

  The door clanged shut again, and the guards marched back out without speaking. Almost as an afterthought, one of them stuck a flare in an iron ring to give the prisoners some light.

  And then they were gone.

  Jeanne picked herself up off the floor, and then helped Aradia get up. “They’ve got P.J. upstairs,” she said to Maggie, who was still staring. “They said they wouldn’t hurt her if we went quietly.”

  Maggie opened her mouth, shut it again, and tried to swallow her heart, which was in her throat. At last she managed to speak.

  “Delos said that?”

  “Delos and Hunter Redfern and that witch. They’re all very chummy.”

  Maggie sat down on the cold bench.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Why? Because you’re too stupidly trusting?” Jeanne said.
“You’re not responsible for him.”

  “I think she means because she’s his soulmate,” Aradia said softly.

  Jeanne stared at her as if she’d started speaking a foreign language. Maggie stared, too, feeling her eyes getting wider, trying to study the beautiful features in the semidarkness.

  She felt oddly shy of this girl whom she’d called Cady and who had turned out to be something she could never have imagined.

  “How did you know that?” she asked, trying not to sound tongue-tied. “Can you just—tell?”

  A smile curved the perfect lips in the shadows. “I could tell before,” Aradia said gently, backing up quite accurately to sit on the bench. “When you came back from seeing him the first time, but I was too foggy to really focus on anything then. I’ve seen a lot of it in the last few years, though. People finding their soulmates, I mean.”

  “You’re better, aren’t you?” Maggie said. “You sound lots more—awake.” It wasn’t just that. Aradia had always had a quiet dignity, but now there was an authority and confidence about her that was new.

  “The healing women helped me. I’m still weak, though,” Aradia said softly, looking around the cell. “I can’t use any of my powers—not that breaking through walls is among them, anyway.”

  Maggie let her breath out. “Oh, well. I’m glad you’re awake, anyway.” She added, feeling shy again, “Um, I know your real name now. Sorry about the misunderstanding before.”

  Aradia put a hand—again perfectly accurately—on Maggie’s. “Listen, my dear friend,” she said, startling Maggie with both the word and the intensity of her voice, “nobody has ever helped me more than you did, or with less reason. If you’d been one of my people, and you’d known who I was, it would have been amazing enough. But from a human, who didn’t know anything about me . . .” She stopped and shook her head. “I don’t know if we’ll even live through tonight,” she said. “But if we do, and if there’s ever anything the witches can do for you, all you have to do is ask.”

  Maggie blinked hard. “Thanks,” she whispered. “I mean—you know. I couldn’t just leave you.”

  “I do know,” Aradia said. “And that’s the amazing thing.” She squeezed Maggie’s hand. “Whatever happens, I’ll never forget you. And neither will the other witches, if I have anything to say about it.”

  Maggie gulped. She didn’t want to get started crying. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  Fortunately Jeanne was looking back and forth between them like someone at a tennis match. “What’s all this sappy stuff ?” she demanded. “What are you guys talking about?”

  Maggie told her. Not just about Aradia being Maiden of the witches, but about everything she’d learned from listening to Hunter Redfern and Sylvia.

  “So the witches have left the Night World,” Aradia said quietly, when she was finished. “They were about ready to when I left.”

  “You were coming here to talk to Delos,” Maggie said.

  Aradia nodded. “We heard that Hunter had gotten some lead about the next Wild Power. And we knew he wasn’t going to take any chances on letting Circle Daybreak get hold of this one.”

  Jeanne was rubbing her forehead. “What’s Circle Daybreak?”

  “It’s the last circle of witches—but it isn’t just witches. It’s for humans, too, and for shapeshifters and vampires who want to live in peace with humans. And now it’s for everybody who opposes the darkness.” She thought a moment and added, “I used to belong to Circle Twilight, the . . . not-so-wicked witches.” She smiled, then it faded. “But now there are really only two sides to choose from. It’s the Daylight or the Darkness, and that’s all.”

  “Delos really isn’t on the side of the Darkness,” Maggie said, feeling the ache in her chest tighten. “He’s just—confused. He’d join you if he didn’t think it meant me getting killed.”

  Aradia squeezed her hand again. “I believe you,” she said gently.

  “So, you’re some kind of bigwig of the witches, huh?” Jeanne said.

  Aradia turned toward her and laughed. “I’m their Maiden, the representative of the young witches. If I live long enough, I’ll be their Mother one day, and then their Crone.”

  “What fun. But with all that, you still can’t think of any way to get us out of here?”

  Aradia sobered. “I can’t. I’m sorry. If—this isn’t much use, but if I can do anything, it’s only to give a prophecy.”

  Maggie made an involuntary noise in her throat.

  “It came while I was asleep in the healer’s hut,” Aradia said apologetically. “And it was just a thought, a concept. That if there was to be any help in this valley, it was through appealing to people’s true hearts.”

  Jeanne made a much louder and ruder noise than Maggie’s.

  “There is one more thing,” Aradia said, turning her wide unfocused eyes toward Maggie and speaking as gently as ever, “I should have mentioned this earlier. I can tell you about your brother.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Maggie stared at her wildly.

  “You . . . what?”

  “I should have told you earlier,” Aradia said. “But I didn’t realize he was your brother until my mind became clearer. You’re a lot alike, but I couldn’t think properly to put it together.” She added, quickly and with terrible gentleness, “But, Maggie, I don’t want to get your hopes up. I don’t think there’s much chance he’s all right.”

  Maggie went still. “Tell me.”

  “He actually saved me before you ever did. I was coming to this valley, but I wasn’t alone—there were several other witches with me. We didn’t know where the pass was exactly—we’d only managed to get incomplete information from our spies in Hunter Redfern’s household.”

  Maggie controlled her breathing and nodded.

  “It was Samhain evening—Halloween. We were wandering around in the general area of the pass, trying to find a spell that would reveal it. All we did was set off an avalanche.”

  Maggie stopped breathing entirely. “An avalanche?”

  “It didn’t hurt your brother. He was on the road, the place we should have been, if we’d only known. But it did kill the others in my party.”

  “Oh,” Maggie whispered. “Oh, I’m sorry . . .”

  “I wasn’t seriously hurt, but I was completely dazed. I could feel that the others were dead, but I wasn’t sure where I was anymore. And that was when I heard your brother shouting. He and Sylvia had heard the avalanche, of course, and they came to see if anyone was caught in it.”

  “Miles would always stop to help people,” Maggie said, still almost in a whisper. “Even if they only needed batteries or socks or things.”

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I was to hear him. He saved my life, I’m sure—I would have wandered around dazed until I froze. And I was so happy to recognize that the girl with him was a witch . . .” She grimaced.

  “Huh,” Jeanne said, but not unsympathetically. “I bet that didn’t last.”

  “She recognized me, too, immediately,” Aradia said. “She knew what she had. A hostage to bargain with all the other witches. And to buy credit with Hunter Redfern. And of course, she knew that she could stop me from seeing Delos.”

  “All she cares about is power,” Maggie said quietly. “I heard her talking—it’s all about her, and how the witches have given her a bad deal because she’s not a Harman or something.”

  Aradia smiled very faintly. “I’m not a Harman by name, either. But all true witches are daughters of Hellewise Hearth-Woman—if they would just realize it.” She shook her head slightly. “Sylvia was so excited about finding me that she couldn’t resist explaining it all to your brother. And he . . . wasn’t happy.”

  “No,” Maggie said, burning with such fierce pride that for a moment the cold cell seemed warm to her.

  “She’d only told him before that she was taking him to some secret place where legends were still alive. But now she told him the truth about the Dark King
dom, and how she wanted him to be a part of it. She told him that it could be theirs—their own private haven—after Delos left with Hunter Redfern. He could become a vampire or shapeshifter, whichever he liked better. They would both be part of the Night World, and they could rule here without any interference.”

  Maggie lifted her hands helplessly, waving them in agitation because she couldn’t find words. How stupid could Sylvia be? Didn’t she know Miles at all?

  “Miles wouldn’t care about any of that,” she finally got out in a choked voice.

  “He didn’t. He told her so. And I knew right away that he was in trouble with her.” Aradia sighed. “But there was nothing I could do. Sylvia played it very cool until they got me down the mountain. She pretended all she cared about was getting me to a doctor and telling the rangers about my friends. But once we were in her apartment, everything changed.”

  “I remember her apartment,” Maggie said slowly. “The people there were weird.”

  “They were Night People,” Aradia said. “And Sylvia’s friends. As soon as we were inside she told them what to do. I was trying to explain to Miles, to see if we both could get away, but there were too many of them. He put himself in between me and them, Maggie. He said they’d have to kill him before getting to me.”

  Maggie’s chest felt not so much tight now as swollen, like a drum barrel full of water. She could feel her heart thudding slowly inside, and the way it echoed all through her.

  She steadied her voice and said, “Did they kill him?”

  “No. Not then. And maybe not ever—but that’s the part that I don’t know. All I know is that they knocked him out, and then the two slave traders arrived. Bern and Gavin. Sylvia had sent for them.”

  And they must have come fresh from kidnapping P.J., Maggie thought. What wonderful guys.

  “They knocked me out. And then Sylvia bound me with spells and practiced with her truth potions on me. She didn’t get much information, because I didn’t have much information. There was no army of witches coming to invade the Dark Kingdom—right now, I wish there were. And she already knew that I was coming to see Delos.”

  Aradia sighed again and finished quickly. “The truth potion poisoned me, so that for days afterward I was delirious. I couldn’t really understand what was going on around me—I just faded in and out. I knew that I was being kept in a warehouse until the weather cleared enough to take me to the valley. And I knew that Miles had already been disposed of—Sylvia mentioned that before she left me in the warehouse. But I didn’t know what she had done with him—and I still don’t.”