5.0 - Light Of The Stygian Orb

by Krista Walsh

  Eventually, her mother cleared her throat, and the table moved as she settled her hands on top of it. “As my grandmother told it, this story has been passed down through many members of my family, so I have no idea what the actual truth is. All I can tell you is what she said. It started almost a thousand years ago, back in the twelfth century. At that time, there was a man who had been driven off his land because of a crime he’d committed. He wasn’t evil by any means, but he was rash and occasionally very selfish. He had a good heart, but once in a while he also had the bad luck of crossing the wrong people.”

  Molly’s entire body tensed. She couldn’t believe that her mother had given in and was telling her the truth. That after all these years, she was going to find out what had set her apart from her peers — even more so than she’d ever realized. She felt as though she were trembling, like she was about to vibrate right off her chair, but by the stiffness in her shoulders, she knew she’d never been more still.

  “You both know the stories inspired by him, I’m sure,” her mom said. “Blond, blue-eyed devil living in an English forest with a band of brothers.”

  “Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor,” Molly murmured before she was aware of it.

  “That’s him. Your great-something grandfather, if you can believe it. Anyway, one day, shortly before his death, he tried to steal from this man on his way to London. He brought him to the woods for one of his famous feasts, but instead of getting a bunch of gold for his trouble, he got a curse instead. According to the story” — she paused and released a groan — “geez, this is ridiculous. I have no idea why I’m doing this. Anyway, apparently, this man was actually some kind of warlock. The curse caused your ancestor to go deaf and blind, and ensured that his deafblindness would be passed down to any of his descendants who showed a propensity for a bow. Based on the evidence, I suspect the curse went a bit awry and actually caused anyone in our family born deafblind to be drawn to the bow as though it were a part of them, but believe what you will.” She rested her hand on Molly’s arm. “As soon as you were born as you are, I knew what it meant. Why do you think I never bothered to stand in your way when you voiced an interest in taking up the sport? It’s as much in your DNA as the color of your hair.”

  “You — this — I can’t — Dana, this is preposterous,” her dad said, his voice trembling with bewildered anger. The table beneath Molly’s hands shook as he stood up, and the air in front of her changed as he leaned toward his wife. “Are you seriously trying to convince me that our daughter faces the struggles she does because of some magic spell?”

  “Sit down, Fred,” her mom said flatly, as though she was beyond trying to convince him. It was up to him if he wanted to believe her or not.

  Molly held her breath, waiting to see how her dad would respond. For a moment, there was no movement around her, but then the table shook as he dropped back into his chair.

  “That is exactly what I’m telling you,” her mother continued, “and I’m pretty sure I gave you a solid warning before we started that you wouldn’t believe me. But that’s the fact of it. My great-grandfather was also a deafblind archer, in the days before cochlear implants and braille displays. We have no idea how many times it’s popped up before then.”

  “And you never thought it was relevant to mention anything?”

  “But what does it mean for me?” Molly asked, cutting off her father’s question. Her heart was racing so fast she couldn’t get air, but she wasn’t ready to walk away yet. She still had so many questions, so much she didn’t understand. “If this warlock cursed him, why is it that I can still sense what’s around me as well as I do?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart,” her mom said. “I wish I did. To hear my grandmother talk about it, her dad always knew where they were in the room, and even though he couldn’t hear them, he seemed to know generally what they were talking about.”

  “As if he could see but not see,” Molly said. “Hear but not hear.”

  “As though his brain was still receiving the information, just not providing the visual and aural feedback,” her dad said. He sounded stunned. “That’s why you respond so well to the cochlears. I don’t — I can’t wrap my head around this.”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” her mom agreed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Molly. And you as well, Fred. But I honestly didn’t know how. My grandmother told me when I was eighteen, and I thought she was going senile. I believed it was just made up. Even after you were born, I kept trying to think that, but then to watch you practice — to see you hit targets without any kind of sighting aid — it became the only thing that made sense. I guess I just can’t deny it any longer.”

  Molly nodded dumbly. She understood. It would have answered so many puzzles for her if she’d known sooner, but she understood.

  Speaking of puzzles... “So, wait a minute,” she said. “You already know about the otherworld? You know it exists?”

  “The ‘otherworld’?” her mom asked, confused. “I’ve never heard that term used before outside of fantasy novels. I know that magic exists. Or at least it did and still might. What’s this all about?” Suspicion crept into her words. “What made you ask me about this in the first place?”

  Panic gripped Molly’s chest. Now would be a great time to reveal her side of the truth to her parents, but she knew the second she did, her time with Zach would end. Her mother had kept her secrets, now it was time for Molly to keep hers.

  “Like you say, Mom, the world’s a strange place. I bumped into someone outside school the other day. She called herself an oracle. She told me there was something about me that was different. That maybe there was more to my deafblindness than I knew. I figured if anyone would know, it would be you.”

  “An oracle?” her dad asked, incredulous.

  “I don’t think she was a threat,” Molly rushed to add, not wanting to add fuel to the already blazing fire. “I think she was just passing through. One of those weird coincidences of the universe.” Slowly, she got to her feet. “But this has kind of been a huge discovery. I think I need to go think about things for a while.”

  “Do you actually believe me?” her mother asked, and by the surprise in her voice, she was just as stunned by Molly’s reaction as Molly was by the story. It was a morning of surprises, apparently.

  “Why not?” Molly said. “It makes about as much sense as anything else you could have told us. And, you know, it’s kind of cool to find out we have famous blood in our veins.”

  “I have to say I’m more than a little relieved, even if I still don’t know what to make of it,” her mom said. “But of course you need time to think it over. Ask me anything you want when you’re ready. I’ll do my best to answer you. Do you want to bring a breakfast plate upstairs with you? You should eat something.”

  “I will,” she said. “In a bit.”

  Although her father had fallen silent, the tension in the room hadn’t dispersed. She guessed that as soon as he caught his breath, his anger would resurface, and she didn’t want to be here to listen to it. She had enough in her head to keep her occupied without having her dad’s opinions crammed in there as well.

  On numb legs, she climbed the stairs back to her room and closed the door.

  She was human. Zach had been right about that. She was no different than any other teenage girl at Will Stutely High School. Except that she was cursed. A real-life, honest-to-goodness curse. She dropped down into her computer chair.

  Ever since she’d discovered the otherworld existed, she’d been drawn to it, believing it was just because she found it interesting. Now she realized it had called to her, to whatever remained of the warlock’s magic in her blood.

  Playing with this new revelation, Molly decided to put her skills to the test. She wanted to find her phone, so she reached her hand out over her desk, and her fingers landed exactly where she had set it down last night.

  Yesterday, she would have believed it was habit, her natural s
kill at remembering where she had left things, but now she wondered if she knew because she could actually see it, even if she had no idea as to its color or anything else besides its general shape, size, and texture.

  A ball grew in her throat, and she sucked in air as a deep sob wracked her body.

  This was ridiculous. Why was she crying? Nothing had changed.

  But it had. The part of the world she had always found fascinating was the reason she was so broken. Zach, Daphne, Gabe — they had all been born with their incredible abilities, so even in their loneliness, they knew they were something more. What had she been gifted with? A curse-delivered world of silence and darkness and some skill with a bow that, in this day and age, served no purpose.

  More tears threatened to fall, but the emotion lodged in her chest, stretching her lungs until they ached.

  She rose from her chair and moved to her bed. Curling up on her side, she grabbed her bear and hugged him tight against her.

  She hated this. Hated not knowing where she stood in the world. Hated that at sixteen years old, she once again needed to step back and figure out who she was.

  The world suddenly seemed too busy, moving around her too fast, while she was stuck on the boundary between two worlds, not part of the new one enough to cross into it, but too far over to stay in the old one.

  As anguish threatened to drown her, a small voice in the back of her mind reminded her that nothing about this current change was new. Everything she was feeling now had started a year ago, when she’d made the decision to save a screaming stranger. Nine months ago, when she’d had the opportunity to meet all those otherworldly beings, she’d been thrown against the border between worlds and had accepted there was no going back.

  Since then, she’d already begun to redefine her life with the knowledge that this new world existed, one that appealed to her for reasons she was now beginning to understand.

  The change had already started, and this was her turning point. This was the moment she would have to decide whether she wanted to stake her claim at the border between the mundane world and the otherworld, or return to her regular routine. There was no straddling anymore, not now that she knew what magic ran through her veins.

  Molly sat up and brought herself to the edge of the bed, a fresh energy running through her.

  She wasn’t broken. That warlock had tried to break her family, but she was proof he couldn’t stop them. Now that the truth had come out, she was ready to see what came next.

  The world would always be there to hold her down — that was a lesson she’d learned from childhood. The only difference now was that she was prepared to fight back.

  14

  After their excursion at the hospital, Daphne had taken Zach out for a bite to eat, claiming that both of them needed the carb-burst to decompress.

  “Where will you go now?” she’d asked as they shared a table at a dark late-night deli.

  “I’ll stay right where I am,” he’d said.

  She’d frowned. “Is that smart? They know where to find you. Why not disappear, regroup, come at them when you’re ready?”

  “Because I don’t think that would stop them,” he’d said. “If they want me that badly, they’ll track me down. The college is defended, and I know all its ins and outs. It gives me the advantage.”

  Daphne had eyed him for a moment, her lips pursed as though she were getting ready to argue with him, but in the end she’d shrugged. “Then we’ll work with that. They made a mistake coming after you so openly, and now you’re working with someone who knows how to take advantage of those mistakes. Get some rest and wait to hear from me. There’s nothing else you can do yet.”

  Once she’d dropped him off at the college with a promise that she would get in touch with him as soon as she learned anything about either Project Oracle or the symbol on the rosewood box, Zach had intended to take her up on her suggestion. At least for the night.

  When he’d gotten home, he’d first made sure all of the booby traps around the college were in place, and secured the door to his living space. Then he’d sat down on his crate to share the rest of his sandwich meat with Dusty, while he polished off the bread and veg himself. Stomach sated, he’d stripped off his T-shirt and assessed the new tears in his skin.

  Not that anyone else would notice more scars on the right side of his body, but the thick, twisted tissue had been slashed open in two more spots, blood running in trails down his chest. He’d used the cotton to wipe himself down, then thrown his ruined T-shirt into a pile in the corner. He’d burn it for fuel later.

  His injuries weren’t severe enough to bother him, so he’d let them be, crawled into his blanket heap, and passed out.

  As much as he might have wished to, he didn’t stay passed out. Throughout the early morning, as the sun rose and peered into his room through the cracks between the dumpsters, he kept going over last night’s fight. He wished he’d been able to follow the Ghurgzic demon’s path. By now he could have already scouted out the new factory and been home to plan his full attack. Maybe he’d even have a better idea of what trouble Project Oracle might bring to New Haven.

  He wasn’t good at sitting around waiting, but now, with Daphne taking over the county clerk’s office and the demons’ trail going cold, it was all he could do. No doubt the demons would attack again, and likely soon, so he would ready his home and wait for them to come. This time, he would chase them back, and he wouldn’t let them go until he learned everything they knew.

  But would they make it as easy for him next time? Without knowing the reason they wanted him, he couldn’t guarantee there would even be a next time, or that it wouldn’t be ten demons coming for him instead of five.

  Unless he had Daphne’s help again — and probably Molly’s, he reluctantly admitted — he wouldn’t be able to win if they attacked with force. That Ghurgzic demon had nearly finished him. Which meant he would have to anticipate them and make sure he had the advantage, and that meant knowing when they were coming.

  Unless…

  The other option came to him and he pushed it away. He’d already debated the wisdom of going with them voluntarily, and he still believed it was a stupid idea. He couldn’t risk getting trapped in whatever plot Karl had chosen to involve him in.

  Although it would be the easiest way to see what was happening. If he could find a way to stay in communication with Daphne, then maybe being on the inside would prove to be the best strategy to bring down the entire project.

  Zach stuffed his head under his pillow to block out the coming dawn. The risk to himself wasn’t worth it. Not until he had more information. Once Daphne figured out the location of the factory and the purpose of the orb, he would consider his options again. Until then, he would force himself to lie low, even if he had to tie himself to a chair.

  With that decision in mind, his brain allowed him to fall back to sleep.

  When he woke up again, he felt awful. His mouth was dry and his head ached with a sharp pinch at the base of his skull. He groaned and tried to pull the covers over his head to sleep for another hour, but a weight at the foot of the sheet prevented him.

  He froze.

  The weight was too heavy to be Dusty’s sleeping form.

  His heartbeat picked up and his vision sharpened as adrenaline raced through him. He breathed steadily to avoid his demon blood bubbling over, but readied himself to release it if he needed to.

  Slowly, he rolled onto his back to stare past the end of the bed.

  In the next moment, he was on his feet, his hands stretched out between him and the three tall figures that stood at the edge of the mattress. In the commotion, Dusty tore off the bed and scurried into the corner of the room. She remained crouched there, hissing at the strangers.

  One of them had a foot propped up on the edge of the bed, as though intending to wake Zach if he hadn’t done so on his own. Now that he was out of bed, the figure returned its foot to the floor, resuming the same regal posture as the ot
her two.

  Alarm bells clanged in his head. He worked to silence them, but they refused to be set aside.

  His brain tried to process what he was seeing and why he was overwhelmed with an urge to run or attack. Although they appeared human, the figures struck more dread in Zach’s heart than the demons who had come for him last night.

  They stood almost as tall as he was, but were less than half his width, bony and gaunt. Their long faces were heavily lined and paper-thin with age, their gray hair cut short and pulled back from their faces. After a moment’s appraisal, he determined they were female, although there wasn’t much to give it away.

  All three wore black robes that fell down to their ankles and came to points on the backs of their hands. Wide, square caps perched on their heads, each of them pressed with green ribbon.

  Every detail popped out at Zach as his gaze passed over them, but he got stuck when he met the gaze of the one in the middle. Her eyes seemed endless, as though he were staring into a starless sky that continued on for eternity without pause or obstruction. He felt himself being sucked in, his mind dispersing, becoming nothing more than dust.

  He jerked himself back, then ran at them, refusing to give them time to attack. They didn’t move. He released a cry from deep in his belly and leaped toward them, ready to take all three to the ground.

  In mid-air, he struck against an invisible wall that may as well have been an electric fence for the way it burned against his skin. His muscles spasmed and contracted, and he collapsed to the floor in a heap. His fingers continued to twitch as the energy circulated through his veins.

  “If you’ve finished,” the woman in the middle said. Her voice was the rustle of pages being shuffled, breathy with a rough edge.

  Zach rolled his forehead up from the floor to keep them in view. He didn’t trust them not to attack while he was down.