by Nazri Noor
“Probably not,” Mason said, “but you need as many hands as you can muster.”
“Great reminder.” I punched out a text message to Herald, telling him to find as much backup as he could and to meet us at Brandt Manor. “As many Hands as we can muster.”
“Stand closer to each other, now,” Carver said, ushering the three of us to squeeze in together. “No, closer.”
“What’s going on?” Mason said, his eyebrow cocked as Gil corralled us. “No time for family pictures, we need to get going.”
“And going you shall get,” Carver said, one hand gesturing through the air, the other holding Banjo against the crook of his elbow. “Stay alive, gentlemen.”
Mason stared down at his fingers, marveling as the tips of them vanished, as the amber flames of Carver’s sending spell licked at his skin. To be so young, and so inexperienced. I waited for the fires to consume me, to take us to Brandt Manor.
Where it – whatever it was – awaited.
Chapter 31
We reappeared on the Brandt Manor helipad, of all places, as if some part of Carver knew that the thing was meant for transportation. Hah. Close enough.
“What the hell,” Mason began to say, whirling very much like a helicopter, actually, as he took in his surroundings. To be fair, Brandt Manor by day looked even more opulent and ridiculous, since you could see just how far the outdoor swimming pool really went.
“Rich people,” I said. “Teleportation spell. No time to explain.”
Gil was the fastest runner, natch, and he led the way up the mansion’s steps and through the double doors, which were already open. An anxious looking butler and an alarmingly calm Remington were waiting for us by the entrance.
“Sirs,” Remington said, nodding as we dashed past.
“Remington,” I said, zipping into the foyer, my shoes skidding against the marble as we came to an abrupt stop.
“Boys,” Luella Brandt said, greeting us from the top of the stairs. “This way. Try not to trip on your way up.”
We were more careful heading up the staircase – I wondered if I’d scuffed the marble, oh damn – and Luella cooed as Mason passed.
“Well hello,” she said. “This is a new one.”
Mason seemed to grow a few inches taller.
“Mother, please. The boy seems barely legal.”
Bastion stood outside one of the myriad doors just off the landing, and he beckoned for us hurriedly. I stepped into the room, not at all surprised to find Delilah Ramsey in bed – but certainly surprised to find her tied up in her own bedsheets, held telekinetically in place, in an eight hundred thread count white cocoon. Her eyes stared at the ceiling as she muttered to herself, drool dripping down the corner of her mouth.
“Catatonic since she woke up,” Bastion said. “Or at least, this was how we found her.”
“Pulled down the curtains, tore up the sheets,” Luella said, sauntering into the room, a fresh whiskey already in hand. “The good ones, too.”
“Mother,” Bastion said, harsher this time. “Please. Listen. She’s babbling again.”
“It lies sleeping,” Delilah murmured. “Not truly dead and gone. It waits.”
“That could be about the Eldest,” I said, sweat dripping down the back of my neck. “Or something worse.” What it was, I refused to say.
At the sound of my voice, Delilah’s eyes swiveled to the side, searching for me, her gaze burning, penetrating. She grinned, her mouth bubbling with froth.
“It lies sleeping,” she repeated. “Not truly dead and gone. It waits.” Her eyes bored directly through my chest.
No. She knew. They all knew. The Dark Room was still swirling inside me, waiting for its moment to strike, to break to the surface. All it needed was my permission.
But I wouldn’t give it. Ever.
“Dust?”
I whirled towards the doorway at the sound of Herald’s voice, the fear of Delilah’s words falling away from me, my blood already running warmer. I ran to him, pulled him in for a hug, unafraid, I realized, of how the others would react. Luella tipped her head at us, sipped from her whiskey, and gave the warmest smile I’d ever seen on her lips.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” Herald said.
“Likewise. Did you find anyone to bring?”
Bastion coughed softly. “I’m pretty sure we alerted the same people, anyway.”
Herald nodded. “It’s how I got here so fast.” Behind him, in the hallway, were Romira and Royce.
“Dusty,” Romira said, twiddling her fingers at me. “Gil, Bastion. Hi. And who’s this cutie?”
Mason was so thrilled that he was practically seven feet tall by then.
“Graves,” Royce said, giving me a little salute. “Still alive, I see.”
“And you guys are still together,” I said. “The world is full of miracles.”
Royce squinted at me. “You kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?”
I just barely caught Herald smirking and inhaling as he prepared something sharp to say.
“Okay,” I said loudly, cutting him right off. “Enough banter. We need to get our shit together.”
“Agreed,” Bastion said, his voice going just a little deeper. It was his Scion voice, I realized. “Until we figure out what it is Delilah’s rambling about, we’ll all need to keep a close vigil. There’s no telling what this is, but I’m convinced that her soul was touched by the Eldest while she was unconscious. Nothing else explains the sudden madness.”
“Don’t like it,” Gil growled. “Don’t like it one bit. This means that those bastards still have a gateway into our world.”
“Through the efforts of their servants, yes,” Herald said. “And through their minds as well.”
“It lies sleeping,” Delilah whispered.
“She keeps staring at you, Dustin,” Mason said.
“Not truly dead and gone. It waits.”
Herald watched me in silence. Everyone was watching me, and the pressure of it was making my heart thump harder, the sweat flow faster. Did they know? They had to know. I couldn’t keep the Dark a secret forever. And more than ever, how I longed to surrender, to dive into the comfort of shadows.
But surprise of surprises, it seemed that the shadows had come to me. The windows in Delilah’s room were darkening, if slowly. That shouldn’t have possible, though.
“It’s barely seven o’clock,” Gil said. “Sun can’t be down yet.”
He approached one of the windows, and as with many times before, I was grateful for his werewolf reflexes. Gil’s hands flew to his face as the windows burst inwards, showering the room in a hail of glass.
Cries went up from around the group. A brief gleam went up through the room, like a glass wall had been erected, followed by another, the Brandts engaging their mystical barriers. Herald and Mason took the front – our vanguard – each raising a shield, one made of ice, and the other called from the Vestments.
We were as defended as defended could be against whatever had blown in the windows, but whatever it was hadn’t deigned to reveal itself. The world outside was darker, and the shadows seemed to be seeping into the room, choking the air itself with blackness.
But worst of all, Delilah was no longer muttering. She was cackling. Staring at me, her hair a mass of white snakes against her pillow.
Something darker than dark, like a hole in reality, entered through the window. A humanoid shape cut out of the blackest velvet, smoking and shimmering as it passed through the artificial night – then through the Brandts’ barriers completely.
“Shit,” Bastion hissed. “Down the stairs. Everyone. Now.”
I lingered just long enough to see Bastion tether Delilah’s cocoon in its own telekinetic bubble, and we hauled ass straight down the staircase. Herald fired a tentative spray of icicles as we retreated, backed up by a salvo of Romira’s favorite fire grenades, yet all of them passed harmlessly through the black shape.
Was this Delilah’s darkness? The thing that lay sleeping. Did she
summon it in her madness, some avatar of the Eldest?
We watched, transfixed, as the shape walked – no, glided down the stairs, an amorphous, vaguely humanoid blot of shadow. Tendrils of night lifted from where its shoulders would be, like wisps of smoke, of pure darkness.
“Chernobog,” I gasped.
At the sound of his name, the god vanished from the stairs, then reappeared mere inches from my face, the mask lifted from his own. He had shadowstepped, or done the closest thing to it. Hooded, sinister, the god of darkness smiled with a mouth full of sharp, silver teeth.
“I promised to hurt you for what you did to Metzli, mortal,” he said. “And I keep all my promises.”
His hand passed through my jacket, my shirt, my skin and flesh, reaching into my chest. Then it pressed, squeezing around my heart. I screamed.
“You were warned to stay away from the Midnight Convocation. We know that you’ve seen Artemis.”
I heard Herald’s voice scream my name. Flashes of fire and ice fired across the room, but every bolt slung in Chernobog’s direction passed uselessly through the shadow of his body. His talons raked like fire through my flesh, burned like a white-hot gauntlet around my heart. I remembered when Carver had done the same to extract my screams of anguish. But Carver had meant me no harm. Chernobog clearly meant to leave his mark, if not kill me outright.
“Your friends cannot see into the pitiful husk of your body,” Chernobog rasped into my ear. “But I see all, especially the blackness within you. The Dark still lives, mortal. Will you succumb to it? Is it not easier to unleash what still dwells in your heart?”
“Please,” I said through gritted teeth. “Don’t. It’ll kill everyone. Please. Kill me first.”
Chernobog’s grin went from ear to ear, his teeth like jagged rows of razors. “With pleasure.” He pressed harder. I gagged and sputtered on the blood rising up my throat.
And then, the pain was gone. Tufts of grass pressed against my skin, my back warm against a lawn still steeped with the heat of day. I stared up at a blue sky, the sun beating against my face. I sat bolt upright, hacking and spitting onto the ground as my own blood threatened to choke me. A hand slapped me on the back.
“No need to thank me,” Royce said. “How many times have I saved your life now? Hey, who’s counting, right? But that’s okay, drown in your blood. No need to thank me.”
“Fuck off,” I murmured, squeezing his shoulder so hard I could have crushed bone. It was the best I could do to thank him for teleporting me out of harm’s way, yet again. We were somewhere on the grounds, not far from the mansion itself, judging from the cloud of black still lingering near the windows.
A face peered out of the smoke, Chernobog sneering. His expression was a strange mix of satisfaction and restrained disappointment. My hand trembled as it went to my chest. I could feel my heart pounding, the shard of star-metal in it still searing. I’d come so close to unsealing the Dark Room. Too close.
The cloud dissipated, and slowly the light of day returned to Brandt Manor.
“Come on,” Royce said, pushing himself off the ground and offering me a hand. “Time to head back to the others. Looks like the worst is over.”
I forced a smile, stumbling as I tried to get up, but I never touched Royce’s hand. The next thing I felt was something sharp pressing into my flesh, like a spike had been driven into me.
I looked down at myself, at the patch of blood spreading like a crimson flower across my shirt. The knife in the middle of my chest, that wasn’t there a moment ago. The hand holding it wasn’t there, either. Then the rest of the arm, the shoulder, and the body materialized, until I was looking up into a grinning, malevolent face.
“Donovan,” I gasped.
“The worst isn’t over,” he said. “It’s only just begun.”
Donovan blinked out of existence, vanishing before my very eyes. But the knife was still inside me. Royce shouted my name, but all I heard were my own screams. All I heard was my own laughter as the Dark Room burst from my chest, returning to our reality.
It lies sleeping, not truly dead and gone. It waits.
Welcome back, I thought. Welcome home.
Chapter 32
The shadows rose around me in a solid sphere of night, the blades and tendrils of darkness swirling in a vortex that blotted out the sun. The laughter poured from my throat even as the blood spilled from my chest.
I hardly felt the pain. The swell of power numbed anything that could have ruined the reunion: agony, bleeding, even the guilt of enjoying the returning rush of shadow magic.
This was the Dark Room’s way of greeting me, I knew. The sphere, the whirlwind of blades around me was meant to offer us a private moment of togetherness. Catching up, as it were. Little shapes cut out of midnight ran around my feet, nipping at my heels, lapping at the tips of my fingers.
As the black mists touched my skin, as they brushed affectionately against my cheek, I heard the Dark Room’s unspoken story. It had been waiting all along, it told me, in glimpses, in flashes of emotion. There was never any way to truly destroy it, only lock it away. And Donovan, sweet Donovan, stupid Donovan had broken the seal on the thing that I feared and loved more than anything.
More than Herald? The last vestiges of human logic left in me spoke in a tiny voice. More than my father, my family, the Boneyard? And as doubt returned, as the shame of releasing the Dark washed over me, so did the sphere of night recede, bringing back streams of sunlight from overhead, and panicked, shouting voices from all over the Brandt Manor lawn. Some new voices, too. But Bastion’s rang loudest of all.
“You set him up, Jonah,” he shouted. “You did this so you could have an excuse to kill him.”
The shadows dissolved into fine mist, then sank into the ground, unveiling the world around me. Bastion was talking to a group of about a dozen people, some of them familiar faces from the Lorica. A few were Hands and Wings, but the one standing closest to the front of the mob, that was the Scion. Jonah. I could tell from the arrogance in his posture, from the way his eyes burned like coals into mine. He sent Donovan to release me, to ensure that I couldn’t control the Dark any longer.
I had a hard time focusing on the Scion’s face. At first I thought it was the glamour that so many of the more secretive – no, cowardly members of the Lorica’s inner circle liked to wear. But soon I realized that a different part of me was attempting to process the situation, that long-dormant animal brain that enjoyed the kill. Was this Scion a catalyst, or a future victim? Should I thank him, or threaten him?
He answered the question for me.
“Dustin Graves,” Jonah called out, his head held high despite the fear I could taste in his heart. “By the authority of the North American branch of the Lorica, I hereby place you under arrest.”
My head tilted, like my ears were adjusting to hearing sound outside of the Dark Room once more. It was like being on autopilot. I felt the corners of my mouth lift into a smile as I looked down at the dagger in my chest, as I pulled it out, then let it fall into the grass.
Trembling with excitement, my fingers gathered the blood leaking from my wound. I remembered how my bond with the Dark had quickened, how I could use my own life force to empower the shadows. I looked into the Scion’s face, my palms drenched in red, my eyes seeing only a dead man walking.
“I think I’ll pass,” I said.
I lifted my hands, and from my own blood two lances of solid, blackest night shot out of my palms, heading straight for the Scion’s head. His eyes went wide with terror. Inside me, the Dark Room was laughing.
The air flashed with white light as my spears collided against an invisible barrier, exploding into shards of black, then vanishing in puffs of smoke. I set my sights on Bastion, hating that he’d stepped in to defend the Scion, the worthless thing, that worm of a man.
“Dust,” Herald cried out. “Don’t make this any worse than it is.”
Oh. Was he taking sides now? My blood ran hot with anger, wit
h the joy and glory of being tapped into so much power once more. If Herald loved me, then why was he siding with the Lorica against me? If these people were my friends, then why were they standing on the opposite side of the lawn, huddled behind Bastion’s shields?
Why were they looking at me with fear in their eyes?
“Dust,” Herald said again. “Please. You’re bleeding. Stop this.”
Traitors. All of them. I looked down at my hands, willing the Dark to send more of its terrors. I felt the shadows course through my blood, answering my summons as fresh spear-tips of solid night emerged from my palms.
“It’s not us you have to fight, Dustin,” Bastion said. “The Dark Room is taking over. You have to fight it. Let us help you.”
Fight the Dark Room? No. Why would I fight the only ally I had left? I gritted my teeth as slender, barbed javelins jutted out of my hands, prepared to fly for the throats of everyone who had betrayed me.
“Don’t make me do this, Dustin,” Bastion shouted.
I raised my hands. He raised his. My backpack flew open, its flap lifted by the sheer force of Bastion’s will. I jerked from the speed of Vanitas flying out of his dimension.
I didn’t expect him to circle back around, split into sword and scabbard, and come straight for my throat.
“No,” I hissed, dismissing my spears, reshaping them into a black shield, big enough to cover my body. “No. Not you too.”
“You’re acting crazy, Dustin,” Vanitas roared into my mind. “This isn’t you. That other place is taking over. Think of the consequences.”
“The consequences? Dying. That’s the consequence. Being killed for what I am. I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t ask for any of this. They did this to me – Thea, Chernobog, Donovan, they all did.”
“And the Eldest,” Vanitas shouted. His blade slammed against my shield, the impact vibrating through my bones. “You’re calling them back. They can see you again, Dustin. Remember the whole point of concealing the Dark Room – of sacrificing your mother’s memory.”
I stumbled, the shield vanishing from my palms, melting back into my blood. Vanitas yielded, hovering just far enough away, I knew, to speed right back into attacking if I made the wrong move.
