Darkbound

by Scott Tracey

  Her face hardened into a dark mask of fury and ice. She could very well be the queen of the Courted Fae like this, pronouncing judgments from her throne of wrought shadows. “I want to know why. The boy didn’t simply stumble upon a grimoire of Maleficia by accident. It was provided to him. Someone set all this into motion. And I will not allow history to repeat itself!”

  “So I’m still bait,” I said flatly. “You’re still using us.”

  “What would you have me do?” she demanded. “Your brother fought for knowledge. Everything has a cost, my boy, and the cost of learning to defend yourselves is that you do something for me. You may hate me, Malcolm, and everything that I stand for, but I have been fighting for the five of you since you came into our care all those years ago.”

  “Do you even care about what I want?” I asked quietly.

  She turned and dried the saucer with the blue terrycloth hanging over the edge of the sink. “It may not be what you want, Malcolm, but it is something only you can do. Someone exploited Luca, no doubt because of what his last name is. No one, not even you, hates our world the way his father does. Our window to find out what really happened here might not be open for long.”

  Nothing she said was an outright lie, I was sure. And there was no doubt that she was right about Luca. If someone had smuggled him the grimoire of Maleficia, they’d done it knowing exactly who he was. Which also explained why she needed me—if Luca’s dad wouldn’t talk to the Covens, maybe he would talk to me.

  It was only moments after Illana left before Justin came surging through the front door. I wondered if he’d seen her car and had been lurking on the front porch waiting for her to leave.

  “Why was she here?” he asked, barging in without knocking.

  I grunted, but went back to making a protein shake. I’d skipped out on lunch and just needed something to tide me over until dinner. What I ate was one of the few things about my life I could control, and at least I knew the shake would be better than eating something heavy or bad for me. I pulled one of the frozen bananas out of the freezer and tossed it into the blender.

  “Mal, what’d she want?”

  Another grunt, but that wouldn’t stave him off for long.

  “I keep trying to get Quinn to let me talk to her, but he keeps saying she’s too busy,” Justin added. “But she shows up at your house? What’s going on?”

  He was acting like the meeting was my idea. All the earlier frustration came surging back. They couldn’t ever just leave something alone. “She didn’t come over looking for makeup tutorials,” I said sharply. “She’s looking into what happened with Luca. She thinks his dad might talk to me.”

  There was a weird look in Justin’s eyes, something I didn’t typically see turned my way. Normally, it was Jenna who got those flashes of hurt and betrayal. Which was insane, because we all knew that cooperating with the Covens was a terrible idea. The last time we’d tried, they wanted to frame us for what Luca had done.

  “She didn’t really leave me much of a choice,” I said, thinking back over the conversation, “but I never exactly said I would either. She just assumed it was a done deal. That it’s part of my ‘destiny’ or something.”

  Justin didn’t like that either. His eyes narrowed and his stance shifted as he squared his shoulders. “Why would she go to you? You hate magic.”

  I expected contempt like that from Jenna, but not from Justin. He was usually a lot more levelheaded than that. “Because he’s my cousin? What’s your damage?”

  Justin ducked his head and shrugged. “Nothing. It’s fine. Just weird, that’s all.”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask for any of this,” I snapped. “You want to play hero? Fine by me. But don’t act like I’m somehow screwing you over by all this. She came to me. I didn’t go to her.”

  Justin’s face flushed, and he opened his mouth to protest, but kept sputtering out his words.

  “Instead of running around all butt hurt, why don’t you look at this from my perspective for once,” I continued on, unable to stop now that I started. I could feel my body growing hot. “I don’t want any of this shit, but the rest of you keep dragging me into it. I just want to graduate, maybe go to college, and forget that there’s anything but a real life out there. I don’t even bother making friends in these towns anymore because I know Jenna’s just going to ruin it for the rest of us.”

  “Mal … ” Justin looked ashamed of himself, which he should.

  “No, screw that. Maybe the rest of you hate the fact that you’ve got monsters for parents, but I hate the fact that no matter what I do, I can’t ever escape all of this. I’m locked up with all of you for the rest of my life, and all any of you care about is yourselves. Who cares if Malcolm has to sacrifice what he wants—again!—as long as we get to learn magic, or move out of the Midwest, or don’t have to take finals.”

  My outburst had effectively shut down whatever had been building up behind Justin’s eyes. His skin was white and splotchy, the way he got when he was horribly embarrassed or upset.

  “Go home, Justin,” I said, looking pointedly towards the front door. He tried to say something else, but I crossed my arms over my chest until he finally took the hint.

  six

  The children of Moonset have it hard enough. They are children, yet they are prisoners.

  They’ve already lost all semblance of a

  normal life, a normal family. You cannot

  lock them away for their parents’ crimes too.

  Illana Bryer

  Speaking to the Congress

  After Illana’s visit, the house felt … cluttered. Too many ghosts and not enough air. If I stayed in the house, Justin would probably send someone else in to bother me until I told them all what Illana had said. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about it at all, let alone with them. So I did what I always did, and tried to push her request, and the truth about my family, down where I couldn’t dwell on it. Driving helped, sometimes, when I split my attention between the music on the radio and the traffic on the road.

  It started snowing again the moment I turned the ignition, but I found the blanket of gray over my head to be comforting. Behind the dismal bank of clouds, the sun was already a distant memory, though it wouldn’t set for hours.

  There were lots of churches for a town supposedly full of witches. I passed three on my way out of town. The weights in my chest eased once I crossed the town line, and even though I knew I wasn’t really getting away from all of them, it still made it easier to breathe. Carrow Mill was one of the towns where witches were gathered together and taught, there were dozens of them all across the country. But this one was notable because it was where our parents met, where the Moonset Coven bond first formed.

  Illana had brought Fallingbrook, her coven, along with her when she relocated here. The addition of a Great Coven meant an armada of Witchers preceding them. Regular witches too. Teachers at school. One of the baristas at the coffee shop. A couple of the guys who went to my gym. There were witches everywhere, and they always stared.

  At least I’d always had Justin and the others to rely on. People who understood what it was like to be watched, judged, or studied. Who did Luca have? Who made him feel like there was more to him than the judgments people stapled to his face? Anyone?

  No. I wasn’t going to do this. I wasn’t going to fall under her sway just because she dropped someone else’s problem in my lap. Luca made his own choice. He did that to himself. And if she wanted to know why so badly, she could do the legwork. It wasn’t my fight.

  I drove for hours, switching the satellite radio at random, barely allowing one song to finish before I cut out to something else. I found a measure of peace in the moments of jangled confusion between genres, as heavy industrial crashed into German pop then into Mozart until it ground to a halt by the heavy bass of dubstep. The threads of dissonance were a moment of relief, w
hen Illana’s words couldn’t pierce my skull.

  When I pulled back into my driveway, the porch light was on like a beacon, meaning Nick had beaten me home. I climbed out of the car and heard a sliding shuffle from behind. Cole was half-running, half-gliding like a skier across the snowy street, heading right for me.

  “They sent you?” I asked, hearing the contempt in my voice but not caring for a moment. I knew Justin wouldn’t let it lie for long—I could have a few hours to myself, but that was all they’d allow me.

  “I can do things on my own.” The sneer was new, the attitude not so much. Some of us had done well with the move, not exactly thriving, but learning to adapt. Cole had been the opposite. Carrow Mill had changed him back into the sullen, angry teenager that made him hard to like.

  Suddenly, being a dick didn’t seem so important anymore. I exhaled, trying to shake off the bad mood that Justin’s visit had put me in. None of that was Cole’s fault. And me getting pissed at him wasn’t going to make anything easier. “Sorry, man. Bad day.”

  “Bad life,” he muttered tonelessly, but after a few second’s pause, his eyes flicked up to me and he smiled. Smirked.

  I sat down next to him on the porch and rested my elbows on my knees. “So what’s going on?” Justin’s house was dark, no signs of life. That was odd in itself. There was always someone hanging around. Quinn was in charge of his own mighty Witcher militia, and lately there was always someone coming in or out. It surprised me that they got any sleep at all in that house.

  Cole slid his phone out of a pocket and proceeded to let it waltz across his fingers and hands in a display of contact juggling that I hadn’t seen in years. He could have had a golden career as a pickpocket, but instead he used it to make his phone do tricks. The movements had an almost ritualistic feel to them, something I could see him practicing over and over again until he could perform it flawlessly.

  He stopped in the middle, raising one hand to cradle his head.

  “Headache?” I asked.

  He grunted, nodding after a few moments. I saw the tension in his face, in his eyes, but after a moment he let it dissipate. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Been getting a lot of them lately.” And then just like that, he went back to his brooding.

  I let him go. He’d talk when he was ready. And in the meantime, the quiet was nice. Cole had always been a handful growing up, buzzing with energy from the moment he woke up until he abruptly powered down halfway through a story, or a game, or an activity. When we had to room together, those were always the best moments: Cole, slumped on the ground and dead to the world, and a drowning silence pouring in to balance out the hours of constant noise.

  It had been a long time since I’d had to heft him up off the carpet and throw him into bed, though.

  I ruffled his hair. Cole, predictably, scowled and batted my hand away. He started typing out a text, and still I waited. Finally, he started to tell me what was on his mind. “I know you think I’m stupid, but that’s okay. Because I think you’re stupid too.”

  Okay, that wasn’t what I was expecting. “Cole, I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  “Well, I think you are. Justin said that Mrs. Bryer wants you to get to know Luca. You know how many nights I went to sleep wishing for something like that? That my dad wasn’t … ” Cole caught himself, shook his head once, and soldiered on. “You’ve got an uncle and a cousin. But you don’t even care. Jenna’s right. You hate everything.”

  I took a moment, let his frustration sink in. Each of us, in our own ways, had hoped for a way out. Cole used to think our real parents were in Witness Protection, and that we’d been kidnapped by Moonset. Bailey kept hoping for an adoptive family that actually cared. Each of us had something we wanted from the parents we were never going to have. They were nothing more than hopes and shame we didn’t trust to anyone, kept buckled down under rib cages where they couldn’t be used against us.

  “I don’t hate you,” I said slowly, nudging him. Trying for a smile, and failing. Cole shook his head, like he knew what I was doing and it wasn’t going to happen.

  The hard way, then. My heart picked up its pace, and the familiar itch in my legs made me want to start running and keep going until I collapsed. “I’m … ” I couldn’t believe I was about to tell Cole out of everyone how I was feeling. Jenna would know before I even made it in the house. “I don’t know what I’m going to find. If I did. Get to know them, I mean. Not knowing … it’s easier.”

  “Are you afraid they’re going to hate you?” Cole asked, the curiosity softening his mood until it was pliable and familiar. The little brother I remembered. “Nobody hates you, Mal. You know that.”

  “What if I hate them?” I asked, ignoring the fact that I was basically confirming his (and Jenna’s) initial argument about all the things I hated. “Or worse, what if I start to care what they think at all? They’re not my family. You all are.” Like it or not, I added silently.

  Cole nudged me back and leaned against my side, the way he’d always done when he was younger and knew how to be afraid. “I’m not Justin. You don’t have to tell me what you think I want to hear.”

  The confessions were like falling dominoes—now that they’d started, I couldn’t stop them. Even though it was Cole. Little Cole, who’d never been my ideal concept of a confidante. But maybe that was more my fault than his. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that Cole was more than just Jenna’s shadow. “Look what Luca did,” I admitted. “Look who his father is. I don’t … I know everything I need to know about my dad. I don’t need that changing. I don’t want that to change. But how can I possibly deal with either one of them without finding out stuff?”

  Cole shrugged, looked up towards the sky. His ears poked out of his hat, and I reached out and tugged it down. “Maybe you’re looking at it from the wrong direction,” he said, even quieter now. I had to strain to hear him. “Don’t you ever wonder what they were like?”

  “Our parents?”

  He shook his head, lips turning down. “Justin and Jenna have it easy. They know where they come from. But what about us? My dad was a monster, right? But what about my mom? They don’t even know who she is. Or where she is. Same with you. What if they’re out there somewhere. Waiting for us? Or what if they were just … pawns. Like we were to Luca. Don’t you ever wonder?” He took a deep breath, and his lips moved, but no sound came out. I do, he admitted, even if he couldn’t bring himself to voice it.

  I do, too, came my soundless reply.

  seven

  Members of a Coven can draw upon the strength of their bond mates, track them no matter how far they’ve traveled, speak without words, and summon collective magics far stronger than anything they could invoke on their own.

  Coventry in the 21st Century

  I decided to give Coven class one more try, for the sake of everyone else. The classroom desks had all been pushed against the wall, our cue to sit on the floor. If we started doing some sort of group share, emotional trust exercise, though, I was out. There was only so far I could be expected to bend.

  The lights were off, and the overcast sky kept the room swathed in shadows. When we walked in the room, Kelly had us empty our pockets and leave everything on one of the desks lined up against the walls. As few distractions as possible, she said.

  “I want you to close your eyes. Listen to your partner’s breaths. Feel the connections that exist between you, lines of power that link you together by immaculate design.”

  Kelly leaned against the back of the teacher’s desk, looking down on us. I was paired with Bailey and Cole, because “Justin and Jenna already have a blood connection.” Which, to me, sounded like a reason not to put them together. Maybe she was afraid of not having any progress to report, though, since I had been holding back the rest of the group.

  “Great. She’s one of those ‘God is magic’ people.” Even though I barely mut
tered it out loud, Bailey giggled so hard she snorted. Twice.

  There wasn’t anything wrong with witches who believed in magic as a higher power. I didn’t have anything against them, I just didn’t understand it. They believed that magic came with some sort of “intelligent design” because covens didn’t form at random. Reality bent, sometimes, to make a coven form. Accidental meetings, weird coincidences—there was an element suspiciously like fate involved in the coven-building process.

  The people who linked “fate” with “faith” took a relaxed view of magic. There was an Almighty out there somewhere, and magic was His gift, covens were the warriors who served at His pleasure. And bad things happened because …

  Well, that was the part where they always lost me.

  If God was magic, and Maleficia was magic’s evil twin, did that make God schizophrenic? Or did it suggest that He, too, had a twin?

  “Concentrate.” Her voice was a boom from right behind me. Did she hear what I’d said? Did I care? Obediently, I rolled my eyes before closing them, and focused on the nasal sounds of Cole’s inhale. Focused on the spots where my knees brushed up against both of them.

  “There is a bond that connects you, deeper than anything.” If nothing else, Kelly’s voice was hypnotic. Engaging. Against my better judgment I started to relax, to let her words direct my mind. “You are a wheel with five spokes. A star with five points. Your breath is theirs. Their hearts beat for you.”

  I could feel … something. Maybe not what she was saying, but what she said about a star triggered colors and shapes to burst forth behind my eyes. It was hazy and bright; words hidden behind clouds. Maybe not words, but lines. Black and red, pointed and sharp at the ends. A star made of knives. Sharp. Deadly. No, it wasn’t knives exactly. Keys. Keys of silver and half-truths. Still not right. Blue fire, sparking gold at the tips. All. None. Something took shape behind the clouds, behind the mist. I could almost reach out. Almost touch it. Almost see it. Know it.