Darkbound

by Scott Tracey

  “And what about him?” Quinn asked, nodding his head towards Brice. “What’s the story there?”

  “He was just … a friend or something,” I said. I was dubious about Brice. I didn’t really know him all that well, and

  he was either conveniently intrusive or just dogged in latching onto new people. “The Prince wanted his message personalized.”

  There was a disconnect as Quinn’s eyebrows shifted in one direction with his mouth turned in another, a salsa dance or a tango of movement as he tried to pull together a response. “That’s fine,” he managed a second later. He looked a little constipated, but then treading the love lives of people only a few years younger than him was probably incredibly awkward. “Did you find any leads on what really happened to Kore?”

  “Not as such.” I wiped my hands on my jeans, but the only thing it did was smear the colors into my skin. “The Abyssal has a host, though, I know that much. I think he might be using Luca somehow. That’s why no one can get him to wake up, because the Prince is holding him captive. The Abyssals did protect him when the farmhouse started coming down.”

  “So what do you want to do?” Quinn asked.

  Why was he asking me? I wasn’t an expert. I was the least educated of my siblings and probably the least talented witch in the entire town. I was the last person who should be making the decisions.

  They say Cyrus liked to take orders too. The thought spurred me to say something, anything. “Isn’t there a test? Something you can do to see if he’s the Prince’s butt monkey?”

  Quinn spread his hands out in front of him. “You saw what happened the last time I went against that thing.”

  I was too tired to glare at him. “I like you better when you’re monosyllabic.”

  “Funny, I was just going to say the same thing.” Quinn’s expression grew serious. “I’ll have someone head to the hospital to check Luca over again. But we should keep looking at alternatives. The Abyssal could be anyone, and they might not even know it. They could be walking around, completely unaware that there’s a demon in their head.”

  Jenna was on the end of the bed when I woke up the next morning. “Huh?” I sat halfway up, trying to see through the haze of a glorious sleep and then being unceremoniously ripped from it. At first she was just a pale, black blob, a gargoyle someone had left by accident.

  At least that seemed far more likely than Jenna herself being in my room. Voluntarily.

  “Whuzzat?” My head dropped back to the pillow and I yanked the comforter over my head. Blessed warmth started to return, seeping back into my skin.

  It didn’t last long. The covers were yanked off, and now the gargoyle was perched above me, scowling.

  “Something’s wrong with Cole,” the gargoyle said. “Again.”

  I slapped my hand against the nightstand three different times before I managed to smack against my phone. With the treasure in hand, I burrowed back down under my covers and winced at the light.

  “It’s only eight thirty,” I muttered. “Can’t something be wrong with Cole after eleven?”

  “He’s been up since five.”

  Oh, Christ. It was supposed to be Saturday. After getting home last night, I’d laid awake for hours staring at the ceiling, trying to think of anything other than Brice in that auditorium, and how callous the Prince had been. The questions had been the fuel that kept everything running. How long until he comes after someone else? Will he keep killing people if I don’t solve this fast enough?

  “Coffee.”

  The sound of a cup settled just to my right. “Black like your heart,” Jenna confirmed with an understated smile. Her hair was down and in her face, fresh from sleep and just a little poofy. It must have been serious if she came over without putting on any makeup first.

  “What happened?”

  “There’s a girl in his gym class. I’m not sure about the details. I don’t know if there are any details.”

  I stared at her for a moment, then sipped at the coffee. Once I realized it wasn’t scalding hot, I downed the whole thing in a single motion. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world. “You think it’s the Abyssal’s spell?”

  “I think he got up and left sometime this morning before anyone else was awake,” Jenna said simply. “They did the last bed check around five. He disappeared sometime after that.”

  I climbed out of bed, all thoughts of sleep faded like my dreams. “Let’s go,” I grumbled.

  We went through Cole’s room and the rest of the house, even asked Bailey for information, but there was no sign of where he headed. No clue as to what he had planned.

  “You’re sure he’s about to do something bad?” I asked for about the thirtieth time.

  “It’s Cole,” Jenna fired back, and really that was all she had to say.

  “Has he been acting weird?”

  Jenna favored me with a dark look, while Bailey coughed her way into the conversation. We both turned toward her.

  “He keeps talking about some teacher. But he wouldn’t tell me anything about her. Just kept saying I wouldn’t understand.”

  “We can handle this,” Jenna said a moment later, forehead wrinkled in thought. “Malcolm and I tapped into the Coven bond when the Witchers were getting beat down. If the three of us work together, we should be able to find him.”

  I scrubbed a hand over my face. More magic. “Have you ever done that before?”

  She pointed a finger in my direction with a very firm, “Don’t start.” And then, “Bailey, help me move the coffee table.” Together, the two girls cleared a space in the living room. We sat in a circle, close enough that our knees were touching, Jenna to my left, and Bailey to my right.

  “Close your eyes. Concentrate.” Once again, Jenna was taking the lead. I think she liked it, the chance to be the one in charge, the one who made the decisions. Ever since Justin’s attack, she had thrived. As horrible as it was to think, maybe the distance between them would do her some good. Force her to grow up and stand on her own.

  “In class, they talked about finding your common ground. But we lose more of it every day,” Jenna spoke quietly, each word slow and smooth. “You can feel it, can’t you? We’re falling apart, and things are coming between us. Luca. The Abyssal. We have to trust each other. All we have is each other.”

  Unlike the last time, when it had taken a confession of things I didn’t want to dwell upon, this time I fell into the space Jenna’s words carved out easily. The Coven bond was there, light and elastic and wrapping around the three of us like a cocoon. And above it, around it, were the other rings. The other layers. Now that I knew they were there, I could feel them, feel the way they interacted with each of us and with each other. The circle of tar and chains was a counterpoint for a circle of ozone force, kept active and in motion by their repelling forces.

  Moonset hadn’t just crafted one bond to keep us together. There were many of them. And there, in the space between them, was the darkbond. I could feel it pulsing, and through it, I could see each of the others.

  The Coven bond made it so that we could always find each other in a crisis, like now, but the darkbond made that access more personal. I could feel what the others felt: Justin in the hospital, bored with a nagging darkness in his gut that was just waiting for the chance to break out; Jenna worried and exhilarated: managing something Justin never could. Bailey, quiet and terrified. And Cole: Cole was planning. Determined. His focus was startling, he was committed to what he was planning. I’d never known him to be that serious about anything. But whatever it was, it was going to be bad.

  “I feel him,” Jenna said, at just the moment I was going to open my mouth.

  “He’s in town,” Bailey added a moment later.

  The picture in my head clarified by degrees until I could see him. Books, and the smell of dust and tannin soaked into the woodwork. Stale air,
recycled a thousand times over until it was nearly as old as the oldest volumes on the shelves. “He’s in the library.”

  “He wants to … ” Bailey hesitated. “I think he wants to burn it down. Why would he want to burn down the library?”

  Because someone must have told him it was a good idea. Maybe they complained about a miniscule library fine, or how much they hated writing research papers. Who knew how flimsy the reason was. People all over town were overreacting off the slightest trigger. The Prince’s curse had spread to Cole, and now he was acting on some sort of sociopathic instinct. The library was the enemy, therefore the library must be burned down.

  “Illana said that sometimes you can communicate with them. People in your coven. Even from long distances.” Jenna’s presence in my head grew troubled and sluggish. “But there’s something blocking him. He’s resistant.”

  I could feel the two of them in my head, pulsing, and close and real. But I could also feel all the layers of the bond around us, and before we lost this, I had to know for certain. “What’s the bond feel like to you? Do you feel all that?”

  “It’s warm like summer,” Bailey said, and I could feel her wrapping herself in it. “I know you’re all out there and it makes me smile.”

  “I know I can find you no matter where you go,” Jenna followed up the moment Bailey started speaking. “I know if we’re ever separated you’ll still be there. In my head.”

  “But what about the rest?” I pushed. “What about the chains, and the weird gravity, and the bones?”

  Twin sources of silence made my words an empty echo. “You don’t feel it?” I asked. Was I really the only one?

  “There’s just the bond, Mal,” Jenna said, but now her words were slow and soothing. I could feel things passing between the two girls, the equivalent of guarded looks and pointed gestures. Psychic, nonverbal communication. “Don’t panic, okay? They didn’t actually do anything to us. We’re just a normal coven.”

  They really couldn’t feel it. That meant they couldn’t sense the mental grimoire that existed somewhere in the ether all around us. I couldn’t tell if I was more worried or relieved. Any of the others would have abused the power at the first chance. But it was more than just a happy coincidence that I was the only one who could tap into it. I would never be free of them, regardless of what I wanted. Whatever Moonset had planned, I was an integral part of the equation.

  How much had they known? Did they know one of us would grow up to despise where we came from? That we’d turn away from the magic entirely. Was that why they did it? Maybe they knew the only person that could be trusted with true power was the one who didn’t want it in the first place.

  Had they known, even then, that it would be me?

  I pulled away from them first and let the connection between us sever, a rubber band snap that put me back in the living room. I looked up to find Quinn leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of him. “Well?”

  “Library,” Jenna and I said at the same time. It was such an unexpected moment that the pair of us stopped and stared at each other. We never had moments of synchronicity like that. Maybe her and Justin, but never the pair of us.

  “Bailey, will you go tell Nick and Kelly what’s going on?” Quinn asked, leaning forward to stare down at her.

  She climbed to her feet and walked towards the front door. But she stopped by the table and turned back towards us. “I can do that, but I—I don’t think I should go with you. I think I should stick around where someone can keep an eye on me.”

  Jenna realized what that was all about just a few seconds before me. Bailey still carried the guilt from her part in Luca’s crimes. She wasn’t able to move on. “That wasn’t your fault,” Jenna said firmly. “You got hurt trying to help save people. No one blames you for what happened.”

  Bailey could be stubborn when she wanted to, though. “I still think I should stay home. It’s safer. Kelly’s been trying to show me some defensive stuff. I think I’d rather be here and be watched. Just in case.”

  “Sure,” I said, summoning up a smile. Jenna stared at me. “If she’s that worried, she’ll be safer here. You and I can handle Cole.”

  I hoped that was true. I’d already almost lost one brother. I couldn’t handle losing another.

  twenty-seven

  Some Covens have to struggle to find an equilibrium, the members jockeying for position. But Moonset, they were flawless from the

  first day. Almost like they were meant to be.

  Adele Roman

  From the forward of Moonset: A Dark Legacy

  The three of us took Quinn’s car into the city. The library was just off of Main Street, set back from the curb and surrounded by a multitude of trees so thick that it was barely visible from the street.

  “Closed on Saturdays,” Jenna noted, as we pulled in past the sign with the hours of operation.

  “Not like that would stop Cole. You’ve been teaching him lock-picking spells, haven’t you?” Quinn asked from the driver’s seat.

  I preferred to stay in the back and keep my thoughts to myself. The number of people walking around the city like it wasn’t under a surreptitious siege surprised me. Hadn’t anyone noticed that business trips, vacations, and reasons to leave the city of Carrow Mill were flitting by without a care? The Witchers had managed to brainwash the entire town, but they couldn’t manage to take down an Abyssal Prince.

  How exactly was that possible, then? How powerful was he, if they couldn’t stop him, and how was I supposed to do anything that they couldn’t?

  When Quinn pulled around to the rear of the building, the back door was swinging widely. I inhaled as soon as I got out of the car, but there wasn’t any trace of smoke in the air. It hadn’t gotten that far, at least. But if Cole had packed some sort of accelerant (and he was just enough of a troublemaker to know that an accelerant was necessary), there could already be a lot of property damage inside.

  Quinn stopped us at the door. “Listen, try to talk him down. Try to reason with him. But don’t let him know that I’m with you. I’ll stay behind, keep an eye on things. I’ll step in if things escalate.”

  “I don’t understand—” Jenna started.

  “Because of Justin,” I said softly. “Because reasoning with him didn’t work, and he got hurt because I thought it would.”

  Quinn clasped a hand on my shoulder and I immediately shrugged it off. Jenna glanced between the two of us and rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever,” she said, stomping down the steps. “Cole Sutter, I swear to God if you so much as strike a match I’m going to stuff you into a trash can and roll you down a hill!” Jenna hollered her threat into the dark library, and the words echoed and bounced off of all the walls, so unused to loud voices. “Again!”

  There was silence from the rest of the building.

  The library interior was divided into two parts. To the left of us was the hallway leading to the children’s and teen section, and to the right, the adult and reference sections. Each were about the same size, and there were literally dozens of stacks for him to hide behind.

  “Do we split up?” I whispered.

  “Have you ever seen a horror movie? Just don’t go far. I’m throwing you in his way if he’s all rage-zombie feral.” Jenna motioned me forward, and taking a hunch, I headed for the reference area.

  We didn’t have to go far. All of the reference shelves were half as high as the regular stacks, which meant an unobstructed view all the way to the rear of the library. I didn’t see any sign of Cole, but I saw a stack of books that was most definitely out of place.

  Jenna followed behind me, her footsteps slow and cautious. I don’t know what happened to Quinn, he’d disappeared the moment we came inside. The lights were out, and none of us had bothered to turn them on: it was probably better if the lights stayed off for this.

  There was a serpentine path
of reference books—thick, heavy monstrosities—lined up against one another like a row of dominoes that had already fallen to the ground. They cut across one of the stacks, disappeared underneath a work table, and then emerged out the other side to circle around the interior wall.

  I followed the stack, and Jenna followed me. We passed through Astrology and Religion, cut across to American History and the Civil War, and then into Biographies (Local) and then Biographies (Non-local).

  The stack continued to run along the perimeter of the library, and once or twice I noticed other lines of books, other tentacles of this design Cole had come up with. And finally, I found him. Just outside the Cooking aisle, right next to a shelf filled with books like Pastries for Beginners, and How to Bake the Perfect Bundt Cake.

  Cole was surrounded by a ring of books, of which there wasn’t just one line spilling out like a tentacle, there were several. And it looked like we caught him in the middle of planning for a few more.

  He didn’t even look up at us as we approached. “You’re not supposed to be here yet,” he said. He looked down at his watch, eyes thoughtful. “I still have ten minutes more.”

  Jenna strode past me and stepped easily over the spilled books. “‘Not supposed to be here?’ What do you think you’re doing, Cole?”

  His jaw was set, his hair a sleep-spiked road map of flatlands and mountains. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.” I stepped forward, and when Cole flinched, I held up my arms quickly. “It’s okay, Cole. Just tell us what’s going on.”

  Jenna snatched the lighter out of Cole’s hand, a long-stemmed red and black thing used for fireplaces and outdoor fires.

  “I don’t need that,” Cole told her quietly. There was none of the crazy, animated energy that Cole usually possessed. There wasn’t even any of the sour, huffy scowling that he sometimes fell into. This was scary Cole. Calm, collected, and absolutely determined in what he was doing Cole. “I know spells for fire.”