Darkbound

by Scott Tracey

  “I can’t let you bring her back.”

  “Then take me,” a second voice, rough and raspy. I looked up and saw Kevin on one of the beds, but in the other was Luca, his eyes were open and aware. “You promised,” he continued, holding out a hand across the aisle between them.

  Kevin looked between the two of us like he was weighing his options.

  “Luca? What are you doing?” Luca was awake. This changed … something. Had this always been part of the Prince’s plan? For Luca to wake up right before the end?

  Kevin climbed off the bed, and held a glass of water up to Luca’s face. As the boy eagerly sipped and swallowed, Kevin looked over at me. “I truly don’t understand you,” he whispered. “I did everything right. Everything a human is meant to do. I was kind. I gave you my favor. I wooed you. Spared you. Protected you. And still you deny me with every word.”

  “You’re right,” I said simply. “You don’t understand. How can you think to love me, when you don’t even know what it is? You think the madness you unleashed is love? Love isn’t decimation. And that is why you’ll be human. Never be real.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Luca said, voice more clear now. “You’re as real as any of us. You can do better. I can show you how.”

  “Luca, don’t.” I frowned, trying to understand where he was coming from. “He’s not Kevin anymore, no matter what he looks like.”

  “I know who he is,” Luca said sharply, pale green eyes that were twins of the ones I saw in the mirror every morning. “Do you think I don’t know that? I rescued him. And now he’s going to return the favor.”

  “He has to be sent back. You got mixed up with the Maleficia before, but it’s not your fault. You were targeted. The man who sold you the book—”

  “The man who sold you the book is dead,” Kevin replied smoothly, brushing the fringe out of Luca’s face. He looked to me. “I know you thought you were saving him. Matthew screamed for me before they killed him.”

  The Congress had him put to death already? No, I thought, shaking my head. That wasn’t right. They would have wanted to extract all the information they could have first. He’d lived in Carrow Mill in secret for decades. They would want to know everything he had done. That was the only thing that made sense.

  “That’s what they’ll do to me too,” Luca said. “I’m not ready to die yet.”

  “It’s not your time,” Kevin agreed.

  “Stay out of this,” I said, crossing the room and shoving Kevin back to the other bed. Trying to deal with Luca directly, without the creature in between us, whispering in his ear. “Luca, you were a victim in all this. They’ll understand. We’ll make them understand.”

  “And what,” he said dismissively, his lips curled, “live the rest of my life like you? If he wants to drag them all down to hell with him, who am I to stop him? This town’s done nothing to earn my trust.”

  “I always gave you a fair shake, Luca. I never held it against you,” Kevin supplied.

  “No, you didn’t,” Luca said slowly.

  “I won’t let you leave with him,” I said, turning back to Kevin. He’d taken to lounging on the bed, hands tucked behind his arms.

  “Why, because you’re family? I offered you everything, Malcolm. You’re the one choosing to be nothing.”

  Cold logic only took me so far. I knew the Congress. Doing the smart thing wasn’t always their way. Luca was right; he would be eliminated. They thought it was better to kill an infection before it could spread. And even if he’d been duped into becoming the warlock who’d summoned the Maleficia, he was still a warlock. The black arts were a contamination.

  My hesitation was all they needed. Kevin moved like a blur, shoving me as he lunged for Luca’s bed. I flew back, across the room and into the wall. My shoulder hit it hard, a jolt of fire shooting down my arm as I cried out, dizzy with sudden pain. To make matters worse, as I landed, my foot twisted wrong and my ankle spasmed beneath me as I dropped. This wasn’t happening. Not now. I gritted my teeth, focused my breath, and tried to use my good arm and my good foot to come back up. The pain faded, quickly, but the throbbing was heavy and hard. Even thinking about moving was a bad idea.

  My shoulder was dislocated, or maybe something had torn. The ankle was definitely sprained. But I wouldn’t stop. I had to protect them. There was pain, but it didn’t seem important.

  Kevin had his hand over the top of Luca’s head, palming it like a basketball. “You don’t even know what they locked away inside of you.”

  I surged forward, dropping when my arm hit the side of the bed and the pain overtook all my senses. I crumpled to my knees, my head swimming. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, their plans for you make me tingle, my champion,” he whispered. “You were right. They planned for so many things. I can see them now. You have no idea what they have in store for you. Even now, they must be laughing.”

  “Kevin … ” I grunted, trying to force my body to comply with my wishes, but it was hard. “Don’t do this.”

  “We’ll meet again, my prince,” Kevin whispered.

  “Release them,” I demanded. “Kore’s not coming back. You don’t need them.”

  He inclined his head. The longest minute of my life. Fi-nally, he exhaled. “Do you think they’ll be happier? Now that they have nothing to believe in? Now that they’ve torn apart the worlds they knew? It sounds horrible.”

  “Horrible is just a word,” I said.

  Kevin smiled. The next moment they were gone.

  thirty-four

  Initial reports suggest that the parents of the Denton and Sutter boys, and the Spencer girl

  were Moonset followers, fanatics chosen by the leaders for this one purpose. No names were recorded, though we are not hopeful to find survivors. They served their purpose.

  Simon Meers

  Case Report on The Moonset Legacy

  Quinn stayed in the room with me while the doctors took a look. I was pretty sure both of the women who’d looked after my injuries were witches, but they bandaged my wounds like medical professionals. “I need to show you something,” I said to Quinn, once I’d hijacked a pair of crutches. They’d set my shoulder, but that was as far as I’d let them go. Quinn could have stopped me, but he didn’t.

  I let him drive. By the time we arrived at the Enchanted Forest, the cold numbness had extended to my extremities, and though my ankle still hurt, I found I could tune out the pain and walk almost normally.

  Jenna and Maddy were still waiting by the carousel, but by that point, they’d sat down on the edge of it and let their feet swing into the open air of the grave. The bottle of Charlie’s moonshine was now empty, I noticed.

  “Kevin?” Maddy asked, resigned like she already knew the answer. I hesitated. No matter what else happened, Maddy was still the loser tonight. She’d been friends with Kevin longer than any of us. He was the reason she and I were even a little friendly.

  I grimaced and shook my head.

  “But you stopped him?” Jenna asked, her voice just as tremulous. “Right? You stopped him, Mal.”

  “Justin’s okay,” Quinn said gently, because the sight of Jenna wavering shook me. I felt something flutter in my chest, but before the bundle of nerves could knit itself up into a boulder in my stomach, the lines across my collarbone flared up, devouring the barbed-wire emotions before they could feed.

  “He took Luca and ran before I could kill him,” I said. “He’ll come back. I don’t know when, but he won’t give up on what he wants. He’ll come back.”

  “For Kore?” Jenna shook her head.

  Quinn was staring at me, a frown on his face. I turned away, disliking the knowing light in his eyes. “Yeah,” I said to Jenna. “Yeah, he wants his sister back.”

  And if I was lying, then only Quinn and I had to know.

  It took two days for the smoke to c
lear and for the city to catch its breath. Carrow Mill certainly wasn’t prepared for a riot, especially not one that fizzled out right at the zenith as cars burned and buildings were looted. Over a hundred high school students “woke up” and wandered away, despite the fact that ten seconds before they’d been filled with murderous rage.

  The plus side, as Quinn explained, was the highly suggestible state the teenagers were in. Rational thought was hard to come by, and they believed the cover story of a new strain of flu, the kind that raised the body temperature and left them irrational and out of control.

  The Witchers had their hands full trying to put out the literal fires as well as the more parental ones in the aftermath. Parents wanted answers, doctors wanted explanations, officials demanded scapegoats. I didn’t envy any of them.

  But cleanup wasn’t my job. At least not the cleanup of the town itself.

  It wasn’t like any of the other moves. There were two days of methodical packing, of cherry picking the parts of Carrow Mill that we wanted to hold on to. We had time when we never had before. Always it was being rushed out of town before dawn, hoping against hope that if something was going to follow us, the dark would slow it down.

  But now we knew it was coming. Now we had time to prepare. Cole didn’t have to choose between his Xbox or his PlayStation, he was able to take both. Bailey could take any and all the clothes she wanted.

  Justin slept a lot—apparently being the love monkey of a monster meant you lost a lot of your strength—and Jenna didn’t leave his side. Cole lasted a day before being brought down by another migraine. We’d taken to living in the same house again, Justin’s by default. He and Jenna shared his room, Cole and Bailey took hers, and I stayed on the couch. It was fine. I didn’t sleep much.

  No one interrogated us. No one asked any questions at all, in fact. It was weird. After Luca had been captured, there’d been days and days of questions. The Congress had met in the school office while Robert Cooper tried to throw us under the bus. But this time … it was like no one cared. Like we’d suddenly stopped mattering.

  Everyone left me alone. I didn’t pack anything at all, and no one came looking for me. The drapes in the living room were shut, I kept all the lights off, and it was a suitable den for two days. I flipped through shows on Netflix and drifted for two days as one episode played after another. Comedies, always comedies. But I never laughed. Not even once.

  Quinn came in eventually, the door softly clicking into place behind him. The rest of the house was still. Was it early? Or late? I wasn’t exactly sure. I climbed up out of the sprawl I’d found myself in. He nodded his head back towards the door, and I followed him back out into the sunshine. Morning, then. Early morning, at that.

  “We’ll leave in a couple of hours,” he said, standing at the edge of the porch, looking across the street where a small U-Haul was already parked. We didn’t have a lot, but more than would fit in a couple of SUVs.

  “Guess it’s the detention center for us after all, right?” That had been the threat once. Kids called it the Priory—the juvenile detention center for witches. Where the most bitter and broken kids were sent. At least the ones that could be salvaged. Luca never would have made it there.

  We’d been circling the drain for years, but the threat had become more real thanks to Illana. But that was before Carrow Mill. We’d been meant to stay here. Permanently. No matter what prank Jenna pulled, they wouldn’t move us. We were done.

  Guess I managed to do something even Jenna couldn’t do.

  “It’s only for a little while,” Quinn said. “The Priory’s not as bad as you think. It’s the safest place for you. Maleficia and Abyssals … you’re too exposed out in the world.”

  I nodded. It occurred to me that this was the first time I’d spoken in days. Ever since the park, and putting the carousel back where it belonged. Quinn had taken the initiative to cover up the drag marks in the dirt, any and all evidence that we’d even been there in the first place. We’d wrecked the Moonset symbol that had been set into the ground near the entrance, which meant that anyone could break into the park now if they wanted.

  Quinn and Illana ducked their heads together once the Prince was buried again. The two of them were plotting something, but I wasn’t interested in figuring out what. All I knew was that everyone left me alone afterwards, and no one asked any questions. Another Abyssal Prince had attacked Carrow Mill, and once again, it had been covered up.

  “No one wants to press, because you look … ” Quinn trailed off. “Well, you look like hell. They just want to know that you’re okay.”

  I shrugged. That wasn’t an answer, even I knew that wasn’t an answer, but it felt like I barely had the energy to stand there. Listening was hard, but actually holding a conversation? That might exhaust the meager bit of energy I had. I was running on empty.

  “I know a thing or two about fate,” he said, ducking his head down. It had been a few days since Quinn had shaved. Since he wasn’t looking at me, I took the rare opportunity to study his face without him noticing. His cheeks were rough with stubble, but it was a good look. “One of the first things you learn when you sign up to become a Witcher is that fate gets to have a bit of fun with you. You’re not your own master anymore. You go where you’re needed unless you’re either very skilled, or very special.”

  “Which one are you?” The words were rusty, crumbling and eroding in my throat. But I managed them.

  “Which one am I?” He shook his head. “Some days both. Some days neither. Most days I can’t sleep for hearing fate’s mocking laughter in my ears. No one’s ever expected more from me than I do. But sometimes you get what you want and then you realize there was something more. Something you just lost out on, because you made the wrong call.”

  Somewhere during Quinn’s speech, he decided to meet my eyes again. His voice grew softer and softer, and I had to lean in to hear it.

  It was just the two of us, and despite the fact that I’d made an active business out of never crossing the wrong lines, of never getting too close to Quinn, or letting myself think about Quinn, or to consider him as anything other than a means to an end—a conduit to his grandmother—I leaned closer. His eyes dropped down to my lips, and there was fragileness there, to that moment.

  “You’re still a kid,” Quinn said. Just as casual. Just as matter-of-factly.

  “I’m eighteen.”

  “Doesn’t mean you’re not still a kid,” Quinn said slowly. “When you grow up … ” he seemed to be at a loss for words. “It’s not your fault. Most kids get to be kids. You’ve always been a POW. All of you. And I mean, I get it. You’ve done an admirable job, shielding Bailey and Cole the way you have, but the three of you … it surprises me sometimes, how well-adjusted you are.”

  “My brother stabbed himself in the stomach for the girl he loved, and my sister and I just dug up a dead body,” I replied. “Well-adjusted is a little much.”

  “It’s not … appropriate.” Quinn seemed flustered. Struggling with his words. He wouldn’t meet my eyes anymore. His breathing was a little more shallow, his movements shaky.

  Maybe a week ago, I would have pushed the issue. Leaned forward and called Quinn out on his sudden cowardice. The tattoo against my skin burned like an electric blanket turned up just a bit too high. Uncomfortable, but not exactly painful.

  I hadn’t felt much of anything since the spell I’d used to inure myself against the Prince’s influence. The spell that worked too well. Before this had started, before the Prince had come for me, Jenna sat in a classroom and announced, “Malcolm hates everything.” And maybe it was true at the time. Partly true, but still truth to be found inside, like treasure inside a cave.

  But now it wasn’t. Because even hating something meant there were feelings there. And I didn’t feel much of anything. The Prince was gone, and I should have felt happy, or relieved, or anything other than emp
ty. It wasn’t depression, because I didn’t hate my life or my family or my situation. Not anymore. I had accepted it.

  I was one of the children of Moonset. My father was a bad guy. He killed people, but he also tried to save me. Good people could do bad things, but the reverse was just as true. That didn’t mean they were misjudged, or there was more to the story. Just because Cyrus Denton put a voice mail in the ether didn’t take away from the thousands of people he’d killed, or the terror he’d helped to create. But he’d been a good guy, once, and helped stop a monster before it killed his friends. But somewhere along the way he’d gotten lost, and he wound up walking down a road to a bad end.

  “Come on,” I said, turning back towards the door. “I’ll go wake the others. It’s time to go.”

  Carrow Mill wasn’t our home anymore. But I knew I’d have to come back someday. To finish what Moonset had started. To finish what the Abyssal Prince had started.

  My road to Hell had only just begun.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Scott Tracey (Avon Lake, Ohio) lived on a Greyhound bus for a month, wrote his illustrated autobiography at the age of six, and barely survived Catholic school. His gifts can be used for good or evil, and he strives for both for his own amusement. Witch Eyes was his debut YA novel.