Dark Star

by Bethany Frenette

  A Harrower. I Knew one was near.

  An echo of Esther’s words came back to me. They revile the Kin, she’d said, when I asked what the demons wanted. And yearn for what we are. Which meant either it planned to bleed Elspeth —or it wanted us dead.

  I didn’t intend to make an easy target. Not like last time. I might not be a Guardian, but I remembered my mother’s words. The throat. I would go for the throat.

  Turning, I scanned the road, watching for movement.

  “We’ll be all right,” Elspeth said. She sounded different. Gone was the funny lilt she sometimes affected, the giddy laugh that came so easily. Her voice was sharp, authoritative. “Stand back.” She took a step forward.

  And then something strange happened.

  The change in the air became a change in her. Everything stilled. The light clung to Elspeth, the air around her shimmering. But it wasn’t just the space around her. It was her face. It was her eyes, suddenly lit from within. It was her hair, waving around her as though it had come to life. And it was her hand.

  The fingertips of her left hand began to glow. Softly at first, and in different colors. Her index finger was tinted lightly blue; red shone beside it, and a gentle color like lilac, and the yellow of honey, and the green of blooming summer grasses. I saw her veins through the skin of her palm, down her wrist, trailing toward her elbow. The colors pulsed and moved, blended and merged.

  Leon had said Guardians had other resources, a weapon they carried with them. I hadn’t understood what he meant.

  Elspeth glanced at me, her eyes strange and ethereal. “We’ll be okay,” she repeated. “Just let me handle it.”

  The demon rushed forward.

  It wasn’t like the one that had attacked me at the Drought and Deluge. I didn’t see just blinks and impressions: I saw it clearly. At first it appeared merely human. A woman, pale-haired, thin of figure, features nondescript. Then, as I watched, something shifted. The woman-image blurred. I saw blank eyes staring, long-nailed hands grappling for Elspeth. It moved quickly, contorting, bending, standing high above Elspeth and then slinking low as she repelled it, her left hand held in front of her as both weapon and shield. She went for its throat, but it evaded. There was something reptilian about the way it moved.

  Then the Harrower stepped out of its skin.

  Its movements were rapid, but in motion I caught the blur of silver, rippling flesh, scales that flashed with a deathly gleam. Clawed fingers slashed toward Elspeth, and as it turned I saw the arc of jagged red teeth.

  The Harrower paused and was human again. Just a woman with a wave of blond hair, hiding a secret beneath. I watched as it took a wary step back.

  “You picked the wrong girl for a fight,” Elspeth hissed. “I thought you guys would’ve known better by now.”

  The Harrower lunged for her and caught air. Elspeth was on the ground, crouching, her left hand stretched out before her, even brighter now. The Harrower screeched, an inhuman sound that sent chills down my spine.

  “You just don’t know what’s good for you, do you?” Elspeth panted.

  Then she was on the offensive.

  She moved quickly, so quickly she became nothing but a streak of black hair and long limbs, the glow in her hand flashing through the dark street. The demon retreated, then ran forward, its hands curving into talons again, abandoning its skin for scales.

  I cried out a warning, but my shriek was cut off. An arm reached out from behind me, pulling me backward into sudden dark.

  21

  My first instinct was to scream as loudly as possible— but a hand clamped over my mouth, silencing me.

  I struggled blindly until it registered that someone was saying my name, and the voice was a voice I recognized, and the place I stood in was my own kitchen.

  I bit the hand that covered my mouth.

  Leon released me with a yelp of pain.

  “What was that for?” he complained.

  “For scaring the crap out of me!” I replied, hitting him in the chest with my palm. He grunted, then leaned away from me to flip on the overhead light. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the change. Mom had already left for the night, and the rest of the house felt dark and empty.

  “Did it hurt you?” Leon asked, frowning down at me. His hand lifted to my shoulder, not quite touching.

  I barely heard him; I couldn’t hear much beyond the slam of my heartbeat. Somehow I managed to rasp out, “We have to go back. We have to help Elspeth.”

  Not that I wanted to go back. It pretty much topped the list of things I would prefer not to do, right along with being boiled alive and getting trapped inside a tornado. But Leon had brought me to safety and left Elspeth out there alone with a Harrower, and I couldn’t ignore that.

  Leon, apparently, could. “She can take care of herself,” he said. “Right now, I’m more concerned about you. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine.”

  His fingers pressed against my arm, gentle on the fabric of my coat. “You’re not fine. You’re shaking.”

  “Of course I’m shaking!” I cried. “It’s not every day I get attacked by a demon on the streets of Minneapolis.” Though there was a strong possibility it was turning into a monthly event. “And Elspeth is still out there,” I added. “Please. Go make sure she’s all right.”

  Leon’s frown remained. “I can’t do that,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked, stepping close to him. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? You’re a Guardian. Go guard!” Hands clenched at my sides, I took a deep breath. “Leon. Please.”

  He looked at me a long moment before speaking. “You will stay right here,” he told me. “You won’t move.” And then he disappeared.

  I sat down at the table, laying my head against it. The house was quiet around me, and shaken as I was, the lack of noise was eerie, unnatural. It made my own breathing sound that much louder.

  I closed my eyes, trying to think of comforting things. Gram’s voice, the movement of her hands. The day she’d first explained to me the meanings of the Nav cards. “Your grandfather, Jacky, he was my Anchor,” she’d said, her thumb grazing the surface of the card. “But I didn’t need the cards to tell me that.”

  But my grandfather had died, killed by a Harrower when he tried to interfere in an attack. And Gram had lost her anchor. And when Gram died, I had lost mine.

  “Elspeth is fine. The Harrower ran off before I got back there.”

  I looked up. Leon stood a few feet away, that same concerned crease in his brow, as though the line had been etched there.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I said, before he could accuse me of having thrown myself in the path of danger.

  He surprised me. “I know. You weren’t the target. Attacks against Guardians have been escalating.”

  “Oh.” I sat up in my chair. My hair, unruly as always, had come free of its ponytail, and I had to fight it back behind my ears. “That sounds...bad.”

  “It’s not good,” he agreed.

  Another thought struck me.

  “That was what you meant by Guardian resources?” I asked, recalling the way Elspeth had moved, her body whipping through the night, the glow that spread from her fingertips and veins. The light in her eyes, the electricity along her skin and hair. “What Elspeth did—the light in her skin—that’s how you fight?”

  “You change when you’re called. That’s one of the changes.”

  When he didn’t appear inclined to elaborate further, I asked, “Why were you out there, anyway?” Grateful though I was that he’d shown up, he’d probably scared me into sixty by appearing the way he did. “Does Mom have you following me? I promised I’d be careful.”

  He shrugged, cocking his head to the side. “It was getting late. I was just making sure you were okay.”

  I frowned. I wanted to be annoyed, but there was something rather deflating about being faced with good intentions. “You were looking out for me?”

  Leon’s gaze was unwavering. “I�
��m always looking out for you.”

  And with that, he vanished.

  ***

  When I spoke to Elspeth later in the evening, she assured me she was fine. She hadn’t been hurt, and sounded offended that I’d even suggested it.

  “I didn’t think a Harrower would attack so openly,” I told her. “Or don’t they care about being seen?” That was a distinct possibility, but it seemed to me that if demon attacks were a common occurrence on city streets, the rest of the population would have clued into it, and we’d be calling Minneapolis the City of Demons, not the City of Lakes.

  Or maybe Demonapolis. That had a sort of ring to it.

  “They normally don’t,” Elspeth replied. “Though humans don’t really see them. It’s an ability Harrowers have, clouding the senses.”

  I’d felt some of that myself, outside the Drought and Deluge: the fading lights, that rush of wind, a nothingness that crawled up along my skin.

  “Demons just get better and better,” I muttered.

  Elspeth only giggled. I took that to mean she truly had escaped unscathed.

  My next few days were a flurry of activity. Esther decided I’d had enough preparation and that it was time for me to meet other members of the Kin, as well as take my place within the community. She didn’t, however, explain what that meant. I assumed from the frown she gave me that it didn’t actually involve a laminated membership card and a sweatshirt that said Secret Superhero Club.

  “Do we have Kin parties?” I asked during one of our sessions. “Kin dances? Car washes? Bake sales?”

  Esther sighed and lifted her eyes heavenward. “You certainly are your mother’s daughter.”

  Then she dragged me on a series of dinners with several dignified-looking older ladies, all of whom scrutinized me carefully, nodded, and agreed with Esther that I was, indeed, very much like their Morning Star.

  It struck me as strange that the Kin referred to Mom that way, but Esther told me she found the name fitting. “The legend grew up around Lucy all on its own,” she said. “But it is who she was meant to be. She was our light in a dark time. Even then, she was a force without parallel.”

  Personally, I thought that meant Mom should be in charge.

  I was growing a bit weary of Esther claiming so much of my time. She seemed bent on not only teaching me about the Kin, but turning me into her version of a St. Croix. I told her I was perfectly happy as a mere Whitticomb, but she turned her sternest gaze on me, one I was certain would scare a Harrower back into the Beneath. And then I somehow agreed to attend two fundraisers and a banquet during the upcoming weeks.

  That Wednesday, my session with her was canceled, but I found myself at the St. Croix estate anyway. Iris had asked to see me after school, dragging me away from the lunch table to whisper that she needed to discuss something urgent with me. She wasn’t like Elspeth, who thought the need for ice cream was an emergency, so I believed her. And there was that sense to her again, that clinging sadness that followed her step, some memory she couldn’t flee. I told her I’d be there.

  She met me at the front door and led me up the stairs to her room. The house was quiet. Elspeth had been cast in a play at school and had rehearsal that night, and Esther had gone out of town. Iris’s room was on the third floor, and I trailed my hand along the banister as we picked our way up the steps. Portraits of past St. Croix family members stared down at me, faded and bleak.

  “Do you have your Nav cards?” Iris asked, once we reached her room. I turned toward her. With her head tilted to the side, her long hair tumbled over her shoulders like some dark, deep waterfall.

  “I always have them.” I stepped into the room and she shut the door behind us.

  Iris’s room was done all in blue. Not just dark blues, which might match her subdued nature, but blues of all different tones and shades. Her ceiling was the blue of summer lakes, an almostgreen that seemed to shift as I looked at it. Her walls were a pale, dusky hue, and her bedspread the color of grape hyacinth. It left me slightly unnerved, like I’d been dunked under water.

  “Sit on the floor,” Iris instructed, sitting cross-legged in front of me. Unlike Elspeth’s room, which you couldn’t walk into without stepping on old homework assignments or dirty clothing, Iris’s room was clean, almost bare. Everything on her desk had been neatly arranged.

  “You want to do a reading?” I asked, pulling my Nav cards out of my book bag. I shuffled them idly while Iris smoothed a space in the carpet, then gestured for me to sit.

  She looked up at me, her brown-gold eyes clear and focused. “Not just a reading. We’re going to find the Remnant.”

  22

  I frowned, pausing my shuffling.

  “How are we supposed to do that?” I’d considered the idea, briefly, but I didn’t think my Knowing would be of any use. Even with my cards, I couldn’t just search blindly.

  Iris peered at me through lowered lashes. “Has Grandmother explained the power that runs in our bloodline?”

  Esther talked a great deal about bloodlines, about the value of connection and the bond of lineage, but she hadn’t told me anything about powers specific to the St. Croix family. I shook my head.

  Iris leaned toward me as she explained, her hair slipping forward, half covering her face. “There’s a trait among the St. Croix, something unique to us. Grandmother has it. My father had it, and so do I. We call it Amplification. It allows me to increase the abilities of others.”

  It took me only a moment. “Increase abilities. Meaning—”

  “Meaning, maybe we can use your Knowing to find the Remnant.”

  I hesitated. “My readings aren’t always accurate. Gram used to say having a Knowing doesn’t make it right. They’ve been wrong before.” My hands stilled on my Nav cards, feeling the texture of their surfaces, well-worn and comfortable. They still carried the faint smell of lavender from long years with Gram. “And I’m not certain it would work. I usually need to be near something to get a strong reading.”

  “That’s why we amplify it,” Iris said. She sat across from me, her voice steady, her eyes intent. “This is important. I don’t take much interest in the Kin—but I am interested in keeping us all alive. I’m not a Guardian, but I hear things. Grandmother is worried about a Harrowing. Or worse. But if we find the Remnant, Grandmother and the other Kin elders could seal her power. The bleedings would stop.”

  I understood Iris’s worry, but I didn’t understand her words. “Seal her power?”

  She turned away, facing the window, so that I could see only her profile, the slope of her jaw and the hollow of her throat where the triple knot hung, catching the light. Her words were so quiet, I had to strain to hear. “It’s not done often. It’s what happened to your father.”

  I drew in a breath. No one else had been willing to speak about my father. When I tried to ask, the subject was changed; Esther’s mouth turned grim, and even Elspeth was reluctant to say what she knew. I had a horrible suspicion that that meant he was in prison. “You know about my father?” I asked.

  Iris shrugged. “I don’t know the entire story. Something happened during the last Harrowing. It had to do with Verrick, that demon your mother fought.”

  The name stirred a memory: Elspeth’s voice going low and soft, the tremor of fear beneath her words. “The demon who knew about the Remnant.”

  “Grandmother says he was the most powerful Harrower they’d ever seen. Until Lucy—stopped him.”

  I bit my lip. “And my father was hurt?”

  “His powers were sealed. There’s a ritual that’s done—it has to do with blood from the five sacred spaces. You know about them?”

  I nodded. Wrists, ankles, base of the throat. The places a Guardian’s powers were centered, Esther had said.

  “The ritual . . . it cuts off the life-force of the Kin, seals the bloodline,” Iris continued. “The old language had a saying for it. I can’t pronounce it, but it’s something about those who carry a sleeping heart, existing betw
een, neither alive nor dead. Your father isn’t Kin any longer. And he never will be again.” She turned to face me, her eyes fixed on mine, then reached a hand out, pressing it against the back of my Nav cards. “But whoever the Remnant is, she probably doesn’t even know she’s Kin. It’s not a part of who she is. Sealing her powers wouldn’t even affect her.” I frowned. Her voice was strong, certain, but the idea unsettled me.

  “It’s the only way we’ll be safe,” Iris pressed, and this time her tone was low, filled with all that disquiet I’d felt.

  After a moment, I nodded slowly. “How do we do this Amplification?”

  Iris hesitated. “To amplify abilities, first we have to share them. Then I add my power to yours.” The light through the window haloed her face. With the tint of blue in the room and her hair fanned about her, she looked ethereal and mermaidlike. “We need to be in contact,” she said, moving close and placing two fingers on my elbow, leaving my hands free to shuffle.

  I wasn’t certain how I felt about sharing my Knowing, but I nodded again and tried to focus on the cards. As I shuffled, a hum began along my skin. An image intruded, obscured and shifting before my eyes. I saw a series of flashes: rain rolling down pavement, silver in the light; a girl huddled on a street corner, her dark hair matted against her head; a pale streak through the night, a heavy hand reaching toward the slant of her shoulder, fingers gripping. The girl turned, her face catching shadow, her hair whipping about her.

  Iris drew her hand back abruptly.

  “Please don’t look there,” she said. “It’s personal.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “It wasn’t on purpose—it just happened.”

  “You need to focus.” She placed her fingers back on my elbow, touching it lightly.

  I closed my eyes and shuffled.

  It wasn’t the same, having a Knowing and sharing it. There was a difference in sensation. I didn’t know if it was stronger, but I felt the change. I shuffled and didn’t see Iris’s images again. I thought of the Remnant, focusing on what I knew of her. A Kin-blooded girl, I thought, who carries the powers of old. I saw nothing but clean blank space, and began to lay out the cards.