Dark Star

by Bethany Frenette

  The first card. Forty-eight, Sign of Swords.

  I paused, my fingers pressed against it.

  “Is something wrong?” Iris asked.

  “It’s not me,” I said. “The first card—it’s usually my card, Inverted Crescent.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure.” I placed card forty-eight in the center and set down the next two.

  Card twelve, The Sisters. Card seven, The Beast.

  “Are you getting anything?”

  I shook my head. There was nothing. The cards weren’t speaking to me at all, which might mean that the Amplification hadn’t worked, just as I’d warned. Or it might mean there was a pattern here I couldn’t yet see.

  I placed the next cards. Sign of Sickle. The Fig Tree. Year of Famine. Year of Flood.

  An image flashed: a half-turned face. Light beneath me.

  There was a chill in the air. Iris’s window was closed, but I felt the wind pressing against the glass, the frost climbing upward. I shivered, laying out the next card.

  The Grave Keeper.

  Then I felt it. Not a sense or a Knowing, but an actual physical reaction, deep in my gut, down my skin, in my lungs, knocking the breath from me. Iris pulled her hand back, holding it against her as though burned. More images came to me—fleeting impressions, flickers, quick snapshots that left me dizzy.

  A memory of Gram placing her hands over mine, her voice low as she said, There are some places it’s best not to look.

  An image of something old and cunning. A resonance from Beneath. Blood and heat.

  Something watching. Something seeking me. Seeing me.

  Speaking to me.

  “Audrey. Are you okay?” Iris’s voice broke into my reverie.

  “We need to stop. We’re not supposed to look there,” I said, letting the rest of the cards tumble from my hands. They spilled onto the carpet, and the pattern disrupted.

  The Remnant was hidden for a reason. And we weren’t the only ones looking. I didn’t know what it was—if I’d tapped into something, some sort of communal Knowing that existed beyond what I could sense or see, or if it was merely a product of Iris’s Amplification. I felt exposed. Suddenly it felt as though there were eyes everywhere, watching us, waiting to see what we’d find. I covered the cards with my hands, closing out image and meaning. Gram always told me to treat my cards delicately, but this time I shoved them carelessly back into the deck.

  It took a moment for the unease to lessen. I took long, filling breaths.

  Iris was staring at me. “What happened?”

  “We made a mistake,” I said, giving her a shaky smile, the best I could manage. My breathing returned to normal, but I felt a flutter of nausea in my stomach. “The Remnant needs to stay hidden.”

  “It was our first try,” Iris said. “Maybe we just need practice. Or maybe it’s not the right time.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. But I have another idea.” I shuffled lightly. My Nav cards had always been a comfort to me. They were meant to clear my frequencies, to soothe me and allow me to focus. They were meant to help. And they had helped: though the reading for the Remnant had frightened me, I’d realized there might be something else we could do.

  Iris waited, watching me.

  “We might not be able to find the Remnant—but maybe we can find the Harrowers’ next target. Mom said she hasn’t been able to stop the bleedings because most of the targets aren’t even associated with the Kin. But if we could figure out who the demons will go after, maybe we could help them.” Well, Mom could help them. I didn’t feel like putting myself in the path of another demon any time soon—and I had made a promise.

  “If you think it’ll work,” Iris said. At my nod, she moved forward again, placing her fingers back on my arm.

  It was different this time. Different and immediate. Even before I began to lay down the cards, I could see. Sense becoming shape, shape becoming image, image becoming knowledge. I heard a girl speaking on a cell phone, turning a corner in downtown Minneapolis. A light snow fell above her.

  I set down the first card. Inverted Crescent.

  “Good,” I said, and continued.

  Next card. Thirteen. The Garden. Iris’s card. It was an easy connection to make: I could imagine Iris in a garden, sitting among flowers. Somewhere around her, the hum of bees.

  I set down the next cards, trying to focus. The Child. The Beggar. My fingers were light upon them, grazing the surface. I closed my eyes.

  And suddenly, I didn’t need to focus. It was all there, like a line drawn between us. I saw the target. Her face, her name. Her favorite color was red. She played basketball on her school team, and softball in the spring.

  Iris hadn’t been kidding about her Amplification ability. It was so clear it almost hurt.

  Anna Berkeley, age sixteen. She’d been working at a café somewhere close to uptown, and now she was headed home. From Beneath, something watched.

  I jumped to my feet, letting the rest of the cards scatter.

  “You saw?” I asked Iris. I didn’t know to what extent she’d shared my Knowing, but her eyes were troubled.

  “Anna Berkeley,” she said. “We should tell your mother.” Then she hadn’t seen everything.

  Hadn’t felt the sudden screaming urgency that shook through my bones, as strong as the night Tink had been attacked.

  “No,” I said. “We have to go. We have to go right now.”

  ***

  Iris sped all the way to Minneapolis. The sky had grown dark and a gentle snow fell. Headlights blurred before us. “You have a plan, right?” she asked, switching lanes to pass a slow-moving truck.

  Not exactly.

  Mom hadn’t answered her cell phone or responded to her H&H pager, and Leon’s phone had been turned off. Calling the police seemed like a great way to get myself tested for drugs. Our best option was to find Anna and warn her, somehow. We had to keep her safe until we could alert the Guardians.

  We found parking a few blocks from where I’d seen her. Iris hesitated as she stepped out of the car, snowflakes melting in her black hair. Her eyes were round with worry.

  “I’m not sure we can do this,” she said, a slight quiver in her voice. Her gaze met mine, and I remembered that night at the Drought and Deluge. I got scared, she’d said.

  “I’m not sure, either.” Neither of us were Guardians. We didn’t have my mother with us, we didn’t have Leon, or even Elspeth. The darkening night was cold and quiet, and I felt that familiar tug of fear. But Anna Berkeley needed our help. “Let’s just find her,” I said, turning down the street.

  I didn’t know the area we were in. The roads were dotted with little shops and streetlights slowly blinking on. A couple of women clutching grocery bags shuffled past us, and an elderly man with a dog gave a warm smile. I nodded his way, my eyes darting past him. Anna Berkeley, I thought, searching for a tall, sandy-haired girl in a plum-colored coat.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  I stopped, listening. We’d turned a corner, and I heard the jangle of Christmas music coming through the windows of a novelties shop. The road was empty ahead of us.

  “Maybe we got the wrong street,” Iris suggested. “Or the wrong time. If your Knowings aren’t always right, maybe we should go back.”

  I didn’t think so. The alarm I’d felt had been sharp, visceral, and very real—not simply the result of Iris’s Amplification. The danger was near. That persistent urgency drummed in my skin.

  “There!” I said, with a glance behind us. Two blocks down, I saw a hint of purple against a backdrop of snowbanks and bare branches. The girl stood with her back to us; she was too far away to see clearly, but I knew it was her. She rounded a corner and vanished from sight.

  Swiveling, I ran in the direction she’d gone, Iris close on my heels. I had no idea what I would say—I would need to think of some lie, some way to warn her. Anything. It didn’t matter as long as we caught her, br
ought her to safety. But as I ran, an eerie sense of déjà vu crept over me. It struck me how still the street had become, a hush in the falling twilight, cold air thickening. This time when the demon attacked, I was expecting it.

  That didn’t mean I was prepared. I looked upward, toward the blur of dark, glassy sky. “Iris,” I said, grabbing her arm. “I think—”

  The Harrower knocked me away.

  I stumbled backward, struggling to keep my feet. A rush of fear pulsed through me, but I ignored it. I wasn’t a Guardian, but I wasn’t helpless. Fight back, I thought. Go for the throat. His throat looked very human. No hint of silver or scales or claws on his hands. Except for my senses screaming that he was a Harrower, he could have been a man.

  Regaining my balance, I aimed a blow above his collarbone. For half a second, I felt the impact; then the demon jerked backward. I didn’t hesitate, but pushed the attack. My first hit had taken him by surprise, but that wouldn’t last. I hit again.

  He was too fast. Before the blow connected, he evaded. My fist caught air. The Harrower stood unharmed. Watching me. Smiling.

  Then I was on the ground, gasping. I hadn’t even seen him move, but I felt a fist in my stomach, and sudden, wrenching pain as something sharp raked across my shoulder, through the cloth of my coat. The world grayed before me and nausea churned in my belly, even as I rolled on impulse, away from the demon’s grasp.

  He followed as I scrambled to my feet. A glimmer of light passed over him, and for one awful second I saw the flash of silver and scales and a wide, red-toothed grin. Then it was gone and he was human again.

  I watched him warily, waiting for him to strike. Across the snow-bright distance between us, my gaze met his.

  I know you, Kin-child, his eyes seemed to say. And you know me.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  I’d met this demon before. I’d felt the slice of his claws in my skin.

  His smile grew wider. He would catch me, that smile said. And this time, he would do more than bleed me. I looked into his face and saw death.

  He inched closer, and with a small shock I discovered I could read him. I hadn’t realized my Knowing extended beyond humans, but this demon—I could see into him. I didn’t want to. I drew back, trying to block out what I felt. I sensed anger in him, and beyond that something cold and empty, like looking into the dark end of space.

  The demon had talons again, and the talons were at my throat.

  “No! You can’t hurt her!”

  Momentarily paralyzed, I didn’t have the ability to react, but Iris’s cry cut through me, severing whatever link the Harrower had formed, even as I realized I’d forgotten one of my mother’s warnings. Harrowers rely on your fear of them, she’d said. I’d forgotten to focus.

  The demon spun about, turning on Iris. His approach was slow, cautious, and he whispered at her, strange urgings I couldn’t make out. A change came over her. Something dark and deadly flashed in her eyes, and one hand shot out in front of her, fingers curled. The other was pressed to her neck, cupping the silver of the triple knot.

  She wasn’t a Guardian—she’d told me as much—but there was power in her. She flew toward the Harrower, quick and agile, striking out with her hand. Her attack took him by surprise. Her fingers latched onto the back of his neck, digging inward, then her other hand went for his throat.

  Through his skin, his spine began to darken, ridges and bones turning blue, and then coppery, and then the deep, unforgettable color of blood.

  The demon cried out, twisting in her grasp. I rushed forward. I wasn’t certain what I intended—pure instinct had taken over. But, even wounded and struggling, the demon was stronger than me. He lashed out as I reached them, shrieking and catching me by the shoulder. Iris’s fingers tightened on his neck. His screech pierced the night, and for the space of a second, the sky around us seemed to shatter. There was a flash of light and then a sudden darkness, momentary but disorienting. Our surroundings flickered, colors blurring. The ground shifted beneath me. I didn’t have time to process what had happened. The Harrower flung me away from him and at last pulled out of Iris’s grip, his rage radiating out of him like a hot white star.

  Pressing low to the ground, he slunk away and then leapt, his clawed, inhuman hands once again flashing toward me. I recoiled, blocking, but Iris was faster. She dragged the demon into the air with a strength I hadn’t known she possessed.

  Iris was more than a match for the creature. As I watched, her hands found purchase on his neck, holding, squeezing, twisting his throat. The crimson in his spine spread outward in thready veins down his back, along his arms, and then a sound like a sigh came from his body. He shook, once, in Iris’s grip, and then went slack.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, moving toward me. Her skirt was torn and her hair tangled about her, her eyes huge in her face. I nodded, knowing she had saved my life and not quite willing to admit she’d frightened me.

  Instead, I turned slowly, trying to make sense of my surroundings. The street had changed. We no longer stood in the cool blue of evening or the warm lights of Minneapolis.

  Bewildered, I blurted out, “What happened? Where are we?”

  Iris turned away, black hair whipping about her.

  “We’re Beneath.”

  23

  Minneapolis was gone—at least the Minneapolis I knew.

  Around us, the world was skewed, distorted. The skyline had altered. The horizon was a smear of dust and darkness, and above us the stars had gone red.

  Red stars. Red shadows. I’d heard that before.

  The street had transformed. The buildings remained, the tar and the parked cars and the curve of the sidewalk below us, but they had changed, twisted somehow. Brick became bone. Gnarled trees jutted up from charred earth. The cars had lost their tires, their windows, their paint: they looked like metal skeletons, covered in rust. At my feet, the ground was rough and unsteady, trembling on occasion, making it difficult to keep my balance. The snow, at least, was still snow, a strange and blinding white against the backdrop of decay.

  Now and then, the real city flashed before me, an intrusion of sound and color into the space that surrounded us. I heard the turn of a motor, smelled exhaust. Then it was gone.

  “It’s my fault,” Iris was saying, a hint of desperation in her tone. “I didn’t mean to, it just happened. Because I touched the demon. Prolonged contact. I was sharing its abilities while I fought it, and I accidentally brought us here.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, telling myself to keep calm. “Just—just get us back out.”

  Iris didn’t answer.

  “You can get us back out, right?”

  I didn’t need a Knowing to read the fear on her face.

  I clenched my hands into fists. “Right. Well, there has to be some way out of here.” I looked around. Getting out might be an option if I had any idea how we’d gotten in. I pressed one hand against what used to be a car, then drew it back quickly as the substance flaked beneath my touch. It left a reddish film on my fingers, which I rubbed onto my coat. Above, the sky with its sinister, menacing stars felt low and oppressive.

  “No wonder demons are so cranky,” I said. “If I had to live here, I’d be in a bad mood too.”

  “Demons don’t just live here. They live other places too. And there’s more to it than—this. This is just the surface, in a way. A sort of passageway, or entrance. I’ve heard there are other places. Layers. Entire worlds Beneath.”

  “Come here often?” I joked.

  Iris hugged her coat against her. “This is serious, Audrey. We shouldn’t be here.”

  I nodded, scanning the area, trying to think. Mom and Leon hadn’t told me anything about the Beneath, or how to escape it. What I did know came from scraps of information Esther had let drop, and my hazy memories of Gram’s stories. None of it seemed very helpful. We were Beneath, between seconds and breaths, sun and shadow. The realm of the Old Race, long abandoned, corrupted by Harrower rage and g
one to rot.

  The realm of demons.

  Everything I knew about Harrowers led me to believe they wouldn’t be very happy to see us here. Not to mention the fact that Iris had just killed one of them.

  I turned back toward her. “How did you kill that thing? That couldn’t have just been training—Mom says most humans aren’t strong enough. I thought you weren’t a Guardian.”

  In the red glow around us, Iris’s color was muted, her face vague, as though I were gazing at her through thick glass. She lifted her hand to the chain that circled her throat, resting one finger on the metal of the triple knot. “I’m not. I used this. It lets me share my boyfriend’s abilities. It’s made from his blood and skin.”

  Temporarily distracted, I gaped at her. “Did you . . . seriously just tell me your necklace is made from your boyfriend’s skin?”

  A giggle broke through her grim expression. “You should see your face.”

  “You put that thing in my hand!”

  “It’s not just that. It’s a special kind of metal, made by the Kin. It’s meant to enhance and preserve. He gave it to me for my birthday. As long as I have it, we’re connected.”

  I couldn’t decide if that was sweet or creepy. Possibly both.

  But it gave me an idea. “Connected enough that he could come get us out of here?”

  Iris hesitated. “It doesn’t usually work both ways. And Kin powers don’t work well Beneath. We’d need . . .”

  “We’d need a Harrower,” I finished for her.

  Exactly what we didn’t want to see.

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” I said, a lump of panic forming in my throat. I heard the edge of hysteria in my tone and struggled to contain it. “We need to get out somehow. And quickly.” Before something finds us, I thought.

  Cautiously, quietly, I picked my way down the row of cars, surveying my surroundings, searching for movement. In the dim red light, every innocent shape appeared threatening. The ground beneath me shuddered again, and I noticed bits of scarred metal reaching up from dry, cracked soil. The buildings stood quiet, empty. All the doors were closed.