The Dark Calling

by Cole, Kresley

  He’d generated that yellow dome. Whereas Sol could emit a pure white light of illumination, Paul’s was a bewildering haze. He must have the power to brainwash Arcana, which explained why Lark and Aric currently wanted me dead.

  So how had I resisted?

  BOOM . . . BOOM . . . BOOM. That door wouldn’t hold much longer.

  Once I killed Paul, the haze would surely lift, and then my husband and friend would return to normal. As I struggled to build poison in my claws, I called on the vines I’d revived downstairs to creep up the steps. Buying myself time to strike, I asked Paul, “Have you always known you’re an Arcana?”

  Outside, Circe’s river continued to crack ominously. I knew she couldn’t hear past the ice. Was she sensing Paul’s activation?

  He leaned a shoulder against the wall, fully relaxed. “When I first spied Domīnija, the mysterious businessman who’d purchased my childhood home, I sensed I had some kind of mystical connection with him. So I figured out how to get into his household and make myself indispensable.” Paul cast me the smile I used to think was charming. “I’ve read everything here I could lay hands on, including your chronicles. After talking to your grandmother for hours on end, I suspected I might actually be an Arcana, the inactivated card. After all, fate likes us to converge, and I’d long dreamed I had supernatural abilities. But how to activate myself?”

  “By killing an Arcana.”

  “It’s not so easy a feat! I didn’t want to arouse suspicion with an unexplained death, so I decided to kill someone connected to the game—your Tarasova grandmother. The right meds accelerated her decline.”

  “I knew it!” Everything Gran had said or written toward the end became clear. A rat on my table gnaws the threads . . . the serpent coils around the tree and chokes its roots.

  Paul was the rat, the threads coming from a hangman’s noose. Like a serpent, he’d been coiled around me while choking her—my roots.

  But Gran had been too far gone by that time to make me understand. “She discovered what you are.”

  “Eventually. I feared someone would catch on when she kept blabbering about midnight and noon.”

  Comprehension. “Twelve is your card number.”

  “Evie gets a star!” He grinned, crinkles forming around his wide blue eyes. “When I gave her that last injection, she experienced a small window of lucidity. She stared me down and said, ‘Evie will figure out I was murdered, but she’ll blame Death. She’ll avenge me. I want this.’”

  Gran had written in my chronicles, I have put the end into motion.

  “As soon as your dear ol’ gran kicked it, I felt the stirrings of my abilities, and I reached out telepathically.”

  Aric had said “errant thoughts” kept hitting him. Was Paul’s telepathy similar to Matthew’s, working like a two-way radio? Arcana powers often overlapped—because the gods’ powers did.

  Could the Hanged Man hear thoughts? I mentally screamed, LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU, PAUL!

  Yet he droned on: “The Reaper and Lark were easy to reach. But you and Finn . . . not so much. The Magician was immune to me—I dreamed his card was a foil to mine—but you’re not naturally immune.” He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to see inside me.

  “Brainwashing has no effect on me, not since I freed myself from the Hierophant’s mind control.” Cracking ice still sounded outside. Had Paul reached Circe as well? Was she trying to break free to help me? Or to end me?

  Irritation stamped his features. “I’m no brainwasher.”

  “Then what are your powers?” Would he tell me? After so many months of taking orders and skulking in the shadows, this smug man must be all too ready to crow about himself.

  “What do you think they are?”

  “Aside from telepathy? I think you possess guile and concealment.” His forgettable appearance was a power in itself. I’d rarely noticed him in the beginning of my stay here. “Definitely trust manipulation.”

  “The power to lie and always be believed? That’s the same as brainwashing.” Huffing with indignation, he said, “I’m not like the Hierophant! From what I’ve read, he used eye contact to turn his followers into unthinking drones. My sphere brings clarity. When I reverse an Arcana’s card, they’re in no way mindless. They still have free will. They’re simply enhanced. Whereas the Hierophant lied, I mentally relay truths.”

  “Not seeing much of a difference from where I’m standing, Paul.”

  “Oh, Evie, a card reversal means that I can only work with what’s available.”

  So he couldn’t manipulate Aric and Lark to hurt me—unless they were already inclined to do so?

  As if to illustrate, Lark shrieked from outside, “I’ll kill you, Empress! Why him?”

  Paul tsked. “She can’t decide whether to end you or herself.” Then her most marked Arcana trait—her single-minded determination—was gone. “Of one thing I’ve recently convinced her: the need to protect me at all costs.” He petted Scarface.

  BOOM . . . BOOM . . . BOOM. The hinges screamed as the door bowed.

  Poison finally welled in my claws, my vines slithering higher. Would I get to Paul before Aric got to me? “And Death?” His card was all about embracing change, letting go of the past and bitter resentment. The reverse of that meant he’d be mired in the past, and our history was filled with mistrust, hatred, and murder.

  The present that we’d built for ourselves would be destroyed.

  Paul grinned again. “Hating you is the knight’s factory setting, if you will. Which works for me.”

  “Lark will hear everything you’ve said through her wolves.”

  He glanced at the slavering beasts. “And she’ll thank me for plotting against you. She despised your grandmother, was happy to see her go. I’ve been of service to Lark, to everyone here but you.”

  “Plotting? Like with that contraceptive. Now I know why you screwed me over.”

  He raised his brows in challenge: Do you?

  “The Hanged Man is also known as the Traitor.” His eyes grew heavy-lidded with pleasure, convincing me that he was like every other evil Arcana I’d tangled with—devious killers who liked to play with their prey. “I entrusted only two things to you: my grandmother’s care and my birth control, giving you just two opportunities for betrayal. You stabbed me in the back both times.” Actually, he was worse than the others; I never trusted them!

  “Ah-ah, Evie, your hair’s turning red. Since you can’t be controlled, you must be destroyed.” The wolves snarled, baring those lethal fangs. “I’ll just nudge Lark into action.” The light around his head flared.

  A split-second later, the wolves vaulted toward me. My vines shot upwards to twine around them. Green barbs muzzled their snouts, then slammed their heads to the floor.

  Claws bared, I lunged at Paul. I slashed the arm he raised in defense, my thorns hitting home. My poison would lay him out in seconds.

  Through the slices in his shirt, I looked for injuries.

  Not a mark on him.

  How? How was that possible? “You heal like me?” But this had been instantaneous.

  As the wolves struggled against my faltering vines, he tilted his head at his arm. “Damnedest thing, Evie. I can’t be injured, can’t die. I suppose the Hanged Man is already dead in a way. I transcend death.”

  A crash sounded as Aric broke down the door. “Come to me, Empress. Let’s end this once and for all.” I heard the rhythmic ringing of his spurs heading up the stairs.

  I debated trying to stall him with more vines, but I wanted him to see Paul’s tableau. “He’s the Hanged Man. Come look at him.” I glanced down at the stairwell.

  Aric was ascending, his swords drawn, black armor glinting. “I know this. He’s shown me the truth about you.”

  “The sphere is Paul’s. You’re brainwashed within it!”

  “I see his sphere. I feel and welcome it. It protects me from your mesmerizing and gives me clarity such as I’ve never known.” Yet his eyes were blank with fury.
/>
  I didn’t want to hurt him—even if I could. The only place left to flee was the third floor. “Fine; hate me, but don’t harm our child.”

  Raw grief flooded his gaze, and he thundered, “There is no baby!”

  “Everybody in this castle knows I’m pregnant!” I’d been convinced of it when I’d gazed at that white rose. After days of my constant vomiting, there was no way anyone else could doubt it.

  Paul chuckled, his smugness palpable. “Just now, while Death was breaking down the door, I mentally informed him about your plot—how you forced me to fake a pregnancy test, so he would sacrifice his life to protect you and your made-up kid. Now that he knows the truth, he’s going to protect me and kill you for tricking him.”

  “You couldn’t force him to hurt his child, so you’re pulling a bogus pregnancy test out of your ass?”

  Before I could claw the smirk off Paul’s face, Aric leapt to the landing, his swords flashing out to slice my vines.

  I screamed in pain, stumbling backward toward the next set of stairs.

  Aric followed. “You’re just as you’ve always been. Forever a temptress. Forever a liar. I knew you could never be trusted, but I wanted you so much. I was weak.”

  “Your mind is being manipulated.” The Hanged Man was this powerful? Able to control the reigning Arcana victor? An immortal who’d lived for millennia? “Paul’s wearing Finn’s icon—I’m not!” I raised my hands.

  Aric didn’t even glance at them, didn’t seem to hear me. “Throughout our history, you’ve sought to end me, but you’ve never connived quite like this. A pregnancy, Empress?”

  “You are the one who had to convince me I was knocked up! I didn’t want to believe. But I accepted it. We both did.”

  “A lie is a curse you place on yourself. Now it’s time for you to pay for yours.”

  Nothing I could say would sway Aric. I whirled around, running full-out. Desperation spurred my powers, and I put up wall after wall of thorns, like rows of barbed wire.

  His swords slashed through the blockade as he forced his way forward. He knew how much that would hurt me, but still he cut.

  A nightmare greeted me on the next flight of stairs. Hissing snakes coiled around the banister and poured down the steps. With a shudder, I charged into that gauntlet.

  Fangs jabbed my boots as I leapt and dodged. From the handrail, snakes struck my arms, ripping my thick jacket. Tufts of down wafted in the air. “Lark, enough!” Pain shot through my hand. Oh, shit! One had gotten me. Was it venomous?

  I’d be immune, but would this kid?

  On the third-floor landing, I chanced a look back at Death. I saw no hesitation in him as he annihilated my defenses.

  Where to run? There was a tower similar to mine in this wing. Maybe I could reinforce the door with vines.

  I staggered up the last flight of stairs, then locked the door behind me.

  Struggling to concentrate over all the sounds—Death’s spurs, the animal calls, Lark’s wails, that ominous cracking of ice—I managed a couple of vines to create another barricade.

  The windows in this room had latches, unlike the sealed ones in my tower. But then, Aric had never intended to imprison anyone in here.

  I opened a window, wincing against a gust. I gazed out with watering eyes. The mass of river ice had buckled into gigantic white shards. It looked like the earth had fangs.

  Paul’s yellow dome had spread down the mountain to capture Circe’s river and my thorns. Maybe the Priestess wouldn’t be touched by his influence. Her mind and body weren’t actually here.

  I peered down at the long drop. Normally, I wouldn’t even think—would just jump. If I could regenerate from a fall out of a helicopter while Bagman contagion fouled my blood, I could regenerate from anything.

  But the kid . . .

  Ice coated the slippery shale roof, the tiles glistening in the continual lightning. I’d grown rose vines on the other side of the castle, but they’d been frozen in the storm. I called on them to spread across the roof. Sluggish to respond, they needed me to rejuvenate them.

  But I had nothing left in me, no way to fuel them.

  Aric gave a yell; I whirled around to see a sword tip breach my vines. He was slicing through the door and my barricade as though through paper. “You will pay, Empress.” He kicked the remains of the door open. “Pay for making me believe.”

  Heart pounding, I climbed up onto the windowsill. Another gust nearly knocked me back into the room. “We love each other, Aric! Shake off Paul’s power.”

  Swords raised, he stalked closer—an assassin in black, with one target. The eerie sound of those spurs was about to drive me crazy!

  I swallowed and stepped outside. Balancing my boots on the slick roof, I inched away from the window. Despite my coat, the cold punched the breath from my lungs.

  Dizziness surged as I craned my head up. The only place left for me to climb was to the pinnacle of the castle.

  I looked back over my shoulder. Aric leaned out the window, eyes enraged. He offered a hand to coax me closer, so he could strike.

  I’d experienced his fury in the past, but this was different. Before, even when I’d been his prisoner, his gaze had betrayed longing. Now there was nothing but rage. He looked crazed with it.

  Tears welled. “Please, come back to me, Aric. I’m wearing your mother’s ring.”

  “And I will rip it off your cold dead finger—just as I collected that choker off your headless neck.”

  I nearly vomited. “You will regret this for eternity. You killed your mother when she was pregnant. Now you’ll kill your wife and child.”

  He hesitated for a split second. Battling Paul’s influence?

  “Yes, Aric, fight him! Paul’s the Traitor.”

  But the reversal was too strong. Aric’s mistrust and bitterness won out. “Speaking of rings.” He sheathed his swords, then removed one gauntlet. He tore off the wedding band I’d made him. “I forsake you, Empress.” He raised his fist.

  I whispered, “Don’t do it.”

  He used his ungodly strength to crush that ring. When he opened his hand, black dust scattered on the wind. His hatred was stronger even than the wood of life. “You’re next, Empress. You’ve got nowhere to go.”

  A raven dive-bombed right for me! “No!” A vine shot from my palm to deflect it. The bird crashed beside me, breaking the shale tile, its head exploding. Brain and skull bits spattered my face. “Damn it, Lark!”

  A second bird dove for me. I blocked with vines, but another followed it. This can’t be happening. By the staccato glow of lightning, I saw a black swarm closing in. Bats.

  They teemed around me, tearing at my hair, clawing at my face. “Oh, God, oh, God!” My footing shifted, sending me off balance.

  I pinwheeled my arms. Teetering, teetering . . .

  Over the winds, I heard a shrill whistle. A figure swooped down from the clouds. “Gabriel!” He was heading for me—right into Paul’s yellow haze.

  The tile cracked. I slipped.

  To the sound of Aric’s laughter, I plummeted.

  10

  My feet . . . floated.

  The Archangel had snagged me in midair! He gripped me under my arms, his razor-sharp talons poking through the ends of his gloves.

  “Empress, are you all right?” Frost covered his long black hair and gaunt face. His lips had a bluish tint.

  “Get us out of the yellow sphere. Hurry, Gabriel!”

  He didn’t ask, just sped higher and higher. Old bullet holes in his black wings funneled little blasts of arctic air at my face.

  When Aric roared with frustration, Gabriel tossed me upward, catching me against his side. “Hold on.”

  I clung to his billowing coat as he banked sharply to the left. Then right. Two swords zoomed past us. Aric had hurled his precious weapons at me.

  Birds and bats kept coming. Gabriel dodged them, bobbing and twirling. Winds gusted, flinging the other winged creatures away.

  We were
free. We were . . . falling?

  More gusts sent Gabriel spinning in the air like a mimosa bloom. We were heading right for Circe’s ice shards! He groaned as he flared his bullet-riddled wings. I squeezed my eyes closed, bracing for impact.

  Our trajectory shifted.

  I peeked open my eyes. We’d missed the tips of those shards by inches. “That was close!”

  “What is happening, Empress? Joules and I heard you screaming and the animals behaving erratically. Why would Fauna and the Reaper target you?”

  “Our medic is the inactivated Arcana card. He’s brainwashed the others. Where’s Joules?” The Tower was never far from Gabriel and rarely out of the fray.

  “I left him on the next mountain . . .” He trailed off. “How . . . what . . . ? Ah, my mind. My mind is so clear.”

  Paul’s influence was affecting him. “Get out of the yellow haze. Fly past the boundary!”

  The Archangel’s tableau flickered, then turned, like a slow roulette wheel. It clicked into place—in the reversed position.

  Movement out of the corner of my watering eyes. Gabriel’s hand crept toward his dagger sheath.

  “Don’t do this, Gabe. The Hanged Man is using his powers on you. You made a vow never to hurt me.”

  He flashed his fangs. “Vows mean nothing to me.” Gabriel was usually forthright, principled, and loyal. The reverse of those traits didn’t bode well for me. “I was taught that you are one of my three archenemies, but I ignored my teachings to become your friend. Now I shall make good on a kill that should have happened months ago.” He yanked his blade free.

  “No!” I somehow managed a vine to bind his wrist. “Snap out of this.” How could I fight him in the air? I thrashed to get loose. I might have a chance on the ground.

  With a yell, Gabriel twisted free from the vine.

  “Stop! I’m pregnant.”

  His blade hesitated. What if Paul’s influence was limited by distance? Like a phone signal? We were closing in on the edge of that hazy yellow. “With this baby, we can end the game.”

  Gabriel blinked his green eyes. Then narrowed them. “Memories arise in my mind. You once cut off my wings.” Paul must be feeding him information he’d stolen from my chronicles. “You decorated your home with them, displaying them over your mantel. Oh, Empress, I am going to make this last.”