Midnight Falls (Sky Brooks Series Book 3)

by McKenzie Hunter

  Josh just looked at the scribbled words on his pad and frowned.

  “Anything?” asked Sebastian from the door.

  Josh looked down at his paper and shook his head. “This is a riddle within itself. There is absolutely no way to tell what the spell is for, without the third book. Like this one: The first book reads ‘I will that the undead that walk among—’ then it continues in the second book ‘the living will hear my request and—’” He slid the pad away. “And freaking what? Then do what, a dance? Bake me a cake? Sing me a ballad? What will they do?”

  There was an indecipherable look on Sebastian’s face as he stepped into the room. He stroked his chin and started to flip over what now had become blank pages. If he was disturbed by it, there wasn’t any evidence of it on his face.

  He turned to me. “Seena, what’s her deal?” he asked.

  The mention of my cousin’s name brought the bitterness and loneliness back as I was reminded that I didn’t have a “real” family. The spark of anger made me feel vengeful—I really hated feeling that way. I shrugged, he probably knew more than I did. “With how meticulous and obscure this world is, I am surprised that someone else in my family would be so closely linked to an object of power.”

  Sebastian paced the small space, engrossed in his thoughts. “I don’t think she is true family,” he finally said.

  “We look just alike. She’s a teenage version of me.”

  “No. She’s a dark haired, olive-colored woman; other than that there wasn’t anything that familiar in your appearance. I don’t believe she is a Moura Encantada. There has to be a link between you and her as to why you two can read these things. I need to find the link.”

  “Why, so you can find others?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “Do you see something wrong with that, Skylar?” His silky baritone voice contrasted with the hard edges of his words.

  “Yes. If they are as dangerous as you all say. I don’t think we should have these books at all, let alone trying to find the other people that can read them.”

  “I prefer to know those that are in a position to hurt this pack and handle things as necessary,” he said. “As far as the books are concerned, I would love to destroy them.”

  He went to one of the cabinets and took out a lighter, ignited it, and then touched it to the book. It flashed. Blazes of orange, red and blue engulfed the book. And for several minutes, bursts of flame spread over the book. Biting cold air filled the room, and a brisk frigid wind breezed over us as oxygen was siphoned from room. Ice crept up the table and slowly immured the book, snuffing out the flames. The fire extinguished, the ice melted, the book remained perfect and undamaged.

  “As you see, they can’t be destroyed.”

  I lost my focus on Sebastian and placed it on the books. Something this dangerous should not have a fail-safe and the ability to protect itself from destruction.

  “I want to know as much as I can about the Clostra. I prefer to go on facts and not rumors,” he said. “Once you have translated them, they will be separated.”

  Just as he started to leave, we heard a crash and Kelly shrieking, “Get it off of me!”

  Sebastian rushed out the room, Josh, Ethan and I right behind him. We spilled into the room to find Kelly on the ground. The tray and table were tipped over on the floor as she clawed at her leg.

  “Get it off of me!” she screamed repeatedly, her hands scrabbling over her body.

  Dr. Jeremy knelt in front of her, his hands running along her arms and leg. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he ripped open her scrub pants. He scanned the area, his hands running along it. He cursed under his breath and tore the pants even higher, skimming over her leg as he hands ran along them.

  “What am I looking for?” he asked, his fingers slowly gliding over her skin.

  “It looks weird…a bug, small legs…tan, no brown,” she said scanning her lower extremity.

  “I found it,” Dr. Jeremy finally said. We leaned in to look at it. I could barely distinguish the creature from her skin. As it lay flat, it disappeared against the backdrop of her flesh. He took the tweezers, plucked it off her, and placed it in the jar, where it quickly changed, merging into the clear background and becoming nearly invisible. The only things distinguishable were the light brown legs that couldn’t blend entirely.

  “Are you okay?” Sebastian asked, taking in the distressed look on her face.

  She shook her head, slowly. “I can’t move my legs,” she said, the tears starting to brim at the edge of her lids. Her legs splayed to the side, immobile. Sebastian bent them and held them in place. When he released them, they flopped out to the side.

  “What happened?” he asked as he lifted her and carried her over to one of the beds. She wrapped her hands around him and seemed like she didn’t want to let him go when he lowered her to the bed.

  “I found it on Gideon, at the nape of his neck,” she said in a strained voice as she continued to try to move her legs. “It jumped on me when I tried to remove it. The next thing I knew it was biting and clawing its way up my leg. I couldn’t get it off me.” Her eyes stayed closed as she calmly recapped the events. “And then I fell. I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t move.”

  Dr. Jeremy was calm the whole time, until he took out a box of tools. Using cold and warm instruments, he asked her to describe what she felt. His calm mask faltered when she said she couldn’t feel anything.

  His face was withdrawn and guilt-riddled throughout the entire examination. He tried the instruments on various parts of her body, but she didn’t feel anything until the cold tool touched her abdomen. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it couldn’t have been good. There was a worrisome scowl on his face. He took a box of microfilaments, touching one to her skin. She stared at him the whole time. When his eyes lifted to meet hers, he quickly dismissed his worried expression to replace it with a stolid one.

  He went to his desk and looked at the jar. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he finally admitted. Dumping it into a deep petri dish, he took several pictures of it and then did a database search. Nothing. The desolate frown started to reemerge when he looked in Kelly’s direction.

  Gavin entered the room, nearly unnoticed. He surveyed the broken glass that no one had cleaned up and the table that was still tipped over and then slid past Sebastian, who stood next to Kelly. Placing his hand gently on her leg, he asked softly, “What happened?”

  Realizing she couldn’t feel him touching her leg; he moved his hand to her arm. His thumb stroked lightly across it.

  Dr. Jeremy spoke up before Kelly could, telling Gavin everything. Jeremy gave him detailed information the way he would have if he’d been speaking to a patient’s family. Gavin listened quietly.

  “Are you in pain?” Gavin asked, moving her pillows around her and adjusting the settings on the bed until she was repositioned to a more comfortable position.

  She shook her head. Her voice quivered too much to talk; instead she just responded to Gavin’s questions with nods and shakes of her head. Occasionally she looked around at the faces in the room, which was now everyone in the house including Winter and Abigail, who had slipped in and taken up a place right next to the bed where her brother lay.

  “We will fix this,” Sebastian assured her with a level of confidence it was impossible to doubt.

  We will? How were we going to do that since no one knew exactly what bit her and how it had affected her?

  Gavin walked over to the desk, studied the creature for a long time and against Dr. Jeremy’s protest, dumped it out into his hand. It crawled up his arm, flattening its body against his tawny skin, and fading into it to the point it was imperceptible. With small winding movements, it slinked along the length of his arm. Then, without incident, it inched its way back to Gavin’s hand where it stayed.

  “It’s a sleeper,” he said softly, examining it closely.

  Dr. Jeremy inspected the critter closer with unparalleled interes
t. “I’ve never seen one before. I assumed it was a myth. Weren’t they supposed to have been destroyed?” he asked as he rubbed his temple. When he spoke again, I assumed he was talking to himself, working out something that at that moment seemed to change things drastically. “The elves created this creature…” He frowned.

  Gavin added, “They created it is as an undetectable elimination tool. It releases venom that paralyzes the body, eventually infecting the organs, rendering them ineffectual. Once you’re dead, it slithers away, taking along all evidence, leaving the cause of the person's death inconclusive and the murderer blameless.” Controlling his temper was no longer in his grasp; his hands were clenched, teeth bared. “Why is an elven creature, that should have been destroyed, in our house, Abigail?” His austere gaze bore into her, his anger uncontained and uncontrollable as it overwhelmed the room.

  Gavin’s gaze focused on Abigail, but it was Sebastian that spoke, briefly taking his eyes off Kelly to look at Abigail. “You all don’t have a problem killing your own people that carry similar traits, but create things that can produce the same effect, yet you allow them to exist, ” Sebastian said calmly and with tremendous effort, keeping his ensuing anger and frustration at bay.

  I guess it wasn’t an urban legend. They had killed all the dark elves. Most elves’ magic was innocuous. Elemental elves, like Gideon and Abigail, could control weather within a certain radius, magic skills equivalent to a lower-level witch, but they were known for using theirs for mischief and a tame level of diablerie. Erde elves’ magic linked to the earth. To the best of my knowledge they were hippie-type elves, in touch with the earth, able to make any living thing flourish. Hexerei elves’ skills mirrored that of mid-level witches and faes in their ability to perform spells, but weren’t able to perform defensive and offensive magic.

  Dark elves were a totally different thing. They weren’t innately evil or dark, but their gifts could not be considered anything but malevolent in nature. They could cause death of the body and mind with merely a touch. The elves weren’t able to contain it, counter it, or control it. Realizing the magnitude and their power and the danger they possessed by being able to do that type of damage with something as simple as a touch, with the help of the witches, the dark elves had been contained by their kin. That was the nice word used in all the books for genocide. And a covenant between the fae, elves, were-animals, and vampires was established to contain this problem. It left a sordid taste in my mouth knowing that a person, due to no fault of their own, was sentenced to death because of what they were. Because they possessed magic so powerful and deadly that they were deemed too dangerous to exist.

  Kelly had turned an odd shade. “If it released a venom, even if you can make or find an anti-venom, whatever damage is done will be permanent,” she said in a tight voice.

  “That’s for snakes,” Winter offered in consolation. But it didn’t help. Maybe for a layman that would have been enough, but she was an experienced nurse.

  “When is your election?” Sebastian asked Abigail.

  “In four months,” she said softly, but she was unable to focus, her attention drifting back to her brother.

  “And they will select the candidates in probably a month,” he said with a sigh. “What happened to your brother wasn’t a coincidence, nor was what happened to the other potentials.”

  Abigail’s skin blanched as she pulled in a ragged breath as she started to walk the area, nervous energy causing her to fidget. “As I said before, my brother has no interest in leading. That was my father’s dream for him, not his,” she said.

  Sebastian regarded her for a long time, his eyes narrowed to slits. Then his attention slipped in Gideon’s direction. “But eventually he will mature and will accept his responsibilities. Maybe not now, but sometime in the future, he will want that position, and due to your father’s legacy, it will be his position without opposition. This is not a coincidence.”

  Abigail rested against the bed her brother lay in, distracted by her thoughts; when she finally spoke it was barely a whisper. “Someone tried to kill my brother.” She gripped the table as the color quickly faded.

  “Is there an antidote?” asked Dr. Jeremy. Like everyone else, he didn’t seem to care about the elves’ politics.

  Distracted, she simply shook her head. “Not that I know of, but we need to find one.”

  “We should call Mason to see if he knows anything that can help,” Dr. Jeremy suggested to Sebastian.

  “He will not offer us assistance,” Sebastian responded.

  “Call him anyway,” Dr. Jeremy entreated in a low voice. Gideon stirred and Sebastian’s attention went to him before he could respond to Jeremy. At first, it was minor movement, a slight jerk of his foot, then he slid his legs up and down and before anyone could move closer, he moved sluggishly to the edge of the bed. Brushing his hands over his head as he cautiously peered over the room, his body rigid until he found his sister who had was just a few feet away from the foot of the bed. He relaxed into the smile that slowly covered his face. She quickly moved to his side.

  He kept his attention on Sebastian as he leaned closer to Abigail, speaking softly in a language I didn’t understand. She responded, at first in English, but quickly changed. Josh squinted, leaning in as he carefully listened to her speak. “I don’t know what they are saying,” he admitted.

  Gavin watched the carefully and then he started to translate for us. Abigail recapped everything, conveniently leaving out that someone had tried to kill him.

  She stopped talking for a long time, as Gideon made a strong effort not to look in our direction. “She’s afraid of us,” Gideon offered.

  Rightfully so, the fact that Gideon was up and about seemingly without any lingering side effects, while Kelly lay in the bed a couple feet away from him, unable to move from the waist down. It didn’t bode well with anyone.

  “May I use your bathroom?” Gideon asked eventually, for the first time giving us his full attention, his eyes roving cautiously over everyone’s face. Dr. Jeremy was the only one to move and escort him to the nearest one, on the other side of the room several feet away.

  “He can’t find out that someone tried to kill him,” Abigail said the moment he stepped out of the room.

  “You think it is wise to keep such information from him? He can’t protect himself from an enemy that he doesn’t know exists,” Ethan said.

  Really! Mr. Secrecy had a problem with hiding the truth. This man would lie about the color of the sky if it would suit the packs or his interest and now honesty had somehow clawed its way to the surface as one of his priorities.

  “At this time it would be best,” she said softly with a sigh. “He will respond irrationally. Right now is not the time,” she said.

  “I don’t care what goes on with the elves and what truths you hold from him,” Sebastian said curtly. “You keep whatever secrets you like. We need to find a way to fix Kelly.”

  Kelly’s lips parted, but quickly closed as her gaze dropped to her hand. Usually enthralled by this world, far more often than she was appalled by its depravity; it had lost some of its fascination.

  “If he’s awake, then I should get better too, right?” Kelly asked hopefully, optimism brightening her wide-eyed gaze.

  Dr. Jeremy was slow to answer, and when he did, it was a noncommittal shrug. The hope that she held to faded as she relaxed back in the pillow. Truth was the very thing that linked them and I doubt he would lie to her, even if it was to unburden her. “If it doesn’t, we will find a way. You will not stay like this,” he pledged.

  CHAPTER 7

  The same hour it took for Gideon to recover once the sleeper was removed was a long and arduous wait: to see if Kelly would as well. Periodically she attempted to move her leg without success, and each time her spirits dampened. The final time she tried, tears welled in her eyes, which she blinked away. When one finally spilled, it was Sebastian who was the first to look away.

  “Why isn’t she be
tter?” Sebastian asked Abigail.

  Aware that she would be held accountable for everything that happened to Kelly, she was careful with her response. “I’m not sure. Is she wholly human?” she asked.

  Sebastian nodded. Often he wore his emotions like a badge, easy to read and usually undeniably hostile. Now he seemed withdrawn and concerned glancing over at Dr. Baker, who had kept watching Kelly carefully, waiting for something to happen. The minutes passed and she still lay there immobile. Magic helped us to heal something that Kelly didn’t possess being human. She was at a disadvantage.

  Abigail frowned. “Hmm, usually you all are fanatical about limiting exposure,” she said softly. “Why is she different?” she inquired.

  “That’s not your concern. Concern yourself with things that matter. How can we fix this?” said Sebastian. “What do you know about this sleeper?”

  She considered the question. “It is new to me, just as it is to you.”

  “Yes, but it is an elven creature,” Gavin interjected angrily.

  “No, it’s a Makellos creature,” she corrected.

  “To me, it’s the same thing,” Gavin said. “Whether they consider themselves elite to you all or have skills and powers stronger than yours, at the end of the day they are still elves. You all knew they were creating creatures foreign to us. Things that are so vile they keep them hidden, and when they manage to escape, no one can fix the problem.”

  “They are not the same; they consider themselves pure-breed and do not associate with the likes of us. We know as much as you do about what goes on with them.”

  Dr. Jeremy finally spoke, his voice sharp and grating. “Then you need to play nice and find someone to help her.”

  “We will see what we can find out,” she said as she linked her hands with Gideon and started to head out of the room.”

  “No,” Sebastian said. “He stays. You will work better without him.”

  I didn’t trust that Abigail would come back and I am sure Sebastian didn’t either.