Darkness Calls

by Marjorie M. Liu

  I saw it so clearly, so fiercely, I knew it was true—and I lost myself in that moment. I shed my heart, and the shadow inside me exploded from sleep, twisting so violently beneath my skin, I thought my body would transform. Electricity raced over me, and the boys began howling in my mind.

  Lightbringers never stand alone, I heard Mary whisper. Two hearts live.

  I understood. I glimpsed in my head visions brief as heartbeats: men and women, voices tumbling with power, standing under a golden sky and ankle deep in mud and blood; and with them others, silent companions brandishing weapons: whips glittering like diamonds, and humming swords translucent as crystal. For every singer, a warrior, and between them, bonds of power, rivers of power.

  I saw Mary. Mary, as a young woman: blond and sinewy, and dark from the sun. Perched on the edge of a rocky outcropping with the stillness and grace of a hawk. She wore little, a patchwork of leather and steel that formed a flexible armor across her torso and legs. A piece had been cut away above her breastbone, revealing the embedded metallic tattoo.

  Beside her stood a young, brown-haired woman—carrying a baby in a sling. She had solemn, grief-stricken eyes, and her long, cream-colored robes were filthy with blood and mud. One hand covered her baby’s head. A pendant hung between her breasts.

  Marritine, whispered the young woman, as she reached into the air and made a ripping motion with her hand. Marritine, promise he will live.

  He will live, rasped Mary, glancing over her shoulder as screams filled the air somewhere distant behind them. I swear it.

  I swear it.

  I closed my eyes, burning up with those words—with darkness—burning with the light of the armor, tempering the darkness—and slammed my hand against Grant’s chest, above his heart, pouring my strength into his body: a stream of dark light, from my heart to his. His eyes flew open, breath rattling, but I did not stop. I could not.

  I swear it.

  “Maxine,” he rasped.

  Jack cried out again. Mary ran toward the old man, but I did not watch her go. I reached more deeply into the ice coffin, cradling Grant’s head with my left hand. My right stayed on his chest, all the hearts of the boys beating against my palm, in time with my heart. In time with Grant’s.

  “Hey,” I whispered. “Time to sing.”

  Grant frowned, but only for a moment. I felt the curious sensation of something brushing against my mind, sliding around the dark spirit inhabiting my heart. Memories smoldered. Grant closed his eyes, sucking in his breath. Pain creased his brow.

  But when he opened his mouth again, the sound that poured up his throat was not human. Not anything born of thunder, but older, primal, as though some visceral om was clawing its way from his lungs or from the heart of a star. Heat poured off his skin, bleeding through the boys into my soul, and I closed my eyes and watched inside my mind as Grant’s body broke apart in light, becoming light, his voice reaching around the Avatar spark to hold it in a vise.

  I felt Mr. King squirm—only, he was not Mr. King, but countless names and skins—and I saw again the vastness of space, suffered the insurmountable pressure of endless time—until, suddenly, the pressure broke—and I witnessed the Avatar’s first memory of flesh, the sensation of a simple touch so much a miracle, so grounding, that what had been madness settled into hunger, and desire. I felt desire. I felt greed. I felt hate and power. Not mine, but Mr. King’s.

  I felt his loneliness.

  I felt his fear of the vastness of space—and of the vastness within himself.

  I felt his desire to be.

  I felt his terror of Grant and me.

  And in the last moment, I heard him whisper, Our kind are done, we are done, all that we were and created, our worlds and myths, are done, and we are done.

  Labyrinth, take me.

  The finger armor flared white-hot. Grant’s voice twisted.

  And the essence of Mr. King—his immortality—dissolved into nothing but air.

  As, moments later, did we.

  CHAPTER 22

  I woke in darkness, but I was not alone. A heart beat next to mine, light against my shadow, a steady pulse bound to mine, same as mine, linked forever to mine.

  Grant, I said, weary.

  I’m here, he whispered. Rest, Maxine.

  Rest, mumbled Zee.

  Rest, breathed my mother.

  And so I did.

  THE next time I opened my eyes, it was night, and the boys were awake. I was tucked deep under soft flannel blankets, curled against a soft, sagging mattress. The pillow under my head smelled like Grant. Zee cuddled close under the covers, while Raw and Aaz were heavy lumps on top of the bed, behind my knees and against my stomach. All of them, sucking their claws and holding teddy bears and small baseball bats. Popcorn bags and hot-dog cartons littered the bottom of the bed. Dek and Mal hummed the melody to Madonna’s “Live to Tell.”

  I lay very still, savoring the sensation of being alive and home. Home, in Seattle. Home, in the loft. For the first time, more at home here than in my car or a hotel room. I could hear the television in the other room, and low voices; the clank of plates and the creak of hardwood floors. Homey sounds, but alien, too. I felt displaced within the darkness of the room where I lay, cocooned inside an entirely different world.

  Just like my heart. I searched inward, for the darkness, that hungry, raging spirit that was of me and separate—and that had judged Mr. King, terrifying him. I found that dangerous presence as easily as breathing—sleeping within me like a fragment of the abyss. Tucked beside it, a new companion: a small golden rose, coiled and burning. Pulsing in time to my heartbeat.

  Grant, I thought, and heard movement behind me. The mattress sank, and a strong warm hand touched my face.

  “My dear sweet girl,” Jack murmured.

  “Old Wolf,” I whispered, turning to look at him—soaking in the sight of his pale face and glittering eyes, and the faint curve of his smile.

  “So,” he said. “We live again.”

  I searched my memories, but all I could recall was Mr. King’s voice inside my mind and the echo of his death.

  “How did we get here?” I asked, my voice breaking. Zee withdrew a water bottle from under the covers—a bottle I was certain had not been there before—and Jack took it from him, unscrewing the lid and holding it to my lips. Tasted good. Water trickled from the corner of my mouth into the pillow.

  “Slowly,” Jack said quietly. “I brought us home one at a time. We were in Sweden, inside a rich man’s eccentric dream. A private home modeled after some famous hotel made of ice. I believe its owner was killed. I found photographs. He was a fat short man who wore glasses, and had bad taste in suits. I suppose that might sound familiar?”

  It did. “What about . . . that other place? The temple?”

  “A twist in space,” Jack said quietly. “His former prison, where I put him. He could still access it, as he wished. After so many years, I suppose it felt a little like home.”

  A swift pang of regret filled me, then faded. “I’m surprised you’re not sick from transporting so many people.”

  The old man shifted uncomfortably. “Grant . . . gave me energy to feed on.”

  “Ah,” I breathed, remembering the terrible hunger I had seen in his eyes. “You’ve craved that.”

  Jack looked away from me, down at his hands. “There are many shameful things I have not told you. And I know it has been a frustration . . . what you call my riddles. But I love you, if it helps.” He closed his eyes. “I loved your mother.”

  I love you, I told him silently, unable to say the words out loud, afraid of the words, as much as I ached for them. I forced myself to breathe. “Did you do something to my mother that she passed down to me? Did you change us?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack whispered, meeting my gaze with haunted eyes. “But what your grandmother and I shared . . . what Jeannie and I did . . .”

  He stopped. “I regret nothing. I regret nothing.”

  �
��But you’re saying that you should.”

  “There are rules. Like a teacher violating some trust with a student. That is what I did.”

  “My grandmother was no Lolita.”

  “She was a firestorm,” he murmured. “Jeannie.”

  It was the way Jack said it. Part of me was embarrassed to hear the intimacy in his voice when he spoke my grandmother’s name, but I was hungry for it, too. Hungry to know someone had cared for her. Hungry to know my mother had been the recipient of such affection, even from a distance.

  And me. I wanted that love, too. I wanted a grandfather.

  My fingers grazed Jack’s shoulder. He reached back and covered my hand with his. Human hand; pale, dry skin. Nothing alien about him.

  Nothing but the heart, my mother had once said, when I was very young. Bodies break when the heart breaks. Even a dog will die from grief.

  So be strong, she had finished. Don’t grieve for me.

  If she had been alive, I would have called that bullshit to her face. Do not grieve. As if that were weakness. She had probably grieved for her mother as much as I still grieved for her. Only she had never talked about it.

  But Jack grieved. I thought, perhaps, he might grieve her for as long as he lived.

  “Why are you so different?” I asked him, remembering Mr. King in his stolen bodies: angel and human, divine and disgusting; in all those incarnations, rotting on the inside, without compassion or mercy.

  The old man held up his wrinkled hands. “See how transient is the flesh? How it passes from life to death? I have been reborn again and again. I have fallen into the wombs of human mothers, thousands and thousands of mothers—good mothers, bad mothers—from poverty to royalty to divinity—and I have done so without my memories. I have done this with all that I am, hidden from me. Because, if you are going to live as human, then you must live. Surrender yourself to the experience, unconditionally, so that you exist as you were meant to—in the moment, purely yourself, shaped and molded by experiences that are raw as mortality allows. So that when you do remember who you are, you remember humility, as well. Humility and compassion . . . and love.”

  He closed his hands into fists, and shook his head. “He who called himself Mr. King, my brother, never understood that. Never understood that to be a true master of the Divine Organic was to become what we create, in every way. Not simply to ape it, like ghosts within puppets, but instead to learn, and become more.” Bitterness twisted his mouth. “Many still believe as he did. Simply to take and take, and nothing more.”

  And they’ll be coming here next, I thought grimly—though that was all I had time to consider. I heard a distinctive clicking sound outside the bedroom. Heat spread through my heart—my tugging, aching heart—and I struggled to sit up as the door pushed open, and golden lamplight spilled inside.

  Grant limped into the bedroom, pausing briefly on the threshold to stare at me. He was pale, but not packed-on-ice pale, with a healthy look in his eyes that had been missing for days. He leaned hard on his cane, but the rest of him was straight and strong, and even from the bed, I could smell my shampoo on his damp hair. He wore loose black sweats and a dark green sweatshirt. Around his neck hung his mother’s golden pendant.

  He stared, and a rushing warmth moved through me—between us—so strong, so real, I found myself touching the air in front of me, imagining I might find something solid linking our bodies. Grant smiled faintly, and a pulse flowed through my chest—the echo of his heartbeat.

  “Hey,” he said, limping close. “Get back under the covers.”

  A shadow appeared behind him. Mary. White hair wild, and dressed in another kooky dress covered in giant orange cats. Only this time, she wore a wide leather belt, the kind used to support someone’s back while lifting heavy machinery. It looked old-fashioned, perhaps found amongst the machinery in the basement, but it emphasized her slenderness; and the long white cardigan draped over her slender frame like a cloak. It should have been a ridiculous outfit, but on her, it was perfect. She looked like a fighter. I could not explain the difference; it was her posture, maybe, or her eyes: glittering wildly, as though actual lights danced through her pupils. It lent her a crazed intensity that seemed unpredictable as lightning.

  “Bonded now,” she whispered, staring at me. “Rivers golden as the sun.”

  “Bonded,” I echoed, pressing my hand over my heart.

  “Between us,” Grant said, sitting on the edge of the bed. He laid down his cane and leaned in to tug the covers up to my shoulders. Zee peered over the flannel edge, red eyes glowing, while Raw and Aaz tumbled into the man’s lap, dragging their teddy bears behind them as they rubbed their heads against his arm like lethal, razor-armored cats. Dek and Mal chirped a low greeting, which slid into a harmonizing arrangement of Heart’s “Tall, Dark Handsome Stranger.”

  “Golden light,” he went on, searching my gaze as he scratched small necks and chins. “You made a link between us.”

  “It had to be done,” I said, unable to tell if he was displeased, but the moment I spoke, he leaned forward and grabbed the back of my neck—dragging me close, hard against his shoulder and chest. A jolt rode over my skin, and static sparks flashed between us in the darkness. I leaned against him, held so tightly I could hardly breathe. Letting him say everything words could not.

  “You should have died a long time ago, lad,” Jack said quietly. “But you’re strong. You have good instincts. I thought you might not need. . . . someone else. Not for the small things you were using your gift for.”

  “You play too many games,” Grant said. “You should have told me.”

  “What do you mean, he should have died?” I asked Jack—though I knew the answer. I had seen it already. I had felt it, in my gut.

  “Two hearts, stronger than one,” Mary whispered, closing her eyes and placing her hands over her sternum. “Antrea should have told him, too.”

  Grant flinched, touching the pendant hanging from his neck—and I saw in my head that young, brown-haired woman, standing with an equally young, strong Mary.

  His mother. Filthy and covered in blood. Concerned only with his safety.

  Remembering that vision was little easier than recalling a fading dream. I wanted to tell Grant, but I did not know how. Not here. Not yet.

  Jack did not look particularly pleased. “Energy is not available simply when one needs it. If already present, it can be manipulated, altered—but to effect greater changes requires something stronger. And Lightbringers draw from themselves to use their gifts. Draw too much, and they die. So they make bonds,” he said, studying Grant and me. “To draw from others the strength they need.”

  “Can you break the link?” Grant asked. “Jack. Will this hurt her?”

  “You need me,” I protested.

  “I don’t know,” said the old man. “There is no precedent for your bond, no way to know how it will affect you both. Lightbringers always attached themselves to humans. And Maxine . . . is not normal.”

  I pinched Grant’s side. “Maxine is right here.”

  Mary made a slow choking sound, carefully pushing back her sleeves to stare at the fresh scars on her arms. “Not normal. Right here.” She closed her eyes, and whispered, “I remember death. I was sharp. Sharpest of my sisters. We protected. We killed.”

  Assassin, I thought, remembering what Mr. King had called her. Recalling, with perfect clarity, all he had said. About Jack, too.

  I did not look at the old man. I felt the pendant between Grant and me and stared into his eyes. Found him staring back. He carefully brushed a strand of hair from my face and leaned in to kiss my mouth.

  And then he turned, ever so slightly, and gave Jack a warning look. “Is there more you haven’t told us?”

  “Yes,” replied the old man, but he sounded distracted as he stared at Mary, an edge of melancholy in his voice, and something deeper: real grief, and uneasiness. I did not think it had anything to do with us—not in that moment. Instead, it felt as th
ough some notion had just occurred to him, a memory, something terrible. I studied him, seated so still in the shadows on the edge of the bed: my grandfather, afraid to move, lost in thought.

  “Old Wolf,” I whispered. “What is it?”

  “I hated him,” Jack said quietly, with both wonderment and grief in his voice. “He who was Mr. King, and my brother. But he was one of us, and I knew him as long as I have known myself. We have no other children. We cannot make children in our true forms. When one of us dies, there is nothing left. And we feel it, in ourselves. We feel it as though we are missing pieces, and the ache will never leave us. It will dull, but never die.” A grim, bitter smile touched his mouth; ghastly, more like a grimace. “I suppose absence becomes another kind of immortality.”

  “I thought you wanted him dead,” Grant said.

  “I did,” Jack replied. “But there’s always a price.”

  “Others will come,” Zee rasped, peering over the covers. Raw and Aaz sat up, as well, rubbing their eyes. “Meddling Man. Even now they feel what you feel.”

  I pulled the pillow over my head. “Rock and a hard place. If we hadn’t gotten rid of Mr. King, he would have destroyed us.”

  “And now that we’ve destroyed him,” Grant said, “all we’ve done is buy ourselves time.”

  Time. Time for the prison veil. Time for Avatars. Time to live, time to fight, time to die.

  Zee grabbed my hand, peering into my eyes. “We are strong,” he whispered, as Dek and Mal rumbled with purrs. “Sweet Maxine. We are strong.”

  Strong as our hearts will let us be, my mother had once said. Grant took my other hand, pressing his lips to my palm, but it was less a kiss than a benediction.

  “Again, we are remade,” Jack murmured.

  I heard footsteps approaching the bedroom, and Zee ducked under the covers. Raw and Aaz vanished. Byron appeared, just outside the door. Backlit by the golden light of the living room, slender and silent, he seemed more like a ghost made of shadows than a boy. But his eyes glittered, and he looked at me and no one else, and when I smiled there was no smile given in return, but his gaze was solemn and old, and unflinching.