Five: Out of the Dark

by Anderson, Holli

  “Alec?” Johnathan said.

  I glared at Joe.

  “Alec, come on, this isn’t funny,” I said.

  Still nothing. I started picturing him floating in a sea of nothingness; my heart pounded in my ears and I thought I was going to throw up. I crouched down and put my head between my knees, trying not to hyperventilate.

  Laughter came from the unexplored tunnel next to the bathroom tunnel—Alec’s annoying laughter. I’d never heard a more wonderful or infuriating sound before in my life.

  “Not funny, Alec,” I said when his maddening face peaked out from the darker shadows of the tunnel.

  Johnathan’s eyes flashed yellow-gold and he let out a deep growl as he spun around and stomped to the entrance of the cave. He pulled deep gulps of air into his lungs as he worked to calm down.

  I glared at Alec. He shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands in a gesture of innocence.

  That night, as we ate dinner from the cached supplies, we decided on where we wanted to go. We would start out for Moab, Utah the next morning—a place where vegetation is sparse and hiding places abundant.

  e divvied up the freeze-dried packages of food, filled our water bottles, and started out on our long trip early the next morning. I don’t think we could even officially call it morning, as the sun hadn’t yet begun to peek over the eastern horizon.

  We were all unhappy with the fact we would have to trek the entire way to southern Utah, but Joe had good reasons. None of us, including the amazing Alec, were strong enough to portal that great a distance—not to mention the fact that Joe was the only one who’d ever even been there before, and his powers were weakening by the minute. There was also the worry that Brone would be able to easier track us if we used powerful magic, even in a semi-desolate place.

  Joe thought it would be good for us anyway; we could train as we traveled and maybe even thwart some new forms of evil along the way.

  Johnathan kept his distance, not only from me, but from everyone. If I hadn’t already been absolutely sure about risking everything to cure him, I was now—after seeing his depression deepen as the anger inside him took over. His eyes flared yellow-gold over little, insignificant things. I could see it was becoming harder and harder for him to control his wild emotions.

  I wanted so badly to go to him and comfort him somehow—knowing my comfort would only make things worse was hard to take. So, I stayed as far away from him as our situation would allow. I watched in misery as the others distanced themselves from him, too.

  Joe couldn’t help but notice the changing atmosphere. He pulled me aside one day when we’d been on the move for about a week.

  “What’s going on with Johnathan, really? And don’t tell me it’s just claustrophobia.”

  We all knew we’d have to tell Joe sooner or later about Johnathan’s affliction—sooner, now, because it was almost time for a full moon.

  I refused to look at him as I explained. “He was bitten by a changeling and he now turns into a lycanthropic beast with every full moon.”

  Joe’s silence caused me to look up at him. His face had turned gray as ash. He swallowed.

  “How—how has he not killed you all?” Joe’s voice came out as a near squeak. “Please tell me he hasn’t tasted human blood, please.”

  “No, he hasn’t tasted human blood. We’ve locked him in a pentacle each time.”

  “I should have guessed,” Joe whispered. “His eyes—the yellow when he’s angry. It makes sense now.”

  I didn’t tell him how the next time would be different. How it would be the last.

  As the time of the full moon drew nearer, we walked on eggshells around Johnathan. Maybe the volatility of his emotions was worse this time because he couldn’t take off on one of his solo clear-the-head, nighttime treks like he had when we were in Seattle. Or, maybe the beast inside was just becoming stronger, fighting for release, furious it hadn’t been able to sate its lust for human flesh, its need for violence, its desire to cause mayhem and sorrow. The tension was unbearable. I couldn’t wait for the full moon to rise and for this torment to end one way or another.

  Johnathan surprised me one day as we traversed across the Nevada border from southern Idaho. I was walking, lost in my own thoughts, and was startled when someone grabbed my arm. I started to jerk it away as I turned to see who it was. My eyes met Johnathan’s. His face was flushed and he breathed heavily.

  “Can we talk for a minute?” he pleaded.

  My heart leapt into my throat and my pulse quickened. The desperation in his eyes broke my heart. “Sure.”

  He kept his hand on my arm and led me back away from the others. We were in a desolate area with low-rising mountains flecked with occasional juniper trees. The temperatures were starting to dip, especially at night when I was thankful for the warmth of a good old-fashioned fire or a magically warmed stone next to my rocky bed. We dropped back from the group, and he removed his hand from my arm.

  “I think I’m going crazy. I can’t sleep, and when I do, I dream of ripping the flesh off of … off of … people.” His hesitation led me to believe his dreams were of me, Halli, Seth and Alec. “I feel like the wolf is taking over—or trying to, at least. Paige, I don’t know what to do. I think I need to leave, so I don’t hurt someone.”

  Panic reared its head and I stopped walking. I grabbed his arm this time and he wheeled around so fast I took a step back.

  “No, you can’t go. You can’t, because then you will hurt someone. You have to stay where we can lock you in the pentacle. You know you can’t leave. You can fight this, please, just hang on for one more time. Things will get better, I promise!” I was desperate to convince him to stay.

  His eyes downcast, he shook his head sadly. “How can you promise that? Things have only gotten worse. The desires are stronger than ever. I can hardly stand to be anywhere near you. When I see you sleeping, the urge to … to … take you, to kiss you … and … and … more … is so strong that I can’t bear it. It scares me, Paige. Sometimes the urges are to just hurt you or someone else … like I need to see … to taste … blood and flesh. To feel bones breaking between my jaws, flesh ripping in my teeth.”

  His eyes flashed the terrifying yellow-gold. His pupils constricted, nearly disappearing in the yellow.

  I swallowed hard. I had to force myself not to back away from him. I was scared, but I didn’t want him to see that. “I know it will get better. You have to trust me.” I couldn’t tell him my plan; he would leave for sure if he knew the danger I was planning to put myself in.

  “I want to trust you.” His nostrils flared. “I can smell your fear. I can hear your heart racing, pushing the blood through your veins faster, stronger—readying your body to flee from the danger I am. The flush of your skin as the blood pumps faster … all of these things turn me on … turn the monster on.” He reached for me, and I let him.

  He won’t hurt me. There’s enough of my Johnathan left in him that he won’t hurt me.

  He grabbed my upper arms and pulled me close to him, our chests touching, our hips touching. I held my breath and lowered my eyes from his. His hands left my arms and traveled to my face with impossible speed. The heat of his hands on my cheeks gave the feeling of standing in the middle of a flame. He lowered his head until his forehead touched mine; he was scorching hot. My pulse quickened to an unbelievable rate, my chest felt ready to explode. Oh, how I hoped he would kiss me—and oh, how I prayed he wouldn’t, not like this, not when he wasn’t entirely himself. I didn’t think he could stop at a kiss, and I knew I didn’t want anything more than a kiss.

  His breaths came in quick little bursts of heat on my face. His hands trembled, the muscles in his arms twitched.

  “Paige.” A tortured whisper.

  “I know you’re strong enough to fight this. Just hold on, please. Trust me,” I whispered back. I brought my hands up to his forearms and rested them there, not trying to pull his hands away from my face, just giving him support with my
touch.

  He took a shuddering breath in just as I exhaled. His hands tightened on my face and he tilted my head up, our noses smashed together now. A desperate growl sounded deep in his throat. Our lips were mere millimeters apart.

  “Johnathan, stop.”

  His long, beautiful eyelashes brushed against my skin as he closed his eyes. His hands tightened once more, his forehead pressed harder to mine for just a second before he gained control and released me. I stayed where I was, afraid to move, afraid any action on my part would provoke the beast. Johnathan stepped slowly away, and then he started running—away from me, away from our friends—into the surrounding hills.

  The others saw or heard him take off and stopped walking. Halli came toward me as I stood, shaking, willing the tears not to fall.

  “What happened?” she asked, her face full of concern.

  “He … almost lost control. He has to come back … he has to. I can fix this if he comes back,” my voice rose with a note of hysteria.

  “He’ll come back. He just needs to cool off. Don’t worry; he’ll come back, Paige.”

  Joe heard her words as he walked toward us. “She’s right. The Five are connected in ways no one understands. He’ll be back soon. The connection is stronger than the monster he’s fighting. We’ll stop here for the night; my bet is he’ll be back by morning.”

  He was almost right. We broke camp after a somber breakfast. Johnathan joined us again just before lunch. He didn’t say a word to any of us, and he stayed at least twenty yards behind us. I was just overjoyed that he was there. Only a couple more days remained until the full moon according to Seth’s calculations—and his calculations were always right. Two more days.

  The night the full moon was set to rise, we made camp early, then ate a nervous and quiet dinner around the warmth-giving campfire. We were far enough from civilization that we couldn’t even see the flickering of lights. The only indication that we were still on the same planet as other people was the occasional lights of an airplane passing far over our heads.

  Halli and I shared more than one meaningful look as we prepared the pentacle for Johnathan. She knew most of my plan for this night and she gave me her full support. We finished drawing the pentacle in the dirt and watched as Alec and Seth prepared Johnathan’s hands with the spell-bound duct tape. No one spoke. Not even Alec.

  Johnathan’s eyes were downcast as he walked slowly to the circle. He entered it earlier this time, to avoid the fiasco that ensued last time, when we were almost too late in closing it. Halli and I gave each other one last look before each of us pricked a finger. As Halli leaned down to touch her blood to the circle I stepped inside with Johnathan, bent and touched the circle at the same time as Halli and we willed it closed before anyone could stop us.

  “Paige! What are you doing?” yelled … well … everyone except Halli.

  “I know what I’m doing. Everyone relax.”

  An eerie calmness came over me.

  “Halli, break the circle now,” Joe ordered.

  “No, Joe. I won’t. I can’t anyway; we both closed it and it’ll take us both to break it.”

  Joe, Alec and Seth continued to plead. I had to yell to be heard. “Everyone stop talking! I know how to help Johnathan. I need you all to be quiet so I can concentrate. There is no way you’re talking me out of this, so you might as well just sit down and relax—it’s going to be a long night.”

  Joe turned and stomped away. His hands were clenched into tight fists, held stiff at his sides.

  I realized then that Johnathan hadn’t said anything. I looked up into his eyes. They were filled with terror and hurt.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “How could you do this? Please, I’m begging you, get out. I’ll kill you and you know it. How could I possibly live with that? You’re killing both of us …”

  “Do you trust me?” My voice was steadier than I ever imagined possible in all the times I pictured this moment.

  “I do trust you, Paige. Please …”

  I touched a finger to his quivering lips. “I’m going to fix this. I know what I’m doing. Please trust me and do as I say.”

  He closed his eyes and nodded.

  The time neared. I could see the ripples begin under Johnathan’s skin just before the sun was to fall below the horizon.

  “Put your arms around my waist.”

  He lifted his bound hands over my head and let them fall. I tuned out all else around us. Only Johnathan and I existed in this world. I felt his trembling mass of duct tape and hands on the small of my back.

  “Paige, this is too dangerous. I could never forgive myself if I hurt you.”

  “Trust me,” I said.

  I turned within the circle of his arms so my back was against his chest. I spoke a word and gestured at the tape that bound his hands and wrists—the tape fell away.

  “Paige, no!” His entire body shook.

  “Trust me,” I repeated.

  He took a deep breath and nodded as I turned back to face him.

  I placed my hands on his face. “I’m going to lock gazes with you now—a soul-gaze. Don’t break that gaze no matter what. Wait for me to break it—no matter what. Do you understand?”

  He nodded, his face flushed and sweaty with the effort of not killing me.

  I looked into his brown-golden-yellow eyes, and locked gazes with him as the sun dropped beneath the horizon.

  Dizziness and disorientation threatened to break my concentration. I felt his arms tighten around my waist as the gaze caught hold.

  Time meant nothing while locked in the gaze. At first, I was lost in Johnathan’s memories—those things he never talked about, never told any of us about, the reason he’d left his family and hid in the Underground. The scenes played like a movie in my mind, but more real. I felt simultaneously like it was happening in front of me and to me. Like I was both Paige and Johnathan at the same time.

  The sun was high. The warm air felt like spring. There were blossoms on the trees in the large backyard. A middle-aged woman, John’s mom, was digging in a garden, smiling and humming as she worked. Two young girls, his sisters, played on a swing-set and ran in and out of the playhouse connected to it.

  “Johnathan, come swing us!” the younger of the two yelled—Emma was her name. She was four. I rode along in Johnathan’s mind, a passenger along for the ride as his deepest secrets were sliced open.

  “Okay, Emma-bug, hang on tight!” The voice was Johnathan’s, but seemed to come from all around me—from me.

  He/we pushed the two girls high into the air. Their giggles made John laugh.

  “Wanna see something cool I can do?” John whispered to his sisters with a glance at his mom to make sure she was still busy in the garden.

  “Yes!” came the enthusiastic reply accompanied by clapping hands.

  “Okay, watch this rock.” John placed a golf-ball-sized rock in the palm of his hand. He concentrated on it, his back to his mom. The rock started to levitate and spin. His sisters oohed and ahhed. “Keep watching, it gets better,” he said.

  The levitating spinning rock began to glow with blue light.

  Then two things happened almost at once. John’s mom screamed, “Johnathan! What on earth …” and Johnathan lost his deep concentration. A burst of magic erupted from his hand, and the rock, along with a fiery bolt of yellow flame, soared into his sisters. The girls flew backwards, stopping only when their fragile bodies slammed into the shed.

  Johnathan raced to them, his mother right behind him. But it was too late. They were dead. Emma and Linzee lay in a heap at John’s feet. He threw himself to the ground next to their burned and broken bodies. The anguish that erupted from him was more than I could bear—it was a visceral, real pain that knocked the breath out of him. His, and my, chest tightened and we couldn’t breathe. It was physical and emotional and psychological, paralyzing in its intensity.

  I almost broke the gaze, but I managed to gain control and force us in
another direction at the last second.

  The disorientation subsided. I knew I needed to find the Demon-tainted area of Johnathan’s mind, so I began sifting through his memories and his feelings to find it. I couldn’t help but linger in spots that showed his feelings for me. His love for me was deep and strong—it looked like a thick cord woven of shiny silver that connected his soul to mine. The warmth that flooded over me came from him and his feelings for me. I knew he could feel my love as well. Nothing was hidden in a soul-gaze.

  I continued my search for the foul contamination that gave the beast its presence in Johnathan’s soul. I knew when I’d found it. An area of penetrating darkness surrounded the center of his being. It reached out from his core with black tentacles, growing to touch every other part of him. It touched every recent memory of which I was a part with thick tendrils that pulsed with lust and violence. I felt guilt at all the petty remarks I’d made and the many breaks in my promises to stay away from him. I now knew the strength it had taken for him to control himself and what a precarious cliff that control was balanced upon. I pulled myself away from those thoughts so I could concentrate on the task at hand. Destroying the darkness.

  Okay, this is where the information from Shalbriri comes in. I sure hope the Demon knew what it was talking about.

  I wasted no time because I had no idea how much time I had. I’d read that time had little meaning when trapped in a soul-gaze; a second felt like an eternity and an eternity could seem like less than a second.

  I used the words provided me by the Demon. “Lupinus inficio I command that you come to me to battle for the soul of this human you inhabit. This command I make with the authority of a mage, more powerful than the likes of you.”

  Shalbriri said this would challenge the entity leaching Johnathan’s soul. Like a dare to a sixth-grade boy, it wouldn’t be able to resist.

  He was right. The specter of evil formed itself into a wolf-head shape, and snarled—a ghastly sound that had the ring of many voices calling out as one. I could feel how much it wanted to tear into me. The tentacles that were wrapped around Johnathan’s feelings for me snapped free and came for me, having been denied for so long. It’s hard to explain what was going on. I knew my body was safe for the time being and that all these things were happening on another plane. My brain convinced itself that my body was there, battling against the evil—so what was really a battle of mind and soul seemed like a physical battle.