by Brea Viragh
“There are some secrets a man keeps to himself on the first date.”
She barely reacted, but he saw a muscle clench in her jaw.
“One of the tales he found was the creation of a wall between this world, earth, and some sort of ancient wellspring of magic. Being a curious and intrepid fellow, Morpheus set out to gather whatever information he could on the subject, leading to little but rumors and dead ends over the years. Until a tablet appeared. Enter present day Morgan Gauthier and his archeological connections.”
“Now we’re talking.” Karsia busied herself with her bread and tried not to wring his neck in her impatience.
“While much of the Cyrillic script etched into the stone remains a mystery, one part was translated immediately. A location spell. And to where, you ask? The original creators of the stone dubbed it the Telos Amyet.” Morgan took a moment to let the information sink in before continuing. “According to lore, the stone appears in times of need and has the singular ability to determine what lies in the hearts of men and grants them phenomenal power. From what I’ve managed to translate, around 1200 AD, two came by choice to find the stone. Their fate was sealed. The Telos Amyet placed one for good and one for evil, locked in an immortal embrace and tasked to forever keep the balance between the worlds. A physical manifestation of the barrier.”
“I’m familiar with that part of the legend,” Karsia said. “I need to know how to reverse it.”
“Assuming it’s real, of course.”
She grinned. “Of course.”
“I’m not sure there is a way,” Morgan admitted slowly. He glanced up and thanked the server when their food arrived. The steaming baked flounder beckoned him with smoky goodness, and it took every ounce of restraint and manners he possessed to let Karsia take the first bite from her own dish.
“No,” she said, swallowing hard, the food like ashes in her mouth. “There has to be a way. Does the tale say anything about what happens if the veil wears out? If there have to be two new and not-necessarily-willing people to seek the stone and keep the balance?”
“I would have to go back and read the texts again. Off the top of my head, I would say none of it’s true.”
Karsia grasped her fork until it screeched across the plate. “You know better.”
Morgan stared at her. “What happened to you?” He closed the distance and steadied her long, narrow hand in his. She felt too delicate, as though if he squeezed too hard, she’d fragment into a million pieces. “What happened to make you so afraid?”
“I’m not afraid. I’m damned.”
Instead of condemning her or writing her off, Morgan retained his grip on her. “Talk to me. What’s really going on?”
“Maybe it was the girl’s choice,” she began, telling a story of her own. “The girl knew the consequences when she started and knew there was always a possibility that things would not end in her favor. It came for them. The One Who Walks in Darkness. It whispered in the night, made them do things, horrible things. They sought it out, needing a way to stop her before she devoured their souls.”
“She?”
Karsia continued as though he hadn’t interrupted. “Darkness wanted one of them, wanted the girl’s sister. She failed the first time but instead of backing down, she became stronger. She came for them a second time. The girl was terrified it would take them all.”
“What did the girl do?” Morgan prompted.
Karsia ripped her hand away from his. “She jumped in front of the blast meant for her sister and sacrificed herself.”
CHAPTER 5
Morgan felt bad for her. This sweet, innocent woman with no clear concept of the horror she was up against, falling on the sword in place of her sister. He didn’t know the exact circumstances of the sacrifice, but something about Karsia made it impossible not to feel moved.
“Is there anything else you can say about what happened? Please, if you can. Give me a little more background on this story,” he said, burying his reaction in his plate of flounder. He had a feeling Karsia would not appreciate his sympathy.
“No. I’m not ready to tell you the rest. I just have to find a way to reverse what was done.” Unconsciously, Karsia raised a hand to her heart, rubbing. “To get the darkness out of me before I’m consumed. I may tell you differently but know that I’m not ready to become the veil. I’m not ready to leave my family and give up my life.”
“Not even so the rest of the world can avoid the chaos of the leaking rogue magic?”
“My sisters and I will find a way. Trust me. I can’t help them if I’m worried about what I will do. I hurt people,” she insisted.
“Like I said before, I’m going to need some time.”
“But you’ll help me? Us?”
“I’ll do what I can. I can’t promise you more.” Already picking up on the death threat in her eyes, Morgan remained calm and took another sip of his wine. “And please remember this does not in any way mean I’ll abandon you in this venture. In fact, I’m fascinated.”
“I’m glad one of us is excited,” Karsia grumbled.
He grinned over the rim of his glass. “It means I get to spend more time with you.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“I don’t know you very well, true. We still have an opportunity to change that. We have good food, and the restaurant isn’t crowded. There’s enough time to sit and get to know each other. It will be good,” he clarified, “for my research.”
“Why don’t you start?” Karsia countered. She picked up her fork and stabbed her entree with it. The grin she sent him was pure evil. He would have been afraid if not for the tiny spark of amusement he recognized on her face. “It will take my mind off of the desire to beat you to a bloody pulp.”
“I’m okay with that—the going first, not the beating—although there isn’t much to say about me. I’m a simple man with simple needs and desires.” Not true in the least, but it wouldn’t do to scare her off immediately. He had to draw her in first before the big reveal. “I enjoy reading—”
“Pass.”
“Walking by the lake—”
“Pass, too. The sequel.”
“And damsels in distress. Like I said, simple desires.”
Something about the way he spoke let Karsia know exactly what he desired at the moment.
“How do you like the veal?” he asked her instead. Innocent as a thief with a satchel full of stolen goods.
She hadn’t touched much of it, succeeding only in pushing it around her plate until it presented a different appearance. “It’s fine.”
“I love to cook,” he admitted. “It was a close second-choice, beyond my love for mythology and history.” Indeed, during the first few years of his life, Morgan hated the occupation destiny and parentage had laid out for him, dreaming instead of creating fantastical dishes fit for the gods. “Turns out I can’t cook. At all. I can’t boil water without burning it.”
“Burning water?” she asked.
“Or melting a hole in the bottom of the pan.”
His father had always insisted there were people to cook for them, lesser gods and humans, bastard offspring begging for a chance to please. Morgan never understood.
“I’ve heard men make better chefs than women, so I can’t imagine how you can burn water.” She quirked a brow.
Morgan found her casual rudeness charming, and if he wasn’t mistaken, this was her attempt at a joke.
He continued with his story. “My father was decent enough to try a bowl of beef and barley soup I attempted to make one afternoon using pretty much any ingredient I could get my hands on with reckless abandon. Needless to say, the pile of slop I came up with was unappetizing and quite sufficient to make anyone in the same room sick to their stomach from the smell.”
He remembered the day, down to the exact look on Hypnos’s face. His hundreds of brothers and sisters had run from the room, claiming they were on the verge of vomiting. Morgan had been admonished thoroughly and told if he were to
ever try that blasphemy again, he would be expelled from Olympus faster than he could blink. The threat stuck with him and he hadn’t cooked anything complex since.
He saw Karsia relax with the hint of a grin playing around her lips. “You don’t say?”
“The incident pretty much ended my cooking career. I gave it up to pursue more academic pursuits. My mother,” he told her, “was a wonderful woman. She assured me I could be whatever I wanted. She encouraged me to follow my passions.”
“Academia seems to suit you better.”
Her casual observance pleased him. Morgan enjoyed knowing she thought of him as more than a means to an end, even if she’d never admit it. If embarrassing stories from his youth brought a hint of her beatific smile, then he would indulge her.
“Thank you. I appreciate the observation. I still dabble in cooking now and then but the results are usually the same. Garbage, pure and simple.”
Karsia speared a piece of meat and chewed. Loudly. “Remind me to never let you cook dinner for me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I want you to like me, and the surest way to turn you off is through meal preparation. Which is why I come here more often than not. I’m afraid to say…I’m a regular.” He leaned in close for the whispered confession, catching a whiff of her in the process. She smelled of something sweet and light and feminine. It called to him.
“The food is good here,” she admitted grudgingly. “Some of the best Italian I’ve had in a while.”
“Oh yeah? That’s great!” Her positive divulgence stunned him and he jumped on the topic like a dog on a bone. “Do you usually like Italian food?”
As quickly as she’d opened up, the gates slammed shut. “No.”
He shook his head and worried at his bottom lip. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Close yourself off. I’m trying not to take it personally, but I’ll admit to a sentimental streak,” he said. “I like knowing you care about what I say and vice versa. I was trying to ask you a simple question.”
“And I didn’t want to answer. Now move on.” She let her hands drop to the tabletop.
Morgan could not help himself. “You have the most amazing eyes.”
The compliment took her by surprise. “Excuse me?”
“I couldn’t help but notice the unusual color. They’re almost black if you just glance, but looking closely I can see there are deep navy-blue swirls around the retina. With flecks of gold like stars in the night sky. Your eyes…they’re very pretty.”
Karsia tilted her head away from him and a flush rose from the collar of her shirt, her temper ticking like a bomb. “You can stop making fun of me now. They aren’t what they used to be and I’m well aware of the change, thank you very much. I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I know only demons have black eyes. And that’s what I’ve become. Nothing but a dirty thing meant for destruction.”
Morgan looked at her and twitched his nose to orient himself. “Hold on a minute.” He clasped his fingers to hers a second time and tried to keep her there, keep her from running when she clearly wanted to, ready to bolt.
She stared down at where his fingers gripped hers, and heat rose, heat so intense that whiffs of smoke rose from his skin. Morgan held tight despite the pain and directed his attention elsewhere. Fingertips could be replaced.
“If you know what’s good for you, you will let go of me. Before I do something worse than third-degree burns.”
“I’m not letting you leave like this.”
Karsia tried to free herself from his surprisingly strong grip and found the task more difficult than she would have thought. Eventually, she managed to tug her hand away, wiping it on the fabric of her pants.
“I think our time is done here, Mr. Gauthier.”
The eyes he had admired moments before were granite-hard as she shot him a furious glance.
“I’m sorry. No.” He took his time returning his hands to his lap while carefully restoring his form to perfection. The third-degree burns on his wrist melted away until he once more presented smooth, unblemished skin. “How about you stay and we continue our conversation like adults?”
“I don’t think so.” Giving in to her irritation, Karsia grabbed her untouched glass of wine and downed it in a single gulp. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, swung into her coat with one hand, and shoved her arms through. “Don’t contact me until you have more information about the legend,” she told him. “Otherwise, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you. No more getting to know you bullshit. This dinner was a mistake. A bad mistake.”
“It wasn’t a mistake. And you need to give me time to get your information,” he called after her.
“Then I’ll find you!”
Karsia gave in to the dark feelings inside and slammed the door behind her, leaving Morgan with the check for dinner and more questions than answers. She struggled to bring her breathing back to normal and close off the violent energy she felt spiking within her. Deep, calming breaths. Once, she would have loved the wine and conversation, dug into both eagerly without worry of what she would do.
She wanted to be herself again. To enjoy the back and forth of flirting with the geek.
With the incredibly sexy geek.
Instead, she was too livid, too embarrassed by her own actions to do anything except walk away. Didn’t it figure? The one time she found a spark of connection with a man, an honest to goodness spark, and there was not a damn thing she could do about it.
The perfunctory getting-to-know-you conversations should have been enjoyable. Not tedious. Not an exercise in control.
“He had no right,” she muttered to herself. “No right to pry into my life like he has some kind of vested interest. He’s a damn stranger. He’s only interested in me for my tits and what’s between my legs.” It was obvious, although she couldn’t read him. Morgan was a man, after all. With her ability to sense emotions, to read dark thoughts, she knew most men were alike. She stomped down the street, sending a nasty look at a passing couple. “What the hell are you two looking at?”
The constant assault of evil on her senses, the negativity swelling and churning beneath the surface every day caused the tenuous grasp on her willpower to slip inch by inch until the bad feelings she fought against took hold.
She smacked her temples, feeling nothing. “Get out of me!” she screeched, running her nails over her skin and drawing blood to the surface. She ignored the curious looks from strangers. “I don’t want to!” The last words were forced, not hers, but Darkness rising in a wave to swallow any good intentions she had.
Her sisters claimed The One Who Walks in Darkness, once a flesh and blood woman intent on finding a way to save her people from rogue magic, had spoken to them inside their heads. Karsia experienced no such thing. The only voice in her mind was her own, and yet not her own. It whispered to her of the terrible sins of mankind. The things she herself was capable of doing if she would let go—let go and accept who she was and what she was meant to be.
Accept the power at her fingertips.
An ordinary person would have gone insane from the constant barrage of negative input coming from inside. Instead, Karsia went on the warpath.
She walked the streets of Kenosha and dared anyone to get in her way. Wished they would so she could retaliate. It was the only time she found relief.
On the street corner, a bundle of rags moved, held out a wrinkled hand for any bit of spare change. Karsia eyed the appendage and conjured a bunch of leaves meant to look like hundred-dollar bills. She handed them to the man and watched his expression change from despair to delight. Then a swarm of red ants emerged from the greenery to nip and bite his hand.
She continued down the frozen concrete sidewalk, listening to the agonized squeals and screams of the beggar. The ants would nibble their way along his wrist and up his arm until they reached the meatier parts of his anatomy, and she relished the though
t of the agony it would cause. A small thing did so much in the long run.
Eventually, she picked up the pace, running instead of walking, pushing her body until she reached the outskirts of town. No matter how far or how fast, she heard the taunting of those malicious thoughts beating against the inside of her skull. It was much worse than having Darkness speaking to her. This she couldn’t outrun, couldn’t hide from or ignore. Like it or not, it was a part of her.
Karsia screamed, her feet pounding the pavement. Her breath rushed out in a great white gasp then back into her lungs like shards of ice. Magic flowed out of her unbidden and nothing she did stopped the stream. It was a product of everything she’d tried to control and couldn’t. Muscles clenched under the strain yet she kept on, power exploding outward in a tsunami.
Cows lowed in a nearby field and milled around in panic as she passed. Animals recognized great forces at work, understood the energies of the world naturally, and saw the tide of evil passing.
A second scream, another wave of power, and the grass fermenting in one of seven stomachs began to grow, coiling around organs until a single bull collapsed, killed from the inside out. Others fell alongside their brethren while some made a mad dash for freedom.
Karsia ran until she could no longer force her body to work. Until her knees quaked and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. She fell and grasped at the ground, leaving long claw marks in the asphalt of the country road.
“I didn’t want to. I’m sorry!” she ground out, forcing her throat to form the words. Darkness leaked out of her like icy tendrils ready to spread evil through the world. Birds punctuating the telephone wires dropped like fat black raindrops and splattered on the ground. Any remaining wildlife in the area fell lifeless, the seeds and grass in their bellies exploding until fur and feathers littered the air.
The world stilled around her until even the wind refused to blow. Her mind felt sluggish. Her stomach roiled. “Please,” she begged, with tears blurring her eyesight. “I don’t want to do this.”
CHAPTER 6
