Token of Darkness

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Cooper rubbed the back of his neck anxiously. “I feel insane even talking about it.”

  Ryan took a slow breath. “Cooper. I don’t care if you’re insane. Often the mad have powers the rest of us can hardly comprehend. That being said, I sensed something out on that doorstep. You called it a ghost. Such creatures, as popular media has portrayed them, do not exist, but there are plenty of other beings in this world who might imitate a person for their own reasons. Most of them aren’t friendly, and many of them can kill a human being through their sheer presence. So I’ll repeat the question. What’s going on?”

  Cooper visibly bristled, his spine straightening and his expression cooling. “Samantha is a person, and she would never hurt me.”

  Brent realized he probably hadn’t adequately prepared Cooper for Ryan’s style. Then again, there probably was no way to prepare someone for Ryan le Coire.

  “All right,” Ryan answered. “Then you’re all set. No problem. You can show yourself out.”

  “Brent … ?” Cooper said, imploring him to help.

  Brent would have liked to say, Don’t drag me into this, but he was the one who had brought Cooper here in the first place.

  “Just tell Ryan what’s going on,” he said instead. “He can probably help, but only if you bother to make an effort.”

  Cooper obviously had to bite back a rude retort before he said, “Fine. I’ve been seeing a ghost. Her name’s Samantha. She doesn’t remember who she was, but she looks around my age and seems local.”

  Brent noticed that Ryan hadn’t written a thing down yet, and knew that meant that so far, Cooper hadn’t said anything Ryan thought mattered.

  “When did you first see her?”

  Cooper tensed. Brent took a deep breath, now glad the powers in the house shielded him from Cooper’s thoughts.

  “A few months ago,” Cooper answered.

  “Anything particular happen then?”

  This time, when Cooper froze, Brent took pity on him. “He was in a car accident. A nasty one.”

  “How nasty?”

  Cooper swallowed heavily before saying, “It was a close call for me. Other people died.” He added quickly, “Two men. No one who was killed was anything like Samantha.”

  Ryan nodded slightly. “Anything else unusual since the accident?”

  “Like what?” Cooper asked nervously.

  Brent rested his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes. Ryan would get Cooper to the answer eventually.

  “Okay, fine,” Cooper admitted. “I sometimes … I don’t know how to describe it. Sometimes something happens, and people around me … I don’t know what happens. Brent, can you help me out? You have more experience with this stuff.”

  Brent thought back, trying to remember exactly how he felt when Cooper had panicked in the library and seemed to throw him across the room. Instead of describing the sensations out loud, though, he put them together like a package, focusing until they became clear enough for Ryan to pick up on them.

  He knew when Ryan had, because his eyes widened, and he said, “Well, that’s more interesting than Cooper’s … ghost, and might be the beginning of an explanation.”

  “What?” Cooper asked.

  Ryan didn’t bother to explain, just said bluntly, “I need to know more about the accident.”

  “I don’t remember most of it,” Cooper said softly. “I was driving. Then I woke up in the hospital.”

  “Any dreams?”

  Brent winced, as something from Cooper’s mind got past le Coire’s shields. “Ryan—” he started to protest, but Ryan cut him off with a sharp look.

  “You do remember the accident,” Ryan said. “You’re just too afraid to admit it. And I would bet you remember more, from when you were unconscious in the hospital.”

  “I never said I was unconscious.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” Ryan replied, standing to walk around the desk. “You said it was a close call. You would have been out for a while. What did you see then?”

  “I don’t remember!” Cooper snapped.

  “Ryan!” Brent shouted, this time more assertively.

  Cooper had taken a step back.

  “Were you the one driving?” Ryan asked, glancing at the notebook in his hand as he closed the distance between them again. “More important, were you the one who caused the accident?”

  Cooper lifted his hands to push Ryan away. Brent tried to slam into place every mental shield he had, not wanting to experience this aspect of Cooper’s power again.

  Ryan caught Cooper’s wrists. The instant they touched, the air gave a concussive shudder, and Cooper wobbled, stumbling back; Brent jumped up to stabilize him, while Ryan jotted something down in his notebook.

  As Brent deposited a semiconscious Cooper on the couch, Ryan leaned back on the desk, and said, “That was pretty much what I expected.”

  “What … wha—” Cooper opened his eyes, and his mumbled question was replaced by a wheezing gasp and a wash of fear so strong it knocked Brent to his knees despite Ryan’s magic. Cooper’s face was pale and his lips looked blue.

  Brent was concerned the former football player was about to pass out until Ryan stepped forward with a sigh. He fearlessly touched Cooper’s shoulder, and said, “They came in with you. Many more of them would have come in, had I let your Samantha through the doorway. I can banish them for now, but they’ll find you again once you leave here.”

  “What … are … they?” Cooper whispered, his eyes still darting around the room.

  “In brief, they’re vermin,” Ryan answered nonchalantly. “They have no particular goal except to feed, which they do upon the power put out by emotions like pain and fear. A healthy human being has natural defenses against the vermin of the paranormal world, but injury or trauma can make a person vulnerable, allowing vermin not only to feed but to heighten the person’s negative emotions. The only remotely interesting thing about your case is that, with this many around you and no experience dealing with them, you should have descended into complete madness by now, unable to even step outside your own door. You might think your memories of the accident are stressful, but with so many scavengers magnifying and feeding on that terror, I’m surprised you’re not reliving the experience in your head every moment of every day.”

  Brent shuddered, remembering the creatures he had seen in the library, in the shadows as he tried to sleep, and in his dream with Samantha. How many of them was Cooper seeing now? How many had been around them both all this time?

  Delilah stretched out, sunbathing on the hood of her car, as the figure Cooper had called Samantha kicked repeatedly at the door to le Coire’s house. She had walked through Ryan’s bushes—literally through them, without disturbing a branch, bird or squirrel—and tried to peer through the windows before pounding her fists against the glass.

  When Samantha’s hands had struck the edges of the le Coire manor, where Ryan’s magic gave off hot sparks, her form seemed to dissolve.

  Delilah yawned and rubbed her temples. After learning Cooper would be here today, she had spent much of last night preparing, so she would be able to see the power connected to him more clearly. Doing so had left her exhausted, and watching Samantha now made her eyes water.

  Instead of a solid body, Samantha deemed to be made up of bright colors in a vaguely human-shaped form that glistened and wavered as if reflected on the surface of a rapidly moving river. Delilah’s eyes couldn’t quite focus on it.

  Samantha paced around the house for the second time now before she turned, frustrated, and then paused, apparently noticing Delilah.

  “Hello,” Delilah said.

  Samantha hesitated. Delilah had been more focused on Cooper and hadn’t heard everything Samantha said about her earlier, but she had not been unaware of the creature’s hostility. She was also, unfortunately, aware of the shadows that rose and pressed against her shields as soon as Cooper’s “ghost” turned toward her.

  Keeping herself prote
cted from the scavengers, but open enough to outside power to see Samantha, required maintaining a precarious balance. Delilah wasn’t sure she could do it for long. She only hoped she could convince Samantha to come somewhere safe with her.

  “There’s not much use in trying to get inside,” Delilah said, speaking softly. “The le Coire family is strictly devoted to helping humans. If Ryan invites you in, it will be because he thinks he can control you and use you.”

  Samantha’s response was indignant. “I am human,” she protested. Her voice was haunting and powerful, like the bone-deep quiver left behind by a roll of thunder. Surely this wasn’t how Cooper perceived the creature, or he would have run away long ago. “Or, I was.”

  “I heard Brent say you’re a ghost?” Delilah may have left when Ryan told her to, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t allowed to stay in the front yard and eavesdrop.

  “Aren’t you a cheerleader?” Samantha asked. “Don’t tell me you’re from some kind of ancient line of sorcerers, too?”

  Delilah noted Samantha’s use of the word sorcerer, instead of the more common term witch. Witches were born or created with their magic tied into their blood; they needed to do nothing more than survive in order to maintain it. Sorcerers, on the other hand, spent their lives devoted to studying the workings of power and building their own. Brent tended to misuse the word witch to refer to anyone with power, so he would not have taught her the difference. And Cooper certainly wouldn’t know it.

  It could be mere coincidence that Samantha used the right word, or it could mean she knew more than she seemed to.

  Instead of challenging the supposed ghost, Delilah laughed, preferring to seem harmless. “Yes, I’m a cheerleader, and no, I’m the child of two parents with no magical background whatsoever. But I have studied intensively on my own almost since grade school. I met Ryan a few years ago, after I had what he would refer to as an ‘amateur’s accident.’ One that nearly killed me.”

  She added the last bit on a gamble. This creature could be very, very dangerous … or she could be exactly what she said she was, in which case Delilah might be able to win some of her trust by communicating honestly.

  “Oh?”

  Delilah thought she detected genuine curiosity. “I ran afoul of those … things,” she said, reluctant to describe the shadows in more detail until she found out more about Samantha. “The ones I see all around you and Cooper. I had been able to see them for a long time, but I didn’t know how to protect myself from them until Ryan taught me how.”

  That caught Samantha’s attention, and she being began to move closer. Delilah had to shift her gaze away, unable to watch her walk without experiencing vertigo. “Can you destroy them?”

  “There’s no point in trying to destroy them,” Delilah said. It was the truth, but it also meant she didn’t need to admit the limits of her own power. “There are always more.”

  “If there are so many of them, why don’t they bother everyone?”

  “The average person just isn’t worth hunting,” Delilah explained, an answer straight out of the le Coire family textbook—if they believed in putting such information down on paper. “The human body blocks power both ways, keeping magic in, but outside powers out, like a shell protecting a nut. To use magic, you have to reach past your own skin. That means gathering more power than most people have, which makes you tastier, and then giving up your primary defense. The first time I successfully raised enough magic to do something impressive, when I was twelve, a bunch of those shadow-things swarmed at me. I ended up having to tell people at school I had mono, it took that long for me to get any strength back.”

  “I bet Cooper was worried,” Samantha said.

  Delilah chuckled. This time it was genuine and not just an attempt to be disarming. “You’re sweet on him, aren’t you?”

  “Am not,” Samantha retorted.

  “Look, it’s okay,” Delilah assured her. “Cooper Blake is absolutely not my type. I care about him. He’s a friend and, of course, he’s on my team, too. But I like a guy with a little more spine and a little more … pizzazz.”

  “He’s been good to me,” Samantha said softly. “He’s trying to help me.”

  “Yeah, he’s in the wrong place for that,” Delilah scoffed. “Look, Ryan works well with humans, and—” She broke off when Samantha started to object again. “Maybe you used to be human. But you’re not anymore. I can respect you as a person—which is more than I can say for Ryan—but don’t expect me to treat you like you’re a regular human being with no unusual features. If nothing else you’re a little mortality-challenged.”

  “I think I got the mortality thing down pretty well,” Samantha replied hotly. “It’s kind of requisite to dying, right?”

  Delilah wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. She didn’t have the patience for it. Mortal and immortal meant different things in this context than they did in a biology class. “When you’re dealing with power, it’s a technical term. Mortality is what gives you the ability to touch things. It’s flesh and blood.”

  “And you lose it when you die?”

  Delilah was pretty certain that you lose everything when you die except the would-be dust the body was made of, but didn’t think Samantha was the type to accept that as a response. “Yeah,” she replied. “And normally when humans lose that, the scavengers eat what’s left.”

  Samantha moved again. She seemed to be sitting on the car hood next to Delilah, which Delilah preferred; it took less effort to see her out of the corner of the eye than it did to look at her straight on. The power she put out from this close, though, caused gooseflesh to raise on Delilah’s arms.

  “How long?” Samantha asked, her voice not exactly deeper, but darker. Was she frightened?

  Delilah blinked, distracted by the cold power washing past her. “How long what?”

  “Until they finish me off,” Samantha said.

  “Oh.” Delilah hadn’t expected Samantha to seem so sincere. “Well … I mean, if you were really just human, they would have done it pretty much instantly.”

  “Then what am I? And why don’t I remember? I don’t have any memories from before Cooper opened his eyes in that hospital.”

  Delilah shifted uncomfortably. The last thing she had expected was to feel sorry for this creature. She had thought that maybe she could disconnect Samantha from Cooper, and use Samantha for her own means, the same way Ryan probably planned to. Delilah didn’t think of herself as overly burdened with protective instincts, but she couldn’t help but feel some pity at Samantha’s plight.

  “I don’t know what you are,” she answered truthfully. “If you don’t have mortal power, and you haven’t been devoured by the shadows, then you have immortal power. It’s kind of an either/or thing. As for why you don’t remember your life before this, I don’t have an answer. Most immortals are these awesome, scary-as-hell, godlike creatures. People risk everything to summon them with sacrifices of blood and flesh and vows in order to gain incredible power. My best guess is that you were someone who did something like that—like the sorcerers in Ryan’s line, nominally human but with a lot of power. Maybe you had enough immortal power so that when you died, you could hold on to this world even without your body.”

  Samantha seemed to consider that for a while, but then she sighed. “I remember how to play hopscotch,” she said. “I remember the theme song of The Twilight Zone. I remember all the words to the national anthem. If I were a sorcerer, shouldn’t I remember something about magic?”

  Delilah sat back with a humph. “Good point.” So far, the only indication Delilah had that Samantha might know anything about magic was her probably random use of the correct word. “Look …” Delilah paused, but not for long. Certainly not long enough to avoid a blistering lecture from Ryan later if something went wrong. “No matter what you are, we know what you need, right?”

  “A pony?”

  Delilah should have seen that one coming.

  “You need mortal power.�
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  “Can I find that at Target?” Samantha asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Or is it more of a special-order item?”

  The idea that Samantha had once been a sorcerer seemed less likely with every passing moment, but that didn’t matter to Delilah anymore.

  “Like I said, the greater immortals get their mortal forms by making deals with humans.” And the human sorcerers involved in those deals usually got incredible power as a result, including, but not limited to, the possibility of living forever. “Come with me. I can put up a protective circle to keep the scavengers away from both of us for a little while, and we’ll see about giving you a little of my mortality. Enough to let you protect yourself from the shadows, and maybe let you form a solid body for yourself.”

  “You would do that for me?”

  So naive, Delilah thought. Samantha had no idea what Delilah could possibly gain from such an exchange. “I’m up for an adventure if you are,” she answered.

  Cooper’s head was spinning, but he wasn’t sure whether it was the result of what Ryan had done, or what he was still saying.

  The doctors had told Cooper that his survival after the accident had been a miracle. Now, Ryan was telling him his continued existence was equally mysterious. How could it suddenly be so eerie to be alive?

  He looked to Brent for some kind of support, but the telepath had curled up in a chair across the room and seemed to be trying to figure out what Cooper had seen. Cooper envied him that particular blindness.

  “So, if the shadows are a symptom, not the problem, then what’s the problem?” Cooper asked.

  “Well, you have two,” Ryan answered. “The first is that you’re not well-connected to your flesh, and have the ability to disconnect other people from theirs. The skin is a human’s primary defense against the scavengers, so stepping outside it gives them ample opportunity to feed. If it weren’t above their capacity for reason, I would suggest they may be keeping you alive because you’re likely to deliver them other meals.”