Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1)

by Rachel A. Marks

  An image of robed men, commotion, arguing, flashes in my mind.

  I pull my hand back, not wanting to see more.

  But I can’t stop myself from reading across the surface: The end follows behind him, a fire of cleansing sight. Broken from the vine. Unspoken of, he is hidden. The eyes that seek him lose their soul. Awakened through Love’s key. All hail, the one who brings Death to that which was Everlasting.

  My mind hears the word death over and over and over, and I can’t stop seeing the robed men, feeling the anger and turmoil. All because of the words on this stone.

  Voices come from outside the shed, bringing me back to reality with a jolt. I panic. Tossing the clothes back into the trunk over the stone, I quickly shut the lid, ready to bolt. But before I can, the door to the shed shuts with a click.

  I try to lift the latch, but it won’t budge. I press on the wood, but my arm sparks with red again, sending me back in pain.

  I shake the zap from my arm and stare at the door, horrified. Then I hear Kara say, “We need to tell Aidan, Sid. It’s way past time. After that mess yesterday with the demon.”

  All my attention focuses on listening.

  “You need to finish your part first, Kara.” That’s Sid.

  “It’s not going to work. He doesn’t want me.” Her voice moves closer to the shed.

  “That is a lie,” Sid says. “The boy would follow you off a cliff. He’s smitten. And so are you.”

  “No, I’m not,” she answers, sounding very sure. I suddenly wish that I could see her eyes. “I don’t like him, not like that.”

  My gut turns hollow. She doesn’t like me—I knew that. I think I knew that. But hearing a denial, after the feelings I had when I kissed her . . . And I’d kiss her again, in a heartbeat.

  “You’ve done well making the rest of us believe the opposite,” Sid says, sounding almost sad. “Including him.”

  “I did what you wanted me to do. I kept him here so you could figure stuff out.”

  My brain ticks back to all the moments Kara and I had together . . . She’s been manipulating me this whole time? She sure seemed to like me when I kissed her.

  Kara’s voice grows more quiet. I have to strain to hear. “If Aidan’s really this kid you’ve been looking for, he should be having a lot tougher time keeping his hands off me.”

  “The spell wasn’t meant to work on its own,” Sid says. “Your job is to bring him to me fully awakened so that I can finish this.”

  There’s another voice coming closer: “He’s not in the house.” It’s Connor. “What’s the big deal? We did the spell to protect his redhead. Now she can go home, and we can get back to work.”

  “It’s not that simple, Connor,” Sid says, sounding tired.

  “Aidan’s the one,” Kara says. “The one Sid’s been looking for.”

  There’s silence for a second before Connor says in a disbelieving tone, “The one? As in the golden goose? You’re actually serious about this, Sid? I thought you were just . . . high.”

  “No, Connor,” Kara says. “Aidan’s really the one Sid’s been looking for.”

  My heart speeds up.

  “Shit. But that means . . .” Connor’s voice fades.

  “Yes,” Kara says.

  “Are you sure?” Connor asks. “How can you be sure?”

  What do they mean—Sid’s been looking for me?

  “You saw it with your own eyes, Connor,” Kara says. “The way the mark on his hand and arm glowed? And it changed before that; it grew after I kissed him the other night—he said it did the first time, too. When I met him at Eric’s club.”

  “Wait . . .” Connor sounds confused. I’m right there with him. “You met this guy before he got here? That’s why you came home all weird that night that you and Sid went to pick up those coins?”

  My head spins with a million confused thoughts. The one? What the hell? Are these people nuts? Have they spent too much time watching The Matrix or something? God, if they start calling me Neo I’m going to flip out.

  “Yes,” Kara continues, “I didn’t know who he was, but I saw him in Eric’s club, and I was drawn to him.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Connor says. “Sid’s a bastard to do this to you.”

  “Now, now,” Sid says. “Everyone has a choice—”

  But Kara cuts him off. “No, I asked for this. It’s not Sid’s fault. He helped me, saved me. He saved you too, Connor.”

  “So you’re going through with it?” Connor asks with a bite in his voice.

  “I don’t know,” Kara bites back.

  Silence answers, and my heart speeds up. Something about the whole exchange is wrong. I’m missing a vitally important piece. What does Connor mean going through with it? With what?

  They’ve been expecting this kid—The One—who they think is me. But Kara hasn’t been trying to keep me here or draw me in like she said; she’s been pushing me away. She’s actually been acting a little terrified of me. And she said earlier that she felt something with me that frightened her. Like I was affecting her.

  She definitely affects me.

  God, by the sound of it, she’s made some psycho deal with Sid to keep me here, to keep me happy.

  “But you really think it’s him?” Connor asks, breaking into my thoughts.

  “There’s no doubt anymore,” Sid says.

  “It’s just like Sid said it would feel, Connor,” Kara says. “Like I’m standing on a precipice, facing a pit of hungry beasts. But when I touch him, it all fades away.” She pauses and then says more quietly, “I had the nightmare again. You know, the one I started having after Sid did the spell on me to hold back the curse, about the lions.”

  So she’s been having horrible nightmares like the one I heard through the wall ever since the spell. Sid did that to her, too.

  “The men were dragging me to the mouth of the pit like always,” she continues. “But this time when they tossed me in, the lions surrounding me were quiet. They had blood on their claws and flesh in their teeth, and they were close enough to touch me, but this time they didn’t attack me. They just stood there, staring at something behind me, and when I turned around he was standing there, in the shadows.”

  “Aidan was?” Connor asks.

  “Yes,” Kara says. “He was holding them back. The lions—like Daniel in the lions’ den.”

  Connor scoffs, “I’m supposed to believe a Bible story now?”

  “You should,” Sid says.

  “I believe it, Connor,” Kara says, sounding awed. “I’ve dreamed it—felt it on him. It’s Aidan. He’s the one we’ve been looking for. He’s the Son of Daniel.”

  The name echoes in my head: Daniel. The Son of Daniel . . .

  Then the door in front of me unlatches, swinging open with a loud squeak.

  THIRTY

  “Aidan?” Kara’s voice comes closer.

  “How did you get in here?” Sid asks, angry.

  But I barely hear them or see them. My face is buried in my hands. What in the name of God is going on?

  There’s got to be some explanation. Sid’s been looking for someone he thinks is me—someone who Kara thinks is me. She even had a dream about me, a dream about lions.

  A dream that echoes what my mom said that day she painted my wall: “The lions won’t touch you, Aidan. They can’t hurt you. God’s closed their mouths.”

  No. No, this doesn’t make sense. This can’t actually be happening. I’ve been duped. I’ve gotten mixed up with a bunch of crazy people.

  They called me the Son of Daniel.

  “He looks like he’s in shock,” Connor says.

  “Aidan, come out of the shed,” Sid says, sounding concerned. “Being in there is affecting you, son.”

  Daniel.

  Daniel who? They were talking about the Bible
. A lions’ den. A Sunday school story: Daniel in the lions’ den? The prophet Daniel lived a million years ago—okay, about twenty-six hundred years ago. But in any case, the guy can’t be my father.

  No way.

  It’s literally impossible. Maybe they’re thinking of it symbolically.

  Someone takes me by the arm. “Wake up, Aidan.”

  “He can’t hear you, Kara. He’s freaking right now.”

  “He needs to get out of that shed.”

  I knew this place was off. I knew something was up with Sid. I should’ve listened to my instincts. You’d think by now I’d know better. But . . . my instincts also told me to come inside, to look in that trunk.

  Nothing makes sense. I have to get Ava out of here.

  Now.

  I push through the bodies in front of me and stumble from the shed, nearly diving headfirst into a pile of old paint cans.

  “Take it easy,” Sid says.

  “Go get some water, Connor,” Kara says, and then she’s standing in front of me, holding my chin in her small hand. “Are you here, Aidan? Can you hear me?”

  I blink at her and feel the weight that was coating me lift from my chest. But so many questions stay behind.

  Connor comes up beside me, and a glass of water is shoved in my face.

  I push it back and jerk from Kara’s touch. “I need to get out of here,” I say.

  As they watch me, fear obvious on their faces, I turn and head for the house. Inside, I take the stairs two at a time and burst into my bedroom.

  “Ava, you need to pack your—” But she’s not there. The room’s empty. My eyes catch a piece of paper resting on my pillow. A note. The amulet is on top of it. And written in the bubbly script of an eleven-year-old are the words: Protect yourself. I can fix everything so we’ll both be free.

  It’s signed off with a heart and the letter A.

  My shaking body goes cold. Her words sound just like my mom’s did the day she told me she was pregnant, right after she started calling up the darkness.

  Ava.

  I pick up the amulet and clench it in my fist. I stare at the empty hook on the wall where she’s been hanging her bag—the one she keeps hiding things in. I fumble with my mind, looking for her, saying her name through the din of my frantic thoughts. But she’s not answering.

  I race downstairs. The house is empty. I check the office, and even Lester’s not in his usual spot. I ask Finger if he’s seen Ava, but he just chews on his lip.

  Kara, Connor, and Sid all come back into the house, watching me like I’m about to lose it completely. Which I am.

  I focus my energy on Sid. “Did you do something that’ll hurt her, you evil shit?”

  He flinches a little, but his eyes remain on mine. “Who, Aidan?”

  “My sister!”

  He shakes his head. Then he looks over at Kara. “Do you know where the others went?”

  I can tell from the way she’s breathing that she’s debating what to say. I can also see that she’s afraid of me.

  I’m afraid of myself right now. “Tell me what you did to my sister, or I swear to God—” But I can’t finish. I swear what? I swear I’ll kill you? I’ll do something else horrifying? What the hell am I prepared to do?

  Connor steps forward, holding out a calming hand. “Look, Aidan, you’re freaked out. I get it. I assume you just got a fairly huge dose of dark casting magic standing in that shed. And you may have heard some things. Just take a deep breath and—”

  A toilet flushes, and everyone turns to see Jax emerge from the downstairs bathroom holding a Victoria’s Secret catalogue and chewing on a Red Vine. “Yo, what up,” he says, oblivious. As he looks from one face to the next he stops chewing. He swallows hard. “Everything okay?”

  “No,” I say.

  He points at me like he just thought of something. “You’re looking for your sister.”

  I nod slowly.

  “They all went to some beach.”

  “The beach?” I say, incredulous.

  “Yep.” He points at the living room behind us. “I’m gonna hang with F-Boy and kill me some Nazis, is that cool?” He’s asking as if I have a gun to all their heads. They all have that look in their eyes. Like they’re worried I’ll pull the trigger if they make the wrong move.

  “See, the others are just at the beach,” Sid says in his calming voice. “It’s nothing nefarious, Aidan.”

  “And if they’re all together we can call them,” Connor says, pulling out his phone and queuing up a number. He hands it to me. “I’m sure she’s okay, man. I get it. Family’s vital. But if she’s gone, it’s not us.”

  I take the phone from him and listen to it ring.

  Holly’s voice comes on the line. “Hey-loo,” she says in a singsong voice.

  “Where’s my sister?” I growl into the phone.

  She hesitates for a second and then says, “Calm down, Dad. She’s in the shop with Lester.”

  I breathe in slow. “What shop?”

  “The ice cream shop, duh. You said she could come with us. We’re doing a beach run with Rebecca now that she’s all invisible and all that skitch. But first an ice cream run for me. PMS, ya know.”

  “I never said she could go anywhere.”

  “What are you, her jailer? It’s ice cream and sand, not a night on the town.”

  I take a few more breaths. Everything sounds normal. It’s just ice cream. Maybe the others are right. I’m overreacting. “Is she okay?”

  “No, we’re selling her on the black market. Of course she’s okay. Jeez.”

  I’m tense because of Sid. Holly isn’t some snake in the grass. She’s just a homeless girl like Ava. And Kara.

  “I want her back here.”

  “Wow. Controlling much?”

  “She needs to come home, Holly,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “Please. As soon as you can.”

  “Fine. God. We were gonna go to Malibu, but whatever. I’ll let her know that the freedom from the tyranny of her older brother is over. Give us a while; we’re off Wilshire, and it’s almost lunch rush.”

  I hang up. Ava’s okay. She’ll be home soon.

  And then what?

  All the fire seems to have drained from my bones. I walk past Connor, handing him his phone, and lower myself to the steps.

  “What the hell is going on?” I ask, exhaustion overtaking me. “Who are you people?”

  “Let me talk to him,” Sid says, sounding resigned. He motions for the others to leave and comes to stand in front of me. “Can we go for a drive, Aidan? I promise to explain everything. Look at me and see that I’m telling the truth.”

  I look up at him, and he says it again: “I promise to explain everything that I can.”

  No spark lights his eyes. So I lift my tired body from the stairs and follow him back outside to the car, feeling as if I’m following him to my end.

  THIRTY-ONE

  It’s a ways to our destination, and neither of us speaks the whole time.

  We end up in Pasadena. The answers are in Pasadena?

  Sid leaves the car in a dirt parking lot, and I follow him down a trail. It looks like we’re heading toward a large bridge. Or maybe it’s a dam. Are there dams in California? Almost immediately I start to feel strange. Dizzy. And there’s a very familiar tug. Like the gravity in the shed, but a thousand times stronger.

  “What is this place?” I ask, my legs becoming weak.

  Sid walks farther down the path before answering. “This is how I would go home if I could.”

  That answer makes no sense, so I stay quiet, studying the surroundings and the brush and taking in the dank smell of settled water far off. And that intense pull of something just ahead.

  We go through a tunnel and find ourselves on the other side of the road, and then we’r
e walking in what I think is a dried riverbed. Trails have been cut through the brush over the years, but some areas look like they recently carried water. The path stays flat for a while, but then we’re almost climbing as we make our way up a runoff crevice in the hill that’s coated with dark stones. When we’re at the top, the pull nearly makes me run forward. I have to clench my fists the last few paces.

  Until I see it, and my feet no longer want to go any closer.

  A large rock juts up from the trees, carved out by wind and water into what appears to be a poor rendering of a demon’s profile. A cave mouth opens up at its base, blocked by iron gates. The surrounding stone edifice is painted in massive amounts of graffiti, making it all look like the perfect rave hangout. That’s where the pull is coming from. Right there in that dark cave.

  “This is it,” Sid says. He’s visibly shaking, and his fist is gripping his walking stick like it’s a lifeline.

  “This is what?” I ask. “Where you kill me and bury my body?” I’m only half joking. The feel of this place is full of murder and casting and darkness.

  He breathes out. “No, son. This is where I come from.” He points at a sign that says Los Angeles County Flood Control District, and in large bold letters underneath: Devil’s Gate Dam.

  “You’re from . . . hell?”

  His shoulders slump like he’s tired, and he moves farther from the mammoth rocks, facing away from me. “You can see into other worlds, and you know when a person lies. You speak several languages long dead and have countless amounts of knowledge locked in that skull, but you’re as dumb as a post, boy.” When I don’t comment, he asks, “Can you see into a man’s soul?”

  I hesitate, but then I realize that the time for hiding is over. “Yes.”

  He faces me again. “Have you managed to see mine?”

  “I tried, but I couldn’t.”

  He nods. “I take precautions. Apparently they work.” He breathes in deep and lets it out slow. “If I show you my soul you’ll understand, I believe.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  “I can explain. I can show you why it’s vital you stay here with us.” Under his breath he adds, “So much depends on it.” The fear and intense focus in his eyes make my heart speed up a little. There’s tension in every muscle, like he’s about to let something loose that he’s been holding for a long time. “I was sent here to find you by men who want you dead. They want you extinguished before you can harness your potential, before that mark on your arm begins to grow. Of course, it’s too late for that now.”