Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1)

by Rachel A. Marks

  She gives me a tired smile.

  “Aidan?” Kara says, putting her hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”

  “Is he having a fit?” Mrs. O’Linn asks, sounding annoyed.

  “She’s here,” I breathe. “My mom—” I cover my mouth, holding in a sudden cry of pain, seeing her there. Her essence was captured as she was then, existing in that moment when she lost her love.

  I collapse to my knees, gasping for air.

  Someone says, “Oh my!”

  Fiona’s pain, sadness, loss—it’s all there between us, and I know she’s sorry, so, so sorry, wishing she could go back and change things, if only she’d understood. If only she hadn’t left me like her own mother left her.

  I start to sink into the ache of her soul, into her eyes, as she pleads with me to forgive her. And I want to go to her, tell her I love her, to feel her arms around me, smell her warmth, just like it was before the Darkness came.

  But her sorrow is so strong, too strong, as if it’s gripping me by the throat, trying to drown me . . .

  Then Kara’s there, kneeling at my side, her arms holding me, her fingers sending vibrations through my skin, bringing me back a little.

  “I forgot . . .” I choke out, “how beautiful she was.”

  “Oh, God, Aidan,” she whispers.

  “What’s happening?” Mrs. O’Linn barks. “Who is this boy?”

  “Please, Mrs. O’Linn,” Sid says, sounding calm as ever, “can we perhaps get some water? He may be coming down with something. He hasn’t been well.”

  “Oh! Of course,” she says and scuttles off, heading for the house.

  Sid’s beside me in a flash. “What do you see, Aidan?”

  “It’s her . . . my mom . . .” I whisper.

  “Amazing! Is she alone? Is there another spirit?”

  I shake my head.

  Kara grips me harder. “Not now, Sid. Leave him.”

  “This is the place, Kara, the spot where it all comes together.” He sounds almost elated. He doesn’t feel the pain here, the loss.

  As I find myself again, my mother’s ghost fades. But the presence remains, sorrow pulsing in the air. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I still see my mom’s wispy form in the darkness of my mind. I have to focus on something else: the sound of the waves, the cry of a gull . . .

  “What’re you talking about, Sid?” Kara hisses. “This is his mother’s ghost. Not just some job. You can’t make him hurt her.”

  “No, no!” He waves off her accusation. “This is a doorway, similar to the one I came through. A pivot point, so to speak, in time. I had a hunch that there would be one near the mother’s childhood home, but this”—he motions at the swath of green across the beach—“this is beyond anything. Even with my failing ability I sense the vortex here, don’t you? That open feeling, as if you’re being pulled toward something.”

  Kara says, hesitant, “Yes . . . I feel something odd, but I wasn’t sure—”

  “It’s the opening, the doorway. Two things happening at once: time and spirit crossing in a confluence. It has a sort of gravity to it. The two don’t usually coincide on this—”

  “You’re babbling, Sid,” Kara says. “I think we should just get Aidan out of here.”

  “Wait! Listen. The way Mrs. O’Linn’s daughter and granddaughter kept hearing voices, seeing things, that’s the spirit side of it. Whoever resides here in this place experiences it, but only if they already have the talent for it—the bloodline of a medium, or a talent for prophecy, like Aidan. This family is obviously brimming with it—Aidan’s grandmother, his mother, and even his sister seem to have a very strong bloodline! They would most certainly—”

  “Wait, Aidan’s sister can see stuff, too?” Kara asks.

  “No, I don’t believe she has Aidan’s gifts. It’s more like she’s just pulled toward things of the spirit. She would have the ability to call up spirits and sometimes control them, though. Obviously Aidan’s mother was a medium. But Aidan sees things because of his father, not because of his mother. Of this I’m sure—a prophet is a creature of knowledge and vision, not a conduit. But having someone living here who’s strong in abilities of any kind would definitely draw things to this place. Add the gravity of the time rip in the same location—and bam! A Crux. Aidan’s mother and father were bound to find each other in such a place.”

  Kara shakes her head. “I’m lost.”

  Sid kneels beside me. “Aidan, I need you to focus, focus on your mother.”

  I look at him, panic filling me. “No. I can’t feel any more of her pain.”

  “Yes, you can.” He sounds so sure. Like he wants me to dive in and drown.

  “Sid,” Kara says, a warning in her voice.

  “Just hold him, Kara, keep him centered—use the connection you have with him to keep him safe.”

  “I can’t,” she says.

  “Aidan, listen to me—”

  “Stop!” I yell.

  “Here’s the water!” Mrs. O’Linn says over the sound of the tide. “Is the boy all right? Should we call a doctor?” She bustles to my side, and Fa’auma comes up behind her, looking wide-eyed at me.

  “Oh my!” Fa’auma says. “Let’s get him inside!”

  “He’s fine,” Sid says, as if everything is perfectly normal. “Just a little dizzy is all.”

  “No, he’s not fine,” Kara says.

  Fa’auma and Mrs. O’Linn look back and forth between them and then turn to me.

  “I’ll be all right,” I say, sounding more sure than I feel. I try to stand, but my bones are throbbing too much. Can heartache kill you?

  “You don’t look all right,” Mrs. O’Linn says. “You look like you’ve seen death!”

  I bite my lip to hold back the tears. “I need to eat something, maybe.”

  “Poor boy!” Fa’auma says with a tsk in her voice. “We will fix you something. You’ll feel better in no time, you’ll see.”

  I shake my head. I just need to go home.

  Sid frowns and grumbles about needing to be sure of things and how we’re not done with the interview yet, until Kara gives him a look that could boil concrete and he shuts up.

  We begin walking back toward the path, me trailing behind with Kara. She pauses, picking up a yellow ribbon blowing past her feet, then turns and takes my hand.

  I can only watch in numb half awareness as she ties it around my wrist. It reminds me of the ribbons Ava had in her hair the other day.

  “It’s going to be okay, Aidan,” Kara says, kissing the knot.

  She moves to release my wrist, but I take her hand and walk beside her.

  Mrs. O’Linn stops suddenly, waving her arms. “Oh my! I almost forgot!” She pulls something from her pocket—the stone she dug out of the bucket earlier—and hands it to Sid. “I’m supposed to give this to you.”

  When Kara and I move closer, I see it’s a simple stone, nothing important. Light color, silver grey, smooth and oval—the perfect skipping rock.

  Sid rolls it in his hand, looking it over, and his eyes suddenly widen. He drops it like it burned his palm.

  It falls to the sand with a plop.

  My pulse quickens, seeing his reaction. “What is it?” I look down at the stone.

  “Don’t touch it,” Sid says in a dark voice.

  “Well, my word!” huffs Mrs. O’Linn.

  “What is it, Sid?” Kara asks.

  “It’s a message.”

  “What in heaven’s name!” Mrs. O’Linn yells. “It’s just a rock!”

  “Where did you get it?” Sid asks, his cool slipping. He’s close to irate.

  Mrs. O’Linn opens her mouth to answer and then snaps it shut with an odd confusion on her face. She hums and looks to the side. “Well, now. I don’t recall.”

  “Did someone give it to you?�
� Sid asks.

  She nods. “Yes. I believe someone did.” Something seems to occur to her, because her face lights up. “Oh! I remember! They said I should give it to the marked young man.” She waves to Sid’s tattooed forearms as if that explains why she handed it to him.

  Sid looks over at me, and I realize what she just said—the message was meant for me. I stare down at the rock in the damp sand. Then I release Kara’s hand and bend over to pick it up.

  “Aidan,” Sid says, like a warning. But he doesn’t try to stop me.

  It’s cold in my palm from the sea air. I turn it over, thinking it looks like any other rock you’d find in the surf, rolled by the sea. There’s no odd energy to it, nothing—but then I freeze as something forms on the surface of the stone. A symbol. Then another. And another.

  Three words: Sister, Brother, and Severed.

  My mouth goes dry.

  I rub the ribbon now tied to my wrist, one just like Holly wears in her hair, one just like Ava had tied in her white braids the other day. And as I touch the yellow silk I see her, my sister, as if she’s walking past us, up the shore, toward the cave. I stare in wonder as the image fades. Could Mom draw Ava here, show her in the grimoire where to go? Ava hasn’t heeded my warnings. She keeps digging into what Mom was, and why. If Mom’s ghost is here now, and Ava’s been chasing her . . .

  “What could’ve left a message like this?” I ask Sid. A message only Sid and I can see. To everyone else this would just be a rock.

  He looks a little pale. But he doesn’t know anything about my sister, not really. Why would he be reacting to this rock so strongly?

  “A demon,” he answers after a second. “It’s the only thing that could take away her memory.” He nods toward Mrs. O’Linn.

  Fa’auma’s jaw drops open in shock. “Demons?”

  “Folderol!” Mrs. O’Linn barks.

  “Has anyone been down here on the beach recently?” I ask the two women. “Maybe some kids?”

  Mrs. O’Linn shakes her head, looking indignant, but Fa’auma frowns, like she’s thinking.

  “There were those kids the other day, Laura,” Fa’auma says. “Remember, you chased them off, nearly lost your shoe.”

  Mrs. O’Linn scrunches up her face, looking annoyed. “No, no!”

  “What did they look like?” I ask.

  “Didn’t get a good look,” Fa’auma says. “They were runnin’ off before I could see clear. But it appeared to be two girls and a boy.”

  “What’d the two girls look like?”

  She shakes her head. “Sorry, sweetie. I only know it was two girls and a boy.” But then she adds, quickly, “Though I did think the one girl was smaller than the others. Younger. And her hair was light, while the other two had darker hair.”

  “Ava,” I say under my breath.

  “You think your sister came here?” Kara asks.

  “She’s been running off with Holly. Plus, she’s been looking like mad for answers about my mom; my guess is something led my sister here.” That something being my mom.

  “This isn’t good,” Sid says.

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Why?” Kara asks. “What am I missing?”

  “The message,” I say. “It says my sister and I will be separated.”

  Sid looks at me funny. “That’s all you saw?”

  “What do you mean all?”

  Sid shifts uncomfortably.

  I study the stone again, seeing the same message. “You see something else?”

  “Kara,” Sid says, sounding distracted, “we need to go see Eric about some scrolls.”

  “Sid,” I say, “tell me.”

  “Aidan, if you don’t see it, perhaps—”

  I get in his face. “Stop hiding shit from me. What the fuck did you see?”

  Mrs. O’Linn gasps, and a hand flies to her mouth. “Such language!”

  Sid gives me a nervous look but says, “It’s the symbol of Dark Opening.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Someone’s going to open the doorway.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not an answer. What does it mean?”

  He swallows hard. “A force is working to open a permanent passageway between the spirit world and this one, to cut down the Veil completely. If it succeeds, it will be the end of everything. The beasts of Sheol, demons and monsters chained there for longer than memory, they’ll come to this plane, and nothing, not even you, will be able to stop them.”

  FORTY

  Traffic on the 10 freeway is brutal as we make our way to the club, and no matter how many times I ask for an explanation, Sid’s answers aren’t clear. His head is obviously a mess, and most of his rambles make no sense to me—something about a rendering and the weaving of circles. He does explain about demon messages, though, and how they’re hidden until one is ready to be read. But the subject of the big doorway opening is really bothering him. He won’t even look at me when I prod him about that. He just says he has to check a scroll and to leave it be for now. Since I don’t have room in my head for any more looming tragedy, I comply.

  “I need to go back to that beach,” I say to Kara, “soon.” The thought of seeing my mom’s ghost again fills me with horror, but Ava went there for a reason.

  Sid shakes his head. “No, Aidan, not now, not after—”

  “It’s not your call,” I say. “You can either help me or get the hell out of my life. I won’t let my sister sneak around and get herself killed.”

  Sid folds his arms across his chest, looking irritated. “For someone who is so black and white, you sure do keep a lot of secrets, boy.”

  “I’m not your boy! And my family is none of your business.”

  “It’s my business when it’s got the potential to bring down my house.”

  I shake my head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, don’t I? There’s a reason that message mentions your sister. There’s a reason the demons want you two severed. What does she have to do with this? Why are you protecting her?”

  Exasperation fills me. “I have no idea, okay!” I toss my hands in the air, feeling useless, done with holding it all in. “My mom did something—she must have. I don’t know what, but the demons have been after Ava since she was three. They killed her foster parents to get to her. They want her.” I nearly choke on the words as years of secrets, fear, and loss threaten to overwhelm me.

  But then the air goes cold; Kara and Sid’s fear stings my skin.

  “Demons?” Kara says.

  Sid’s rage boils out of every molecule. “This is what you’ve been hiding?” he asks. “Your sister is . . . what? A Nephilim? Demon spawn? What have you done, Aidan? What sort of horror have you brought under my roof?” His volume rises with each question.

  “I . . . No! No, of course not. What do you even mean?” I choke out, both defensive and confused.

  “Well, she’s obviously not just a girl. Demons don’t want humans for any reason other than to kill them or have them kill on their behalf. If they want Ava that badly, it’s because she’s useful to them—she’s a piece on a chessboard, like you. Not just a simple eleven-year-old. Not even a Beacon or a Light, but something more. And anything trying to keep the demons away from her will be destroyed.” He leans forward and says, “That’s you, Aidan. That’s me and Kara. All of us!”

  He’s wrong. He has to be. My sister’s just a girl. An innocent girl.

  But I know that Ava’s not innocent. She never has been. I’ve known that forever, but I’ve never questioned why. I just assumed it was because of what she’d been through. But there’s always been something more, something I chose to deny.

  “I’ve only tried to keep her safe,” I say.

  Sid’s anger fades a little at my tone. He asks more gently, “When
they came for her the first time, how were they stopped?”

  My head fills with the memory, threatening to drag me under. “My mom. My mom stopped it.”

  Kara takes my hand. I feel it, like an anchor in the storm, holding me fast. I look out the window and realize she’s pulled off the road. We’re parked at an overlook, facing the ocean.

  “Sid,” she says, sounding as breathless as I feel. “Leave it. Please. Can’t you see it’s too much for him right now?”

  I want to agree, to ask him to stop, to pretend like the last few hours, the last few days, were just a nightmare that I can wake up from. But I know I can’t run from this. Not anymore. So I ask the thing I never wanted to know: “What could she be?”

  Sid releases a heavy sigh. “If she was born from a heavenly encounter, she would be a Nephilim, but if somehow a demon found its way into a fleshly form and mated, then the child would be doomed to Darkness. The truth is, only she can answer who—or what—she is.” There’s a pause, and he adds, “She’ll have known for a while now.”

  “But a Nephilim?” My sister is the child of some angel? Or demon. Would my mom have really gone into something like that willingly?

  “A Nephilim is actually very unlikely,” Sid says. “The woman would most surely die during childbirth, and your mother didn’t die when your sister was born.”

  “Well then, w-what exactly is a demon . . . spawn?” My mouth doesn’t want to form the words. My body is numb.

  Kara’s voice shakes. “Aidan, don’t.”

  But Sid answers, “It’s the child of a corporeal demon and a human. A female medium is usually the mate, since a demon can only be called up by and controlled by a medium.”

  “Like my mom.”

  “Yes, like your mom,” he says quietly. Then he adds, “I didn’t sense anything in your sister to cause alarm, Aidan. But my talents are so depleted. Normally I would have seen something like demon blood or angel blood in her.”

  “How?” I ask.

  “She would have a soul mark on her hip or on her back. And she would be able to move things with her mind.”

  My chest constricts.