Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1)

by Rachel A. Marks

  My fingers fly to my amulet, ready to tear it off. To do . . . something, anything.

  A small hand touches my arm, stopping me. “No, Aidan. Don’t.”

  My breath catches as I turn to her, my heart cracking in my chest as realization filters in. “Ava,” I whisper, not sure where she came from. “What’s happening?”

  Her pale eyes glitter with unshed tears. “I did what needed to be done.”

  I shake my head, all hope leaving me. “No.” I turn back to Rebecca and Kara, to the demon nearing the landing and the dagger in Lester’s fist poised to kill. “You called a demon here . . . Why?”

  “I needed to know what happened to our mother,” she says. “And I needed help. So I made a deal.”

  “My God, Ava. You’ve killed them.”

  “No, I’ve saved you.” It’s like she’s pleading with me to understand. She touches my hand, and I hear her whisper under her breath, “Remember what I told you about what I’ve seen. Remember.” I don’t know what she means, but she pushes an image into my head of the note she left me the other day with the amulet: Protect yourself. I can fix everything so we’ll both be free.

  She bound the amulet to me when I wouldn’t do it myself. She’s protecting me, but at the same time, she’s going to be the death of me.

  Demon Lester’s voice breaks through the storm inside me as he greets the larger demon. “Hunger, you’ve come!” He sounds like a boy who’s glad his friend showed up at the party. “I’d like to repay you for your help in finding my charge by doing away with yours.”

  But the demon inside Lester didn’t need help finding Ava. She had already found him; she called him here. What game are they playing?

  The beast, Hunger, growls in pleasure and bows its head, looking grateful.

  My mind spins as I look for answers, a way out, a way to save Ava—to save all of us from what’s about to happen. A million scenarios flash in my head, none of them ending in anything but death.

  “Good!” Demon Lester says. He smiles at me. “People really shouldn’t leave sharp things lying around when someone’s clearly suicidal.” And then he takes Rebecca’s wrist, lifting it up and putting the knife blade to her skin.

  I gasp “No!” and jolt forward, shaking off Ava’s hold on me and scrambling up the steps.

  The blade sinks in, flesh parting in a thin line down the inside of her arm. And her life begins to flow in a gush of red. Oh, God, oh, God . . . I reach out for her, grabbing her shoulder, trying to pull her to me.

  Demon Lester drops her hand, and her arm flops to the side, the blood spilling onto the stairs.

  I take Rebecca’s wrist, grip it in both hands, trying to hold the wound closed, red running between my fingers, panic filling me as I pray the rhythmic current will slow. “Oh, God. No.”

  “God’s not interested in helping you,” Demon Lester says, sounding oddly jealous. “Time to give up, Seer. Time to let go of your sister and everyone else you care about.” He picks up Kara’s scarred wrist and raises the knife. “No one will be surprised at this one. She’s already made me an outline.” He presses the blade to her scar.

  Something inside me snaps.

  I drop Rebecca’s arm and lunge before Demon Lester can dig the sharp edge into Kara’s skin.

  I fall onto him with a scream, pounding with bloody fists. His smile turns crimson as I feel his cheek crack against my knuckles. He takes me by the throat in an iron grip as I go for his knife, as if I’m nothing to him, a fly buzzing around his head. I fumble for a hold on his neck, hit him, scratch him, press my weight down, trying to be free, but it does no good. He’s too strong.

  Even as the world blurs, rage consumes me like fire. I see my mother’s heart ripped from her chest, Ava staring into nothing as she sits in a circle of death to protect herself, the demon whispering to those boys to hurt Rebecca, Kara’s bruised face from being beaten. And me, alone, as this thing drags my sister from me for good.

  My fist closes over his knife, trying to yank it from his grip, cutting my hand as I fail to get it from him. And then I remember my own knife. I fumble in my back pocket, taking hold of the hilt with slick fingers. I raise the blade as the world goes dark. And stab him in the neck. Without a thought. Without blinking.

  I kill Lester.

  As I come back to earth, I watch in a daze as Lester’s eyes clear. All the black fades away in a hiss of breath as he returns to normal, the shadow of the demonic gone. He gasps and chokes, his muscles beginning to jerk.

  “Aidan!” Ava screams, yanking me off Lester’s gurgling form.

  I killed him.

  I’ve killed.

  Rage is washed away by a tide of horror as Lester’s body convulses. His now human eyes stare at the ceiling in confusion and shock as his mouth fills with foamy red fluid.

  Guilt falls on me like thick tar as I look down at my bloody hands.

  “Stop it!” Ava screams at the top of her lungs. Like Lester can hear her and stop dying.

  But his form goes still. As if a switch just flipped.

  Then his head turns, and he smiles, the blood that pooled in his mouth leaking over his cheek. The shadow fills his eyes once more, turning them to pitch. “I couldn’t help myself,” he says as he swallows, the cut on his neck moving unnaturally. “Your reaction, Aidan, was beauty itself.” Then he says to Ava, “Did you see his face?” And he laughs, all beast and evil.

  “Don’t worry,” he says to me. “This Lester kid is definitely dead as soon as I head out. But I still need his meat suit for a while, so we’ll fake it.”

  Confusion and rage fill me, making me want to attack him again.

  But a growl vibrates the air, and we freeze, remembering our guest.

  The demon stands over the three of us, its claws open to strike.

  Looking at me.

  It bares its teeth. “Seer.”

  Ava scrambles over to the wall, her shoulder bag bumping against her hip. “Aidan! Your amulet!” She snatches up the golden chain that must’ve come off in the violence.

  Demon Lester holds up a hand. “Whoa, down, boy.”

  “This Seer is my enemy,” it growls. “He must be destroyed. Word is spreading he can touch us through the Veil.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Demon Lester says. “He’s a pain in the ass, I agree. But I have this deal, see. He can’t get hurt right now. It’s a witch thing. You know how it is.”

  The bigger demon huffs. “I made no deal with a witch.”

  Demon Lester stands, moving between me and the large beast. “You see that girl over there?” He points to Ava. “She’s the descendant of a very powerful force. I wouldn’t get on her bad side.”

  The demon looks at Ava as if seeing her for the first time. “She is small.”

  “She’s not reborn yet,” Demon Lester says, as if that explains everything. “And the Master wants her. So if you’re clever, you’ll do as I say.”

  The demon seems to consider this, but then sneers at Lester. “You are below me, snake. I will do nothing you say.”

  Demon Lester glances sideways at Ava as if signaling something. And then she moves. Quick.

  I scramble away from the demon’s reach as Ava pulls Mom’s grimoire from her bag, opens it to a marked page, and begins to chant in Latin while kneeling beside Rebecca’s head. Then she takes a handful of something from her pocket and sprinkles it along Rebecca’s body—dried violet flakes that catch in her amber hair, rest on her eyelids, float in the blood on the steps.

  Lavender.

  Ava’s chanting: “Expediam vincientes, fregerit hoc signaculum, dimittere nocte . . .” Unfolding protection, binding light, break this seal, cast out the night.

  The demon seems oblivious, coming for me, until the word “nocte”—night—sounds for the third time.

  It stumbles back as if something struck it. A
fiery breath puffs from its nose. Little fissures grow over its black, leathery skin. White and blue lights fill the cracks, a glow of power creating a halo around its body. The creature snarls and throws its head back as the air vibrates, turning to shivering ice. It disappears with a pop.

  Gone.

  I stare at the space where it was, amazement and relief filling me.

  “Ava,” I say, looking over to her. She did that.

  “He’s gone. Hopefully for a long while,” she says, short of breath, like she’s run a long way. “And its hold on Rebecca will be severed now. It won’t be able to find her again.”

  Demon Lester pulls out a phone and dials. “Yeah, 911,” he says loudly. Panic fills his voice. “My friend tried to kill herself. Please! I need help! Please!”

  I can hear someone on the other end say to remain calm.

  “No, please! Help!” he fake cries, gives me a wink. “There’s blood all over!” And then he rattles off the address and hangs up. “Okay, so that’s done. Let’s go before that horned Hunger guy comes back.”

  I stumble to Rebecca’s side. “What the hell is going on?” I ask, looking back and forth between the demon and Ava. Who exactly is in control here?

  “Well,” Demon Lester says, “your sister called me up and made a deal with me: she’d come with me quietly if I answered a few questions and helped fix this mess you got yourself into. We were going to trap that creature—a more permanent solution than what just happened—so it wouldn’t tie you up with your own entrails. Even though I’d have kind of liked to see that . . .” He seems to consider for a second, and then, sounding disappointed, he says, “You, however, ruined everything by jumping me and killing this shell I’m inhabiting. So I guess ‘safe for a while’ will have to do.”

  Bile fills my throat.

  “You must really like this girl.” He motions to Kara’s still form beside Rebecca.

  I pull my shirt off and wrap it around Rebecca’s arm. She looks so pale. Her lips are turning violet. I need to stop the flow of blood. It’s already slower, though, and her pulse is beating like butterfly wings against my fingers.

  “Don’t worry, Aidan,” Ava says, sounding tired. “Lester didn’t cut deep enough to kill her quickly. He just had to make it look real.” She turns to Demon Lester. “Right?”

  He shrugs, and I want to kill him again.

  “How could you do this, Ava?” I ask. “What if she dies?”

  “I had to,” she says, sounding small. “It was the only way to save you.”

  “No. You could have talked to me. We could’ve done things together, figured it out.”

  She laughs weakly. “As if you ever listen to me. I’m your little sister. And you don’t trust me.” She looks down at her hands. “I see it in your eyes.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Demon Lester says. “Cops are coming any second. Say your good-byes. We need to go.”

  “No one’s going anywhere,” I say. I need to wrap my head around what just happened. And I need to make sure Rebecca’s all right.

  “Aidan, you’re staying,” Ava says. “I’m going. With him.”

  “No.”

  “It’s where I belong,” she says, sounding defeated.

  “Ava.” My voice cracks. She can’t be saying what I think she’s saying. She can’t have just given up. “This is insane. We’re going to figure this out, we’re going to keep you away from them. I have powers now. You don’t understand.”

  She shakes her head, closing the grimoire and putting it back in her bag of secrets. “I love you for thinking we can fix this together. But it’s you who doesn’t understand.”

  “I do, Ava. Please—”

  Our gazes lock, and the pain in her eyes makes my throat clench shut, stopping my words.

  “I made a deal,” she says. “It’s for the best. I’m not a part of this world, Aidan. I never was. Our mom made sure of that.”

  “You’re a part of me.”

  She gives me a shadow of a smile. “This is all going to work out. You’ll see. It’s how it was always supposed to happen.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.” She leans over and kisses my cheek. “Remember what I said. I saw it, Aidan. And I’m never wrong.”

  The sound of sirens fills the air.

  Demon Lester stands with her, points at the slice in his neck, and says, “Catch you on the flip side,” before heading down the stairs and slipping out the back door.

  Ava follows him.

  “Please,” I say. “Don’t do this.” I can’t let her go. What if Sid is right? What if she’s some key to Death’s gateway? More than that, I need my sister to be safe.

  She pauses when she’s halfway down the stairs. “You belong here, Aidan. With her.” I start to rise, but she holds up a hand. “If you let go of her right now, she’ll die.”

  Confusion and disbelief keep me captive. I’m unable to move. And then Ava’s at the bottom of the staircase, slipping into the shadows of the kitchen as the banging on the door begins.

  FORTY-TWO

  Chaos. That’s the only word for what happens next.

  The cops come through the open door when I don’t answer their warning shouts. The paramedics slip in and surround Rebecca and Kara, pushing me to the side as they ask a million questions I can’t answer.

  They lose Rebecca’s heartbeat for a second, and there are shouts and needles and people pressing at her chest, her head lolling to the side. They try to wake Kara as a cop pulls me down the stairs, grilling me about the blood in the entryway, the bodies on the landing.

  I say nothing. I’m still seeing it all in my head: the two girls limp and lifeless, the blade cutting into Rebecca’s skin, my own knife killing Lester, Ava disappearing into the shadows.

  She made a deal.

  I stare at Rebecca as they wrap her arm in white gauze, knowing my sister brought the darkness that nearly killed two innocent girls.

  But I’m no better. I killed Lester. Poor, kind Lester.

  I killed.

  “Yo!” yells one of the cops. “I’ve got another one outside.”

  I wonder if Lester’s body is out there, lying in the grass, abandoned by the demon. But after a few seconds, two paramedics walk in, Sid limping between them. He has blood running down his face. Lester must’ve gotten to him, too.

  Someone leads him to a kitchen chair. And then the questions begin all over again.

  It’s a good thing Sid got me that new identity. And that he’s got a really good lawyer. The cops release me on the scene when Kara vouches for me, fingering Lester for the mess. We can’t leave the area, and I’m still a person of interest, but they seem to believe that I was an innocent witness to it all. But Lester’s a teen fugitive. And I’m free. Even though I killed him.

  I killed Lester.

  Rebecca’s in stable condition, they say, but they won’t let me see her. She’s a runaway. A troubled girl in need of help. They believe she tried to kill herself. While we wait in the ER, one of the nurses takes pity on me and says she’ll tell Rebecca that I wanted to talk to her but wasn’t allowed. She also says she’ll give me phone updates, let me know which room Rebecca’s transferred to, if I ask for the nurse by name when I call.

  Kara is released after a check by the doctor. She’s only a little bruised up. Apparently Demon Lester drugged both the girls so they would stay under, but there aren’t any lasting effects. When Kara follows us out of the ER several hours later, she’s quiet and heavyhearted. It’s obvious whatever Lester did or said to her before I came into the house wounded her more than just physically.

  Sid is bandaged up and looks like he got an anvil dropped on his head. While he’s waiting for his clean bill of health, he calls Eric at the club for help. Well into the night the three of us finally leave the hospital in a state of exhaustion. We d
on’t talk about what happened; we don’t talk about what’s next. Because it’s obvious we lost before we even started fighting.

  Eric sends his car to pick us up. He’s having the house “cleaned” and the protections strengthened again, but it’ll be a few days before we can go back since it’s now a crime scene. Apparently Sid called Connor and told him to bring the other kids to SubZero.

  When everyone has arrived, we convene at the bar. Kara explains in a shaky voice what happened. She sounds like someone else, not the Kara who threatened to kick my ass a million times. Hearing her describe how Lester grabbed her, how he drugged her, makes me ill. And she doesn’t even know everything. She only knows up to the point in the tale where she blacked out—before I came in. She does know that Lester was possessed, though. She said she could tell that when he first attacked her.

  Holly is curiously silent. I don’t have to ask if she had an inkling that something was up before today, with all the adventures she and my sister went on. I’ll be asking her very soon why she did nothing, said nothing, and allowed this all to happen as the result. But now’s not the time. I’m too raw, too angry.

  The others look to me to fill in the blanks after Kara’s done, but I can only shake my head and tell them I don’t know anything. Because I don’t. Not really. I’m not about to tell them that my sister’s chosen to embrace darkness, something she believes will save me, something she thinks is inevitable. I won’t say that Lester is now a walking corpse because of me. When they ask about Ava, I can’t speak. Sid seems to understand, but I know he’ll be grilling me later. It won’t matter. There’s no way out of this mess now.

  My head spins. I failed. I didn’t protect her. She made her choice. Just like our mom.

  The meeting ends when they realize I’m useless and Sid seems disinclined to push me, which I’m thankful for.

  Eric says he’ll pay for a few hotel rooms for us, and we end up heading over to stay at a five-star place off Avenue of the Stars, next to Nakatomi Plaza—from Die Hard (exclamation point), as Jax won’t stop reminding me. I’m stuck in a room with Finger and Jax—who I’m now sharing a bed with, apparently.