Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1)

by Rachel A. Marks

  I turn and leave him standing by the bed that was my grave ten minutes ago, and I realize I’m not doing this for just Ava anymore, or for my mom. I’m doing this to prove something to myself, to show that little boy who watched from the doorway as his mom was torn to shreds and tossed to the floor like a rag doll that it’s okay he didn’t save her. Because I can save Ava.

  Today I’ll do what I should’ve done that night so long ago—I’ll redeem what I love.

  Or die trying.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Kara parks the Camaro in the back lot of SubZero, and we head to the club’s service entrance. She lifts her fist to knock on the door, but I stop her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  I pull her closer, leaning down to take her lips with mine. She’s hesitant, but she doesn’t resist. When I move away, she stares at me for a second and then asks, “What was that for?”

  “I want you to know how I feel about you.” I’m full of anxiety. Death is a strong possibility.

  “You’re freaking me out, Aidan.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just, this thing between us is never going to be something we can keep neat and tidy—I’m not that guy, you know.”

  She gives me a look that says she doesn’t understand why I’m telling her this.

  I continue anyway. “Before I jump into this thing tonight, I want you to know why the spell worked and my powers were awakened, even though we never . . .”

  She rolls her eyes. “Had sex. You’re allowed to say it.”

  I don’t let her snark keep me from telling her what I need to say—I know she’s putting up a front. “Something happened last night,” I say, “when I told you those things, when we were lying there together and talking.”

  “You told me about your mom,” she whispers.

  “I’ve never told anyone those things. Not even Ava knows. You know more about me, about my heart, than anyone I’ve ever known, Kara. Whatever happens I need you to know that.”

  I feel her tremble as I hold her arm. “Please don’t do this,” she says, desperation threading her words. “You can’t leave.”

  “I have to.” I have to try.

  She jerks her arm from my hand. “You don’t have to. This is your choice.” She steps back, and tears glisten in her eyes. “Do you know what I thought when I woke up beside you this morning? I felt how cold you were, empty. It wasn’t you—I knew that the minute my eyes opened. I was lying beside a corpse.”

  I don’t know what to say. “Kara . . .”

  “And now you’re going to run toward death again. Is that what love looks like? Because if it is, then it sucks.”

  I feel beaten, robbed. In a way, she’s right, but there’s so much more to it. I won’t be able to make her understand. I barely understand it myself.

  “But two can play this game, Aidan.” She wipes the tears from her chin. “You won’t be going into this without me. If this is death, then I’m following you into it.”

  She opens the back door to the club and escapes me, heading into the dark hall before I can argue with her. Kara coming with me? That can’t happen . . .

  Hanna’s talking to a delivery guy in the hall when she glances up. “Aidan.” She doesn’t look terribly surprised to see us. “Is everything all right?” Her eyes move to Kara and back to me.

  “I need to talk to Eric,” I say.

  “He’s not here. He left last night on a business trip. Maybe I can help?”

  I study her as if this is the first time we’ve met. Knowing now that Eric isn’t what he seems makes me wonder if Hanna is one of them. An angel in disguise. Or is he deceiving her, too?

  “Where is he?” I ask, voice hard.

  She seems taken aback at my push, but she’s not going to budge. “Just tell me what you need, Aidan.”

  “Supplies.”

  She finishes up with the delivery guy and waits for him to leave through the back door before she motions for us to follow her as she walks in the same direction, heading to the warehouse. After the delivery guy is out of earshot, she asks, “Demons?”

  I nod.

  She glances sideways at Kara, but Kara’s lost in her own thoughts, following along without a word.

  We walk across the parking lot and enter the warehouse through an open bay door. After going through the garage, we walk down a hall, passing several offices before stopping at the end in front of a large door. There’s a keypad and a fingerprint lock on the wall beside it. Hanna blocks our line of sight and types the code in and presses her thumb to the screen. Something in the wall clicks, and a seal breaks with a hiss. The five-inch-thick metal door opens, revealing a large, dark room.

  We walk in, and Hanna seals the opening behind us. She turns to another keypad on the inside wall, typing in a new code that results in a loud thunk as the latches fall back into place behind us.

  The lights flicker on, one by one, immersing the entire space in a fluorescent glow and revealing rows of shelves.

  I’ve never been in here. Eric always brings things into the office if he needs me to check them out. I can see why he’d guard this room so fiercely. It’s a treasure trove. I see a standing globe that can’t be less than six hundred years old, with several wrapped paintings leaning against it. To the left there’s a full wall of scrolls, sectioned off in cubbies and tagged with colors to catalog them. There are countless statues lined up in the far corner: Greek and Egyptian and Persian gods and goddesses. Artifacts cover every surface, in gold and silver and tarnished copper. Jewels glitter from a few items. There’s a huge glass case that’s full of weapons: daggers, broadswords, and bows of all shapes and sizes. And along the wall to our right are crates stacked to the ceiling filled with more stuff. The place is like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. I wonder suddenly if the Ark of the Covenant is in here somewhere, too.

  I find myself drawn to a sword that’s more than four feet long leaning against the desk in the center of the room. The desk is covered in scrolls and old books. The sword’s energy seems to hum against the air, tickling the back of my throat.

  “What sort of things are you looking for?” Hanna asks.

  “Not sure,” I say. “Do you have any hex boxes?”

  “I have a Persian spirit bowl,” she says, “but it depends what you want to catch. What kind of demon is this?”

  Kara looks curious about my answer to that question, too.

  I consider how much I should tell Hanna, but then decide there’s no use hiding it from her. I’m done with secrets. “It’s a possession. I need to get a demon out of a body and into something that can lock it down. Plus, there may be another demon or two hanging around as guards.” Better to be safe than sorry.

  She doesn’t seem fazed at all. “So more than one kind. All right. How do you plan on doing the exorcising?”

  “I was going to do it the old-fashioned way, immersion in water.” I’ll have the ocean right there—and some herbs and oils.

  She shakes her head. “No, no. You’ll have no time for that—not if there’s more than one.” She goes to a shelf and pulls a small box down. After digging around in it she pulls out a necklace. There’s a large amulet on the chain with a Star of David etched in the gold, circled to harness power, and in the center is the word yatsa, the Hebrew for “go out,” in its hiphil form, meaning the demon is made to vacate.

  I take it from her. The medallion is about the size of a silver dollar and cold to the touch. It’s lightweight, but it’s powerful. I can sense the tentacles of energy just below the surface.

  “You have to press it against the sternum of the possessed body,” she says, motioning dead center at my chest where it should be placed. “It’ll force the creature out of the human host. Just remember to say the name of the power source aloud. The demon can sense the energy coming for it, so be careful to time it right,
or the thing may harm the body it’s in.”

  I consider mentioning that the body is dead already, but I don’t want to see the look on Kara’s face. I don’t want to think about what I did. I killed him. Me.

  The medallion singes my palm for a second, and I hiss in pain, grabbing it by the chain instead.

  Hanna gives me an odd look.

  I slip the necklace in my pocket and walk over to the weapons case, pretending to study the daggers inside.

  “Do you have any rowan ash?” That’s always good to keep the darker spirits back—something about the smell, I think. It can also work as a disguise if I smear my face with it. For some reason it confuses lower-ranking demons.

  Hanna walks over to a cupboard, looks inside, and pulls out a small jar.

  Kara takes it from her and asks, “And maybe some sacred dirt?”

  Hanna points to a medium-sized sack next to the door. “You can take the whole thing.”

  I walk over and pick it up, tossing it in my backpack. “Thanks.”

  Hanna seems to think for a moment, looking at the weapons case, but then she turns back to me. “Be careful.” She moves to the door and types on the keypad lock again, pressing her thumb to the screen.

  “I will,” I say.

  “We will,” Kara corrects.

  I don’t acknowledge her comment because I’m not about to get into a debate with her about the fact that there’s no way in hell I’m letting her put herself in harm’s way. I may be willing to run headlong into certain death, but I won’t let her follow me.

  Hanna hesitates. She looks back at the weapon case again, and then she seems to decide something. She walks over to the desk, opens a drawer next to the sword handle, and pulls something out. A stone box. As she walks back to us, I realize it wasn’t the sword’s energy that was reaching out to me. It was this. The box is ten inches long and four inches wide, made of alabaster. There’s a winged circle carved in the lid—a “winged sun.” It was a symbol of power in many ancient cultures.

  My skin tingles as Hanna holds it out to me.

  “Take this with you,” she says, her lips set in a determined line, “but don’t look inside. Not yet. You’ll know when it’s time.”

  I stare at her, trying to sense if she knows about me, my abilities. It comes to me in a rush, as if she decided right at this moment to let me in: she knows. Everything.

  She looks me straight in the eye. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I nod and take the offering.

  My skin hums with the box’s energy. I know what she’s saying: You’ll know when it’s time—the words Eric used in my death vision.

  When it’s time to make the choice.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  We pull up to Mrs. O’Linn’s house as the sun disappears below the horizon. I’m seriously considering tying Kara to the steering wheel, since she’s not listening to me at all.

  “You’re being ridiculous.” I shove the box and a few other things in a backpack.

  “Me? That’s rich.”

  “I should’ve just left you at the hotel.”

  “Maybe I should just use my ‘sex powers’ on you to make you shut the hell up about it.” She smirks.

  It’s obvious I’m not going to be able to stop her from following me into this fight—she’s made it clear the whole way here she’d be happy to force me to let her. “You’re impossible,” I grumble. I toss the pack over my shoulder and look for the path.

  We make our way through the jungle of a yard, quick and quiet, and come to the pathway that leads down the cliff. I wish we’d brought a flashlight—it’s getting darker by the second. With no moon in the sky tonight it’ll be almost impossible to see.

  As we start down, Kara slips in the same spot she did yesterday and grabs my arm for balance.

  I steady her, feeling her tough shell crack a little as my fingers skim her arm. “I told you, this is a bad idea, Kara.”

  She shoves me off. “Seriously? Shut up. Once this is over, you’ll be rid of me all right.”

  “I don’t want to be rid of you,” I snap back. “I just don’t want you to die!”

  “Well, ditto, asshole!”

  I grunt in frustration and start moving more quickly down the path.

  The horizon is a pink and orange swath above the calm grey water. It feels wrong—the beauty and stillness don’t match my mood at all. The tide should be crashing and beating at the rocks, echoing the emotions in my gut, reflecting the knowledge that everything I care about is about to be crushed.

  Even as we make our way to the sand, I begin to feel the force of the doorway and the tug of the power around us.

  The swath of green that trails from the cave is even larger now; the white flowers are stark against the gathering night. I sense my mom’s spirit from here. She fills the beach with her urgency. Run, run! she seems to call. And my feet itch to obey her.

  The opening of the cave is like the mouth of some horrible beast waiting to swallow us whole. The ghostly figure of Fiona flickers. She can’t hold on much longer. She knows her daughter is almost lost.

  “My God, Aidan,” Kara whispers. “Do you feel that?”

  “It’s my mom.” My throat goes tight. The anguish of her spirit overwhelms me.

  “That can’t just be your mom,” she says. “There’s something else, something not good.”

  I close my eyes and focus. Yes, there, under the urgency and desperation, is a presence that’s clinging to the shadows.

  “I think it’s a demon, but I can’t tell,” she says.

  I’m not sure either. “We need to hurry.” My mother’s energy is turning my already raw nerves frantic. I kneel down and slip the backpack off my shoulder, pulling the jar of rowan ash from the bag and handing it to Kara. “Rub this on your face.” Then I pull out the sack of sacred dirt and set it at her feet. “And this on your hands.”

  She smears the ash onto her cheeks and forehead and drops the bottle back to the sand. I do the same. Then we both knead our hands and arms in the sacred dirt.

  “Here.” I reach in my pocket and pass her the exorcism medallion. “This will be your job.” I have my amulet, and I need her to have some sort of weapon to defend herself or I’ll be too distracted worrying about her.

  She takes it, hesitating. “I just press it against Lester’s chest?”

  “Yes. Then say Immanu’El. It means ‘God is with us.’”

  “That’s it. The demon will just obey?”

  “According to Hanna, it won’t have a choice. The command is on the amulet, so your pronouncement of power should seal the deal.”

  Kara bites her lip. “What about Ava?”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, you heard what Holly said. Your sister may not want to be saved.”

  “I know.”

  “She might fight us, Aidan.”

  I look over to the cave opening. “She won’t hurt me.”

  “Not you, maybe.”

  “Let me handle Ava.” But I can’t fight my own sister. If she’s too far gone, what’ll I do?

  “I’ll take care of Lester,” Kara says, like she’s making it clear she’s not here to help Ava, only to help me.

  “Listen,” I say, realizing I can’t go into this with anything hidden. “There’s something I have to tell you.” I take in a breath and try to say it. “When that demon comes out of Lester, he won’t . . . well, he’s not ever going to be Lester again.” I swallow. The taint of what I’ve done seems to peel back my skin to reveal itself. “He’s dead. I killed him.”

  Her mouth opens with a small gasp.

  “It happened yesterday when he was going to cut you. I couldn’t see straight. I went crazy and slit his throat.” I choke on the words.

  She’s still for a second as she lets it sink in, but th
en something seems to dawn on her. “He said something before he knocked me out . . .” She leans forward a little, looking desperate. “Aidan, I think the demon wanted you to kill Lester.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He told me if I lived, it was because you’d made the wrong choice—I wasn’t sure what that meant. But then I lived. Maybe he wanted you to kill him—to weaken your purity. You’ve killed, Aidan—you have blood on your hands. Didn’t Hanna say something about a choice?”

  “What Hanna was talking about hasn’t happened yet.” I’m pretty clear on that. “I’m not sure what the demon meant, or what this will mean for my soul, but you need to know so you won’t think that exorcising the demon is what kills Lester—that his death was your fault.”

  She’s studying me intently, like she’s seeing me again for the first time. “I know what those stains feel like, Aidan.”

  Her energy reaches out to mine, tentative, as if she’s wanting to console me but doesn’t know how. I’m struck by the way her soul looks in the moonlight. My eyes follow the lines of scars and handprints that I’ve gotten to know so well on her arms and throat. The mark on her nape shimmers light blue. My own mark casts a light golden color—I can see it reflecting a warm glow onto her face as I move to touch her. A heartbeat passes and then another, and it’s as if an opening unfolds between us and there’s an understanding, like we’re finally seeing the truth of how we fit together. It’s so subtle. I would have missed it if I’d blinked.

  I run my fingers over her hair and whisper, “I know.”

  Our souls carry scars. Hers are handprints. And now I have my own—those little cracks along the skin at my eye that speak of what I’ve done—the blood on my hands.

  Innocent blood.

  Because it wasn’t Lester who hurt Rebecca and Kara. It was the demon.

  Kara slides a switchblade from her pocket; I hadn’t even realized she had it. She flips it open like a pro, and I suddenly want to grab her and kiss her. She wraps the chain of the possession necklace tight around her knuckles and grips the amulet in her palm. Then she holds out the bag of sacred dirt to me. “Let’s kick some demon ass.”