When Darkness Falls - Six Paranormal Novels in One Boxed Set

by Shalini Boland

  I stared as wax dripped down a candle in the center of the table. Visions stolen from Ivory’s memories flashed through my thoughts: flesh wasting away in a fire after Elizabeth’s—after my—hanging. Take her ashes, so that her spirit may live on, Ivory had said.

  I blinked, refocusing on Charles. “This is just . . . hard to accept.”

  He’d tried several times over the last hour to approach me—to comfort me—but each time, I’d pushed him away. I needed space, and he’d finally resigned. Now he merely listened, nodding whenever I spoke. Thanks to our blood bond, his emotions were pressing hard against my own, and part of me wanted to surrender to the anger there, as though his anger would be somehow easier to bear than my own weighted hurt.

  The new revelations made me feel safe enough to expose my other secrets. I turned to Paloma. “The blood bonds I’ve experienced with Adrian and Charles . . . .”

  “Yes?” Paloma asked, nodding for me to continue.

  “I saw some of Adrian’s memories . . . and I’ve felt Charles’ emotions.” I looked at him apologetically. As if it weren’t intrusive enough to have me in his thoughts, how might he feel about me sensing his emotions as well? He offered a weak-but-understanding smile, and I focused back on Paloma. “Is this because I’m a forever girl?”

  “I’m not sure, Sophia.” Her eyebrows pulled together. “Not everything in life can be explained.”

  Paloma dropped a tea bag into a cream-colored ceramic mug and poured steaming water from the kettle over the top. She set the tea in front of me. The water darkened at the bottom as the steam rose to warm my chin and nose.

  Just as I was about to take a sip, Adrian walked in. He set his laptop on the counter and turned to Paloma.

  “Relocate Ivory. Charles, Sophia—we must talk.”

  My mind froze at his abrupt tone, then slugged forward. Paloma take Ivory? Adrian was supposed to take her.

  Paloma seemed calm in response to what was an exceptionally rude way for Adrian to couch his request. She gave one of her soft smiles. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I’ve already secured her in your car.”

  I hadn’t even heard him come in, and already he’d moved Ivory to Paloma’s car?

  Paloma looked over at me as she gathered her coat. “Please call if you need anything.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”

  She paused in the doorway, giving me one last gentle smile before leaving.

  Once the front door closed, I fixed my glare on Adrian. “What the hell is going on?”

  “My apologies for rushing at you with this. Please, let us discuss.” Adrian paced across the linoleum floor, from a tile near the window to a dented one near the kitchen door. Back and forth, from sienna to mustard, each tile separated by dark grout and imprinted with fleur de lis. “I need you both to pay careful attention and stay calm.”

  Charles’ eyebrows drew together. “What’s going on?”

  “Your parents,” Adrian said, directing his gaze toward Charles. He continued in a sunken tone. “I’m deeply sorry to tell you.”

  A sense of dread clenched my stomach.

  Charles’ eyes hardened. “Tell me what?”

  “They have been apprehended.” Adrian wrung his hands together and began pacing again.

  Charles stood, fingertips pressed firmly against the table in front of him. “You’re mistaken.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Adrian said, stopping to place a hand on Charles’ shoulder.

  The low lighting reflected off the unshed tears in Charles eyes.

  My gaze darted between them. “They who? Thalia’s coterie?”

  Charles shook his head. “He means the Maltorim.”

  I barely registered the words. How did they learn of Charles’ parents? Now, after hundreds of years?

  Adrian leveled his gaze at Charles. An intensity saturated his voice and a sheen of purpose glazed his eyes. “We’ll get them back.”

  How did Adrian know all this? The emotions rolling off Charles revealed complete trust as an undercurrent to his fear and concern. Maybe he could read Adrian’s aura and saw him as someone trustworthy. But Charles had failed in his judgments of others before, and while I hated to be skeptical of a friend, I focused on Adrian’s thoughts, letting the rest of the noise float into the background.

  His subconscious replayed the moment he’d learned the news. After Charles had called, Adrian went to Club Flesh to collect information about Ivory. Instead, he overheard the bar owner speaking with someone in the office. Someone who was looking for Charles and who said his parents were already in the Maltorim’s custody.

  Charles sagged into the seat across from me. “Us against the Maltorim? Thalia’s thugs are one thing, but that place is too heavily guarded.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Adrian said. “Thalia’s coterie turned your parents in. They caught them as they were leaving town. Now they are after you, too.”

  “Do they know where I am?” Charles asked.

  Adrian shook his head. “They haven’t yet discovered your exact location. Last week they tried to track Sophia but lost her scent a few miles from here.”

  “I’ll help,” I said. As much as Ivory’s memories weakened my ability to trust, they strengthened my confidence in myself. Somewhere inside of me, a power lurked, waiting to be tapped into.

  “No.” Charles said in a tense, clipped voice that forbade any questions. “You won’t.”

  Fortunately, I didn’t care much what his tone forbade. “None of us may be strong enough alone, but together we might have a shot.”

  Charles ran his hands over his face. “You don’t know the Maltorim.”

  “Let her assist,” Adrian said. “We cannot do this alone.”

  Charles pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and leaned back in his seat. He could think things over if he liked, but it wouldn’t change anything. I was going to help.

  I pulled Adrian into the hallway, and, for once, he didn’t seem like he was about to self-combust while standing near me. There wasn’t enough time to recap everything, but I gave him the run down on the important details.

  “One more thing,” I said. “During one of my earlier lives, I exhibited another power, beyond my clairaudience. Telekinesis, I think. Could I channel that somehow?”

  Adrian gave a solemn nod and walked to the library room. He indicated the wooden chair at the small desk, and I seated myself and ran my fingers over the scarring of the desktop while he retrieved several books I hadn’t read from a shelf.

  He sat beside me and pushed over a large tome. “These are transcripts from times of Olde.”

  I raised a brow and opened to the first page. “Should we get Charles?”

  “He will join us when he’s ready.”

  I scanned the content. A few pages were rough and stuck together, and light-brown water stains smudged some of the writing. The book consisted mostly of odd photographs—creatures, almost human if not for their shark-like teeth; close ups of unraveled rope, screw threads, sawdust; stamps from the Cayman Islands, circa 1904; and black lady bugs eating holes through stalks of browning rhubarb.

  “What is this?”

  “Someone’s journal,” he said. “I don’t know whose.”

  The photographs served only to intensify the growing pit in my stomach. I flipped through, searching for any relevant text. Between a photograph of the cracked, dried mud of a riverbed and a copy of a veined map outlining Europe, I found some potentially useful information.

  I pulled the pencil I’d been chewing on, now perforated with bite marks, away from my mouth. “This is it.”

  

  CHARLES JOINED US half an hour later. Our plan hinged on a theory no books had proven: if the power traveled with my spirit, I could tap into five lifetimes of magic, as Paloma had said. This book detailed exactly how achieving this might be possible.

  I needed a marker from each life: the court document from Elizabeth’s trial
in Salem would work. For markers to represent my other lives, I selected a violin, Leigh Hunt’s The Rebellion of the Beasts, and a pair of baby’s shoes.

  Within a couple of hours, Adrian helped me round up the items: the baby shoes and violin were an easy find, but he’d had to exhaust some of his connections to locate a copy of Leigh Hunt’s novel on such short notice. With the items in my possession, I could now channel my previous lives with more ease.

  “I’m supposed to do this,” I said, confidence settling over every nerve in my body.

  Adrian placed a hand on Charles’ shoulder. “Do not fear, my friend. She would only be helping.”

  “We’ll see,” Charles said.

  I sensed his uncertainty. Even without dipping into his thoughts—and it was definitely still more natural for me to avoid using my clairaudience—I was pretty sure he knew I wasn’t going to budge on the issue.

  Charles pinched the bridge of his nose. “If we’re doing this, we’ll need to leave for Damascus immediately.”

  Adrian logged onto his laptop. Charles and I sat alongside him as his fingers clacked over the keyboard at an inhuman speed. I studied the computer screen. The format was foreign to me; Adrian was viewing an impossible IP address.

  D-connect—that little Internet card thingy he’d brought over to my house all those months ago. The supernatural Internet suddenly seemed more valuable than the first time I’d encountered it.

  “This fellow”—Adrian jabbed a finger toward the text on the screen, the name ‘Rhett’ written in plain block letters—“has an exceptional reputation. He’ll fly us out there, no questions asked.”

  Adrian scribbled some numbers on a sheet of paper and then furiously crossed them out. “Math is not my strong point. Perhaps one of you might lend a hand? We need to determine the appropriate departure time.”

  I lifted the page. “I can figure this out.”

  I factored in time differences and Damascus’ hours of darkness for this time of year as well as the plane’s travel speed of up to two thousand kilometers per second—about ten times faster than a normal airway plane, and maybe a bit faster than what the US Air Force used. Because supernatural technology was beyond that of humans, we’d avoid detection.

  “If we leave at sunrise tomorrow, we can arrive tomorrow evening. We’ll need a flight time under twelve hours, but that’s nothing his plane can’t handle.”

  Adrian booked the flight using something called ICAO codes instead of the KAPA or OSDI codes normally used by airports.

  Charles and Adrian discussed the details of travel, while I worked on developing whatever power I might contain. I sank back to the visions I’d stolen from Ivory along with some strange moments I’d had growing up.

  In third grade, an eraser I hadn’t even touched had flown off my desk and across the room. I’d gotten detention for that. Another time, when I was sixteen, a door I hadn’t even touched slammed in Mother’s face, almost as if it had a mind of its own. Or, at least, almost like it shared a mind with me.

  Even the dishes that had fallen over during my positive energy ritual might have been a result of my gift. At the time, I thought it’d only been the wind. How many of these moments were signs of my powers breaking through?

  The only thing those moments had in common was how hurt or angry or frustrated I’d been at the time. How could my powers be good if they came from negative emotions?

  It’s all about your intentions, I told myself.

  With that in mind, I tried to summon all my hurt and anger, which wasn’t too hard. I’d been suppressing those emotions for hours. Years, if you count the rest of my life leading up to this point.

  I focused all that conjured energy on trying to move a pencil from the table. When that didn’t work, I took a break for a cup of apple-vanilla tea and lit a few candles before trying again. Another thirty minutes passed with no success. I lost count of how many times I tried, but I wasn’t giving up. I closed my eyes and centered all my energy inward, trying to build up a store of power, then opened my eyes to try again.

  The pencil budged—a small bubble of excitement tickled in my chest—but then the leaden utensil shot across the table and smacked against the wall. The splintered wood and snapped lead crashed to the floor.

  I sighed. I had no control over this ‘gift’ and not much time to gain any. I sat on the edge of the bed with the violin Adrian had run out to pick up earlier. I lifted it and tried to imagine what it would’ve been like to be Mary. To be me.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled the bow across the strings. The air in my lungs felt suddenly strange, and my heart fluttered. It didn’t sound as bad as I would’ve thought. It only sounded uncertain. But the more I gave myself to it, the smoother the melody carried. The same melody Mary had played. It was alive in me.

  Once I finished, I felt refreshed. Energized. Charles and Adrian were staring.

  “What was that?” Charles asked.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  Adrian nodded his approval. “Perhaps that song had been your calling. Many humans called to become elementals have one. Though I must say it’s strange yours would be the violin.”

  “Why?”

  Adrian frowned and shook his head. “Let’s not concern ourselves with this right now. It would make no difference to what lies ahead.”

  Something felt off about his tone, but I knew trying to push more information from Adrian would be a waste. I shrugged it off. I didn’t know what the song was. I’d never played before—not in this lifetime—but a new passion ignited within me. Now all I needed to do was control the energy.

  Thinking it would probably be best to work with something sturdier than a pencil, I grabbed a pen from the kitchen junk drawer and, this time, focused with a destination in mind: moving the pen from the ground to the table. The pen hovered for a moment before falling.

  It was Ivory’s words to Abigail that finally helped: Believe in this. With new determination, I tried again. This time the pen floated up from the floor and over to the table, my energy bleeding out as I lowered it to the table’s surface. It dropped the last inch, rolled a tiny bit, and came to a stop.

  Excitement drummed inside me. I can do this. It was totally unreal, thrilling, and terrifying all at the same time. I wished I could bask in my amazement, but reality crept back in—the why of my learning to use this skill. The knowing I’d only come to access this power because I’d stolen memories from a friend who tried to kill my boyfriend and that I had to use it because I needed to save my boyfriend’s family from being murdered.

  For the next hour, I worked until I was too drained to try any more. It was already ten, the last three hours like a small eternity of their own.

  I needed a break. And a chance to say goodbye to Lauren, before it was too late.

  {twenty-three}

  WHEN I ARRIVED AT LAUREN’S, she was sitting on her front porch beneath the overhang, the porch light revealing her thick black hair tied back in a silken ponytail. We’d sat together on each other’s front porches many times before, but, right now, we might as well have been strangers. There was no place for me in her world, not anymore.

  I plopped down beside her, staring at the small apartment complex across the street. Clouds hovered low in the sky above, heavy with unspent rain. Moisture thickened the air, and the pressure weighed on my bones.

  Lauren nudged her shoulder into mine. “Everything okay?”

  A painful sensation knotted in the back of my throat. “Isn’t it funny how cardinals don’t fly south? Colorado gets pretty cold, and they’re so small.”

  “Oh, Sophia,” she said. “I’m sorry. I know you two were friends.”

  “Who?”

  “Ivory,” she said. “She told me last night she was moving. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “Last night?” Ivory couldn’t have told her last night.

  Lauren opened her hands and splayed her fingers. “She left a letter in my mailbox. I just assumed she’d told you
.”

  Ah. Paloma was covering her bases. “I haven’t checked my mail today. That must be why I didn’t know.”

  Way to sound upset, Sophia.

  “Things won’t be the same without her,” I added, trying to sound sincere. Unfortunately, the inflection didn’t reach my tone. “Did she say why she left?”

  Lauren shrugged. “Said she had a job offer in Boston and that she hated to leave like this, but she had to catch the first plane out and didn’t want to wake me. I’m surprised she even bothered to tell me. She hasn’t been much of a friend.”

  I fidgeted with my charm bracelet, focusing on the small violin charm. “Neither have I.”

  Lauren smiled. “Of course you have.”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t.”

  My voice sounded shakier than I would have liked. How would she react to the news? She didn’t care Ivory had left, but that was only because they’d never gotten along.

  The lines in Lauren’s forehead deepened. “What’s wrong?”

  “The thing is—” I watched her expression carefully. “—we’re moving.”

  Lauren shook her head. “You can’t.”

  “We’re helping Charles’ family with renovations.”

  Lauren didn’t look at me—just pressed her hands hard against the whitewashed planks of her porch steps. “I thought they lived in Japan?”

  “You can visit anytime,” I said, as though a Band-Aid would be enough. “We’ll cover the airfare. Maybe visit your relatives while you’re there?”

  “Sounds great,” Lauren said, but her voice said it wasn’t. Then, after a long moment, she lifted her gaze to mine, giving me a dark, silent glare. “To be honest, Sophia, this sucks.”

  You have no idea.

  Maybe I was imagining the sudden silence. The abrupt cessation of night birds singing, wind rustling in the trees, and small animals scampering about.

  Lauren tucked up one knee and started peeling the aglet off one of her shoelaces. “When are you leaving?”

  I lowered my voice, as if she might not hear me and we could somehow skip this part of the conversation. “Tomorrow morning.”