Called by Darkness

by Sean Fletcher

  “He’s taking Mia!” I yelled back, before rushing to the window and vaulting over the sill. My sneakers hit the slick tiles of the Academy roof, sliding me to the edge before launching me into the open air. Two stories up.

  Way to think ahead, Skylar.

  “Cathall!” I yelled, thrusting my hand at the rapidly approaching ground.

  I felt the gentle hold of magic beneath my feet as my spell slowed me before I splattered on the stone. I rolled as I came down, then was up and running without missing a beat. Mia and the guy-who-was-soon-going-to-be-dead had already disappeared beneath the arch across the lawn, probably making their way to one of the Academy’s side entrances.

  I took off. My body was focused on running, but my thoughts had split in a hundred different directions. How had this guy gotten in? Why was he taking Mia, who’d never done anything to anyone?

  And the worst: what would happen to her if I couldn’t catch them?

  I poured on the speed, skidding around the corner and bursting out of an arch that marked one of the magical entrances splitting the Academy off from the Norm part of the Lincoln Center. Concealment magic tingled across my skin and dissipated. A car horn blared as I threw myself across Amsterdam Avenue and was swallowed by the dark shapes of skyscrapers, looking like a gleaming forest of metal and glass in the night. Puddles wended through the damp streets like snakes. Buildings leaned in like giants. I spied the darting shape of the man ahead of me.

  “Hey!” I shouted “Stop right now!”

  The guy—shockingly—didn’t. Of course he didn’t. I’d forgotten to yell Simon Says.

  The figure cut left and I followed as we wove through networks of tight side streets and crossed broad, empty lanes. It slowly dawned on me that we were drawing closer to Hell’s Kitchen, where the old Necropolis borough was. Beyond that lay the cluster of buildings that marked true downtown New York. There were hundreds of Supes living there. Hundreds of hidden shops, clubs, hidey-holes…

  Hundreds of places where I’d never find them.

  My legs were long past burning but I pushed them harder. I could still make out the man just ahead. He hadn’t put any more distance between us in the last twenty minutes, and with a shock, I realized he was letting me follow. He was leading me.

  My steps faltered for just a moment. I gripped Valkyrie tighter. They still had Mia. It didn’t matter if he was playing with me or tricking me into more danger. I’d bust him up and get Mia back, no matter what.

  I passed beneath a crumbling stone archway that looked like it belonged in an exhibit on Roman Architecture. More magic buzzed over my skin. We’d entered one of the Supernaturals-only areas, a piece of New York tucked between the Norm world and hidden from their eyes.

  I turned the corner and stopped when I found myself in a long, dark alleyway.

  The man was gone.

  “Mia?” I held up Valkyrie and the blade whispered to life, casting a small ring of light around me. “Mia, are you there?”

  Metal clanged and I whirled, neatly cleaving a trash can in half. I stayed crouched, panting, waiting for something to jump out at me. My ears prickled. I picked up another sound above: hands scaling brick.

  My stomach dropped. Had they started climbing?

  “Get back here!”

  I latched onto the nearest fire escape and began pulling myself up toward the man now crawling up the wall. My arms screamed from strain. My shoes struggled to find purchase beneath me.

  “Give me—back—my—frie—"

  My fingers slipped on the rusted metal and I fell back onto the concrete. The air was punched out of me. Valkyrie skittered out of my grip, the blade flickering out. For a moment I lay there, stunned, trying to reorient myself.

  “How very foolish of you to follow all alone,” a woman said.

  I forced myself back up, scooping up my sword as I did. Her voice had come from everywhere, making it impossible to pin down a direction. The shadows around me lengthened.

  “Let my friend go,” I said, trying to sound like I wasn’t scared out of my mind.

  “You should worry less about her and more about yourself.”

  I thrust my sword at the nearest shadows, the blade peeling back some of the darkness. “I’m not asking. Let her—”

  “It’s so like Aspen Rivest’s daughter to think she can do it all alone. To think she can save them all alone…”

  I spun, mind racing for what to do next. My palms were growing slick, forcing me to readjust my grip on Valkyrie.

  “How do you know who I am?” I forced myself to take another step down the alley, searching for any shimmer of magic, any sign that would give me something to aim for.

  “It’s a shame the manticore didn’t destroy more than it did. And the letter…tut tut, Skylar. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to open notes from a stranger? You never know what kinds of nasty things could be inside.”

  A chill crept through me. So she’d been behind the attack. And now she’d lured me here, right where she wanted me.

  But I wouldn’t show her my fear. I forced my breathing steady, focusing on narrowing down exactly where she might be. I thought I heard the scuff of a shoe on concrete and turned that way.

  “You attacked innocent students who never did anything to you. Seems like you’re pretty sick in the head.”

  The woman’s laugh was almost pleasant, before abruptly cutting off. “I attacked pawns in a game that’s been going on since before you were born. It began the day my life and your mother’s collided. The day my world changed forever.”

  “Wait, you know my—”

  More scuffing. Whispers now, rasping voices that reached toward me from the darkness. I raised Valkyrie. “What do you want?” I demanded.

  “Something you’ll provide us with eventually, willingly or not...”

  Before I could move, the surrounding darkness rushed toward me all at once, pinning my body in place. An intense pressure bore down on me like the gaze of a hundred-thousand eyes had turned on me. I could feel their will slipping into my mind, my heart. My mouth was locked in a silent scream. My sword slipped from my hands. These things, whatever they were…they were stronger than anything I’d ever faced. I could feel their power, their anger, their desire. They could crush me—puny, insignificant me—with just a thought.

  I managed to squeeze my eyes shut. I wanted it to end. I’d do anything to make it stop—

  Something stirred within me.

  “Back off. She’s mine.”

  The eyes’ hold on me broke. I gasped and collapsed to my knees as the darkness retreated like a receding wave.

  “I see…” the woman said, her voice growing fainter. “Not just yet, then. Not just yet.”

  “Wait!” I croaked. My mouth was dry as dust. My breathing came in short bursts. I tried to stand, but only managed to make it a couple feet before dropping to my knees again. Whatever magic she’d used had left my muscles and bones feeling like they’d been forced through a straw.

  After another moment of recovery, I picked up my sword and did a full sweep. The alleyway was just an alleyway again. There were no shadows. No woman.

  No Mia.

  And no…

  I put a hand to my chest. I’d definitely heard someone else speaking, someone who’d been inside my head. It’d sounded male. I was sure of it.

  I looked down at my heart. “Is…someone there?”

  Surprisingly, my heart didn’t answer. I listened to the steady rhythm of it until I was sure nothing else was going to happen. I dropped my hand and looked around again. Strange boys speaking in my head was alarming, but the creepy woman was threat numero uno. She’d known my mom—I mean, pretty much every Supe knew my mom—but it’d sounded like she’d known her personally. She’d known me. And she’d trapped me here, right where she could have easily grabbed or killed me and I wouldn’t have been able to stop her.

  Not just yet…

  What was she waiting for?

  I glanced down
at my heart again. I had a feeling I knew, but wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with it just yet.

  The alleyway spit me out at a small square encircled by closed pawn shops and a lone nightclub, its pink neon sign lighting up the damp concrete and graffiti slathered on the walls. A group of guys laughed just outside the nightclub’s door. I quickly tried to make myself as small as possible while I crept past.

  “Hey, sweetheart.”

  I froze and immediately cursed myself. That was the worst thing I could do. Just ignore them. Just keep walking…

  One of the group broke off and circled me. It was a ghoul, a whole gang of them. I suppressed a shudder as their frigid, ice-blue eyes hit me. Their jaws hung limply from the rest of their skulls, flecks of corrosive saliva leaking from their rotting mouths. The one who’d cut in front of me smiled.

  “Aren’t you a pretty one?”

  “Looks like she rolled outta bed!” another cackled, reaching for my pajama sleeve. I jerked my arm away, then jumped as the one in front stepped closer.

  “Pretty little girls shouldn’t be out this late. Past midnight there’s a toll to pay for lettin’ you through.”

  “A little taste!” another said gleefully. “Just a lick of your life force!” He made a disgusting slurping noise. The others hooted, closing in on me.

  Valkyrie’s blade blazed to life, making them leap back with shouts of surprise. I leveled my sword at the one in front.

  “Out of the way, drool licker. You don’t want to find out where the pointy end goes.”

  The ghoul’s leering smile was gone, replaced by a snarl of anger. He put up his hands. “Little girls shouldn’t play with weapons.”

  “This little girl loves her weapons.” I kept Valkyrie leveled as I stepped past him and backed away until I was sure I had enough space.

  Then I ran.

  I holed up in a condemned building a few streets away. I didn’t want to push my luck going any farther. Not with ghouls and other, worse, night predators out. New York had strict feeding policies for the undead, but it was pretty obvious I was in one of the areas that didn’t care about that.

  I found a discarded mattress in the corner of one room, stuffing bleeding out the side. I forced myself to ignore the stains and sat down. I was exhausted and cut off, with no clothes and no food.

  My stomach yowled.

  Definitely no food.

  Even still, I couldn’t get Mia out of my head. Mia, whom I’d failed. Why hadn’t I run faster? Fought harder? I could have saved her. My mom would have never let—

  I shook my head. Defeatist thoughts were getting me nowhere. I had no answers and no way of getting them right now. My best bet was to wait until it was light and make my way back to the Academy.

  But even as I thought of it my heart rebelled. The Masters would want to take their time, lay out the clues, approach everything critically. All things that would take forever. Things that might bring me closer to never finding Mia.

  My stomach growled again. And now there was a weird ache starting in my chest, too. Wonderful.

  I held out my hands and, with more effort than usual, summoned my magic. It collected in my palm as glowing blue tendrils that coalesced into the shape of a small bird.

  “Find Asher and Colson,” I told it. “Tell them where I am.”

  They’d heard me leave, right? They could alert the Academy, send a search party after me.

  I finished the spell and let the bird flutter out the window. I lay back on the mattress, eyes drooping. I needed to rest and keep up my strength. If I ran into the ghouls in this state I was toast.

  The sun was just starting to come up when my eyes finally shut and I slept.

  I snapped awake, sitting up so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. It took me a moment of disorientation to figure out where the heck I was, and even longer for the events of the previous night to line up and parade through my memory. Right. I was in the city. Alone.

  I grabbed Valkyrie and slowly stood. On the plus side, I felt loads better after the rest. I was still ravenous—the sleep helped, but my stomach still needed substance to fuel my magic—but at least I was alive.

  Then I looked outside.

  The sun had nearly dipped behind the nearest building. The shadows were stretching long again. Panic rose in my chest. Dragon spit! I’d nearly slept the entire day away!

  I warred between my options for a half second before deciding I had to try to get back to the Academy, whether I wanted to or not. I’d gotten lucky staying here once, but every passing minute was another minute I risked being discovered.

  I triple-checked that the street outside was clear before setting out in what I hoped was the direction of the Academy, keeping Valkyrie in plain sight in case any early nighttime lurkers wanted to try their luck.

  I cast a spell once to make sure I was still going the right way, took a deep breath, and started to jog.

  The sun must have been plotting against me. It felt like only a few minutes had passed since I’d started, but I quickly found myself even more entangled in the streets than before. I picked up the pace, growing desperate to find something I recognized. But I only got to the end of the next street before night swallowed up the last rays of light.

  I quickly ducked into the sparse cover of a boarded-up deli. I tried to keep my hands from shaking as I cast another direction spell. “Take me to the New York Academy of Magic,” I whispered.

  The magic needle pointed the same direction I’d been going. Its strongly pulsing light told me I should have been close. But the second I started again the needle began to spin like a top. I stopped, right as the spell flickered once and blinked out of existence.

  I stared at my empty hand, then swore. I was an idiot. These streets were probably layered with so many magical safeguards and remnants of old hexes and charms that it’d thrown my magic way off track. I’d probably been walking the wrong way the entire time and was more lost than before.

  I heard a familiar laugh nearby. Multiple laughs. The ghouls.

  “Hex it all, hex it all, hex it all…”

  I hurried down the next street in the opposite direction, only slowing when I was sure I was far enough away from where I’d heard them. I glanced back once to make sure they weren’t following—

  My shoulder ran into something hard as brick.

  I let out a small cry as I bounced off, nearly losing my footing. My heart skipped when I found myself staring down at perfectly shined shoes, my eyes trailing up a freshly tailored suit before landing on the Vamp’s beyond-perfect face, his red eyes glowing as they fixed on me.

  Oh. Crap.

  “Well, well…” he said, his voice velvet smooth, a smile curling his bloodless lips. “We are in trouble.”

  Chapter Seven

  “What’d you find, Dev?”

  The ghouls had trapped me at the other end of the street. I tried to break for the alleyway, but the Vamp merely took a single step, his form blurring, and cut me off. His smile grew, revealing two wickedly sharp points.

  “Oh, lookie. It’s girlie…”

  The ghouls had closed me in, licking their lips with their too-long tongues. Not good. So not good. The Vamp might only feed enough to satisfy, but I wouldn’t be walking away from a gang of hungry ghouls.

  “Please.” The Vamp extended a hand, long fingers uncurling. “Allow me to take your, ah, weapon, if that’s what it’s called. There’s no need for this to get unnecessarily ugly.”

  I drew Valkyrie. My hands were shaking but I held the blade steady. “It already did once those drool faces showed up.”

  I didn’t wait for them to react but swung my sword around at the ghouls. I had no chance against the Vamp in my current state, but if I could break through these bozos I might gain an edge.

  Valkyrie nearly sliced the lead ghoul in half, sending his friends backing away, hissing. Blood pounded in my ears. My muscles were taut to the extreme. I needed to make a break for it before—

  A stron
g, icy arm wrapped around my throat and squeezed until I saw spots. I tried to bring my sword up but he caught my wrist.

  “Playtime is over,” the Vamp whispered in my ear. He opened his mouth. I could only watch out of the corner of my eye as his fangs elongated, lowering toward my neck.

  “Seriously, no manners. At least buy a girl dinner first.”

  There was a bright flash of light, followed by a pulse of magic that rammed into me, shoving the Vamp and me back. I rapidly blinked until I could see again. The ghouls were now splayed across the concrete. Asher stood across from me, sword pointed at the Vamp’s face.

  And he looked pissed.

  His eyes were colder than the ghouls’. He wore his usual cocky smile, but fury was etched on every line of his face, stance relaxed but primed to strike with deadly precision.

  “Let her go,” Asher said. “We’re students of the Academy of Magic. You hurt any of us and I promise there’ll be hell to pay.”

  The Vamp laughed. “The Academy? My, my, you puppies have wandered farther from home than I thought. Clearly you don’t know how things work in our neck of the woods.”

  He drew one knife-sharp nail against my throat. I felt a small nick and the sudden burst of warmth as blood welled up. My heart spead up, which was the worst possible thing it could do.

  The Vamp’s nostrils flared, smelling my fear. “Speaking of neck…I believe I’ll sample this one. Try to stop me, boy.” He lowered his mouth again.

  “I wouldn’t.”

  I hadn’t heard Colson come up behind us. He casually rested the head of his hammer in line with the Vamp’s head, muscles tensed and ready to strike.

  The Vamp paused. His eyes flickered between the three of us. I could see his mind working: he might be able to handle one of us, but three wasn’t worth possibly getting in trouble with the Coalition. Or risk one of us staking him.

  His nail pressed tighter against my skin until I winced. Then he released me and backed away.

  “Consider this a free pass. And welcome to the jungle.”