Called by Darkness

by Sean Fletcher

  Exhaustion gone, we started running again, my ears perked for any sign of other spells or defenses lying in wait for us. Eventually the stairs ran out and I skidded to a stop at the last door, a large number 92 painted on it. Colson tried the handle.

  “Locked. Double-charmed.”

  “Not for long.” I pushed him aside and turned my palm toward the handle. “Asher, cover us with a deflective charm.”

  “Skylar, what—wait!”

  “Detna!”

  My explosion magic rocked the floor. When the smoke cleared, the door was now a blackened, twisted bit of metal lodged in the opposite wall. Bits of sharp debris kicked back from the blast hung suspended in front of us, barely stopped by Asher’s spell.

  “A little warning!” Asher snarled.

  I was already rushing inside, the penthouse’s actual door just ahead. I started to open it, but Asher reached around me and pushed it shut. I turned toward his angry face.

  “Let’s make one thing clear since it obviously hasn’t sunk in: you’re not alone in this anymore. That means you let us in on whatever insane plans you come up with. I’m not dying via your stupidity.”

  “Stop being overdramatic, we haven’t died yet. And I always fill people in on what I’m doing.”

  “Do you? Because thirty seconds ago you nearly filled us with holes. Does that sound like communication?”

  I tried to pull the door open, but Asher easily held it shut. We both glared at each other.

  “Communicate,” he repeated. “You’re not the only one who’s going to suffer if you—we—screw this up.”

  “I get it, Dr. Phil.”

  “Hurry up,” Colson said. “The longer we stand here, the more of a target we are.”

  Asher and I continued glaring at each other for another five seconds, then he bumped me out of the way and went inside first. I made a face to Colson, because surely he’d see that Asher was overreacting, but he slipped past without a word.

  I stepped inside after them and immediately stifled a gasp. When the Duke had told us we’d be looking for a crystal skull, I thought there was no way it’d be that hard to find. I mean, how many people have that just lying around?

  I’d obviously never been to this lady’s place.

  The penthouse looked as though it was where everything from Pier One and Ye Olde Curiosities Shoppe went to die. A line of African tribal masks glared at me from one wall, hanging above a taupe chair. An immense bronze Buddha statue presided over its subjects of overrun plants and a kraken candelabra, beside an immense picture of Cthulhu that looked—I peered closer—as though it were done in cross-stitch. A tray of incense burned silently from a tray in the hallway. The smoke barely moved as we passed.

  I take back what I said. A crystal skull would look downright normal compared to some of this stuff.

  “She has…eccentric taste,” Colson whispered.

  I glanced in one of the bedrooms—and yes, that was a taxidermized catfish hanging over a bead-curtained four-poster bed, because why not?—but couldn’t see anything unusual. Apart from absolutely everything. “Maybe we should split up—”

  “Stay together? Good idea,” Asher said.

  I shot him my most venomous glare, but the back of his thick skull must have absorbed it. We continued creeping silently down the hall, until I turned the corner and nearly ran into Asher’s back. “What the—”

  “Company,” Asher said.

  I stepped beside him, prepared to face a horde of enemies, to find…

  A black cat.

  It sat grooming itself in the middle of the hallway, oblivious to us. I peered beyond it, expecting to see some other threat, but there was none. The cat went right on ignoring us, as they do.

  “What do you think?” Colson said.

  “Probably her familiar,” Asher said.

  That would make sense. A few witches chose to take on animal companions to help channel their power. This witch had apparently gone with the cute and cuddly variety.

  “Let’s approach slowly,” Colson said.

  I reluctantly agreed, feeling like a member of an idiotic trio as we, fully armed and on high alert, carefully crept toward the lone feline. I could see the main living room just beyond it, hopefully where we’d find what we were looking for. Only twenty more feet and we were golden—

  We took another step. The cat finally looked up. It’s glowing red eyes narrowed on us.

  “So not good,” I said, a second before the cat exploded.

  Well, not exploded. More like, grew a hundred times larger and sprouted a stinger on the end of its tail and two extra legs with razor claws out the side of its ribs.

  I wish it’d exploded.

  I swung Valkyrie at one of its new legs as I dove beneath, barely avoiding the stinger that pierced the Cthulhu crochet above. The cat-thing let out a monstrous yowl and pounced. The hallway was so narrow we had no space to dodge the cat before it collided with us. I tasted fur and felt as though my bones were being flattened. I tried to bring my hand up to cast a spell, but it was immediately pinned against the wall.

  “Spectra!”

  The pressure was suddenly lifted from me as Asher’s stun spell sent the beast stumbling back. My rib cage decompressed. I could breathe again. The cat violently shook its head and growled at us.

  Great. That had just pissed it off.

  I spied an opening between its legs and dove through, sticking Valkyrie’s point into its fur and dragging it as I slid. The cat hissed. Another arm shot from its belly, nearly pin-cushioning me with its claws. Its entire body twisted at an impossible angle as it tried to turn and snap at me.

  “Fiero!”

  A wreath of flame erupted from my hand, singing the cat’s fur as it crushed itself against the wall to avoid the attack. Its body morphed again, growing larger, another tail sprouting behind the first.

  “Guys, I think it’s a shapeshifter!” Asher yelled.

  “No kidding?” Colson yelled, one of the paws sprouting from the cat’s ribs pinning him to the wall. “What gave it away? All the shapeshifting?”

  “Fiero!”

  The cat whipped around, its scorpion tip nearly knocking off Asher’s head. A surge of fear filled me. I desperately wanted to help them, but we didn’t have enough space to maneuver and any spell I used could just as easily hit them as the cat.

  I made for the living room, hoping to draw it away from the others. The hallway shook as fur bag took the bait. Good, now all I had to worry about was it killing me.

  The rumbling had nearly reached me. I spun, sword up, only to find six paws and a mouth full of teeth hurtling right at my face. I frantically tried to cast a spell.

  “Defendi—”

  The cat jerked in midair, then crashed the floor. Colson had grabbed one of its tails and pulled it up short.

  “Run!” he barked.

  The cat whipped around to attack him, but Asher cast a shield charm and it ran face first into an invisible wall.

  “Go! Now!” I wildly gestured to both of them as they leapt over the recovering beast and we all sprinted toward the living room. But even before we’d reached it, I knew it wouldn’t be our salvation. We needed an exit, pronto.

  A growing growl shook the floors. I risked a look back.

  Right as the cat collided with us.

  Pain like fire ran up my arm as one of its claws raked my skin. I heard Asher shout and Colson grunt. We tumbled end over end until my world was nothing but a confused up and down.

  I slid to a stop in front of the living room. My whole body vibrated with a rumbling deep in the cat’s chest. I felt hot breath on my face. I looked up to find the cat looming over us, extra paws and stinger ready to finish us.

  It opened its mouth…

  “That’s enough, Barnabas.”

  The cat looked up, annoyed, at someone I couldn’t see. He seemed to be saying, You mean I can’t eat them?

  No, please, I pleaded.

  “Barnabas,” the voice sa
id, more firmly.

  Barnabas stared a while longer, then reluctantly stepped off us, but not before scraping its rough tongue across my face. Disgusted, I spat out a wad of cat saliva and scrambled to my feet.

  A woman stood before us, arms crossed. With her long, curling purple hair and black dress frilled at the cuffs and buttoned up to her neck, she was about the witchiest looking witch I’d ever seen.

  Barnabas the psycho-cat stalked behind her, slowly shrinking back to normal size but never taking his eyes off us.

  “Hm…” The witch cocked her head. “You’re a lot younger than I’d expect to be able to get up here. And…” She noticed the Academy emblem on the hilt of Asher’s sword. “Students? This is unusual. Well, I’m sure you have an explanation. In here.”

  She disappeared inside the living room. I looked at Asher and Colson. They appeared just as bewildered as me.

  “Any clue what’s going on?” I whispered.

  “None,” Asher said. He shrank his sword.

  “What are you doing?”

  He nodded to Barnabas, still sitting glaring at us. “She didn’t kill us when she could have. Something’s not adding up.”

  “Are you coming or not?” the witch called.

  I reluctantly put Valkyrie away as Colson hung his hammer on his belt.

  “Hair,” he grunted to me. With one hand he patted down the bits of my hair that Barnabas’s saliva had stuck up. We gingerly tiptoed around the cat and found ourselves in probably the nicest living room I’d ever been in: floor to ceiling windows overlooking the skyline, two wet bars on either side of a marble-floored space, filled with furniture that probably cost as much as an entire wing of the Academy. A glittering chandelier twinkled above a spiral staircase that ascended to the second floor.

  “Nice, isn’t it?”

  The witch was nodding out the windows. “I never tire of the view. Makes me fall in love with this city again every time I see it.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. She finished pouring four green drinks into clear glasses, then gestured for us to each take one. “Please.”

  “You really think we’re going to drink that?” Colson said.

  The witch cocked an eyebrow. “You’re the ones who barged into my home without permission. If I’d wanted to kill you, I’d have let Barnabas have his fun.”

  The cat growled.

  The witch took her own glass, toasted the air, and downed it. “A fine drink. The precursor to any good conversation.”

  Right. As though we could actually trust her. Maybe death by cat wasn’t her thing. Maybe she was the kind who preferred poison—

  Asher took a glass, gave it a sniff, then drank. I gaped at him, expecting him to burst into flames or something, but he merely grinned at her. “Excellent.”

  “It should be. It’s from my personal stores.”

  Was this a test? Some sort of trust game? A way for her to psych us out? If she thought she could scare us away after we’d come this far, she had another thing coming.

  I snatched my own glass and, before I could think too much about it, downed it. It was good. Spicy and sweet, tingling all the way down. I noticed Colson didn’t touch his.

  “There, not so hard to be civil,” the witch said. “I’m Hilda. Now, let’s cut straight to the point: what brings you three here?”

  After debating whether or not to tell her, we reluctantly—embarrassingly—filled her in with the task the Duke had assigned us. Hilda didn’t look outraged. In fact, she merely shook her head, looking slightly annoyed.

  “I get the feeling this happens to you often,” I said.

  “About once every couple months, yes. Whenever the Duke wants another batch. He could just send a delivery boy to knock on my door like any normal person”—I winced at that—“but instead he always sends someone who can’t make it past my outer charms, or that Barnabas kills.”

  “Why does he do that?” Colson said.

  “Because even domesticated cats are still hunters—”

  “No, the Duke.”

  A fond smile played across Hilda’s lips. “I suppose part of it’s to keep me on my toes. We’ve been business partners—I’d even say friends—for many years. He’s always going on about how I need better security, more charms, higher safeguards. I suppose, in a strange way, it’s a game we play. Not a very lucrative one for me since I always end up cleaning up the mess. I’m sure the real reason the Duke does it is to ensure the stock’s protected, but I get the feeling he really does care.”

  Her look softened even further.

  “Hold on, what stock?” I said. “We’re looking for a crystal skull. Clear, powerful, hopefully anatomically correct.”

  Hilda frowned. “He really didn’t tell you anything, did he?”

  Hilda crossed the room—past a grooming Barnabas—and pulled open a wide door I’d thought was part of the wall. I gasped. Behind it looked like a walk-in wine cellar. Bottles and oak barrels were stacked higher and farther back than was possible in the penthouse. Shelves were situated at the front, filled with multicolored drinks, neatly arranged wine bottles, smaller casks with years imprinted on the front.

  Hilda pulled out a crystal skull from the shelf, closed the door, and brought it over to us.

  “There you are. One of the Duke’s crystal skulls. I’m sure he’ll be happy to actually get it this time instead of a body.”

  I took it and read the label. “Wait, is this vodka?”

  “It’s a potion…with a taste not unlike vodka, I’ll admit. However, I imbue magic within my drinks, not alcohol. Gives it all the taste without the nasty side effects.” She winked, then frowned. “What did you think you were looking for?”

  I looked around at all the exotic, probably expensive, items in here. “Something else, something powerful.”

  “A great potion is powerful, and that’s what I make. The best, if I do say so myself. I found from a young age my abilities were more suited to brewing up magic-laced beverages than crafting spells.

  “Although…” She drew out the word, sounding as though she was considering divulging something she wasn’t sure she should. “In case you weren’t aware, this particular mixture has qualities that may help certain ethereal supernaturals maintain physical form longer.”

  So it was basically prune juice for a wraith. I couldn’t believe it. And I felt like more of an idiot. An idiot that the Duke had nearly sent to her death for some stupid game, for something he could have easily walked in and gotten himself.

  “Great,” I muttered. Asher too, for once, looked kind of pissed. Colson had somehow coerced Barnabas into letting him pet him, though he was still looking at Hilda suspiciously.

  “So that’s it?” Asher said.

  “That’s it,” Hilda said. “Though I have to ask…what is so bad that you three turned to the Duke for help? Surely the Academy has everything you need.”

  None of us answered for a moment. Despite her not killing us, it wasn’t as though we could trust Hilda. But I also wasn’t dumb enough to assume the Duke was going to give us more than the bare minimum answer we wanted. If he gave us anything at all. Maybe Hilda had something we could use.

  We filled her in with about as much as we felt comfortable. Hilda’s perfectly styled eyebrows were scrunched in delicate concern by the time we were done.

  “I’m sorry about your friend, but I’m afraid I have no idea who’s behind it.”

  The small balloon of hope I’d let expand in my chest punctured with a pathetic whimper.

  “Do you know anything?” Colson asked. “Any group that does stuff like this a lot?”

  “A few, but there have always been extremist factions among the Supes. However, I fear they’ve gotten worse since the Battle of New York.”

  I saw Asher perk up. He was probably just as interested as I was. For all the glorifying about the battle—and having our parents actually be there—we’d heard precious few actual details about it.

  “After…Malad
ias?” Asher offered. “The Enemy of Magic?”

  Hilda cast her hand over the floor between us, shimmering dust thinly coating it and causing the marble to raise up into a miniature replica of the city. The Chrysler building shot past my shoulder. Asher took a large step out of Central Park.

  “He was an ancient evil entity, yes. A being who attempted to destroy all supernatural creatures and, in doing so, would supposedly bring balance to our world.”

  I could hear the faint sounds of battle happening at my feet. Around my head flew the devil-like grims, diving toward groups of Supes fighting on the ground. I spied a lone figure walking his way through the chaos. Maladias. I was sure of it.

  “The battle destroyed much of the supernatural boroughs in New York,” Hilda said. “Though in the end the fight was also the reason the Supe communities set aside their differences and united.”

  A single figure broke from the surrounding battle and rushed toward Maladias. My heart clenched. My mother, her knife clutched in her hand. Maladias turned on her, power building behind him. I nearly yelled at her to watch out before the city vanished and the floor returned to flat marble once more.

  “Though he’s long destroyed, my witch sisters and I are not blind to his dark influence that corrupted our home while he was here,” Hilda said. “While most Supes were happy with peace, plenty of groups were not. Some splintered, devising new ways to take things back to the way they were, or bring about a new wave of chaos. Some got farther than others. The Disciples of Maladias were the first to try and fail. After that were some of the Fae.”

  I remembered that one. It’d happened when I was really young, but my mom and dad had forced me to stay inside the Academy for an entire month.

  “This new enemy is simply another wave,” Hilda went on. “Another turn of the clock.”

  “A turn of the clock that has our friend,” I snapped.

  “Yes. I did say I was sorry for that.”

  Hilda poured herself another drink and took a long sip as she stared out the window. “I know who you are, Skylar Rivest. The silver in the hair…it’s quite unique. I hold nothing against your mother,” she added as I took a wary step back. “Or your father, Asher Dunadine. I’m not the sort of person who would exact revenge on their children to settle old scores. But there are plenty who would. Your parents may have defeated one enemy all those years ago, but they created many, many more.”