Called by Darkness

by Sean Fletcher

  I waited for someone to attack us. For alarms to go off. For…anything. But all I heard was the steady drip of water and gentle rumble of trains passing on the other side of the walls.

  “Maybe we missed the party,” Coach Newman grunted.

  “This is no time to joke!” Lipstuck said.

  Coach Newman rubbed his hairy chin. “Seems like the perfect time. I don’t see anybody.”

  “Are you sure the tracking spell was performed properly?” one of the other Masters said doubtfully.

  “I’m confident it was,” Lipstuck said. “Miss Rivest may be…lacking in some areas of study, but she’s always performed admirably on the practical side.”

  I felt a swell of gratitude toward him and vowed not to nod off in his class for at least the next two weeks.

  “Stay close,” Lucien said, taking the lead as we passed through the gate and descended the crumbling stairs to where I knew the Society’s cavern lay.

  Asher glanced back to make sure I was right behind him. I held Valkyrie tighter, my apprehension growing by the second. With our lights out, I’d expected our surroundings to be getting darker, but instead the light up ahead was growing.

  “Okay, did we miss a turn?” Coach Newman said. “I might not be a geologist, but I thought the underground was kind of dark? Don’t tell me we’re going to pop out in the middle of Times Square.”

  “It…does seem a little odd,” Lipstuck admitted.

  But ‘odd’ didn’t begin to describe where we emerged.

  The dark, dingy cavern that’d been here during our last little foray into potential-death-land was gone. Now, a different cavern full of ancient, half-crumbling ruins stood in its place, the remnants of a lost civilization cast in an ethereal glow radiating from minerals in the wall, casting a mint-blue light only slightly dimmer than the sun. A lush jungle had ensnared what remained of the buildings. Trees grew straight through the windows and doorways. Palms and fronds and ferns clogged the rocky roadways, thick enough to swallow any path that might have led us into the undergrowth.

  Lucien chuckled. “The caverns never cease to amaze—and annoy. I could have sworn we were looking for an enemy, not an all-expenses-paid trip to the Amazon.”

  “Is this one of the lost cities, Lucien?” one of the Masters said. “I’ve never…ha! Look at the strata on those bricks! And the stonework on the houses! It’s glorious…”

  I knew him to be one of the history Masters. Looks like he’d been the right one for the job, too, since he clearly had an infatuation with old, crumbling things.

  “Lost cities?” I asked Lucien. He was still peering around as though we might be attacked at any moment.

  “Magically hidden pockets of the old cities where the Supes of the past used to live,” Lucien said. “This was when it was too dangerous to live among Norms above ground so they stayed below. Supes might not live in them anymore, but still the cities remain, magically moving from one place to the next. You’ll run across them now and again.”

  “You sense anything now that we’re actually here?” Asher said beside me.

  I closed my eyes, but the tracker had well and truly vanished. “No. I think Coach Newman might be right. We must have taken a wrong turn or something. The Society’s already escaped.”

  “Maybe…” Asher said. He nodded to one of the dwellings set on a rocky ledge overlooking the cavern. “Come on. That’ll give us a better vantage point.”

  Lucien was busy doing reconnaissance of his own, and the rest of the Masters were too preoccupied with the magically appearing city, to notice us leaving. And not gonna lie, I was kind of annoyed at them. We were supposed to be finding an enemy that threatened the Academy, not going on a field trip for rock nerds.

  Asher and I found a semi-demolished staircase and gingerly made our way up to the cliffside. The buildings were in better shape up here; made of well-set stone with wood frames that hadn’t rotted away yet. I squinted at the glowing minerals in the walls. They were pretty spectacular, but what must it have been like, living down here without seeing real sunlight for months on end? Maybe never?

  “Check it out.” Asher stood by a portion of the back wall that was covered in faded drawings. I joined him and crouched to get a closer look. Scenes of hairy, man-shaped beasts hunting and dancing and howling covered the stone.

  “Must have been a group of shifters,” I said. There were more etchings farther down: one depicting a gothic-looking mansion with a faded figure sketched inside. Another of a dark, lonely room with bars at one end. I had no clue what any of them meant, but figured they had to have meant something important to someone long ago.

  Asher ran his fingers along the wall. “I wonder what happened to them.”

  “The same thing that happens to all Supes who forget where they came from,” said a cold, familiar voice. “They cease to be.”

  Asher and I spun. Kasia stood there, cutting us off from the Masters. “Just like all Supes who think they can live peacefully among one another, no longer defined by the differences that should keep them apart.”

  “Lucie—” I started to yell, but Kasia’s hand lashed out. The wall behind us shattered, chunks of jagged stone cutting into my skin as I was thrown forward. I forced myself to keep rolling as I hit the ground, digging my feet in to stop myself.

  “Detna!” I cried.

  The cliffside exploded. The ground beneath me jerked lower, then began to fall.

  “Skylar!”

  Asher’s hand dangled above me. I reached up and clasped it just as the cliff under my feet broke off, tumbling end over end until it broke against the ground below. Asher’s grip tightened on my hand. From over the tops of the ruins and greenery I could hear the sounds of battle. Wayward spells careened into thin air. I heard a scream of pain.

  “The Masters!” I gasped.

  “They’ll be fine!” Asher groaned. “Worry about our fight. Give me your other hand—”

  “How noble of you.”

  Asher cried out as Kasia’s spell caught him in the side, sending him tumbling into the remains of the wall. My hand was suddenly gripping nothing but air and I barely latched onto the edge of the cliff, the skin at the tips of my fingers peeling as they caught.

  A rush of rage welled up inside me as Kasia looked down, smirking. The Dark Prince’s power stirred, begging to be set free.

  “I can see you fighting it,” Kasia whispered. “All that power at your disposal and still you refuse it. It gave you what you wanted, didn’t it? It gave you the chance to become what you most desired.”

  She stepped on my fingers, grinding them into the rock. Searing pain rushed down my arms. The darkness roared.

  “Let it free,” Kasia hissed. “Give in to it!”

  My mind was clogging with rage, but I bit my tongue until it bled, the sudden shock of the new pain snapping me back to my senses. I focused on the pain, focused on nothing but that until I could think more clearly.

  “You…” I said.

  Kasia leaned forward, eager. “Yes?”

  “You sound so cliché I think I went comatose there for a second.”

  I brought my other hand up. “Soleus!”

  A sunburst of light briefly washed everything in stark whiteness. Kasia roared in anger. Her foot came off my fingers. I dug them in and wrenched myself up. She was stumbling back when I opened my eyes, and before she could recover I tackled her, taking us both to the ground.

  “You—” My fist connected with her cheek and I felt a warm spurt of blood explode against my knuckles. “—hurt my friends.”

  Kasia tried to get up but I plunged another fist into her gut. “Now I’m going to hurt you.”

  My fist came down again, again, again, each time feeling better than the first. It was intoxicating. It was…

  No. Stop. I had to stop!

  I stood above her, panting, anger coursing through me like poison. I’d come close, so close to losing control.

  Kasia wiped blood from her lip and sta
red at it. She smiled.

  “It seems I was wrong about you. Maybe you have what it takes after all.”

  “Whatever games you’re playing, I’m not part of them.”

  “Maybe not yet, yes. But…” She raised a finger and pointed to my chest. “That rage you feel? It is the most powerful magic you possess. Without it you are nothing. Remember that.”

  “Whatever. The Coalition is going to have a field day deciding what to do with you—”

  My body went stiff, my muscles temporarily seizing. “No!”

  The eyes were back. Only this time I could see them, shadows lengthening on the wall behind her: monsters and dragons and beasts from my nightmares, all of them taking physical shape.

  Kasia stood. “If pain is the way for you free your true potential, then I’ll let it guide you.”

  A snake shadow lashed out. With tremendous effort, I managed to break from the eyes’ hold, but the snake’s fangs still sank deep in my arm, my skin sizzling where it touched.

  “Sole—” I tried to yell.

  A dragon’s wing sliced my leg. A hydra reared up, its heads lashing out at me. I stumbled back. No matter how fast I moved, the shadows were faster. I was powerless to stop them. All my magic, all my training, and I couldn’t do anything.

  The hydra lunged again.

  Asher leapt from out of nowhere, shoving me aside, his sword somehow battering away the hydra’s heads. Blood leaked from his forehead and down his face, but he fiercely stood his ground.

  “I’ve heard ducking sometimes helps with not dying,” he said to me.

  “Watch out!”

  “Venma!”

  Kasia’s spell hit us like an overwhelming wave. My feet lifted off the ground. Asher was tossed into me and I tried to grab him but now he was too far away, and we were being thrown back too fast. My world spun, and out of the corner of my eyes I saw the edge of the cliff appear, watched as we went over it and the crumbling ruins below rushed up to meet us.

  Then I blacked out.

  “You’re not dead. How fortuitous for me.”

  I opened my eyes a fraction of an inch. I lay face down in the soft carpet of what I was quickly beginning to call the Dark Prince’s castle. Maybe his creepo dungeon. That seemed more fitting.

  Whatever it was, I was quickly becoming familiar with it.

  I knew my physical body was still somewhere in the outside world and—hopefully—still alive. Probably KO’d. Maybe drooling.

  The blood red carpet turned black as the Dark Prince’s shadow fell over me.

  “You had all my power at your disposal and yet you allowed yourself to get pummeled.”

  I stayed silent. I’d been lectured enough today, thanks, and I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he got to me. I was trapped. Stuck between a rock and hard place, too weak to fight on my own, too scared to call on the Prince’s power.

  He leaned closer. I felt his warm breath brush against my cheek. “You know you don’t have a choice. You’ll need me. If you want any hope of saving the ones you love, you’ll need me, Skylar.”

  He gave a deep laugh. I still refused to answer. I don’t think I could if I’d wanted to.

  My body felt both weirdly hot and cold when I woke; This time not on the floor of Captain Creeper’s Humble Abode, thankfully. But instead…

  I painfully craned my head up. The inside of a narrow, damp tunnel greeted me. The air smelled slightly of rancid water mixed with a slight tinge of sewage.

  Lovely.

  A stick snapped to my left. I looked over to see Asher breaking up small strips of wood and feeding them into a fire. Every so often he’d put his hand in the blaze and mutter a few words to get the flames roaring to life again.

  “Where are we?” I croaked, then immediately coughed. My throat was beyond dry.

  “Sleeping Beauty awakens,” Asher said. “I thought you were going to snooze through all the fun.”

  “You mean like dying?”

  He gestured to the tunnel. “Like enjoying our home away from home. It’s got everything: spiders, slugs, maybe a decently-sized rat or two…”

  I sat up too fast and my head let me know it wasn’t happy. Asher’s jacket slid off where it’d been pulled up to my neck. It still smelled like him: the faint, sharp tinge of leftover spells and his pine-scented aftershave. I resisted burying my nose in it.

  “Next time I book the accommodations,” I said.

  “Next time we’ll go somewhere that’s not New York. How’re you feeling?”

  “Alive. And…” I did a quick body diagnostic. “Feeling pretty good, actually. Nothing broken or sprained. Pretty sure I don’t have any gaping wounds.”

  Asher came over and brushed aside my hair to check a cut I felt on my forehead. I tried not to let my body grow hot as his eyes intensely scrutinized every inch of my face before he nodded.

  “You’re right, nothing too bad. Good. I thought it was just your head that was hard enough to break stone.”

  I threw his jacket at him. He caught it with a grin, then pointed up. “We broke through the floor of one of the ruined houses. I managed to hide us, but I’m not sure anyone was following. I think we’re in the clear.”

  “And the Masters?” I said, dreading the answer.

  “No clue. I’m trying not to think about…”

  I put a hand on his, wanting him to know that I completely understood. “Asher, I’m sure your dad is fine. He’s your dad. Seriously, he can do anything.”

  Asher gave me a tight smile before pulling his hand away to tend the fire. “Let’s hope so. But right now we should worry about ourselves.” He stood, starting to pull his jacket on. “If we can get back out there and warn—Agh!”

  He winced when he tried bringing his other arm up.

  “Asher? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing. Just pulled something when we fell—”

  But in the flash of firelight I saw the dark stain on his shirt before he tried to jerk away from me. I pulled him back around and he yelped.

  “Watch it!” he snarled.

  “Then stop being an idiot and let me see!”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “No—ow! Will you stop pulling?”

  But I managed to spin him until he faced me and I saw the wound. It looked like a piece of wood had pierced through the side of his ribs, pink flesh bunching up around it. My vision blurred a little but I forced myself to remain calm.

  “Told you it’s nothing,” Asher said, watching my reaction.

  “Drop the macho act and sit your butt down. I haven’t taken advanced healing, but I know some spells that can fix it.”

  Asher backed away, grimacing. “Uh, no, thanks. Remember when you turned Mia’s arm to stone trying to heal a papercut?”

  “It was practice! And I turned it back easily enough.”

  “No way. You might think that’s fine, but I—”

  I shoved him to sitting, nearly putting him in the fire. By accident, I swear.

  “Shirt off,” I ordered.

  He looked up at me. A demure smile curled his lips. “Want to ask a little nicer?”

  Was the fire hot, or was that just me?

  “Just hurry up, Asher. You may get every other girl to swoon over your abs, but I was there when they were pale and nonexistent.”

  Asher smirked until he grimaced, pulling off his jacket and shirt and leaning bare-chested against the wall, the tattoo encircling his bicep stark in the firelight. I knelt in front of him and definitely did not focus on his pecs. Or his abs, which he certainly had. Or…any other part of his slightly glistening chest.

  Yeah, definitely not the skinny, pale boy I used to know. Somewhere in those lost years he’d become a man.

  I was such an idiot to not notice.

  With the shirt off the wound looked worse, at least three inches of timber sticking out the side of the rib with blood still oozing from it.

  “I think it missed my lung,”
Asher said.

  “Clearly, since you can still talk,” I said. “Now shut up and let me think.”

  Asher smirked, but sat back silently. I knew he was probably in a lot more pain than he was letting on. Most likely because he didn’t want to scare me.

  “Immobilize, anesthetize, cauterize…” I mumbled, the scant notes I remembered from healing class coming back to me.

  “I really don’t think we should—” Asher began.

  I spoke the spell that (I hoped) would temporarily numb the wound. Asher visibly relaxed as the site grew pale. “That’s so much better. I think I can—”

  I wrapped my fingers around the bit of wood sticking out. “Ready?”

  “What? No—”

  I pulled.

  Man, that boy had a mouth on him.

  “A little warning, Skylar!” Asher snarled, hunched over.

  “I gave you at least half a second, now stop whining!”

  I pushed him back up and did a few more numbing spells until he didn’t look like he was sucking on a lemon. He let out a long breath and I hoped the worst of the pain had passed.

  “Now hold still,” I said. “I know how to do this, but I don’t want to screw it up.”

  He flinched away from my first touch. “Watch the cold hands, ice queen.”

  “Want me to stick them in the fire for a minute first, your highness?”

  He smirked, but didn’t move when I placed my hands back on him. I gently ran my fingers over the now-open wound, muttering the correct (I hoped, don’t tell Asher) words that closed up the worst of the lesion, leaving nothing but a pink line.

  Asher slowly relaxed as I carefully worked my way across the rest of the wound, his breathing steadying. After another few minutes I could feel his gaze refocus on me. It was more than a little distracting.

  “I never gave you a real, proper apology.”

  My hand slipped and Asher winced. I took a deep breath and continued. “I don’t allow deathbed confessions, sorry.”

  “I know I was wrong to avoid you. I know I was wrong to treat you the way I did.”

  He let out a sigh of relief as I closed up the biggest part of the gash. “It’s not an excuse, but you…you’re…vibrant. To me you’re…intoxicating.”