Dark Abandon

by Nicole R. Taylor

  I could see the faculty was already emerging from the Academy buildings, their arondight blades at the ready. Masters, Patrick, and Adelaide were amongst them, dishing out orders. A group began to give chase to the retreating demons, and the others were sent to scout for stragglers. Before long, the grounds would be clear and the wards restored.

  “It’s nice not being on our own, huh?” Wilder asked. “We don’t have to worry about clean-up duty.”

  “Very funny.” I stormed across the courtyard, pushing away Brax’s fate for the time being, knowing I’d have to explain it to Greer and the others. Right now, Madeleine needed my help.

  When we got to the chapel, I burst into the sanctuary, the Light infused in the foundation soothing my raging power. But when I turned to the altar, I realised it was empty. Madeleine was gone.

  “She was right here,” I said, fisting my hands into my hair. “I pinned her right in front of the altar.”

  “Well, she got free,” Wilder said, stating the obvious.

  I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Wilder, they want the coin.”

  “The coin?”

  “It’s the key to finding Arondight. The key, the shard, and the stones.”

  “And you’re the shard.”

  “Aiden said he knows where the standing stones might be.” Which meant he was the demon’s next target.

  I spotted my cold iron dagger on the floor and snatched it up.

  “He’s locked up tight, Purples. Nothing’s getting to him.” His hand brushed my waist, the gesture a little too intimate for my liking.

  “Madeleine still has some control over her Light,” I argued.

  “Purples… you’re too precious,” he murmured, his fingers tightening on my hip. “This is what the shadow wants. It’s luring you into a trap.”

  “I know it’s a bloody trap.”

  “Let us handle it. You’ll be safe here. This place is infused with Light.”

  “But Madeleine still got out…” It was in that moment, where I’d caught just enough of my breath back, that I realised what he was doing. I bristled and slapped his hand away. He was trying to use my feelings to manipulate me into staying in the chapel because he knew I’d do that whole run-head-first-into-danger thing I was so fond of. How dare he.

  “I saw you!” I shouted, tearing away from him. “I saw you and Greer, Wilder. You can’t use my feelings against me anymore. I’m going to do what I think is right, not what you manipulate me into.”

  He stared at me like I’d just punched him in the face.

  “I get it,” I ranted. “You don’t have to keep bashing me over the head with it, okay? You love Greer, so what? Right now, this is about the demons getting their hands on Arondight and a girl who’s scared out of her bloody mind!”

  “Scarlett—”

  “She’s going for Aiden,” I snapped. “She’ll either take him or kill him, and I’m not going to let that girl become a murderer against her will.” Curling my lip, I looked him over. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”

  I took off, sprinting from the chapel and across the lawn. Wilder appeared beside me, his expression grim.

  “The cellar,” he said. “Underneath the back building.”

  Our boots crunched on gravel as we legged it across the courtyard, opening a side door and barrelling across a hallway, before emerging outside again. I skidded around the corner and almost slammed into a lesser demon. My arondight blade sparked and I sliced through its gut, severing it in two without breaking stride.

  Wilder took the lead and slammed his shoulder against the door to the northern-most building. I skidded down the hall, my damp boots slipping on the polished floorboards and clattered down the stairs to the cellar below.

  The air changed the moment we descended below ground level. It was cold, dank, and metallic. Madeleine.

  I turned the corner, the row of cells wreathed in inky, unnatural, shadow.

  “At the end,” Wilder said, urging me forwards.

  I kept moving, forging through the Darkness, my stomach turned and my lungs burned as I breathed in the poisonous air. It stank of Sulphur the closer we got, and as we broke through the haze, so did the sound of Aiden’s screams.

  The bars to his cell had been twisted and pried open, exposing him to the shadow. Madeleine—or the thing she’d become—fisted her hand into his hair and slammed his skull against the dense bluestone. He fought against her with his Light, but the mutation inside her was too strong.

  “Madeleine!” I shrieked. “Fight it!”

  I grabbed the back of her T-shirt and hauled her off Aiden. She turned on me, her eyes dark and her skin swirling with mottled red and black splotches. I almost recoiled, but I slammed her against the wall, ignoring the pain that throbbed through my body.

  “Madeleine!” I cried. “Fight back, damn it! Fight back!”

  She let out an agonised wail even as she clawed at me, her fingernails dragging across my skin.

  “Scarlett!” Wilder shouted as he dragged Aiden out of the way. “She’s gone. Stand back—”

  “No,” I shrieked. “No, I won’t let it take her. I won’t--”

  I called on my Light, praying that the shard of Arondight would answer. It had when I’d healed Jackson and when I’d destroyed Markzoth. This was why Arondight existed—to help those survive against the Dark.

  The Light must prevail. It must…

  I poured my Light into Madeleine, the power burning through me, eating my insides with pure indigo flame. I reached out for the dying spark inside her, begging her to come back before it was too late.

  Madeleine… it’s not your time…

  A flash of silver Light glinted in the Darkness and shot towards me, its delicate tendrils meshing with my essence. I pulled and the shadow wrenched her back, so I pulled harder, dragging Madeleine out of the sucking void the mutation had created inside her.

  Fight… Kick, scream, thrash…

  Madeleine screamed, her voice sounding far away. Her hand wrapped around my wrist and I hauled her out of the shadow with one final burst of Light, then we were hurling through the air—not literally, it seemed like something deeper than that, something almost spiritual.

  Her soul, I realised. I’d just saved her soul.

  We collapsed to the ground in a heap, and I wrapped my arms around her fragile frame. The mutation had taken so much out of her that I was afraid if I’d waited a second longer, the last shred of her Light would’ve been absorbed by the Darkness.

  She sobbed, her chest heaving uncontrollably, and she clutched the front of my shirt so tight her knuckles were white.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I murmured, smoothing her hair. “You’re here. You’re here.”

  “What did she do?” Aiden asked Wilder.

  “Called on Arondight,” he replied.

  “Arondight?”

  He smiled down at me like a proud teacher, his eyes flashing silver. “She carries a shard of it inside her, you know.”

  19

  I stood outside the Academy, looking out across the remains of last night’s battle. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue and the building behind us cast long shadows across the driveway and fountain.

  Wilder stood beside me, his expression grim as he stared at the blackened spot that used to be Brax’s body. No one had been out with a rake to clear it away yet.

  My head lolled to the side and I snapped to attention, shaking off the onset of sleep. How embarrassing.

  “Past your bedtime?” he asked, glancing at me out the corner of his eye.

  I shrugged. I’d wanted to stick by Madeleine for as long as I could. My side ached, my knee was twisted and bruised, and I sported one hell of a black eye, but the Light-infused pain meds were working a treat.

  “Every time you use the shard, it wears you out, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” I replied. “It’s an enigma I need to figure out on my own. There isn’t anything in the Natural handbook. I chec
ked.”

  He snorted, giving away his own exhaustion.

  “Do you think I did the right thing?” I asked. “Bringing her back?”

  “Madeleine will be okay,” he replied. “Ramona is confident she can help her.”

  “But she’ll never be the same.”

  He shook his head. “Her mind is strong, but there’ll always be two halves of her.”

  A constant battle between the demon and the Natural. I sighed, wishing I’d figured it out sooner.

  “Don’t sweat the what if’s, Purples,” he said. “You saved her soul.” But at what cost?

  “Which is more than Brax got for his troubles.”

  “If what that demon told you was true, then he didn’t have a choice.”

  The One, the king of all demons, the most powerful of the horde beyond the rift. If the world was plunged into another cataclysm and he was allowed to cross… we’d all be royally screwed.

  “Did I ever know the real man?” I wondered out loud.

  “That’s the million-dollar question everyone’s asking.”

  Like always, more questions had been raised the moment I seemed to find answers to others. The key, the shard and the stones. The One. The existence of a rift between worlds. Things were getting… complicated.

  “I didn’t release there were more demons back in their own world,” I said. “I thought they were all here.”

  “So did we all, Purples.”

  “Something must’ve stopped them the first time. Closed the rift just enough so the biggest bad guys couldn’t pass through.”

  “It would seem that way,” a female voice replied.

  I turned, finding Greer behind us. For such an early hour, she looked as airbrushed as ever and I felt a pang of self-consciousness over my black eye. Wilder didn’t move to greet her—I wondered if it was on my account—though when he saw Madeleine being escorted out in a wheelchair, he snapped into action.

  Greer and I stood together as we watched him carry Madeleine to the waiting car. There was something about him that seemed to soothe her turmoil, and while I’d taken ownership of the goth girl, I was glad she had others around her she could trust. Her road would be long and difficult, but her people wouldn’t let her walk it alone.

  “I find myself thanking you again, Scarlett,” Greer murmured. “It seems you’re full of surprises.”

  “Greer…” I turned, my stomach rolling, “I have to apologise to you.”

  She shook her head. “I have to apologise to you. I allowed my jealousy to cloud my judgment.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re important to all of us, Scarlett. Not just for what you are, but who you are. Love cannot be forced or won. It just… is.”

  I glanced at Wilder, who was kneeling beside the open door of the car and remembered the things I’d snapped at him last night. I’d seen them together, and while it hurt in places I’d never felt pain before, I couldn’t hold it against him. The heart was a fickle thing.

  I looked at Greer and found her staring at the black mark on the gravelled driveway.

  “We were friends for years,” she began. “Then on the council together for a decade. When I was asked to be the protector, he was the one who convinced me to bind myself to the Codex. I didn’t even know…”

  “It wasn’t Brax,” I told her. “Something had taken him over a long time ago.” I didn’t have to explain the rest to her.

  “Yes, but for how long?”

  “We can’t know for certain. We can only know our own choices.” She blamed herself, that much was clear, but we’d all been fooled. “The demon said he was the One.”

  She nodded, her eyes downcast. “Their leader. The greatest of all demons.”

  I supposed that was why he could use Brax’s body without anyone knowing. His power was so great, he could fool us all, even the Codex.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Brax was already gone.”

  “I know. I just can’t help but think that we failed him. I wonder when, where… If his soul…”

  “Don’t,” I said gently. “Don’t blame yourself, Greer. We’re fighting against impossible odds.”

  She inclined her head. “We’ve been forced to question everything we know and have ever been taught about demons. They’re more organised, intelligent, and powerful than we gave them credit for. All this time…” She shook her head, her gaze moving to Wilder. “We haven’t been fighting a war. We’ve been playing at one.”

  Now wasn’t the time for defeatist attitudes. I almost had everything I needed to find the rest of Arondight, and when I did, we’d have the upper hand. Justice would be swift, and I’d go into this mysterious rift and deliver it if I had to… but it was way too early to be contemplating suicide missions.

  “I have a lot to explain,” I said. “I’ve made some… omissions in my reports.”

  “I suspected as much. I look forward to hearing them when I return to the Sanctum.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “No. I want to stay and assist Liam and the students. There are a lot of frightened young Naturals inside those buildings. I’d like to offer what I can to them.” She glanced at me. “I’ll rejoin you at the Sanctum shortly. Ramona and Jackson are waiting.”

  I missed Jackson terribly, but I thought about the friends I’d made here—Trisha, Maisy, Trent, Kayla, and the rest of the seniors—and Aiden, who’d risked so much trying to help me, and knew I owed them a goodbye at least. I’d been ordered to return to London with Madeleine and Wilder, but I had unfinished business here. Besides, this was where the illustrious protector was. If anyone could shed some light on that Code page, it was Greer and Aiden. Those two needed to join forces, stat.

  “I’d like to stay a few more days,” I said. “There are a few things I need to finish.”

  “And defy your orders?” Greer asked with a half-hearted laugh. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  Inside, the Academy felt different. Maybe it was because of the battle last night, or perhaps it was the fact that this morning, Islington let me graduate early. I didn’t get on the honour roll, but at least I wouldn’t have to suffer through detention any more. Of course, my hasty graduation present had been the removal of my tracer.

  “Scarlett!”

  I turned as Trent’s excited voice echoed down the hall. Everyone from the senior Light class was lingering inside the foyer. Had they been waiting to say goodbye to Madeleine? I hoped so.

  “You’re still here!” Trisha exclaimed.

  “We thought you’d already left,” Kayla added.

  “How’s Madeleine?” Maisy fired off.

  “Is she going to be okay?” The last question was from Kayla, and I glanced at her, surprised at what seemed to be genuine concern.

  “She’s on her way to London,” I told them. “She’s very sick, and I’m not sure what’ll happen, but she’s in the best care.”

  “Do you think they’ll let us visit her?” Maisy asked.

  “We never got to apologise,” Kayla said, “for how we treated her.”

  Was I hearing her right? Did I have wax in my ears? Kayla was owning up to her superior ways? She sounded sincere, and I genuinely hoped this was a permanent outlook for her.

  “I know we were horrible to her,” she went on. “Me most of all. We should’ve stuck together, no matter what.”

  “Madeleine’s condition was no one’s fault, but you’re right,” I said. “Together, you’re stronger.” And maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad. “I don’t know about visitors, but I’ll put in a good word with Islington.”

  “You’re friends now?” Trent asked with a grin.

  I smirked. “Until the next time I push his buttons.”

  “Thanks, Scarlett,” Trisha said, “for everything.”

  “Does that mean I’m one of the cool kids now?”

  “Yeah,” Kayla replied. “You’re not bad… for a geriatric.”

  Everyone began to laugh and I joined in, warning her to watch w
ho she called old because one day, she’d be twenty-five and realise just how not old that was.

  As the others moved off, Trent hung back.

  “Please don’t ask me any more advice about girls,” I told him. “I’ve realised I’m not equipped to be a dating guru.”

  He shook his head and I realised he was looking at me with something resembling awe. Great, just what I needed, a protégé. I wondered if this was how Wilder felt—exasperated and unqualified—when I followed the troll doll to that pub in London and demanded he take me to his leader.

  “Seeing you fight that Colossus has kicked everyone in the arse,” Trent said. “We’ve made a pact.”

  “Have you? Did you seal it with a spit handshake?”

  “Gross.” He made a face. “No, but things are going to change around here. No more smuggling in beer and drugs and shite. Just training, so next time we can fight alongside you. Cowering in fear was a little emasculating.”

  “That’s a big word.”

  “Impressed?”

  “Very.”

  Tears prickled in my eyes and I coughed to cover up my proud mother hen moment. A year ago, I was struggling with mental illness and the boring day to day life of a bartender, now I was a shining example to the next generation of supernatural demon hunters. This world really was crazy.

  “Remember what I told you?” I asked him.

  Trent nodded. “Next time you see me, I’ll have graduated. Top of the class and everything. I can’t promise I’ll make honour roll, though.”

  I laughed and shoved him playfully. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  The library was empty when I pushed through the doors. Its familiar smells of old paper, metal, and leather filled my nostrils and I breathed deeply. I’d miss this place.

  When I stood outside the office, I smiled as I saw Aiden half out of his chair and bent over his desk, pen in hand. I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or just really focused on the book under his nose.

  I leaned against the doorjamb and crossed my arms over my chest. Coughing loudly, I grinned as he started and almost fell of his chair.