Return to Darkness

by Rebecca Royce

  Last time, it had been all about me just winging it. I’d knocked him out, but here he was again. We had to do better, or else I was going to have to live with the idea that Erdirg would always be here, always messing with people’s lives, killing children, or whoever, to get to me. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide—I couldn’t even go to a different reality.

  “How would you have killed him?” I asked Ray. “If you’d set out to do it, how would you have done it differently than me?”

  He stared at me a moment and then turned his attention to the window. “He’s such an ancient creature. I spent all that time researching him, reading about the myths associated with him. You found that same stuff…”

  It had been the first time I’d realized what geniuses these guys were. Thorn had found all kinds of information about Erdirg.

  “We did,” Thorn now answered. “It had to do with the folktale about the girl who used darkness.”

  “But darkness only puts him to sleep,” Colton remarked. He caught my stare and said quickly, “Not that it wasn’t impressive. I’m just saying, both women he attached himself to used darkness, and he went into hibernation. He didn’t die.”

  “Maybe I’m not dark enough,” I replied, but it was only half a joke. The girl I had been was plenty dark. Darker than I was now, because I had time and perspective the old Lacey didn’t. I was hopeful. How could I not be? Look at the men who loved me. “We didn’t know about my blood, though.” Surely, that was an advantage. The universe had to throw us a freaking bone here. “I closed portals to trap Mara. That wasn’t something I could do before.”

  “Right.” Aaron smiled at me. “That was part of what we learned about the pouques.”

  Ray’s face lit up and a bolt of relief shot through me. That expression was a good thing. It had to be. “Your pouque blood? Yeah. That changes things.”

  Chapter 15

  There wasn’t much for me to do for the next few hours. The guys and Ray set to work, creating a command center right in the kitchen of our fancy vacation house.

  “Back then, I thought that the way to kill him was to poison the place he called home. I gathered stones and herbs and went out to the desert. To your home.” Ray glanced up from his computer. “Your old home. But the magic that was there didn’t respond to those things. That had been my plan.”

  “It must have worked.” Otherwise, he wouldn’t have killed Erdirg in any reality.

  “He wasn’t there when I went.” Ray shook his head and crossed his arms. “Either he was hiding, or it wasn’t truly his home. I don’t know.”

  “How did you wake him up this time?” I asked. Since he’d arrived, I’d waited for him to share this information, but as time went on, I realized he either had forgotten I knew about it, or didn’t want to talk about it.

  And that didn’t work for me.

  The guys as one stopped typing and talking. “I thought…” Oliver began and then trailed off. He stared at his father, waiting.

  “Jacinda’s towels.”

  Of all the things I expected him to say, that wasn’t it.

  “Huh?” Aaron asked. “Mom’s towels? What?”

  “Mom has the same towels she’s always had. Washed and dried a hundred times, but some things linger. An essence lingers. A spirit.”

  Ew. My spirit was on their towels? Colton barked a laugh and I couldn’t help smiling. At least we all had the sense of humor as a twelve-year-old boy. I wasn’t alone.

  “When Lacey was exorcised,” he used air quotes, “she was wounded. You and your mom took care of her at our house. I thought maybe, somehow, her blood and whatever aura she had might have attached to those towels. So I took them into the desert—to your old home where I didn’t expect him to be—and I burned them.”

  “And he woke up.” Colton dragged his hand down his face. “Right?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I had a vision. Lacey was there. We were standing over an open grave. He wasn’t in it.”

  That seemed like a good place to start. Erdirg’s empty grave. “Come on. We’ll go there.”

  Colton lifted his lids. “You want to go now? This very second?”

  I did. Right this very fucking second.

  The drive over was a bit of a blur for me. We passed houses and it felt a little bit like I was watching a movie and the camera didn’t focus on anything. Long nights in Alaska had left me Googling random film trivia on the internet. When you couldn’t go outside, you found other things to do. That was what Rick had told me when I first moved there.

  Fuck. Why was my mind wandering the way it was? Rick? He didn’t even know what was happening with me right now, and I wasn’t going to tell him. He had enough going on, and he’d taken care of me for years. He was like the opposite of this town and all of the adults who had lived here. He actually cared what happened to me.

  I didn’t want him to have a heart attack worrying. Was he eating properly?

  “Lacey?” Oliver leaned over to speak low to me. His father was up front.

  I turned toward him. “You okay?”

  “I am. Can you tell me more about what was wrong with me? The other me?”

  I supposed at some point we’d get to a place where this story wouldn’t hurt so much and it would be simple to talk about that other world. We weren’t anywhere near there yet.

  “You killed my cousin because of what happened with me. Because I was dead. You went to jail for a while. Came out an addict. You were pretty lost. The most overtly lost.”

  He nodded. “I could see myself killing him. That isn’t such a weird concept to me.”

  I took his hands in mine, linking our fingers together. “Don’t do that. Don’t ever do anything to screw up your life for me.”

  Oliver cleared his throat. “Just know that I would.”

  That was sweet, but I hated it. “Why?” What would he get out of it?

  He stared at me. “After having you, Lacey, the idea of you not being around is so wrong. The world would be wrong without you. The hours you were gone were the worst of my life. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead because I couldn’t feel you. At least when you left the first time, I knew you continued to exist.”

  It hit me again how wrong and selfish it had been of me to leave the way I did. I’d promised once I’d never leave again without saying goodbye, and wasn’t that what I had done? I’d broken my promise to them.

  “I’m sorry.” It would take some time for me to prove that my word was any good, but I’d try. I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed mine back.

  “I know.” He leaned over and kissed me gently before facing forward. I leaned my head on his shoulder and waited for the drive to be over.

  Ray slowed, but I didn’t recognize this part of the town. When we’d come to look for the stones, we hadn’t driven this way. It was really built up, but not like the center of town. It had apartment buildings and parks along with ranch style single-family homes. We even passed a school. “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Not far from your old neighborhood. This is the place I found Erdirg’s resting place.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” I leaned over Oliver to study our surroundings. It looked nothing like I remembered. It was… nice. The sort of place I’d live if I had to live in the desert—which I wouldn’t—but still. “How?”

  “I think once Erdirg was gone and his evil was asleep, it released whatever cloud was over this place. It’s just a place, Lacey. Not good or bad.”

  There Ray went again, with his “not good or bad” talk. When it came to Erdirg, things were much more black and white.

  “Erdirg is bad.”

  “Yeah.” Shocked, I stared at the back of the man’s head. “He’s the exception to the rule. There’s always one.”

  Fair enough. We rolled to a stop. “I think it was about here.”

  He’d stopped in front of a playground. Oh, yuck. “This is it? The grave is under the playground?”

  “Is that swing moving on its
own?” At Colton’s words, I whipped my head toward the window. Sure enough, the swings were gently swaying.

  Aaron rolled down the window and then reached back to slap Colton. “Asshole. It’s the wind.”

  Thorn snorted while Colton tried to smother his grin. Little boys. I smiled too, though, because that shit was funny.

  But then I saw them. The air seemed to waver in the way that it did before ghosts showed up. All five of the men I was with shut up their laughter. Yep, these were the right people to be around when ghosts showed up. They could actually see them, and they didn’t have to be made to believe. The swings had children on them.

  Dead, ghost children.

  I shivered and rubbed my arms.

  “Yep.” Thorn put his arm around me. “This is bad. I mean, like haunt your dreams after this, and you’ve been with a sleep hag. Those are ghosts of children.”

  Ray stopped the car.

  “Really?” I asked. “Here?” This was the stuff of nightmares.

  But here was as good as anywhere I supposed. The guys got out of the car. Thorn held his hand out to help me, and then we faced the playground.

  One of the ghosts jumped off the swing and giggled. Then he whirled around and pointed. I didn’t have to guess what he was pointing at. Erdirg was here.

  This was not the first time I was seeing him, but the guys hadn’t seen him in a decade. I tried to step forward but was yanked back by Aaron who grabbed my hand. “Not by yourself this time.”

  I nodded. Yes, he was right. We were all here. It was a fair request to make that I let them help. Funny. It was such a pretty day. Why did horrible things happen on such blue-sky days? Couldn’t the weather match my mood for once?

  “Thoughts?” I spoke aloud. “Keeping in mind that he can hear us and speaks our language and all that.”

  Surprisingly, it was actually Colton who answered me. “The years I’ve spent studying beings like him have taught me a few things. They die. They don’t have to be put to sleep, they don’t have to be temporarily handled. They just have to be killed. We find their remains all over the place. So we’re going to kill it.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Sounds good. What do you have in mind?”

  “Remember what we used to handle Mara? The stuff that we used on you that made you… ah… unhappy that we’d done it without discussing it. How about if we use it now? My guess? It’ll do to him what it did to you. And then it’s easy to take care of it,” Colton said.

  They’d kissed me to get the sleep tonic on my lips. I wasn’t kissing Erdirg. “How would we administer the drug?” And what was more, when had they created it?

  Erdirg stared at us, but stayed in one place. Huh. Why didn’t he move closer?

  I started talking fast. “I have so many questions about this,” I muttered. What did they do? Carry around a stash of herbs, just in case? “What else you got up your sleeve? Rosemary? Thyme? Parsley? Sage?”

  “Sarcasm noted,” Colton replied. “It’s not that we were carrying it around, per se, but we have what we need to create it. Look.”

  I followed his gaze. Aaron had turned his back on us. When I met Colton’s gaze again, he lifted his eyebrows. I got it. Aaron was doing a fancy Salt Bae move over there, and then I’d have my tonic.

  “We promised ourselves we’d never be blindsided again.” Colton leaned down and kissed me.

  Beyond us came an angry growl so low that I felt the vibrations in the soles of my feet. As one, the guys crowded around me with Ray taking point.

  Erdirg’s gaze flashed toward him, and he smiled. One cloven hoof lifted, and he stepped closer.

  Aaron took my hand, sticking what felt like Vaseline in the palm of my hand. He kissed my cheek. “Move fast because it’ll hit you, too. But know we’re right behind you.” He squeezed my hand.

  “Ray Chee,” Erdirg called. “We’ve met in many realities. But you don’t destroy me in this one. And you don’t keep her from me.” He took another step closer, lifted one huge hand and crooked his finger at me.

  It was only because I needed to get close, and I was playing a role, that I stepped away from the guys. “No,” Aaron said. It had to be him who tried to stop me, because he knew what I was supposed to do. If it had been Oliver, or Colton who told me no, I would have hesitated, uncertain.

  “It was always going to happen like this,” I replied.

  Erdirg’s smile got wider. And more repulsive. This shit better work, because if these demon ghosts ended up being my stepchildren, I was going to be pissed.

  The guys yelled out behind me, and I hazarded a glance over my shoulder. They tried to come closer, struggling as if something held them in place.

  Shit. They better be acting. That better be an invisible wall, and they sure as shit better be mimes, because if I was out here on my own, I was fucked. And maybe literally.

  He crooked his finger again, and I stepped closer to him. His other hand was out now, palm toward the sky. He wanted me to take it. My knees shook a little. I had to move faster. One step. Another. And I slid my palm against his.

  He jerked me forward, entwining our fingers. He didn’t act as if he felt what was in my hand at all. So that’s good. It was the last positive thought I had because he leaned down, closer and closer until his fetid breath washed over my face. “Lacey.”

  I was really going to do this. He smelled like sulfur. Had I known that before and just forgotten? I tilted my head to the side and closed my eyes. Part of me wanted to look at the guys, but I knew they’d have horror in their eyes, and I didn’t need their pain to add to my own. Sometimes I could only handle my own stress and not handle anyone else’s.

  He licked my neck. It was really… awful.

  And then the world shifted. I lost consciousness. The only reason I knew this happened was because I was suddenly in the dream world, and not the kind that I went to when I fell asleep. No, this was more like what the hag had done to me.

  That was when I saw him. Erdirg. Fuck my life. I was in his dreamscape.

  He stared at me, and I stared right back at him. We were together in the desert, only it was the desert as I’d never seen it before. I told people in Alaska when they asked me about it that the desert wasn’t exactly as they’d pictured it from movies or television. There were a ton of colors in the desert. Pinks. Greens. Yellows. But now, I was seeing even more than I ever had before. Swirling purples and blues. I quickly stared up at the sky.

  This was his dream so that didn’t mean that what I was seeing was true. As I stared up at the stars, I found they were different than I’d ever seen them. Also, weird that I could see the stars when it was so clearly daytime where we stood. That was the thing about dreams.

  “You don’t want me because you want me. You want me because I smell good to you. Like another time, like some past that you miss, maybe. My blood calls to you. You should have left me alone when you could have. And part of me, I guess, should feel sorry for you.”

  He looked around. “What is this place?”

  “The last thing you’ll see.”

  “Lacey?” Colton’s voice called to me, and I turned around. I hadn’t focused on it, but I should have known they’d never leave me alone here to handle this on my own. Aaron, Oliver, and Thorn appeared.

  Erdirg jerked me toward him, but in a dream, our power was equal. He wasn’t Mara, who controlled not only her dreams, but everyone else’s. And I had practice with this, so when I made the decision not to move, I didn’t. My feet were blocks of cement, tethered with iron to the ground, and I was unmovable. To him.

  Aaron and Oliver held dried herbs in their hands. As I watched, they lit them and blew the smoke toward Erdirg. Here I was, inches away from the demon who had ruined my existence until the time I met these guys, and I knew—with every cell in my body—that I was safe. Because they were here, and we would do this together.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Erdirg. “Sleep.”

  He collapsed. Eyes rolled back in his head, kn
ees folding, four hundred pounds of dead weight hit the ground so hard it shook. Thorn grabbed my hand, and I allowed him to pull me away, but he didn’t look at me, instead his gaze stayed on Erdirg.

  “Do we leave him here?” I asked. Trapped in a dream? Sleeping again?

  Colton shook his head. Aaron and Oliver began to chant, low and rhythmic under their breath. Colton exhaled, shut his eyes, and began to mouth the words. Next to me, Thorn did the same thing.

  I didn’t understand what they were saying—it was in no language I’d ever heard—but it had a power that washed over me and raised chills along my arms. Thorn held onto me, the words coming faster as the power built. Aaron, Oliver, and Colton lifted their voices, stepping closer to the sleeping form until the five of us stood around him.

  The herbs were almost all ash. Oliver took his, smudging them onto his hand. I winced, expecting to hear the sizzle and smell of skin, but nothing happened.

  “I said once that I loved you.” Oliver crumbled the herbs that were left, scattering them onto Erdirg. “Nothing will take you from me.”

  “From us,” Aaron added. “We’re stronger than whatever is in your blood. Whatever calls creatures to you. Because we’re in your heart.” He blew out the last tiny ember of flame, and as he did the sky cleared.

  Colton and Thorn continued to chant, but Aaron and Oliver turned away from Erdirg. Aaron stepped closer to me until we were toe to toe, and I could feel Oliver’s heat at my back. He leaned down, kissing my lips softly at the same time Oliver trailed his fingers down my arm and then kissed my neck. “I love you,” he whispered.

  I loved them, too. If I’d learned anything in all this, it was how much I needed them. My life wasn’t complete without them.

  Nearby, something thumped onto the ground, and I opened my eyes. Colton and Thorn held their hands above their head, fists closed, and then opened them. Flames fell from their hands like raindrops to land on Erdirg. I had a sense of a weight lifting from my shoulders and the film of whatever Erdirg had left on me was washed away.