Darkness Fair (The Dark Cycle Book 2) (16 page)

TWENTY-SEVEN

Aidan

I open my eyes to a frozen world. I’m looking through glass, down at a crowd of people on a dance floor below me. People are caught in their movement like statues, as if someone hit the pause button. Then I shift my gaze and see it. My body, to my right. It’s sitting on the carpet, leaning against the glass. My neck is limp, head tipped to the side. Blood smears my neck, my face . . . everything seems to be painted in red. It leaks from my lips, shimmers on my torn belly, and pools under me, creating a crimson mirror.

I look around for Eric, but somehow my spirit knows I’m not here to chat with anyone. I’m not here to be warned or instructed. This is nothing like that. I look up at the ceiling and realize the building has no roof. Above me is a huge expanse of the sky, scattered with more stars than I can ever remember seeing over the City of Angels. I watch them gleam as a blue-green light appears in a slow, steady bleed across the sky. Part of me wants to follow its path, to reach out and touch the light, feel its warmth.

But something tugs at me, holds me here, something at my feet.

My attention wanders back to my torn and broken body. And I remember I’m dead. Very. Dead.

But . . . this isn’t how it was supposed to happen. I’m not destined to be killed by some demon in the club. After everything. How can it end here? It can’t.

My cold, torn flesh seems to disagree.

I forget the sky and move closer to my mangled body. The air around me is like a living thing, pushing me back, pressing in on me from all sides. But I ignore its insistence, needing to understand.

“Who are you?” a soft, curious voice asks from behind me.

I turn and see a young woman standing on the other side of the couch. Her form is pale; I can almost make out the bookshelves on the opposite wall through her body. A ghost?

“I’m Aidan,” I say, not sure why the sight of her isn’t bothering me.

And then I realize where she’s standing: the same place the body was, the body that the demon was eating.
Hanna
. Wasn’t that Hanna?

I move around the couch and look down.

The young woman’s gaze follows mine. “Who’s that?” she asks.

It’s not Hanna. The body isn’t Hanna’s. Relief fills me in a rush, but then realization quickly follows in a bitter wave as I look down on what remains of this other young woman, her brown hair tied in a bun, face untouched and perfect, while her work uniform is torn apart just like her body.

“That’s you,” I say numbly.

She blinks down at herself, then over at my dead body. “And that’s you?” she asks, like a child might.

An emotion pricks inside of me for just a second: frustration. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

With a sigh, she says, “No.”

“No,” I echo. And then the anger trickles in, beginning to wash away the numbness. Slow at first, but soon a swell of it floods me. It’s not just anger, though—it’s more than that. It’s as if my power is sparking back to life a little, stirring in my insides that I no longer own. My body calls me back.

You will touch death with fire and bring it into life once more
the journal said.
You will touch death with fire and bring it into life once more. What you will awaken shall usher in the world’s end. The Cycle of Darkness has begun.

“No,” I say again. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. And we’re not going to let it.”

She gives me a look of surprise. “We’re not?”

“What’s your name?” I ask, letting my soul be led.

“Miranda,” she says, but it’s almost a question, like she’s not sure.

“I need you to trust me, Miranda.”

You will touch death with fire and bring it into life once more
.

She nods slowly, her translucent form solidifying a little more. “All right.”

What is death? What do I touch? My eyes travel to her ravaged body . . .
bring it into life once more
. I kneel beside the shell of what once was a woman: Miranda. Something stirs in me as I get closer, it moves through my bones like a whisper, and when I reach out I see the mark on my hand, dark against my ghostly skin. The mark moves over my arm. It curls and uncurls, over and over, and when I make contact with Miranda’s dead body, my fingers grazing the blood-speckled skin, a part of the mark slides away, onto the lifeless arm, transferring from me to her.

“I can hear it,” she says. “Someone’s saying my name. Someone’s calling me.” She tips her head, listening. And then she flickers and disappears.

I turn and look down on her mangled body.

But it’s not mangled anymore. And all the blood is gone. Her clothes are still torn and her skin is pale, but the gouges and tears are all healed. She’s no longer a mutilated corpse, but she still appears to be a corpse.

Maybe it didn’t really work? Not all the way. I look at my ghost arm and see that the line on my mark that went onto her skin is still missing.

And then I see where it went, onto her soul. It’s wrapped around her bicep, just above her elbow, delicate and barely noticeable.

What does it mean? Did a part of my power go into her? And if it did, does that mean that I have less?

What am I thinking? It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m dead.

I stand and walk back to my own body, feeling alone now in this silent world. I lift my eyes back to the stars overhead and wonder what the hell God’s thinking. “Really?” I ask the blue-green light still flowing across the expansive sky. “What do you want from me, then? What’s all this about?”

The light seems to brighten in answer. And then it moves closer, pulsing like a heartbeat. Closer. Closer. So large it fills my vision, blinding me. The heat of it begins to sting my skin, warmer and warmer. It fills every piece of me, overwhelming everything else. Until I’m branded by it, seared.

Sealed.

Then the heat seeps away, the light gone, and all I see is darkness.

Someone’s saying my name far away, calling me in a frantic voice. I turn to see who it is, but I’m suddenly made of stone. My muscles protest and my chest burns. I can’t breathe.

“Aidan!” a male voice says, worried. “Are you sure that’s his name?”

“Yes—I mean, I think so.” That voice is familiar, female. I heard it a long time ago, when I was dead.

The man speaks again, a deep, gravely voice. “I thought he was here to talk to Hanna. Where is she?”

“She got a phone call and stepped out the side door a few minutes ago. I was just waiting for her when . . . gosh, I don’t remember.”

I crack open my eyes. A hand grips my arm, the smell of relief and panic mingling in the room, creating a bittersweet cocktail of emotions.

“Hey!” the male voice says, giving my arm a shake. “What happened? Did you pass out, kid?”

“I told you we didn’t need to call 911,” the young woman says.

I open my lead eyelids wider, wide enough to see a blur of black suit and brown hair.

“How’d you both get your clothes all torn to pieces?” the man asks, sounding dubious. “Did you do that to each other?”

“No! Jeez, Frank! I think I’d remember that.”

Frank comes into view first, his face hovering over mine. “Well, maybe you hit your head and don’t remember.” He’s so close I notice a twisted scar just under his left eye.

“Don’t be a dope.” The woman comes into view next. I see that it’s Miranda, the dead girl, holding her white uniform shirt closed with her fist. There’s no blood on her at all. Not one drop.

I manage to move my head and look down at my own tattered torso. But there’s no blood, no lacerations, no claw marks left from the wraith’s attack earlier, not even the impossible hole from the demon’s beak. There’s nothing but thick white scars to prove that anything happened at all.

The only thing in tatters now is my blue T-shirt.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Aidan

Frank has asked me what feels like two hundred questions, and he still won’t let me leave to find Rebecca and Connor. I barely hear him over the words thundering in my head.

Dead.

I was dead
.

And where’s Hanna? Miranda said she’d stepped out to take a call, but where did she go? I need to be sure she’s okay.

Instead of Hanna, it was this woman, Miranda, who was dead. But now she’s not. She’s fine. Because I brought her back? My God, that’s just . . . that’s crazy. But . . . if it’s true that I resurrected the Biblical prophet Daniel from bones and dust, if I could do that, it makes a crazy sort of sense that I could bring back someone who’d just been dead a few minutes.

The under-passages in Eric’s journal still ring in my ears:
You will touch death with fire and bring it into life once more. What you will awaken shall usher in the world’s end.

I stare up at Miranda as Frank asks his questions. My mark is still there, on her arm, just like it was when I watched it slide its way from my soul onto hers. Clearly, though, she can’t see it, and doesn’t remember anything that happened. Thank God.

I look down at my own mark and see the piece is still missing. I can only assume I gave her some of my power in the resurrection. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

Frank finally lets me go, despite the fact that Miranda and I can’t give any good answers. As I make my way to the car, I pull out my cell and I punch in Hanna’s number. I listen to the rings, praying, “Please pick up. Be okay, please be—”

“Hello, Aidan? Are you here yet?”

I release the breath I was holding. “You’re okay?”

She pauses. “Yes, why?”

“Where are you? I went up to your office and you weren’t there.”

“I’m fine, Aidan.” She pauses again and I hear a male voice say something.

“Who is that you’re talking to?” I ask.

“It’s Eric.”

“I need to speak to him,” I say, a second wave of relief passing through me. He must’ve listened to me and reconnected with her. Which is crazy. But I’m so glad he did.

“He says he’ll call you,” she says. “Are you all right?”

No. “Yeah, I guess. Tell him I really need to talk.” I decide not to push, to just take the win: Hanna’s safe, she’s with Eric, and I can ask my million questions when I don’t feel like I’ve been torn to bloody bits and then taped back together. Which I guess I sort of was.

“What took you so long?” Connor asks when I slide into the backseat of the Camaro.

Rebecca turns around in her seat, her eyes squinting to focus on me. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I mutter. I stole someone’s shirt from the break room, so it’s not like she’s looking at my tattered one. Second shirt ruined in two days.

“I know there’s something,” she says. “You’re . . . different.”

I sigh, really not aware enough to explain. “Listen, I’m still processing. I’m all right, though, okay?”

She seems to be considering whether or not to push more. “Okay,” she says, quietly.

Connor starts the car and heads out onto the main road.

After we drive for a while in silence, it comes back at me in a burst of memory. “Hunger!” I say the name louder than I’d meant it to. How could I have almost forgotten?

Rebecca looks at me and asks with a frown, “You’re hungry?”

I grip my retrieved amulet in my fist. I’m relieved to see she’s wearing hers, too. “Hunger, the demon. The one that was after you before. It may be back.”

Rebecca leans away from me, like she’s trying to get away from my words. “I thought you killed it.”

“No, my sister exiled it, or I thought she did. The day Lester hurt you—I watched the demon go.”

“Why do you think it’s back?” Connor asks, glancing over to Rebecca.

I shake my head and find myself at a loss for words again. So instead of explaining, I opt to stay focused on what the demon’s return means for Rebecca. “If you keep your amulet on and I keep mine, it won’t be able to find us.”

If Hunger is back, it’s a complication, but as long as the beast focuses on me, then it’ll be fine. All I’ll need to do is sneak up on it with a nice sharp blade . . .

Just thinking about gutting the thing thrills me. I would so love to get my hands on the beast that killed Rebecca’s brother. And at the moment, I feel like I have nothing to lose.

I died. I was dead. Again.

My throat stings at the memory of it all, the visceral echo of the agony from the claws tearing open my stomach, from the demon’s beak stabbing through my chest. A strange helplessness fills me as I realize . . . I’m stuck. Not even being ripped to shreds by a demon can save me from this path I’m on. Not even a horrifying death can help me find an escape. For some reason, I’m trapped here, in the madness that my existence created. I’m caged in the flesh, unable to stop what’s coming . . .
The Cycle of Darkness has now begun.

TWENTY-NINE

Aidan

I head upstairs to my bedroom, exhaustion and confusion a lead blanket on my shoulders. I need sleep. A lot of it.

But I find myself pushing open Kara’s door instead of my own.

Her blinds are closed, keeping the streetlights out. I hear her steady breathing, see the shape of her body on the bed. I want to climb into the sheets beside her, even if it’s not right. She’s the only one who can quiet this storm inside of me. She’s the only one who makes me feel like I have a choice in all this mess. It’s selfish as hell but I need her.

So I close the door behind me and sit down on the wood floor, leaning against the wall beside her bed. The darkness coats me and I close my eyes, listening to her sleep, trying to feel for her energy.

After a few minutes her body shifts and I hear the sound of sliding sheets. “Aidan?”

“Sorry,” I say. “I’ll leave in a minute. Just sleep.”

“What’s wrong?” She sits up and climbs out of bed, coming to stand over me. “Are you okay?”

The soft tone of her voice, the concern in it, breaks my resolve to not burden her with any of it tonight. “I don’t know,” I whisper.

She kneels in front of me and reaches over to turn on the lamp beside the bed. The soft light reveals her worried expression. “What happened?”

I have to say it. I have to make it real. “I died.”

The air goes still with fear. “What?” she breathes.

“A demon, it . . .” I shake my head, not able to find the words for the memory, “but I came back.”

She looks me over, her eyes wide and full of emotions. “Where?”

“What?”

“Where were you hurt? I don’t see any new cuts or anything.”

I pull my shirt over my head and set it on the floor. Then I shift so the light shines on my side where the demon’s claw dug the deepest.

“Oh, Aidan—” Her hand covers her mouth, tears glistening in her eyes.

“They’re just scars.”

She nods, a tear sliding down her cheek.

“I’m fine, Kara.” I feel the need to say it out loud even though it’s not really true. “I’m okay.”

“Your poor body,” she says, touching my healed wounds, her fingers gentle. “The scars are so big. There are so many of them . . . What kind of demon did this?”

“A corporeal one. Midlevel. Huge.”

“My God.” She comes closer, her side leaning on mine as she touches her lips to my shoulder, warming my chilled skin.

I soak in her touch as she traces her fingers over my hair. “There’s no blood.”

“I woke up and it was all just . . . gone.” My voice sounds casual, but when the memory of talons and tearing flesh flashes, the stark violence of the event jars me again and I shiver.

She moves around to study my face, my neck, my arms, like she’s searching for more scars. Her face is so lovely, so real, her scent like honey and warmth. She’s only in a tank top and underwear, so much of her skin ready to touch mine, ready to heal my heart, my soul.

I reach out and slide my fingers up her leg to her hip. “I need you, Kara,” I whisper, like a confession. As much as I don’t understand my life, my world right now . . . this, Kara and me, when we’re together, I get it.

She answers with her own touch, running her palm up my arm, then trailing her fingers over my clavicle. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry that things are so mixed up right now. I should’ve told you what I’ve been dealing with right away, but I was scared that—”

I stop her repentance with my lips.

She releases a small sound of surprise as I let her feel my greed. But then she’s surrendering, pressing into me.

So I take more, pulling her closer, dragging her onto my lap. She wraps herself around me and I grip her hips. I trace the curve of her waist, kissing her until my death doesn’t matter, nothing does—not even breathing—if she’s not with me. I’m completely lost in the sensations of her, her smell, her sounds, and I know she’s following me into the chaos, into the swirl of need and hunger and desperation.

She holds on to me like a raft in a storm. I close my eyes and taste my fear on her lips. I feel my pain in her skin as she pulls it from me, as she seals my inner wounds with her hands, sliding them over my face, down my chest and scarred sides. I think about her blue light, how it poured into me, wondering if this is how she felt, released, unburdened. Or if I was actually hurting her, stealing something from her, taking parts of her I wasn’t meant to have.

The chill of her sweet energy weaves over us as she envelops me. And I know that if I open my eyes right now, I would see it, twisting around our bodies. But I don’t open my eyes, I don’t let myself think about what we’re doing, what it could mean, or how I shouldn’t let this happen before I understand everything.

I don’t care. I only need. I bury the worries, the reality of what I don’t know.

I pull her down to the rug, clutching her to me as the barriers fall, as we shed our clothes, shed our inhibitions. My mind tells me to slow down, my heart tells me not to hurt her, and I ready myself to pull away before she shrinks back in fear.

But she doesn’t waver. She kisses my scarred skin. She tells me she needs me. And nothing in her hesitates. Her breath, her flush of desperation echoes her words, like a voice far off, calling out for me to save her.

So I stare over the edge and let myself fall.

I watch the wave curl and crash in a white rush. It sprays salt and sand outward, then slides its way up the beach, closer and closer, until it touches my toes and wraps around my ankles, rising to my thighs in a surge. The chill of the water stings at my legs; the sand under my feet shifts as the tide stops and begins its return to the sea. My jeans stick to my skin. The salt tingles in my nostrils.

But the water doesn’t return. I stand, damp and cold, watching the fog, waiting for the ocean to rise again. To come back to me. Same as before. Over and over. The rhythm of back and forth, the song of always.

Instead, the beats of my heart count the time, and nothing happens.

Until the fog shifts, gathering, forming into something. Someone. The smell of brine turning into the scent of death, becoming rot and ruin and flesh decaying into earth.

And there. The fog becomes a living thing. Becomes my sin.

Lester.

He stands where the waves should be. A white form of the boy he once was. Only a memory now.

He lifts a smoky arm and points to something behind me. His mouth opens in a silent scream that vibrates the ground beneath my feet. But I feel the meaning, the message, as I turn to look, knees shaking. I see the cave opening. See it growing, wider and wider, until the darkness of it becomes everything, swallowing my whole world.

A skull rolls from the cave, coming to stop beside my foot. And then another and another, until they’re spilling from the opening like a river of death.

“Look what you’ve done!” he screams over the clacking of bone.
“Look what you’ve done!”