Heart of Darkness, page 25
part #8 of Dark Secrets Series
“My soul,” she corrected. “And before you came back to life, before I gave you a piece of me, he loved me, Ara. He could have been mine if I’d never brought you back. I saw it in a vision. And I want that. I want that life with him like I need air!”
“If you kill Danny, he will never love you.”
“I won’t need to kill the child if you just give me what I want.”
“Okay, just let me hold him, he’s terrified,” I cried, watching my little boy reach for me, squirming in her arms, his cries going out, untended, into the open air around us. He was still in a summer t-shirt and shorts, his diaper heavy and hanging down, probably starving and freezing out here. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t plan out an attack because every instinct in me was just trying to grab him. “Please.”
“I want your soul. Release it to me now, and you can have him.”
“But I’ll be dead…”
“Yes, but you will have time to get him to safety before you die—”
“But without a soul, I won’t care enough to get him to safety—”
“Just give it to me, or I’ll let him go over the edge!”
My eyes darted around the lighthouse, looking for a path of escape, a way to bargain with her. But in a second of madness, Lily walked to the ledge and dropped Danny over.
I screamed, reaching for him, but she grabbed my arm.
“You have about two seconds before it’s too late to save him—”
“Do it!” I screamed, and I felt a rip within my chest, my soul tearing away as she shoved me over the edge too. My heavier adult body fell fast, much faster than Daniel, and I drew on the entire strength of my Cerulean energy, all the elements, to slow his fall.
His cries ripped through the wind, terrified, jerking into a squeal as I finally reached him and closed my arms around his body, pushing back on the power of the wind to slow our descent.
The ground came rushing up in a breath though, and I turned us, wrapping myself around him as my back hit the water. The impact burst through my ribs and spine, opening the flesh on my back and ripping Daniel from my arms. He hit the sand and tumbled toward a rock as a violent wave rushed over me, pushing me under. But I dragged myself through the whitewash and used the forward motion to press back onto the shore.
As I got to my feet to run for my baby, my legs faltered and I went down hard, hitting the ground with my elbows and broken ribs. I could feel the bones were shattered there and in my legs, but I wasn't healing fast enough to get to Daniel, and he was too terrified to come to me where I lay along the violent edge of the ocean.
I reached out to him, looking up at Lily as she landed beside me, her shadow closing around me.
“I won't kill him,” she said. “If he can survive here on his own until Drake’s warriors make it to his side, he can live. If not… I really don't care.”
I tried to speak, but only coughed up a clot of blood instead, thick and lumpy beneath my tongue. Lily arched down then and rolled me onto my back. As I tried to reach out for Daniel and tell him it was all okay, she pressed her fingertips into my chest, a sharp sting meeting a tight, deep pressure within, until her hand reemerged with a fat clump of dark meat. I didn’t feel any pain then, couldn’t even comprehend what had happened, that my heart was no longer beating, that the cold cavity there was open to the elements. She slipped the fleshy mass into a silver box and turned away, leaving me and my baby to die on this violent beach.
As I closed my eyes, feeling the grains of sand grate my skin with each wave that pushed me back up the shore, Daniel’s desperate screams echoed in the empty space where my heart and my soul should have been.
I knew I cared, but I also knew I couldn’t anymore.
Aubrey
I heard Falcon’s scream rip through the sky like he’d found a thousand children dead in a park. It shattered across the open field by the lighthouse and blast images through my mind, warnings, about the horror he’d found. When I looked at Elias, we both started running.
His eyes went down my body to my feet as we ran through the thick snow and, seeing my slow human steps wouldn’t get us there fast enough, bent slightly and hoisted me into his arms, taking off at vampire speed. I closed my arms around him and shut my eyes, holding my breath against his chin so I wouldn’t vomit under the g-forces. With my brow against the prickly stubble, I let myself feel safe, until he placed my feet down on the slushy sand, steadying me with a hand at my back.
“Are you all right, my darling?”
I nodded, wishing I could just run away from all of this—to a place where it was just him and me, and nothing in the world was wrong. When I looked up, my eyes instantly found Falcon by the rocks beneath the lighthouse, his body curled around something.
“Stay here,” Elias warned, pushing his hand toward me as he walked over. When he got closer, he stopped dead and covered his mouth, looking up at me a moment later. His wide eyes fixed me in place, but he was too late to stop me as I rushed past Falcon and saw the gaping hole in my mother’s chest, her eyes fixed, glazed over, her entire body bloodied and bruised.
I cast my eyes to the screaming child in Falcon’s arms, breathing a sigh of relief that Danny was alive. But he wasn’t okay. How could he ever be okay? What had happened here? Why was mom so broken?
“She can come back, right?” I cried, feeling Elias behind me, wrapping me up in his arms and turning me away from the grim scene.
“Only if Lily hasn’t taken her soul,” Falcon cried, his voice thick with grief.
“No,” Elias said. “Look at her chest. She’s taken her heart.”
We all looked, and reality set in. Without her pieces, all of her pieces, Mom couldn’t be brought back.
Daniel noticed me then and he screamed louder, reaching for me. I broke away from Elias’s arms and curled my brother into mine, feeling him go limp with shock as he tangled his fingers in my hair, just like he did when he was a baby and I rocked him to sleep. He sobbed quietly, pointing at Mom, while the rest of the people who came here to fight for her slowly emerged from the world at our backs, falling to their knees as they realized… the queen was dead.
“Aubrey?” said a high, feminine voice. I turned to look at Ali, and she put her arms out to us. Elias helped me stand and I leaned right into her, letting her take Daniel as the grief consumed me.
I didn't tell her. I never got to tell Mom that I understood why she didn't hate Dad for hitting her. I understood now what their love was and why nothing could destroy it. I didn't get to tell her she was right, that I should never have used my abilities behind her back. I’d learned now. I was sorry, and I’d never get to tell her that.
“Mom,” I whispered, feeling the weight of everyone’s grief surrounding me. I sat down in the sand, my head in my hand, and when I looked up, it was into the queer aqua eyes of the malevolent ghost.
I quickly did a double-take of the stone castle walls and the circle of salt around me, mouth hanging open in utter confusion as a million thoughts about how I got here flicked through my head like flashes going off. The beach was gone, the wind, the rush, and instead there was silence and the ancient chill of an old castle.
I shot to my feet. “What is this?”
“This,” he said theatrically, spreading his hands out to indicate my position, “this is a summoning circle. And you, Demon, have just been summoned.”
Jules
Every face was expressionless. They hung, long and grave, from beneath haunted eyes. No heart could dare to feel. There was only shock. And fear. And uncertainty that was rattled by disbelief.
A brutal death had taken place. A beloved queen, once a savior to this world, had been taken. The kidnapping and cruelty toward the infant prince had sent shivers down the spines of those who knew. And no one was here to make it better. Every single ruler of this world was gone, missing, presumed dead, or being buried. We were all that was left of an empire.
I walked behind the procession of mourners toward the Enchanted Forest, all in black, with Daniel in my arms, not really sure my heart could take any more. Overnight, Mike had inherited everything of Ara’s that I’d never wanted, and all the weight that came with it. And it all became mine too, because I was falling in love with him. It was their plan, from the earliest days when Ara had Elora, that Mike would take the kids if anything ever happened to Ara and David. She hadn’t wanted the burden to fall to Elora—to become a mother to her siblings. I understood that, but it would change us in ways I probably couldn’t comprehend yet.
Elora, Harry, and Ric walked beside the bed of flowers where Ara lay, so perfect and pretty, even in death. She’d been cleaned and sewn shut, dressed in white, her face flawless, as though she wasn’t dead. And I just couldn’t make sense of the horror, the sadness. Couldn’t bear to look at Elora and Harry, and the eternal expression of loss in their eyes. No one could ever measure up to their mother, her kindness, her grace, and anyone could see that they were struggling to come to terms with the velocity of such a loss.
Mike put his arm around me, giving me strength to keep walking where I just wanted to falter and die. The child in my arms would never be okay again. Not after this. What he’d seen, what he’d suffered, it was too much. He wouldn’t sleep. Wouldn’t eat. He didn't even cry anymore. He just stared at nothing, all day. And I didn't know how to help him. He needed his mother, or either of his fathers—Jason or David—but they were both missing. Even young Aubrey had vanished from the beach that day, and no one could quite explain what had happened.
The moon hung low in the sky, making Ara’s skin glow where she rested atop the bed of roses and other flowers to mark the passing of an Auress, while her beloved people walked behind us with lanterns that would later be set to the night sky, carrying up a prayer for her soul. Her stolen soul.
I didn’t know how to do this. How to be this. How to cope with this. I’d gone from kangaroos and coffee on the porch to being a proxy mother to a traumatized toddler, with a missing teenager. They needed me. Mike, Mia, and Daniel. And I couldn’t walk away right now any more than I could face this.
The men who carried Ara’s body placed her down on a stand in a clearing by a twisted old tree and stepped back, looking up the path as though something might appear there. And it did. Just a flicker of pink, like a ghost, and several people gasped.
“Who is that?” someone whispered.
“Lilith. The Goddess of the Moon.”
The ethereal form wavered over Ara, stunned into absolute shock for a moment before her light turned dark and red, a wild wind blowing around the entire clearing and yanking the branches, tearing the leaves away above us. It was like a storm had suddenly risen out of nothing, violent and determined in its intent to destroy. No one cowered though, no one moved, except Mike, who closed his eyes, darkened to grief by it all, and slowly got down on his knees. With my hair whipping out around me, I knelt beside him, cradling Daniel close to me, as if I might be able to one day love all of his suffering away.
“This is never going to be okay,” Mike whispered.
Lilith appeared in front of him then, her eyes scanning every inch of his face before focusing on Daniel. She lowered herself, placing a hand on his back, and the baby looked up at her like he knew her face, like he could tell her his story.
She smiled then, catching a tear that rolled down Daniel’s cheek. It balanced on her fingertip for a moment, glowing in the light of her form, then she blew it back against his nose. His body absorbed it, the liquid turning the tip of his nose blue for a moment, then he snapped his head around as though he had no idea where he was, his big green eyes lighting up in a playful grin.
“Mike!” He reached for him. Mike laughed, bursting to tears, and swept him into his arms, cupping the back of his tiny little head in his giant hand.
“He won’t remember,” Lilith said, giving me a camaraderie nod as she stood. Her hand came softly down on Mike’s shoulder then, and she turned her gaze on Falcon, who hadn’t lifted his eyes from the ground since Ara died.
“We will find them,” Lilith assured him, appearing at his side. “I will not cease my hunt, my vendetta, until Lily is cold in the ground.”
“And neither will I,” Morgana vowed, stepping up to meet the goddess face to face.
Lilith touched her cheek, smiling into her, then looked over at the freckled red-head beside her.
“I swear it too,” the girl said. “She has gone too far this time, blood or none, she cannot be allowed to live.”
Lilith nodded, and Mike rose to his feet, along with Falcon and the other people who knelt too. I got up, taking Mike’s hand when he offered it, and a sense of revenge, of retribution rolled over us all, filling our hearts with determination.
This would not end here, not like this.
For the first time since I came into this immortal family, I wanted to see Ara’s face. I wanted to see David. I wanted them back.
And I would not rest until that day. None of us would.
Aubrey
“Summoned?” The gravity of the situation struck me, scattering all thoughts and worries for my mom and brother to the farthest corners of my mind, and a deep sense of self-preservation settled into my bones instead. “Where am I?”
“Scotland.” He presented the room.
The walls here weren’t as high as in Drake’s castle, but they held all the chill and charm. Exposed beams hung overhead, supported by layer upon layer of unique, hand-laid cream stones, which had been made more homey by tall pictures of angry-looking men in kilts, and two medieval wheels, hanging down with modern electrical globes. There was a wide fireplace to my right, stone cold, and a few rugs laid but pushed back to allow room for the circle of salt I found myself in.
“I had occupied my family’s castle in England,” he said, “but… for this measure of misbehavior, I needed to be far away from witches. Especially the witches under Elias Davenport’s Set.”
“Why?”
The man smirked, like it was obvious.
“Who are you?” I asked. “And what do you want with me? I brought you back, what else—”
“Yes, you did. Under great protest and at my expense, I will add.” He rubbed his elbow, eyes flicking away to what I assumed was a memory. “Nonetheless, I caught myself a vampire and forced him to transform me—”
“Not Harry?” I leaned forward. “You didn’t—”
“Harry is fine.” He waved the hand of dismissal. “I sought the assistance of someone who could be bribed for their troubles.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Not likely.” He stood up from his ancient wooden chair and moved toward me. He was taller than me by an inch, with small sharp-edged eyes and a slight triangular peak to the middle of his eyebrows. Since becoming immortal, he’d taken on an air about him that scared me. His beard was shaved down to styled stubble now, leaving a slender, youthful face framed by a messed arrangement of dark-brown hair, but he looked altogether formidable and cunning. He walked with an edge to his step, like he had something overly smart or sarcastic to say, or maybe like he knew a dirty secret about you, and he’d never tell you he knew, but he’d use it against you behind your back. That kind of person, just to give you an idea.
“Do you remember your past?” I asked conversationally, trying to get a handle on what he wanted. “Most of my resurrections don’t.”
“Yes,” he said, circling me slowly, hands behind his back. I turned to watch him as he walked around me. “My name is Cillian Blackwell—”
“The witch?”
He nodded, eyes shrinking with satisfaction. “My name still strikes fear into the hearts of those who remember.”
“Why?”
“You will come to understand that soon,” he offered, stopping in front of me. “You obviously don’t know much about what you are.”
I shook my head, feeling grimy and dirty with blood all over my face from the battle. “I’m pretty sure I’m Lilithian now.”
Cillian just laughed to himself, casting his eyes down in amusement. “You will never be a vampire—of any kind. You’re something so much more powerful.”
“What am I?”
He showed me a ring on his pinkie—a great gaudy thing with a pentagram set into the metal, a red stone at its center. “This protects me from you. From anything you might think of to hurt me. It also binds you to me,” he advised. “You cannot leave the boundaries of the castle without my permission. Ever.”
“What?”
“I am your master now—”
“Excuse me!”
“And you will either obey my every command, or I will torture you and humiliate you until you learn. I will not give the command twice. I do not give second chances,” he went on in an eerily calm voice, ignoring my scoffs of protest. “If you please me, I will treat you fairly. If you defy me, you will suffer.”
“Why?” I let the word out with all my confusion.
“You're more than just a conduit for the dead. You are a creation of mine—brought to life by a spell I wrote—which was stolen by a very powerful witch.”
“Morgana?”
“Yes.” His teeth seemed to set hard in his mouth, making his cheek hollow into his jaw. “She brought you into existence, but you belong to me.”
“Why? Why did you want to create me? And what am I?”
“You're a necromancer,” he said, and my knees went weak. I sunk down onto them. “But you must forget all myth and folklore, because none of it accurately describes your abilities.”
“Which are?” I asked, head in my hands.
“Nice try,” he said, coming down to my level. “But I didn't design you so you could use your power against me and then run off to live some human life, enjoying all that I have mastered. I created you as a tool, a weapon. And yes, I did so in the days when my mother—my Irish mother—joined the Jacobite rising, and we had need then of such a powerful ally. But, even then, I do still have enemies in great numbers, despite my magic dying when I was reborn, and I have much use for you.”
