Dark Curse

by Kim Richardson

  I glanced towards Lisbeth and the Unmarked, Lucian standing apart from them like he didn’t want to get too close, too involved in whatever this was. I could see the scowl on Ethan’s face from here. Whatever they were discussing, he clearly wasn’t too keen about it.

  I exhaled slowly, hopelessness soaking into me. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good.” Torture was my first thought, knowing a little of Ethan’s mind, but I didn’t want to scare my gran or see her give up hope. We were still alive, and that was something.

  “No, it cannot.” My grandmother winced as she rubbed her raw wrists with her hands. “Lisbeth is vile. The woman is mad. Someone has to stop her.”

  Yeah. Me. “Grandma. Do you remember how you got here?’ I asked as I worked to remove the rope from her feet next.

  My grandmother stared at her wrists. “No. It’s all a blank. One minute I’m making French toast, and the next...” she faltered. Seeing how distraught she was had my stomach tightening.

  I reached out and touched her knee. “It doesn’t matter,” I soothed. “I think I can guess.” Ethan. Ethan. Ethan.

  A heavy tear brimmed and fell, making a shiny line on her pale skin. “I don’t know what they did to the cats. I’m so sorry, Rowyn,” she added, her voice cracking. Her eyes closed, her jaw clenching as she struggled to keep her fear and despair from showing. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “I’m so sorry, Rowyn.”

  My eyes burned. “This isn’t your fault.” Blinking fast, I yanked the last of the rope from her ankles. “This is my fault. You’re here because of me.” I swallowed and strained to keep my voice even. “But they’re still alive,” I said, reaching out and squeezing her hand, only to find it ice cold. “That’s good enough for me for now. If anyone can help them, Gareth can. But first we need to find a way to get out of this cage.”

  My grandmother’s face lit up. “Gareth’s coming? Oh, I knew he would. Thank the souls. We are saved. And Danto and Layla? Are they here too?” Her eyes moved across the warehouse, and my heart sank.

  Oh crap. I looked away from the hope on her face knowing I was going to crush it. “Actually... no one’s coming.” I forced myself to meet her eyes. “Lisbeth left specific instructions. If I didn’t come alone... she would kill you. All of you.” I let out a breath. “They don’t know.” I hated what I saw on her face, but I couldn’t lie to her, even to make her feel better. The fact of the matter was, we were neck deep in the crapper, drowning, and no one was going to throw us a lifesaver.

  “I see.” My grandmother exhaled, looking tired and defeated. “Okay. Okay.”

  I searched her face. She was pale, ghostly pale, and her cold hands really worried me. If I were to guess, I’d say that Ethan or one of the other Unmarked had hit her with some dark magic. My gran was angel-born, but she wasn’t immune to dark magic or to pain. The fact that she was in her late seventies played against her. Her body couldn’t heal as fast as mine. I knew she was trying to hide it—she was a stubborn old mule—but her eyes betrayed her. She was in a lot pain. Bastards. I had to get her out of here.

  The voices behind us rose in an argument. I could hear boots scraping the concrete, and my head came up. I tried to see around Lisbeth. James and Miguel looked bothered. Interesting. I strained my ears to try and make out what they were saying.

  “... what about your Gray Council,” Lucian was saying, his mouth full of smoke. “They pose a threat.”

  “I’ll take care of them,” answered Lisbeth. “Everything is already in place. They will not be a problem. You can trust me.” Yeah, right. Even the archdemon wasn’t stupid enough to believe any of the crap that spew out of her mouth.

  Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. “Are we going to do this or not? Because I’m ready now.”

  “You?” Hannah put her hands on her hips, her fingers grazing her soul blade. “Why do you think it should be you?”

  Ethan smiled, his expression mocking. “Isn’t obvious? I’m the strongest of all of you. It should be me.”

  In a flash, Hannah whipped out her blade. “Prove it.” She waved her soul blade at him, taunting him. “Let’s see. Come on, brother. One on one. Or are you afraid to lose to a girl?”

  Ethan smiled at her as he uncrossed his arms, a new excitement making his motions sharp. “It’s your funeral.”

  “Touch her and you die,” growled James, his long fingers manipulating one of his blades. “I’m sick of you. Sick of how you treat us. Of how you think you’re better than us. You’re not.”

  “I am better. The strongest of the pack is always the leader,” said Ethan, his fingers twitching at his sides in an apparent curse. “It was a no-brainer since I am the obvious choice.”

  What choice? What was this fight about? Curious, I leaned forward.

  “You’re idiots if you think it’ll be either of you,” said Miguel, looking slightly bored. “You’re both too impulsive. It should be someone who’s calm and in control. More mature.”

  “You mean like you?” hissed Hannah, and Miguel gave her a smile. “Who asked for your opinion, anyway, Miguel. Everyone knows you’re the stupid one.”

  Miguel’s eyes narrowed, deepening his few wrinkles as he scowled. “Females are weak. They’re too emotional. Especially on those days of the month, so it can’t be you.”

  Hannah’s mouth dropped open, outraged. “You son of a bitch!”

  “I was the first born,” interjected James, his voice loud over the others. “It should be me.”

  “What!” exclaimed Hannah, whirling on him, her face flushed. “That doesn’t make you anything but an ass.”

  James’s pale face flamed, and he started for Hannah. “You bitch.”

  “Stop it! All of you,” shouted Lisbeth, hitting her cane on the floor like a gavel. “I don’t have the time or the patience for your bickering. You are all idiots if you think you will make the decision. Let me make this perfectly clear.” She glanced around the Unmarked. “It is not up to any of you.”

  My grandmother reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “What’s going on? What are they fighting about?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, shrugging. “Sibling rivalry? But as long as they’re not paying attention to us, I don’t care.”

  A hint of worry crossed her expression, and I gave my gran a last touch on the shoulder before I moved towards the door to our cage. It was solid and fastened with a metal lock. Crap.

  I squeezed my hand through the bars. Grabbing the lock I yanked hard. And then again. But it was locked and it wouldn’t budge. We were trapped. I felt a thread of panic tightening around my heart. Crap. How was I going to get us out of here?

  I let the lock go. “If I had my lock picks I could have us out of here in under a minute—” I started. “Hairpins! Do you have hairpins in your hair?”

  My grandmother reached up in her messy bun and pulled one out. “How many do you need?” she asked smiling as she handed me the hairpin.

  My heart leaped. This was good. “Two.”

  Grabbing the second hairpin, I pulled it apart to make the long flat metal part of my pick. Working fast, I bent the other hairpin into a right angle to make my lever. Hands trembling with excitement, I slipped them through the bars and lifted the lock. Heart racing, I scrambled with the lever and inserted it into the bottom half of the lock, pushing it as deeply into the barrel as it would go. With the lever inside the lock, I carefully pushed my pick inside the lock. I heard the first click.

  Holy crap. This was going to work! I was getting us out of here!

  Holding my breath, I pushed the pick further and heard a second click—

  Agony flamed, and I convulsed, feeling like my body had been suddenly scorched with a flame thrower.

  “Rowyn!” shouted my grandmother.

  I let go of the lock and fell back as a black haze exploded inside our cage. I blinked and looked at my hands. There were red and black, blistered and bloody.

  My hair blew back and then shifted forward as
the black haze burnt itself out.

  “You’re awake,” said Lucian, and I looked up to meet the archdemon’s red eyes.

  “You’re a douche,” I said. God, did I hate this guy. Like the fires of the Netherworld, a black fire burned at the center of my rage. I moved forward, using my body to shield my gran and the cats.

  Lucian closed his eyes. “Mmmm. Hate. Pure and glorious rage.” He opened his eyes, and I shivered at the delight I saw in them. “Your hatred for me is notable. So open and raw.”

  “Bite me, asshole.” Yeah, not smart. But if I was going to die, it would be on my terms. I wouldn’t look away from his creepy red eyes either.

  Yeah. I hated him. More than anything in the world at the moment. I needed that hate. Hate would save me. Hate would conjure my gift at the exact moment I needed it. He might have stopped me using my gift before, but I could do it again. And for that, I had to keep him talking. Shouldn’t be a problem. The guy loved to hear himself talk.

  “Even if you had opened the lock,” said the chain-smoking archdemon as he took a long drag of his cigarette. “You can’t possibly have thought you could get away without us knowing. Did you? You’re not that stupid.”

  “I’m just the right amount of stupid, thanks,” I smiled. Lisbeth and the Unmarked were clustered behind him. A nervous energy shifted from them, like kids waiting to go to the park.

  I didn’t like it. “What do you want from us?” I asked, my hands throbbing as I strained to keep my voice even. “Why are we still alive? If you wanted me dead... why drag my grandmother here? You could have killed me anywhere you wanted. You could have killed me on the island.”

  “Actually,” began Lucian. “There’s a simple reason I haven’t killed you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, but my eyes went to Lisbeth. Her smile made me stifle a shudder.

  Lucian blew tunnels of smoke through his nose. “I needed you alive.”

  Pulse fast, sweat trickled down my back as I struggled to concentrate, tapping into myself, my core. “Why’s that?”

  Lucian’s expression was indifferent as he took a long drag of his cigarette. “I can only lift my gift from you if you are alive. Dead. Well. Dead is dead.”

  Horror rushed through me, my focus shattered. “W-what?”

  The bastard had the nerve to smile as he said, “That gift of power I gave you... well... I took it back. You don’t have it anymore.”

  22

  “You’re screwing with me,” I said, the tremor in my voice betraying my own conviction. He was lying. He had to be. Wasn’t he?

  Lucian flicked the butt of his cigarette on the ground. “Am I?” He pulled out his metal cigarette case and lit up another cigarette. “See for yourself,” he said and then took a puff.

  I went deep inside myself, searching for that darkness, for that tingling sensation of energy, that pull of power...

  But it never answered.

  Oh. Hell.

  I looked at my palms as though I would find the answer there. There was nothing. Nothing but my ordinary skin. My darkness. My power. My gift. It was gone.

  The only pulse of energy I felt now was the thrumming of darkness coming from Lucian, and the faint tinkles from the Unmarked and the baals.

  I was a fool. I hadn’t even noticed it was gone. I was a damn fool. And now, apparently, I was also in serious doo-doo.

  Lucian’s smile widened at the shock he read on my face. “Told you.”

  “Screw you,” I said, matching his condescending tone perfectly. My breath seemed to freeze in me. I was mad. Desperate and scared as hell. Not so much for me, but more for my gran and the baals. Yes, Lucian had saved me the trouble of trying to figure out how to get the dark curse out of me. But without kick-ass power, how the hell was I going to get them out now?

  “Why are you so upset?” asked the archdemon, his confusion as genuine as I’d ever seen it. “Cleary you didn’t want it in the first place. You went out of your way to try and get a dark witch to lift it from you.”

  My eyes went to the bundle on the floor, which only confirmed who I believed it was. “You knew. Of course you did. So you killed her? It was you?”

  “I did.” Lisbeth hobbled forward. “She betrayed me. She was a menace to my plans. And like you, there’s no room for her in my new world. So I made her favorite tea, with a little something extra in it.”

  My ears pounded with anger. “I’m going to break out of this cage and then I’m going to beat you with that cane,” I spat, and she grinned. “I don’t care how old you are. You were once young. That’s good enough for me.”

  “Ha!” laughed the old woman. “In a few minutes you’ll be dead,” she cooed and leaned forward on her cane, her hands folded and resting on the handle. “Your life will have never mattered. Soon, no one will even remember the Hunter named Rowyn. You are nothing. You’ll die nothing.”

  My expression warped as I searched for an answer that wasn’t there. Panic redoubled, clouding my mind, my plans, my focus. I didn’t want to die like this, like an animal in a cage.

  “You’ve been holding out on me, Rowyn,” said Lucian, bringing my attention back to the red-eyed demon. He gestured with his cigarette hand, sending tendrils of smoke in the air. “You knew of their existence, yet you didn’t tell me.”

  The blood left my face. I knew where this was going. It all made sense now. Why I was lured here and carefully kept alive.

  “Lucian, don’t,” I said, backing up until I felt my gran behind me. “I know what you’re planning to do. It’s a mistake.”

  He smiled, his perfectly white teeth gleaming in the dim light. “Imagine my surprise when I learned I had more offspring, that you were not the only one anymore. Offspring that, clearly, are happy to accept my precious gift. Unlike you.”

  “The angels will stop you,” I said, not knowing what else to say. Also I had to believe someone would stop him, if not me. “Even if I’m dead. They’ll find out what you’ve done, and they’ll stop you.”

  His brow rose, and he gave me a look. “Getting their attention is precisely the plan, dearest daughter.”

  I flinched at the use of the word. “There are thousands of angels. It’s you against an entire Legion. That’s insane. You have to be really stupid or insurmountably overly confident to think you can overthrow an army like that.”

  “Thousands, you say?” laughed the archdemon, making my insides squirm. “Not for long.”

  Damn. What was this sicko planning?

  “They’ll kill you,” I said, my adrenaline crashing as Ethan snorted, joined by Miguel and James. “All of this,” I added, lifting my burnt hands, and wincing. “It’ll be for nothing.”

  At that, the archdemon’s cool demeanor seemed to crack on the surface. Lucian blew three, slow rings of smoke. “I’m an archdemon. They can’t kill me. They trapped me in the Netherworld for that exact reason. I’m immortal. They cannot kill what cannot die.”

  “Possibly,” I said, feeling the truth in his words. “But they can hurt you and take away what you’ve been working for.”

  Lucian’s eyes met mine and he grinned. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Rowyn Sinclair. I will regret killing you,” said the archdemon, and he took a drag of his cigarette. “You were showing great progress. But I will see you again soon, Rowyn.”

  Oh shit. Here it comes.

  He lifted his hand, and I knew if he snapped his fingers I was a goner.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “Wait! You can’t kill me.” I leaped forward, my hands around the cool metal bars of my cage. Oh, God that hurts.

  Lucian’s right hand was still in the air. “Why not,” he asked, his expression empty of emotion.

  “Just kill her already,” shouted Ethan, and I glowered at him.

  “What if it doesn’t work?” I asked, flicking my eyes back to the archdemon, knowing now that they had no more reason to keep me alive. “Just think about it. You said I was the first, right? To have this gift?”

  “Yes,�
�� said Lucian, and I could see his mind working behind his eyes.

  “Well, these assholes are not like me,” I said, speaking fast. “They’re different. Their essence is not the same. Yeah, they have some of my blood, but not that much and maybe not enough. What if your curse doesn’t take? What if they don’t have enough of your essence in them? Their bodies were tampered with by dark magic to speed up their growth. Your gift might not work.” Yes, it was a longshot, but the idea of that kind of power in any of these Unmarked... was a disaster. A nightmare of ginormous proportions. I couldn’t let that happen.

  Lucian lost some of his confidence, hunching slightly. “Then I will simply give them more. Case closed.”

  “Doesn’t work like that.” I had no idea what I was saying, but I couldn’t stop. “What if you’re wrong? What if I’m the only one who can accept your gift of power... what if they all die when you try to transfer it to them? If I’m dead... if you kill me, what of your master plans then, eh?”

  “Kill her!” shouted Ethan again, spit flying out of mouth and sweat dripping over his red face. He opened his mouth to speak again, but one look from Lucian and the bastard clenched his jaw, looking furious, but he didn’t say another word.

  “You’re right,” said Lucian after a moment, and I nearly fell to my knees in relief. “She’s right,” he added louder. “I need to keep Rowyn alive. She will remain alive until I’m certain my gift can be transmitted to one of you.” His red eyes narrowed, and his gaze slid over the Unmarked. “If it works, you or I can kill her.”

  I let out a breath. Not the response I was going for, but it would work.

  Not saying anything, I let go of the bars and settled back, trying to figure out what my next plan would be.

  “Rowyn?” whispered my gran, and I turned around at the sound of worry in her voice.

  “I just bought us some time,” I said, hoping, praying, that I was right about the gift. If I was, I could use it as a bargaining chip and get my gran and my baals safely back home.

  But if I was wrong...