Of Darkness & Light: Blood Descent Book 2

by T. L. McDonald

  She holds up a hand. “Not that they were right to. I know you would never go dark, at least not intentionally, which brings me back to our earlier discussion. You have to promise you will never use dark magic the way you did at the diner ever again.”

  “What dark magic?” Jack asks as he turns a curious eye on me.

  “Indi used a sanguinary spell on one of the vampires to bleed him out. It was…” A hint of the fear she held in her eyes at the diner resurfaces for the briefest of moments before she squeezes her eyes shut to wash it away. “Intense. And then she set the rest on fire without so much as a bat of her eye. I’ve never seen anyone cast an incendiary spell that powerful before. One minute they were standing there, and the next they were covered in flames until there was nothing left but ash. And then there were her eyes, Jack. They were completely black.”

  Every bit of breath I’d just regained evaporates from my lungs. Jack’s going to see me the same way Liv did, the same way a part of her still does, with fear. Maybe he should. I wouldn’t blame him. Even I’m afraid of what I did.

  “Where did you learn a sanguinary spell? That’s some serious dark magic, Indi, and not something you should mess with.” Jack’s gaze bores into me until I’m forced to meet his eye.

  “Isn’t it just a medical spell? You know from the old days when they bled out illnesses?” I blurt out, playing dumb to a degree because I can’t stand the idea of either one of them looking at me like I’m a monster, even if I maybe am. I knew casting it was wrong, and that it crossed a line, but I did it anyway. Sebastian and my cousins say there are two sides to magic: light and dark. But part of me still questions if what Ivy said about it being gray and neutral is true. Despite the fact it would mean magic is cast with intent alone and that intent is what determines a spell to be light or dark. If Ivy’s right, I made the spell dark. And if Sebastian and my cousins are right, I’m a good witch who cast a dark spell to save her family. But no matter how it’s spun—dark intent or the misguidings of a naïve witch—I’m still culpable. I still knew what I was doing, and that’s what scares me.

  “No,” Jack says immediately. “But…” His eyes drift upward, slightly narrowing as the wheels in his head spin. “I mean… I guess it could be used like that?” Each word said is dragged out, each one an octave higher than the one before it, holding more doubt than consideration. “But it’s primarily a dark spell.”

  I know.

  “Maybe you’re wrong about me, Liv, and I’m not on the side of light at all. Maybe I’m really destined to be some great evil witch whose dark magic will tip the balances and destroy the world as we know it. It’s probably the real reason angelic bounty hunters were sent after me. Heaven knew from the beginning, and the rest of us are too deep in denial to see it.”

  “No,” Liv and Jack both say at the same time.

  Jack squats down in front of me, taking both my hands in his. “I have known you for most of my life, Indiana, and there is not a single evil bone in your body. Casting a dark spell doesn’t make you evil. A little naïve maybe, but not evil, especially when you were casting it for the reasons you did. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t make it right, but you’re still new to all the magic stuff and there’s a lot to learn.”

  “So you’re not… I don’t know, afraid of me? Or think I’m a dark caster?” Because I do. I bite my lip and stare at my jeans, too afraid to see if his eyes contradict his words.

  “You are not a dark caster, Indi.” He hooks a finger under my chin, bringing my face up. There’s not a single flicker of doubt in his eyes, and my heart releases a hopeful thud. “A dark caster is someone who practices black magic and doesn’t care who they hurt in their pursuit of power. That’s not you. If Heaven wants you, it’s because you rival its power by being able to defy the natural order. You turned a vampire human and gave him back his life. You gave Sebastian and me both a second door to choose. A dark witch would never do that. A dark witch would be more inclined to take life away than to save it.”

  “Wait.” Liv shoves herself in between Jack and me, knocking him off balance. His butt hits the floor with a loud thud, and he shoots her the evil eye. Ignoring his glare she turns her attention to the stairs, and puts a finger to her mouth for us to be quiet. After a minute has passed and nobody opens the door or comes down the stairs, she focuses back on me. “You brought Sebastian back too? Like how you did with Jack?”

  Pushing himself up onto his knees, Jack dusts off his backside. “Twice. Isn’t that what you said, Indi?”

  Liv throws her hands up, her eyes widening so huge it’s a miracle they’re still secured inside the sockets and not dangling down to her chin. “Seriously? You brought Sebastian back twice? When did this happen? And why am I just hearing about this now? I want details.”

  “I promise I’ll tell you everything, but first, I need to know what you were going to say at the center.” Because I can’t let the whole me potentially being a dark caster witch go when I have all these doubts whispering in my head, despite how hard I’m clinging to the words Jack just said and the ones Sebastian spouted to me earlier, because what if it turns out they’re the naïve ones? “I got the feeling you had something important to say about dark magic, and why I specifically shouldn’t use it. You said ‘It’s dangerous and with our’ before you were interrupted. What were you going to say? With our what?” What if there’s some horrible family secret where dark magic is concerned, and it involves me somehow? Why else would Liv be so intent on me never uttering another dark spell? Well, other than the obvious. Not that I ever plan to again anyway, but still. I get the feeling they’re hiding something from me.

  Liv and Jack stare at each other, an unspoken conversation happening between them with eye motions, nods, and intense gazes.

  “Just spit it out.” I knew it. All these hopeful words they’ve been spewing were just that, hopeful words, and now it’s time for the truth to come out and my fears and doubts to be realized. I’m cursed. Our family is cursed. It’s been prophesized that I’ll rule over darkness as its Queen and become the destroyer of worlds.

  A deep sigh deflates Jack’s shoulders into a resigned droop. “There’s something we have to show you in the attic.”

  The attic?

  My whole body cringes at the word. I hate attics. I have since I was a little girl. Even the mere thought of one fills me with fear and dread. I never understood why until Uncle Caleb told me how my mom really died. And then I saw it for myself when my memories returned, and it only made me want to avoid them even more, especially ours. Uncle Caleb and Aunt Claudia’s attic is where I watched my mom sacrifice herself on the other side of a portal to save my life.

  I swallow hard, forcing my emotions down my throat where they don’t want to stay. It all wants to bubble up. The unknown darkness hanging over my head, the thought of stepping foot in the place where I watched my mom die, the doubts. “Okay.”

  I throw myself face first onto the bed. Water from my wet hair soaks into the sheets around my head, but I don’t care. After cleaning the entire basement and the upstairs bathroom, I’m exhausted. I’m surprised I even made it through my shower, considering my extremities are basically jelly. I raise my head up, my blurry eyes settling on my pillow.

  Ugh, why does it have to be so far away?

  I blink slowly, each one taking longer than the one before it. I need sleep. Lots and lots of sleep—where I can have nightmares about going into the attic tomorrow after school, providing Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb don’t have more hellish chores to keep us busy until bedtime like today, though I’m sure they will. Maybe I’ll have nightmares about scrubbing toilet after toilet, too.

  With a groan born from deep inside my bones, I manage to semi-crawl the rest of the way up my bed. The moment my head sinks into the pillow, it’s lights out.

  A loud thud yanks me from my nightmares, my mind awake, but my body still locked in terror. Eyes frozen open, I stare at the shadows creeping across the ceiling while my
hands stay fisted around the sheets. My clothes are damp with sweat and sticking to my body like a second skin, while tendrils of hair paste to the side of my face and around my neck like a noose. My finger twitches, and I push through my petrified state to rip the hair away from my throat. I take a deep breath only to hold it in when I catch a flickering of orange and yellow from the corner of my eye.

  I bolt straight up, my heart slamming into my ribs.

  My curtains are on fire.

  The shadows lying on the carpet coalesce into a solid shape and begin lifting off the floor below my windowsill. It slips something off its back and begins beating the curtains with it.

  A scream builds within my throat.

  “Geez, Indi, are you trying to set me on fire?”

  “Sebastian?” I reach over and turn on the nightstand lamp, filling the room with a soft glow. “What are you doing here?” Seeing his face has all the adrenaline pumping through my veins waning now that I know there’s no threat—or fire, since he’s put it out. “I thought we weren’t meeting until school started.” I look past him out the window, cringing at the sight of my smoking curtains. The skies are still pitch black, the only illumination coming from the streetlamps lined up and down the sidewalks. A deep yawn has me covering my mouth with the back of my hand. I feel like I haven’t slept a wink. Probably because what sleep I did get was filled with nightmares about attics on fire and people I love dying in them. “What time is it, anyway?”

  He scoots to the right, peering around me to read the clock on the nightstand. “1:42 a.m. And now 1:43.”

  “Seriously?” I flop back down onto my back. “I hope you have a good reason for breaking into my room and waking me up so early because I hadn’t planned on waking up for at least two years. I need lots of time to recover from Aunt Claudia’s manual labor punishments.”

  “Two years, huh? Sorry to say, but it’s going to be more like four and a half hours. Can’t be late for school.” Sebastian flashes me a stupid grin, and I roll my eyes.

  I wave him off just as the door opens. Sebastian drops to the ground, hiding beside my bed as Liv pops her head in.

  “I saw your light on when I was coming out of the bathroom. Everything okay?” She sniffs the air. “Is that smoke?” She steps into the room, leaving the door wide open.

  I glance at my charred curtains. “Yeah. I, uh, had a nightmare and must have summoned a fireball in my sleep. I was dreaming about the night my mom died. It’s out now.”

  She gives me that look people get on their faces when you tell them someone you love has passed—all sad eyes and half frowns. She takes a seat at the edge of my bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  My mind conjures up my mom’s face and the silent words of love tumbling from her lips as she slammed her hand down, closing the portal between us. I push it away and wipe a wayward tear from my eye with the bare skin of my shoulder. “Not really. I just want to go back to sleep. I’ll be fine.”

  “You sure?” She lays her hand over mine. “Do you want me to at least spell the smoke away and fix your curtain?”

  “No. I can do it. I need the practice.”

  She gives my hand a squeeze. “Okay. Well, goodnight.” She pauses at the door, looking back over her shoulder. “Goodnight, Sebastian.” She wags her eyebrows, smiles, then closes the door.

  Sebastian’s upper half pops up over the edge of the bed, a grin plastered across his face. “I thought she’d never leave.”

  “How did she know you were here?” I throw a glance back at the door. “Why are you here? You know what? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. If Liv came in and knew you were here, Aunt Claudia might too. And if she catches you, my month of grounding will be extended to forever.”

  He rolls himself onto the bed. Coming to a stop beside me, he props his head up on his hand. “Or she won’t come in.” His gaze lowers to my mouth. “And I can help you forget your nightmares.”

  Butterflies flutter inside my stomach, and I mentally command them to land, even though the soft touch of his lips pressed against mine is the only thing I can think about now. He moves a little closer, and I bite my lip.

  Coco scratches the outside of my door, and I come to my senses. “Go away Coco,” I half-whisper, half-yell over my shoulder. “You know she’s only scratching at the door to get to you. You’re her favorite after Jack.” I turn my attention back to Sebastian. “Even she knows you’re here. Do you want me to be grounded forever?”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go.” He rolls off the bed and makes his way back toward my window. “What I came to tell you is pretty important, but if you don’t want to hear it…” He steps a leg outside the window, his movements slow because he knows I’m going to stop him.

  “Wait.” I can’t see his face, but I bet a million dollars he’s smiling. “What did you want to tell me?”

  He twists, so he’s sitting on the windowsill with one leg inside and one leg outside. “Seth’s been moved. After dropping you and your cousins off earlier, I went back to the center hoping to question him, but I couldn’t find him in holding anywhere. I did some digging around and discovered Gavin had him moved to a special cell before he got called away to help on a case in the city. One I don’t have access to.”

  “What? Why? Do you think he knows about me? About what I did?” My heart forgets to beat, all my nightmares about what the Venari might do if they discover I’m a cure rising to the forefront of my mind.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I think we should find out.” He lowers his head down and out the window, leaving only one leg still inside. “See you in class tomorrow.”

  “Wait.” All I can think about is getting to him. I fling the covers off, and then suddenly I’m standing in front of him on the roof of the porch, wind whipping through my hair. I sway on my feet, a little disoriented.

  Did I just whoosh here?

  Sebastian clutches at his chest, nearly falling back through my window. “Did you just…” He glances back at my empty bed then focuses back on me. “Wow. You’re getting good at that.”

  “You can’t drop a bombshell on me like that and then say ‘see you in class.’ What are we going to do?”

  The wind kicks up a notch, blowing dried out leaves from the trees, and matching pace with my racing heart. Goose bumps bloom with a shiver as it spreads out from my center to crawl down my arms and legs. Lightning streaks across the night sky in a brilliant flash of white behind an echoing clap of thunder. In the back of my mind, I know it’s me causing it, the elements outside reflecting the storm brewing on the inside.

  Why can’t things ever be easy? Why does everything have to happen all at once all the time? Why can’t I just get a small break, a moment to catch my breath and process before the next catastrophe befalls me? Why can’t I have that? Why is it so much to ask for?

  Sebastian slips his jacket over my shoulders then runs his hands up and down my arms, pulling me from my thoughts before a full-blown panic attack can set in. “Let’s go back inside, and we’ll figure it out.” His eyes flick to the sky as another bolt of lightning zigzags above us. The side of his finger is rough under my eye as he wipes a tear away, the skin callused from constant training and fighting. “I’m sorry I freaked you out. I’m an ass for dropping it on you like that. I’m so used to living the crazy life of a chaser I forget sometimes you’re not. That you’re still new to all this.” He pulls me against his chest, wrapping his arms around my back.

  “What do we do? If Seth talks, and they find out I can turn vampires human, what will happen to me? Will they lock me up? Will they experiment on me? Will they weaponize me?” I mumble against his shoulder, finally voicing my fears. Maybe Jack is right. Maybe it is time to come clean to Uncle Caleb and Aunt Claudia. Fighting against vampires and trying to figure out what the dark coven wants with me while lying and keeping secrets from half the people in my life is bad enough. I don’t know if I can take on the Venari, too.

  He takes my face into his hand
s, his gaze locking onto mine. “Nothing will happen to you. I promise. We’ll go to the center later today and find Seth before Gavin has a chance to question him.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t already?”

  “Two reasons. One, Gavin was called away to help on another case in the city not long after Seth was brought in. And two, if he had already questioned him, and Seth talked, we wouldn’t be standing here right now. Gavin wants to rid the world of vampires any way he can, and if he knew what you could do… He wouldn’t hesitate for a second to bring you in.”

  I pull free from his embrace to look him in the eyes. “Why aren’t you? After what they did to your sister, after the way they made you watch, don’t you want to end them too?”

  “More than anything, but not if it means risking you. You’re the most important person in my life, Indi, and I would never do anything that would hurt you.” His gaze is completely open and sincere, never once wavering from mine. He’s telling the truth.

  14

  I fumble around on the nightstand to put an end to the incessant quacking emanating from my phone. I hate that alarm, which is why I use it. I know it’ll wake me up.

  “Your alarm is a duck?”

  The sound of Sebastian’s voice catches me off guard, and I end up knocking my phone to the floor, the quacks somehow sounding even louder. I lean over the bed, jamming my finger down on the stop button as I note the time. 5:25a.m. Climbing back up, I turn on the light, but don’t see him anywhere. “Sebastian?”

  He raises a hand. “Down here.”

  I crawl across the bed and peer over the edge. He’s lying on his back with his jacket tucked under his head. “What are you doing down there?”