The Fell of Dark

by Caleb Roehrig

  “I…” She blinks again, still framed by the doorway. “I don’t know. I just … wanted to see you, I guess.” And then she steps inside, uninvited, closing the door behind her. I hold my breath for a beat … but nothing happens, and finally I let it out, inexpressibly relieved. I couldn’t feel her with that undead radar I’ve got … but, then, I can’t feel Gunnar, either. I don’t know who to trust anymore.

  Adriana’s cheeks are bright pink with cold as she kicks off her shoes, and then takes two steps past the threshold and goes rigid. She gasps, her head snapping back, her fingers splayed until the tendons in her hands stand out like the guylines on a tent.

  Her eyes roll up until only a crescent of glistening white is visible beneath the lid, and her mouth opens. The voice that comes out of her is deep, gravelly—and thick with a Russian accent. It’s not hers, but I recognize it immediately, and my head swims.

  “August Pfeiffer, we have your parents. If you wish to see them alive again, you will pledge yourself and your blood to the Mystic Order of the Northern Wolf, before the vernal equinox on Friday. You have until Thursday to decide.”

  As soon as the statement is out of her mouth, Adriana’s body collapses to the floor.

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  1536

  Outside in the night, bells rang the late hour, and a breath of wind teased the candle that flickered by her elbow. Another day ended, another hour closer to her appointed death, and all she felt inside was empty.

  No, that wasn’t entirely true. Inside she felt … something. And it troubled her greatly.

  It wasn’t so very long ago that her destiny seemed bright as the sun and poised to soar as high; but the sun always sets, and the future is rarely more than a trick of the light. The past six months had been an unremitting parade of degradations, and now she found herself here. How strange, how villainously poetic, to be held prisoner in the same chamber where once she awaited her coronation.

  The wind stiffened, making the candle gutter, and she shielded it in the curve of her palm. Then, because the perversity of it was irresistible, she asked the flame to burn brighter—and it leaped an inch. She shuddered, discomposed by her own uncanny magic, and withdrew her hand in an instant to let the wind claim its bounty.

  The flame blinked out, smoke slithering off the wick, and darkness spilled across the pages before her. Leaning back in her chair, she let out a nervous breath. Other candles burned in the room, casting their shifting light against the walls, and for a moment she let herself believe the dancing shadows were spirits welcoming her to her eternal reward. What a thing to look forward to.

  Soon. But maybe not soon enough.

  The scrape of metal against metal brought her up short, a key turning in the lock, and she twisted sharply to face the door. It was late, and she knew of no visitors she was scheduled to receive that night. There were very few she might expect, even in the worst of cases, who could simply enter her chambers without a show of asking permission first.

  And so she was utterly nonplussed when the door opened and a single, delicately built man sidled into the room. His clothing was unremarkable, the material dark and the quality modest, and his face—high cheekbones, expressive eyes, a tidy beard—was unfamiliar. Despite some cleverness in his expression, he was the kind of man she’d have passed without notice … were it not for the fact that her very skin crawled in his presence.

  “My lady,” he began, with a deep and humble bow, a sly and private smile turning up the edges of his mouth. “I ask that you please forgive the unannounced intrusion.”

  “Who are you?” she demanded with an imperious air, rising to her feet. While she had been uncontestably stripped of her dignity, her title remained, and she could insist upon at least an empty demonstration of respect for it. “How dare you enter these chambers uninvited?”

  “Again, I beseech your forgiveness,” he said, his eyes humbly on the floor, his words clipped by a German accent. “Had there been a more appropriate avenue to seek your audience, I would certainly have pursued it, but circumstances are … such as they are, and I am afraid that what I have to say cannot wait.”

  “How are you here?” She drew back, closer to the window, although he had made no overt threat to her safety—though death was perhaps the last thing she feared just then. Through her window, she could see the fortified walls that ringed the Tower, and she knew her rooms were watched night and day by the guards. They were out there even now, they had to be. “Why did they let you in?”

  What she really wanted to ask was why he made her tingle so, but she was afraid to articulate the question aloud. Unaccountably, one of the few contrived charges that had not been leveled against her was witchcraft, and she lived in perpetual fear of performing some unaccountable feat in front of witnesses—such as making candle flames dance, or perhaps floating in her sleep, as she’d done twice this week already.

  No, for many reasons, death was not what she feared the most.

  “My name is Erasmus Kramer, Your Highness.” He sank lower into his bow. “And they let me in for the simple reason that they had no other choice.” At last he looked up, meeting her eye. “I am a mystic and fortune-teller of some renown—and many other things, too—but the reason I am here is to explain what you are.”

  She meant to step back … but instead, her feet drew her closer. Too many nights had passed with strange and terrible dreams that defied understanding, and too many minds had opened up their secrets to her curiosity like flowers blooming at her touch. The glint in his eye bespoke a knowledge that she craved. “What, exactly, do you mean by that?”

  “You are, quite possibly, the doorway to the future,” he answered, a smile turning up his mouth. “Within you is the remedy to a terminal sickness that infects the Earth, and I believe you have the strength to manifest that cure. But more time is needed.”

  “Time, Herr Kramer,” she said dryly, “is a luxury the condemned are not permitted. Not even ones of my station.”

  “I could give you that time, though.” His smile spread, teeth stacking up in the sharpened corners of his grin. “With the same ease that I came in, I could take you out.”

  She stilled, only a foot away from him. “To what purpose? What is this sickness you speak of—and who are you, anyway?” When he did not immediately reply, she decided to seek the answer for herself and pushed her way into his thoughts. What she saw there was impossible and shocking; things that should not be. Pulling away, she stumbled back, her fingers trembling. “You’re a revenant.”

  “And many other things, too,” he replied simply.

  Revenants. The returned ones. Those who went to their graves, and then somehow … came back. She’d heard stories about them growing up, and as part of the royal court had played audience to knights with heart-pounding tales of the battle against unholy creatures who had already proven once how they would not die. But the accounts told of fangs and claws—neither of which the spindly gentleman before her possessed.

  “It is time that you explained your business with me, Herr Kramer.” She settled her lips into a grim line.

  “Are you not afraid?” He seemed surprised, perhaps even a little dismayed. “Most mortals run screaming when they learn what I am.”

  “As you can well see,” she began with a sweeping gesture around her tidy and comfortable prison, “I have nowhere to run. And even if you were to take my life, you would only beat the king to my neck by a matter of days. But you speak of taking me out of the Tower, and I wish to know why.”

  “I offer a condemned prisoner a chance to escape the axe and she wishes to question my purpose.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Very well. I shall be blunt: I know who you are, of course, and why you’re here—”

  “I failed to birth a son,” she interjected bitterly. “Whatever you’ve heard, that is the reason I am here. His Majesty required a male heir, and my body could not produce one.”

  “What if I told you that your body is destined to produce something so
much greater than a mere prince? That in a matter of days, perhaps a week, you will change the very world as we know it—that you will reduce this king and his kingdom to nothing?”

  “I would say that I am come to doubt your credentials as a fortune-teller,” she answered smartly. “In a week’s time, I shall be dead.”

  And so he told her about the something she felt inside of her. He called it the Dark Star, and he explained its reach back into time so ancient that no written record of its origin existed. His vision was apocalyptic, and his belief in the truth of what he said was total.

  At the conclusion of his tale, he renewed his offer. “This does not have to be how your story ends. Come with me. Spare yourself from the wrath of a spiteful and petty king who could not remain faithful to you for three whole winters.”

  “You need not remind me of the weakness of my husband’s flesh.” Even now, he was planning his next wedding—to her own maid of honor, the conniving vixen. “You wish me to leave this place with you, to trade one hour of death for another, and my only reward is to become the mechanism that … does what, again? Permits the dead to rule the Earth?”

  “Your death would have meaning, my lady.” His brows came together, irritation showing on his gaunt face. “Stay here, and you will die only to satisfy the capricious lust and self-glorification of a tyrant; if you come with me, you will die on your own terms.”

  “I will die on your terms,” she corrected. “I’ve had quite enough of acquiescing to the demands men make of my body in order to further their private ambitions, Herr Kramer, and what you’ve not done is convince me that my needs are best met by your proposal.”

  “You have a daughter. My people would gladly pledge to protect her.”

  “She has people pledged to protect her now. What benefits me from leaving behind a legacy of invulnerable revenants?”

  His mouth turned down. “My people would also quite gladly target your daughter.”

  She surprised him with a throaty chuckle. “I’ve no doubt! And you certainly wouldn’t be the first. Those who guard her include Knights from the Brotherhood of Perseus, and I understand they have safeguards against even the peculiar seduction your kind exerts over human minds.”

  “I could force you,” he noted darkly.

  “Physically, perhaps, although if it were that simple, we’d already be well away from here. I believe, however, that you require my allegiance—which you can neither force without leverage, nor compel with even the sorcery you worked to infiltrate these apartments.” Of the many tales she’d heard from the Persean Knights, this one detail had been particularly interesting. To look into a revenant’s eyes, they said, was to fall under its control, but magic required desire and intent to work, and no spell could succeed when worked by one without free will. “The small bowl that sits at the forefront of your mind, the one you wish my finger to bleed into while you speak the words that will seal us together … I’m afraid it shall remain empty.”

  A storm passed across the man’s face, his angles lengthening and a baleful light smoldering to life in his eyes; but just as quickly, the storm cleared, and Herr Kramer took a step back. “I suppose, then, it is time for me to depart. Again, please forgive the intrusion.”

  “Just like that?” It was her turn for surprise. “You’re conceding defeat?”

  He shrugged serenely. “I am a better fortune-teller than my lady wishes to acknowledge. And although you are one of a precious few to bear the gift of the Dark Star … you will not be the last. And your death shall simply mean a new beginning.”

  With those words, Erasmus Kramer left the way he came, and when he was gone, the prisoner returned to her writing table. A bowl of blood was not the most disquieting image she’d seen in the revenant’s vision of the future, and she shuddered at some of the horrors she’d brushed against while exploring his mind. If this Dark Star was truly capable of such dire work, then she was almost glad for her slender neck and her husband’s reckless selfishness.

  With a simple glance at the candle, she induced the wick to ignite itself again, and she finished the letter she’d been writing. At the bottom, she signed her name—Anne Boleyn.

  How odd to suddenly hope she would die before it was too late.

  21

  When Adriana regains consciousness, she’s disoriented and scared, and I set her up on the living room sofa to recover while I suffer a complete mental breakdown. I try my parents’ cell phones at least a dozen times each with no answer, and I’m such a mess that it takes me fifteen minutes to remember what restaurant they were eating at tonight. My call reaches a recorded voice, telling me the place closed an hour earlier, and I go into free fall.

  I’m on the kitchen floor, hugging my knees to my chest, ugly-crying when Adriana finds me. She doesn’t say anything, just sits down beside me and puts her arm around my shoulders. We stay like that until I’m capable of speaking again, and I can finally tell her everything—from the beginning.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” She stares at me in a daze—shocked and angry, but perhaps most of all hurt.

  “I didn’t want you to have to be part of this,” I whisper, my voice rough and broken. “I didn’t want them to come after you, too.” It seems a useless thing to say at this point. But Daphne is dead, and my parents are gone, and there’s no time to think of something better. “What happened? What did he say to you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I can’t…” She’s pale, still trembling as though she’s cold, although we’ve been inside long enough for her to warm up by now. “The gate in our back fence was banging in the wind, and my dad got mad at me because he said I must’ve left it open. So I went out to shut it, and when I got there—”

  “Rasputin?”

  “I didn’t even see him at first.” Her voice shrinks. “He wasn’t there, and then … he was. Just this tall, bony, goblin-looking-ass dude, grinning at me, and I was sure I was dead. I saw my whole fucking life flash before my eyes, and then … I don’t know.” Adriana squeezes her hands so tight her knuckles pop. “Everything gets fuzzy after that. He told me something, then the next thing I know, you’re coming up your front steps and I’ve been sitting there so long my feet are numb. But I don’t know when I got here, or how long I was waiting. It’s all a blur.”

  “Is there a spell for that? Some way to bring back your memory? Or, like … I mean, he spoke through you! Like, he planted his words in your head. Maybe there’s some way to reverse that and use it against him?”

  She frowns, but her eyes are distant and thoughtful. “Like how?”

  “He used magic to do it, so there must be some kind of counterspell, right?” I barely know more about magic than I do about math, but I’m desperate right now. “Magic is all about balance and harmony, and equal and opposite reaction, and stuff, right? If he zapped you, there has to be a way to zap him back!” I’m practically pleading. “Your grandma has all those grimoires full of big-deal spells … Maybe there’s something in one of them!”

  “Auggie…” Adriana shakes her head, stricken. “Even if there is, I can’t summon the kind of power something like that would require—and if I tried … Remember the time in sixth grade we decided to make lasagna and ended up setting your whole oven on fire because we had no clue what we were doing? It would be like that, except with my brain.”

  “He has my parents. I have to do something.” More tears roll down my cheeks, and I wipe them away with the back of my hand. It’s the first time I realize that my glasses are missing—that I lost them, and didn’t even notice, because I don’t seem to need them anymore. You have until Thursday to decide. The Nexus always goes hyperactive on the vernal equinox … Is that when my time runs out?

  Suddenly, my best friend shoves to her feet, her fingers worrying into fists. “I think my abuela knows something.”

  “What do you mean?” I finally stand up as well, shaky inside and out, remembering Ximena’s plastic bag—thinking about Hope’s freaky woo
dcut.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice her acting weird the night you came over for dinner,” she replies with a snort. “She snatched some of your hair, and I let her convince me it was for a protection spell!”

  “It wasn’t?” My voice reaches for the stars.

  “Well … I don’t know, maybe it was!” Adriana exclaims. “There are lots of spells that require stuff like that, but … it’s the way she’s been asking about you, the way she wanted you to come over for dinner in the first place—even before that scene at Sugar Mama’s went down. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but now…” Adriana trails off and then shakes her head, coming to a decision. “She’s going to be so pissed I told you this, but … my grandma isn’t exactly who she says she is.”

  My eyebrows ratchet up slowly. “She’s in witness protection?”

  “No, you doofus.” Adriana rolls her eyes. “What I’m saying is … look, there’s a difference between a witch and a sorcerer, right?”

  “Yeah, I know,” I answer hastily, hoping to forestall another diatribe against people who belittle smudge sticks because they remember the time the Baeserta cultists brought down two feet of snow on Fulton Heights. In July. “Anyone can become a witch, but you have to be born with the gift for sorcery—like the X-Men.” I swallow. “Are you trying to tell me that … Ximena is one of the X-Men?”

  “I don’t even know what she is,” Adriana returns. “Witches who can do actual sorcery try not to advertise it, because it scares people—and because history hasn’t exactly been awesome toward minority groups with a little power.” Fingering the zipper on her coat, she adds, “Abuela’s afraid to even show me everything she can do. It’s part of the reason she and my mom fell out.”