“Really?”
“Abuela can do serious, hard-core magic, and it scares Mamá. She thinks it’s dangerous, and she doesn’t want me involved with it.” Adriana looks down at her hands with a regretful smile. “You know what’s really messed up? I couldn’t get involved even if I wanted to, because I don’t have the gift—but I refuse to admit it to my mom.”
“So … what are you saying, exactly?” It’s a question I’m not even sure I want to ask, because there’s only one good answer … and lots and lots of really bad ones. In my head, all I can see is some dude either getting zapped to death or possessed by an eternal monster while a bunch of witches rejoice.
“I’m saying that I think she already knows about all of this. She kept bugging me to invite you over, she took your hair for a spell … and she didn’t tell me!” Adriana blurts. “I know she wants to keep the sorcery stuff under wraps, but there are lots of protection spells that don’t require that kind of magic—and you’re my best friend!” She pushes trembling hands through her hair. “She’s hiding something. And it has to do with you.”
I’m hiccupping with nerves, and I don’t want to go any further, but now I really need to hear that one good answer. “Do you think there’s a chance she can stop the Corrupter?”
“Auggie.” A big, fat tear rolls down Adriana’s cheek. “What if the only way to stop him is for you to die?”
I nod mechanically. Jude thinks so; Gunnar thinks so, too, and the Brotherhood never found an alternative. At this point, I’m out of straws to grasp, and it’s almost a relief. “What if it is? Honestly, at this point, what difference does it make?”
“Please don’t say that,” she whispers, more tears rolling.
“I don’t want to die.” Admitting it is hard, because it feels futile—because mortality isn’t something I’m supposed to be grappling with right now. It isn’t fair, and I want to scream and cry and rage at the injustice of it all. “But the only thing worse than me dying is this thing getting loose in the world. You’ve got no idea what kind of plans Rasputin has for a future where he’s in charge and invincible, but it’s really, really bad.”
“Okay.” Adriana takes my hands and squeezes them so hard my fingertips turn white. “We’ll talk to my abuela.”
* * *
We don’t sleep much. I don’t want to be in the house alone, and neither one of us wants to go outside again, so convincing Adriana to stay the night is relatively easy. The problem is that she doesn’t know how she got here, or where her parents think she is, and she’s afraid that if she calls home, she’ll get in trouble for something she can’t safely explain.
“Let me try something,” I suggest, taking her hands again. What I’m about to attempt is something I’ve only done before while hopped up on vampire blood—and not only is it something I’m unsure I can manage, it’s something I’m unsure I want to manage.
My ability to go walking through people’s minds, to visit their memories and spy on their futures, is obviously coming from the entity currently trying to carjack my body. How do I know that every time I draw on the Corrupter’s power, it doesn’t pull the entity closer to the surface? Adriana, with all her talk about balance and harmony in the universe, might even say that if I’m borrowing from it, I’m almost certainly giving it something back.
But once again, I’m caught between a rock and a much bigger rock, and if I can control this mind-reading thing, it’s an advantage I can’t afford not to cultivate. So I breathe out, look my best friend in the eye, and reach down deep. I remember what it was like in the club, surfing through the consciousness of an entire crowd without even having to think about it … and a moment later I’m tumbling into Adriana’s thoughts.
We’re hurtling backward, skipping from our fraught moments in the kitchen to her collapse just inside the door—and then her memory thickens, time growing fogged and slippery as I relive her night with her in reverse. An eon passing on the front porch, the air getting colder, golden eyes floating in the distant dark; a long, purposeful walk, every step a relief, because there’s a message for Auggie; sneaking out the back door, must be quiet, can’t get caught, there’s a message for Auggie; standing motionless behind a closed door, waiting for the coast to be clear.
Then. Two eyes, bright as searchlights—pulling in and swallowing up, inescapable.
A message for Auggie.
My heart thuds, and I manage to hold steady in Adriana’s memory at the moment she looked Rasputin in the eye. She was at the Verdugos’ back gate, the moon fighting through a grease-stained sky, when he created a channel between their minds. I wish I knew what I was doing, because I want to shove my fist through that channel until I punch his fucking brain out.
“Your parents don’t know where you are,” I report when I let go, stepping out of her thoughts and back into my empty home. Then, shutting ourselves in my bedroom, we set an alarm for sunrise and climb into my bed with our clothes on.
I try to keep Daphne’s death from playing on a constant loop in my thoughts, but I fail. Grief is a freight train, flattening me, forcing the air from my lungs—and even after everything, even knowing what I know about why she lied to me, my sorrow is still muddied with resentment. She could have warned me all of this was coming. Maybe she couldn’t have saved me, but at least I would’ve had some time to get ready.
No matter how hurt I am, though, I can’t help but think of all the times she took my side when my parents were annoyed with me, how she’d casually get me off the hook; I think about how she liked to tease me, but in a way that made me laugh rather than feel bad; and I think about how she would still be alive if I hadn’t expected her to be my lifeline when I stupidly went to a vampire rave because I was scared and desperate for answers.
She was my tutor and my secret guardian, the older sister I never had and a stranger I was only just getting to know. If the Brotherhood can’t find a way to prevent the Ascension, what will they decide? What would Daphne have had to do if she were still alive when the time came?
What if the only way to stop him is for you to die?
I cry as quietly as possible so I won’t wake Adriana, and it’s a long time before I fall asleep.
22
Adriana promises that her grandmother is an early riser and rarely has anywhere to be on Sundays, so in the morning, we head out as soon as the sun is high enough that we’re sure the streets will be clear of vampires. It’s only a partial comfort for me, of course. The single direct attempt on my life throughout all of this was made by a human—and the person who saved me from it is dead.
The walk is quiet but tense, my nerves stretched to the breaking point, and when we get to Ximena’s house, climbing the steps to knock on the door, I’m almost hoping no one will answer. For all I know, sorcery is how this whole thing got started. Jude says I wasn’t “chosen” as the vessel—that it’s just my shitty luck—but what if he’s wrong? An arcane ritual … the Rising of the Dark Star. What if a bunch of X-Men witches stuffed this being into me in the first place? There are plenty of reasons why humans would consort with an entity promising true immortality.
But why me? According to Daphne, some ancient prophecy describes my “planetary influences” and “specific traits,” and yet no one has told me which ones; no one even seems to care. If a bunch of witches really singled me out and squeezed me full of the Corrupter like some kind of hideous Halloween dumpling, I want to know why.
Footsteps sound inside, the knob turns, and Ximena Rosales appears before us, her eyes registering surprise for only a moment before they settle into resignation. With a weary nod, she steps aside. “I was wondering when this moment would come.”
“So I take it ESP isn’t one of your big, scary sorcery powers?” I can’t help the sharpness with which the words roll off my tongue. Before now, I would never have dreamed of speaking to Ximena like this—but I’d never felt betrayed by her, either.
On all sides, I’ve been surrounded by people dealing in dec
eption, trying to outsmart each other at a game where I’m the grand prize. Gunnar, Daphne, Mr. Strauss … and now even Ximena, a woman I’ve known almost my whole life. I get why she didn’t tell me she’s an actual sorceress, because I never would’ve been able to keep it a secret—but she knows something, and when I turned to her for help, she deceived me.
The amazing irony in all of this is that Jude Marlowe is the only one who never lied about what he is.
“It’s early,” Ximena remarks when we’re all gathered in the living room, Adriana and I side by side on a love seat near the front window. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure. Do you have sugar, or just more lies?”
Adriana shoots me a nervous frown. “Auggie.”
“No, mijita, it’s okay. He has a right to be upset.” Ximena seats herself in a high-backed wing chair—one Adriana’s grandpa used to favor when he was alive—and she picks up a mug of coffee from the table beside her. “So, Auggie. What is it you’d like to know?”
I scowl deeper, annoyed, the question designed to back-foot me. “How about we start with why you really yanked out my hair.”
“I needed some of your hair for a spell to determine whether or not the Corrupter was truly Rising inside you,” she says evenly, her eyes on mine. “But given the circumstances, I’m guessing you already know that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My eyes film over, and I struggle hard not to fall apart, but that’s a battle I almost always lose. I didn’t mean to ask this question so early, to go right to what hurts me the most. From a lifetime of being “different,” I know how dangerous it is to expose your insecurities at the beginning of a confrontation. It’s the equivalent of handing your opponent a sledgehammer and a guidebook to your kneecaps.
But Ximena’s expression softens immediately, and she sets her coffee aside. “What could I tell you? It would have been cruel to say something before I was certain, to fill your head with scary stories that I couldn’t explain without first fessing up to something I’ve worked hard to keep hidden all my life. And after the spell was cast…” She falters, glancing away—and what’s left of my hope drops through a trapdoor and into a moat filled with alligators. “It’s not easy news to give someone, and there’s still a lot you don’t understand.”
“What does that mean?” I’m tired of everybody knowing more than me. “What don’t I understand yet? Because I’m dying! This thing is getting ready to replace me—and, meanwhile, a bug-eyed vampire from 1915 kidnapped my parents and threw Adriana’s brain at me like a ransom note tied to a brick!”
“Mijita?” Straightening in her chair, Ximena shoots an alarmed look at her granddaughter, and Adriana squirms uncomfortably.
I’m not done yet, though. “He wants me to take a blood oath and join his apocalyptic death cult so he can call the shots when this thing finally does a Kool-Aid Man through my actual soul, so if there’s something I don’t understand, it would be awesome if you would explain it.” I’m breathing so hard my hands tingle. The fact is, she’s had lots of time to volunteer explanations … and she hasn’t, which is an explanation itself. “There’s no way to stop this thing, is there?”
Her expression stricken, Adriana grips my hand. “Of course there’s a way, there has to be—there’s always a balancing force in magic! If this thing is from the magical world, then there’s a magical solution, right, Abuela?”
“We’re not talking about hexes and charms, here, Adriana,” Ximena says gently, and my friend’s fingers dig harder into my flesh. “Vampires have a magical cause, too, but if there were any way to ‘solve’ that problem, sorcerers would have discovered it eons ago. Balance is about equilibrium—systems keeping each other in check.”
“So what’s the bottom line?” I demand, my voice gritty with exhaustion. There’s an 80 percent chance she’s going to tell me I need to die—and a 20 percent chance she’ll tell me to shut up and incubate faster, because she’s pro-Ascension—and I’m just waiting for her to say it either way.
Ximena sets her coffee down again and stands up, pacing restlessly to the window. “Don’t get mad, but I’m going to answer that with a story.” She turns to face us. “I was about your age when my abilities started to manifest. We knew there was sorcery in our bloodline, so my parents weren’t shocked, and they knew where to find people who could help me learn about my gifts.” Absently, she runs her fingers through the fronds of a potted fern. “That’s how I ended up here, in Fulton Heights. I moved in with some family friends and started mastering my element. The Nexus amplifies magical power, and training under it is like being an athlete preparing for the Olympics.
“A few years ago, I was approached by a group of witches—the last members of what was once an incredibly powerful coven.” Ximena turns her gaze out the window, arms crossed at her waist. “They said that they were looking for certain elementals with extraordinary potential, and that they believed I might be the earth witch they needed to complete their circle.”
“For what?” I ask, because I already know this story eventually comes back to me, my mind filled with terrifying images. An arcane ritual.
“They told me a story,” she answers after a moment, “about an entity that appears on Earth once in a generation, finding a host and taking it over. They showed me a prophecy foretelling just such an event within my lifetime … and they told me where the Corrupter came from. The thing inside you isn’t a monster or a ghost, Auggie.” She turns to face me again, her eyes hollow and razor-edged. “It’s an angel.”
23
I blink for what must be a full minute. “It’s a what, now?”
“An angel?” Adriana’s jaw drops open so wide I’m afraid it’s dislocated.
“You mean, like, with wings and a halo and…” I fumble for what I know about angels, but I’m panicking. “And a line of greeting cards?”
“An angel,” Ximena confirms, “but not some rosy-cheeked cupid from a Christmas pageant. We’re talking about real angels—warriors—beings of incredible strength and power, capable of raising the dead and shaking the earth with their voices.”
“I didn’t think you believed in angels. Or anything from the Bible.” Adriana is having almost as much trouble wrapping her brain around all of this as I am.
“Since they were first written down, the scriptures have been edited, curated, and reinterpreted, over and over, by men with an agenda,” Ximena states flatly. “But what I believe in is complicated. I think humans have become arrogant creatures with little respect for the natural world—and Wicca provides a path in the opposite direction.”
“At the risk of sounding like an arrogant creature,” I interject, “can we talk about me some more? Because you just said my body is going to crack open and spew out an actual angel!”
Ximena crosses back to her chair and sits down, leaning over her knees. “His name is Azazel. He was thrown out of heaven alongside Lucifer—the Morning Star—for rebelling against God. But while Lucifer and his demons claimed dominion over hell, Azazel—the Dark Star—ended up here, in this realm. So, in a sense, he and the entity you know as Satan are colleagues. Equals, in a manner of speaking.”
“Cool, cool.” My mouth makes a dry, clicking sound when I speak. “Fun information.”
“What he’s known for is ‘corrupting the Earth.’” She gives me a meaningful look. “But what those accounts don’t spell out in so many words is the form that corruption took.”
Adriana and I exchange a glance, our eyes bulging.
“Just like Lucifer, he wanted his own kingdom, and he meant to build one here among the mortals,” Ximena continues. “But his attempts at creating an army, sharing his blood with his human disciples, produced something monstrous and deadly.” She takes a deep breath. “Auggie … Azazel is the source of vampirism.”
“Are you serious?” Adriana squeezes my hand even harder until I’m afraid the bones are going to crack.
“His blood is endless, truly immortal, and it conti
nues to pass from one vampire to the next up to this very day—although Azazel hasn’t had a body of his own for millennia.” Ximena leans back in her chair. “Ages ago, when their coven was whole, the witches I told you about tried to work an occult ritual on the Corrupter, but even as powerful as they were, the magic was still too intense for them to wield successfully. One of the witches died, and the spell went wrong, resulting in … well…” Her voice drops, and she runs her fingers along her upholstered armrests. “According to them, that’s how the father of all vampires was removed to an unknown plane, able to return to our realm only every hundred years. His blood is still here, and it still calls to him. He’ll keep coming back as long as he can, aiming to build the kingdom he was denied.”
“How long ago are we talking?” I ask next, on the edge of my seat, that damned woodcut doing cartwheels in my brain. “‘Ages’ like bad hair and bell-bottoms … or ‘ages’ like, like … ‘ugh, me hungry for mastodon’?”
“I don’t know. But if I had to guess…” Ximena looks me in the eye. “I’d say they remember what Salisbury Plain looked like before Stonehenge was built.”
“That’s not possible.” Adriana’s face is gray. “How is that possible?”
“Magic takes energy, mijita, you know that,” Ximena says quietly, “and sorcery requires far more than ordinary witchcraft. To work the strongest spells, even with the support of a full coven … it’s like running a marathon. You have to prepare, you have to know what you’re doing, and it still drains you.” Her hands move, agitated. “These were some of the most talented witches history has ever seen, and they failed in part because the six of them together couldn’t handle the power they needed to channel.”
“But vampires have heightened strength and stamina,” I point out dully. “And their blood boosts their ability to work basic magic.”
The Fell of Dark Page 20