Darkness & Discovery (The Bespelled Trilogy #2)

by A. L. Larsen

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said with mock-seriousness. “Do you always have to chain girls to chairs to get them to talk to you?”

  “I apologize for the chains. It’s barbaric, I know. But we’ll let you go unharmed, soon enough.”

  “Yeah, right after you try to murder my boyfriend.” I hit him with a hard glare.

  He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Believe me, we’re doing you a favor. You don’t know what he is. As I understand it, he doesn’t even know what he is right now. Is it true that all his memories have been taken from him?”

  “Because I’m dumb enough to give the enemy information,” I said sarcastically.

  “I’m not the enemy.”

  “Let’s review: you drugged me. You kidnapped me. You chained me to a chair. You’re using me as bait so you can murder my boyfriend. In what world would that not make you my enemy?”

  “I really don’t expect you to understand my perspective,” he said. “You obviously bought whatever lies he’s selling. You don’t see that vampires are pure evil, and need to be destroyed.”

  “You know what’s extra lame about this entire thing? I mean, besides your outfit? The fact that you and Alastair are actually on the same side! He’s a vampire hunter. You must know that. He goes around doing your job for you. And given who he is, I’d be willing to bet he does a way better job at it than you do. For every vamp you’ve taken out, I bet he’s taken out ten! But you want to kill him. And why? Because he has a little angel blood in him? Because, oh, eek, he’s stronger than other vampires? The Order is totally out of whack if you can’t see that killing him is stupid!”

  “Again, I really don’t expect you to understand any of this.”

  “I understand plenty. Including the fact that your parents misnamed you. You should have been called Aramis. He was the religious zealot among the musketeers. That’s pretty much what this is to you, right? A holy war? Doesn’t the Order somehow think it’s doing God’s work by killing vampires?”

  “You don’t know me, Luna. Don’t pretend that you do.”

  “Just tell me when I’m wrong, Athos. But it hasn’t happened yet, has it? I’ll bet everything I’ve said has been dead-on.”

  “You’re extremely exasperating,” he told me.

  “Yeah? Then maybe you shouldn’t have kidnapped me.”

  “It wasn’t really my idea.”

  “No, of course not. Just following orders, right? Like a good little soldier.”

  “Look, there’s no need to get condescending.”

  “Oh, ok. Wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of the ruthless assassin that’s holding me hostage.”

  He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I knew better than to engage with you. It’s such a rookie mistake.”

  “Yeah, remember that next time you’re imprisoning some innocent human.”

  We went back to staring at each other for a while. But then I fidgeted a bit and said, “Ok, I was joking before about wetting myself, but pretty soon that’s not actually going to be a joke. Do you have some sort of plan for letting me use the restroom?”

  He looked a little uncomfortable now and said, “If you really need it, I’ll take you.”

  “I really need it.”

  He crossed the room and crouched behind me, and in a moment the chains around my waist went slack and were lifted off. He gingerly took both my hands in one of his and unlocked what turned out to be handcuffs, freeing one of my wrists. He held on to the open cuff while I stood up, shook out my free hand and then shook out each leg. “Parts of me are totally asleep,” I told him.

  “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be much longer,” he told me.

  “So in other words,” I said, “soon Alastair’s going to show up and you’re going to try to kill him. And then he’s going to murder you and the rest of your stripper brothers and rescue me like I’m some damn princess in a Disney movie. So I’ll be a stereotype, and you’ll be dead. Awesome.”

  He started to take hold of my free hand, and I pulled it out of his reach. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Chaining your hands together in the front.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  He moved so quickly I barely saw it, and then both my hands were cuffed together in front of me. “Oh come on! How am I supposed to use the restroom like this?”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  I rolled my eyes as he led me to an absolutely tiny bathroom off one of the bedrooms. I stepped inside and looked at him, then said, “Well? Close the door.” He closed it behind him, sealing himself in the bathroom with me. “No, with you on the outside.”

  “I’m not leaving you unsupervised in here,” he told me, crossing his arms over his chest. The room was so small that his arms brushed mine.

  I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. Then I snapped it shut and demanded, “Out, Athos.”

  He was doing that statue thing again, staring at me emotionlessly.

  “I am not peeing in front of you!”

  His response was to turn his back to me.

  “Not good enough! You’re two inches away! And you can hear me. I’ll never be able to go. Come on,” I whined. “What do you think I’m going to do, climb out that window? Have you seen it? It’s about seven inches tall, and it’s six feet off the ground. Do you seriously think I could stuff myself through that?”

  No response.

  “I hate it when you do this,” I told him. Still nothing. “Seriously, have you seen the window? Look at it.” I came around to the side of him and pushed him with my shoulder until he sighed and begrudgingly turned around. “See?” I said, lifting my chin toward the window. “I can’t get out. So you hanging out in here while I go to the bathroom is just super gross and pervy.”

  He frowned at that.

  “Come on. I can’t hold it much longer.” I stared at him in exasperation.

  And finally he caved and threw up his hands. “Fine. I’ll be right outside this door. You have two minutes, and then I’m coming in after you. I mean it. I’m timing you.” He swung the door open, stepped through, and slammed it behind him.

  I immediately leapt into action. I’d felt Knifey the moment he materialized, and yanked up the leg of my jeans and pulled him out of my boot. The little blade sliced through the links of the handcuffs like they were butter. One of the many awesome things about the bespelled knife was that it cut through anything.

  I then used the knife to cut the ancient baseboard heater loose from the wall, and wedged it between the door and the toilet to act as a barricade. The window really was far too small to be of any use, so I next used the knife to slice right through the wall, cutting a quick door to the outside. The knife blade was only about five or six inches long, but the walls of the trailer were thinner than that and offered no resistance.

  I pushed one side of the panel out and grabbed hold of it, and lowered it to the ground as I stepped outside gingerly. Clutching the knife tightly, I took off in a blind sprint into the surrounding woods.

  “Oh come on, Luna!” Athos yelled as I heard the door whack against the baseboard heater. The loud crashing sound that followed was probably the door getting smashed open. The second crash was in all likelihood my captor smashing through the wall of the trailer, since the door I’d cut was too small for him to fit through.

  I just kept running. I knew the chances of actually outrunning a supernatural being were pretty damn slim, but I was still going to try. No way was I just going to sit around being bait.

  Athos was soon fairly close behind me, big and lumbering. I ducked through a stand of trees, and heard him sigh in exasperation. He had to knock the trees over to fit past them. I laid on an extra burst of speed.

  It was dark, but my night vision was pretty good. I bobbed and weaved through the forest, and caught another bit of luck when I came across a big rock formation. I squeezed through a narrow opening and came out the other side. There was a meadow on that side and I sprinted through it, starting to
feel confident. I was a runner, I could do this all night. Half-angel boy had nothing on me.

  Well, except for the fact that he could fly.

  The meadow was completely illuminated in a pure, white light all of a sudden, as something huge and winged touched down about ten yards ahead of me. I put my head down and didn’t look directly at him, remembering Joey’s story about the first time he saw an angel, and how the raw power of it had terrified him and reduced him to a cowering wreck.

  I dodged to the left and Athos cut me off. So I made a decision and pressed my eyes shut and barreled straight ahead, under the theory that if he was composed of light, I should be able to run right through him.

  Uh, no.

  Smashing into him felt like running into a giant redwood. The word oof actually left my mouth as we collided. He hadn’t been expecting me to run right into him, apparently, because he fell to the ground beneath me, cushioning my fall. He swore in French as I brought my elbow into his ribcage.

  My eyes were still pressed shut, the white light almost unbearable right through my eyelids. It was a relief when it faded out suddenly. Athos’ big hands grabbed my shoulders, but I squirmed and fought, not ready to give up. “Stop it, Luna,” he said, his tone exasperated.

  He stood, picking me up like I weighed nothing, and still I fought him, yelling, “Put me down! I’ll just escape again. You can’t keep me prisoner!” He was bare from the waist up for some reason, and I scratched at him mercilessly. I kicked and tried to roll out of his arms, grabbing for his hair so I could pull it.

  Athos gasped suddenly, and went completely still. And then he dropped to his knees. He put me down and reached up and touched the side of his neck. I scrambled backwards, out of his reach, as he stared at me. He was still very slightly illuminated, so I could see him perfectly, his aquamarine eyes wide and frightened as he asked, “Luna, what did you do to me?”

  I got to my feet and took a few shaky steps backwards, getting ready to run. And then he collapsed forward onto the ground.

  For a moment, I was totally at a loss. And then I noticed something bright in my hand. I was still holding the bespelled knife, and its blade glowed with Athos’ blood. “Oh! God,” I stammered and rushed to his side, rolling him onto his back with considerable effort. “Athos, are you ok?” I knew I should be running, but I just couldn’t leave him for dead. I didn’t have it in me.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice quiet.

  “I accidentally stabbed you. I’m not sure where.”

  “My neck.”

  I turned his head and saw the cut, which was bleeding fairly heavily. I pulled off my sweater and pressed it to his throat.

  “What kind of weapon did you use?” His body was totally slack, his arms limp at his sides.

  “This.” I held up the little knife where he could see it.

  His eyes went wide. “Where did you get that? How are you even able to hold it?”

  “What do you mean? It’s mine. It follows me around. Did it…did it do something to you besides cutting you?”

  “It poisoned me. A serpent’s tongue is lethal to angels, even half-angels. The tiniest scratch kills us.”

  “A serpent’s tongue? What are you talking about?”

  “That weapon. It’s dark magic and incredibly powerful. It shouldn’t even be possible for a human to wield it.” His voice was a little fainter.

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you! Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “Afraid not. Luna, be careful around Alastair. You’re really not safe with him.” His eyelids fluttered.

  “Athos, stay with me! There has to be something we can do, some way to stop this!” I pressed the sweater to his throat and brushed a few loose stands of his long, dark hair out of his face.

  “I didn’t like the idea of taking you prisoner,” he murmured. “I thought it was wrong to involve you. I’ve been with the Order such a short time, though, and my opinion didn’t matter to them.” His eyes slid shut. But he was still breathing, his big chest rising and falling with effort.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until I saw my tears land on his chest. “Athos, is there anyone I can call for you? A friend? Your family? Someone…someone you want to say goodbye to?”

  “There’s no one. My real father wants nothing to do with me, and my human parents and my two brothers are long dead. I’ll bet you can guess my brothers’ names,” he said with a little half-smile, opening his eyes just the tiniest bit.

  I managed a weak smile. “What if the third child had been a girl? Then what would your parents have done? Named you Athos, Porthos and Susan?”

  He smiled too. “Perhaps.” A tear spilled from the corner of his eye, and I brushed it away and kept stroking his cheek.

  “Oh God. Athos, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s ok. You didn’t know. Was an accident.” His voice was barely a whisper. Even as he was dying he was forgiving me, absolving me of guilt. What an absolutely extraordinary person, I thought, as I continued to caress his face.

  Right then, with no warning and no fanfare, Bryn appeared beside me. “Well, this is unexpected,” he said, taking in the sight of me in nothing but a bra, crouched over Athos’ sprawled body.

  “Bryn!” I exclaimed. “He’s dying. He’s nephilim, and I accidentally stabbed him with this.” I opened my palm to reveal the silver dagger.

  “Yeah, that would do it.”

  “Bryn, help him! There must be something you can do. Save his life!”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?”

  Bryn shrugged and said, “He’s a member of the Order, part of the group of assassins that are after Alastair. I think killing them is pretty much the goal here.”

  “Not this one! Please Bryn, save him. For me!”

  The warlock frowned and said, “You really want this?”

  “Yes! Please!”

  Bryn sighed and took a look at Athos. And then he put his hands on Athos’ chest and closed his eyes.

  An eerie black-blue light crept up Bryn’s fingers and hands and disappeared under the sleeves of his shirt. After about thirty seconds of this, Athos gasped and sat up, and Bryn let his hands fall away. “There,” Bryn said. “All better.”

  “But…is it in you now? The poison? Because that’s what it looked like,” I said.

  “It is. But I’ll probably be ok, as long as I can keep it encapsulated until I figure out a way to get it out of me again.”

  “Probably be ok? Bryn, did you just put yourself in danger?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “But why?”

  “Because you asked me to help him,” Bryn said, getting to his feet and brushing off the knees of his black dress pants.

  “That’s not enough of a reason to endanger yourself,” I said, getting up too, still holding the knife in one hand and the balled up sweater in the other.

  “You were terribly upset. You’d never forgive yourself if he died.”

  I grabbed Bryn in a hug, careful not to stab him, too, with the blade in my hand, and when I let go of him he said, “Does that count as getting to second base? I’ve never hugged a topless girl before.”

  “I’m not topless. I’m wearing a perfectly opaque bra.” I shook out the sweater and decided it was too bloody to put on, so I tied it around my waist and returned the knife to my boot. Athos stood up shakily, then jogged out of the clearing. He was back a moment later with his leather jacket, which he put around my shoulders, and his t-shirt, which he pulled over his head. I slipped my arms through the sleeves of the jacket and pulled up the zipper. It completely engulfed me.

  And then Athos went down on one knee in front of me and took my hand. I was afraid he was about to propose. But instead, he bowed down and touched his forehead to the back of my hand and said, “You saved my life, Luna. And in return, I pledge myself to you. I will do everything in my power to protect you for the remainder of my days.” He added something in Latin as I fidgeted unco
mfortably.

  “Um…thanks,” I said, extracting my hand from his and awkwardly patting him on the top of his head as if he was a dog. “But since I’m the one that almost took your life, I think the fact that I then asked my friend to save it is pretty much a wash. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Look, this is all very entertaining, but we need to get out of here before the rest of the Order figures out what’s going on and closes in on us,” Bryn said. “Although now that I know the serpent’s tongue is with you and now that I’m with you, they probably wouldn’t stand a chance.” He turned to Athos and said, “So. He Man, Master of the Universe. After that little archaic ceremony, I assume you’re coming with us.”

  “Yes sir.” Athos stood up as he said, “We should go that way.” He pointed into the forest, his huge bicep flexing under his black t-shirt. “The four remaining members of the Order are stationed at each of the four inroads into this property. If we go in that direction, we can slip right past them. Provided we’re quiet.” He started walking, and I jogged to catch up and then fell into step with him.

  Bryn materialized a few feet ahead of us instead of running to catch up, and I asked him as he too fell into step beside me, “Am I wrong to trust a member of the Order?”

  “As of right now, I’m a former member of the Order,” Athos interjected.

  “You can probably trust him, especially after that vow he just took,” Bryn said. “If he’s an honorable man, he’ll never do anything to harm you from this point forward.”

  “I am, sir. I swear I won’t do anything to betray Luna’s or your trust,” Athos said.

  “Is there some reason you keep calling me sir?” Bryn wanted to know.

  “I was taught to respect my elders, sir.”

  “Elders! I don’t look a day over nineteen. How old do you think I am?” Bryn exclaimed.

  “I see your age at right around three hundred and thirty.”

  “A reader! How unusual in a nephilim.”

  “About as unusual as a warlock with enough power to teleport. That must make you Bryn Maddock, sir.”

  “Of course I’m Bryn Maddock. And knock off the sir business. Makes me feel older than disco.”