The Eternal Dusk (Daughter of the Phoenix Book Two)

by Victoria J. Price

  Kit finished licking his paw, looked up at Alexander and blinked. And then he turned and ran, out of the car park towards the main road.

  “Does this fox ever walk anywhere?” Jo muttered as they ran after him.

  Alexander hovered a few inches off the ground, knowing that Halvar would run beside Jo. As long as one of them kept sight of the fox, it didn’t matter if another was caught behind.

  But as Kit turned a corner, a thread pulled at Alexander—he felt the tugging at his core. Someone was dying nearby. Halvar came to a stop behind him, he’d likely felt it too.

  “Sire?” Halvar asked.

  “It’s Alexander. Please. There’s no one here but us.” I’ll be throwing out that archaic title the moment we’re back in Ohinyan. It was time for a few changes, that much he was certain of. “This way.” Alexander pointed towards a red-bricked row of houses, and an open doorway amongst them. They’d almost reached the end of the thread.

  “We’ve lost Kit, what’s going on?” Jo asked.

  “Someone is dying,” Alexander whispered as he swung open a gate to a front garden. There wasn’t much time, he could feel it.

  “Oh,” Jo replied. “And we’re just going to walk right into their house?”

  “We don’t need to go inside.” Between the front gate and the door, a large hedge concealed a young man lying on the ground, clutching at his chest. Alexander guessed he was late twenties at most, judging by the lack of lines around his eyes and mouth.

  Jo pulled a device out of her pocket and tapped at it.

  “You’re too late,” Halvar said to her.

  Alexander knelt beside the young man and took his hand. They had moments, at most. He was on his back, his grey jacket falling open to a blue shirt—he’d already broken a button where he’d clutched at the fabric. “Don’t be afraid, come with me.”

  The young man shook his head, his gaze falling on Alexander. “I ccc—I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can, we’re going to stand up, just don’t let go of my hand. We’ll do it together,” Alexander replied. The connection was almost gone. He could hear Jo talking into her device somewhere nearby. Phones, that’s what they call them here. He knew without having to look that Halvar would be keeping watch.

  “No, you don’t understand, I can’t, they—” the man pulled his hand away from Alexander’s, and he was gone. It was like blowing out a candle—one moment he was alive, the next his body lay still. The young man’s spirit pushed himself up and clambered to his feet. A shimmer of blue revealed the brickwork of the house right through his ethereal frame. He looked from his body, his physical body lying still on the ground, and back to Alexander. “I’m sorry,” he said, and walked out of the garden gate and away, down the road.

  “What the hell just happened?” Jo asked, her phone in her hand.

  “An ambulance is on its way, are you able to stay with him?” a voice said from the phone.

  “To stay? I… he’s, he’s gone. I can stay, sure.” Jo said, her gaze following the young man’s spirit as it disappeared down the road.

  Alexander remained kneeling beside the man’s body. Not all spirits went with him—that was something all angels were taught from an early age before coming to Earth to help the dying. But something about this felt different. He’d said he couldn’t, the young man. He’d said they.

  Alexander examined the body as best he could without disturbing it. There were no signs of a struggle—if he had to guess, it was a heart problem that had taken the young man’s life.

  He checked his clothes, his hands. Nothing. Alexander stood up and walked around to examine the man’s head. A mop of dark hair fell across the eyes as Alexander gently tilted the lifeless head.

  “What are you looking for?” Halvar asked. Sirens sounded not too far away, and Jo was waiting by the road for the emergency vehicle to arrive.

  “Did you hear what he said? It wasn’t just that he couldn’t come, because of something he felt he’d done. Not like the words they normally say. He started to say something else, he said they,” Alexander replied. “There, look.” He pointed to a small mark behind the young man’s ear. Four interlinking circles looked as if they had been scratched into the skin, and in the centre, crossing across all four circles was a symbol Alexander couldn’t make out. “Witches,” he breathed. “We need to find Hazel; can you see Kit?”

  “He’s waiting up ahead,” Jo called out from the road. “Get out of the way, the ambulance is pulling up.” She waved down a vehicle with flashing lights. “Hi, he’s just over here. I was on my way to the library and I heard someone call out.”

  Two men dressed in green pulled a cot on wheels from the vehicle. Alexander and Halvar stood to one side as Jo talked to them, her story rolling off her tongue as if it were truth.

  “Sire… Alexander, I don’t understand, what happened here?” Halvar asked. He folded his arms across his chest, watching Jo as she spoke to the men in green.

  “I don’t think he could go with me, I think that mark prevented him from doing so, even though he wanted to,” Alexander said. He dragged a hand through his hair and looked down the street towards Kit sniffing at a discarded banana peel.

  Doubting himself over the last few months had got him nowhere. His father was dead, he was cut off from Ohinyan, from Fia. It was time to be the leader his people deserved and to find out what exactly these witches were doing with angels and lost spirits.

  “Here. All my details are on my card; I own Flow Fitness and you’ll find me there most days. Is it okay with you guys if I go?” Jo asked the men in green.

  “Of course, thank you for the call. Will you be okay, do you have someone to talk to about this?” one of them asked.

  “I’ll be fine. I do, thanks.” Jo was already backing out of the gate, onto the pavement as the men moved the body onto the cot.

  “Are you okay?” Halvar asked, his eyes searching her face. “We see death often, but it is still difficult when the dying do not go with us.”

  Jo frowned but said nothing as they walked down the street. Kit was still waiting for them. As soon as they were out of earshot from the men in green, Jo said, “I’m fine. But what do you mean, go with you? What happens when we die?”

  Alexander listened to Halvar’s explanation—a lesson all angels learned as children.

  “In our world, when a person dies, their spirit either joins the sky spirits or, in rare cases, if they have done many bad deeds, their spirit sinks into the depths of Ohinyan,” Halvar began.

  Jo nodded imperceptibly as a jogger ran past.

  “But that doesn’t happen here on Earth. Gabriel, the first angel, learned his gift from a woman named Suralia, whose family was born with the ability. Gabriel and Suralia taught the lesson to everyone they met, to the children they had together, to all they came into contact with, until eventually, all from Ohinyan were born with the ability too. But the people of Earth could not be taught, no matter how much Gabriel tried.”

  “Why does that not surprise me,” Jo said, kicking a stone as they followed Kit along another tree-lined pavement.

  Alexander thought of the book he’d seen in the window of the Atlantis bookshop when he’d first been looking for Fia. What a different story they spun, here on Earth.

  “On Earth, unless an angel comes to release the spirit, that spirit is trapped here. Some even choose to stay. People on Earth are awfully fond of material things,” Halvar laughed quietly.

  “But how do they go with you? Is it magic? Where do they go?” Jo asked.

  “We feel life ebbing away, a pull. You can call it magic if you want,” Alexander added. “When we take a dying person’s hand in ours, something passes from us to them, a part of Gabriel’s gift, I suppose.” He held out his palms to examine them. He’d never really thought about it as magic. It was just a pull, a call to answer the threads that tugged at him. “They join the sky spirits, too. You call them the Northern Lights.”

  “Right. The Northern Lights. Of
course we do.” Jo shook her head. “And that guy that just walked away? Where was he going? And why could I see him?”

  “Your people like to call them ghosts. Some can see them, some can’t. It makes sense that if you can see us, you can see the spirits too. As for where he’s going—who knows, where do your ghosts go? They are unhappy things usually. They linger in places that hold meaning to them or follow people they remember from their old life,” Halvar said.

  “This is nuts.” Jo waved a hand. “I suppose Fia just took all of this in her stride, did she?”

  “She was very receptive to this, yes,” Alexander said with a smile. He hadn’t really given Fia the credit she deserved. He’d been too consumed in his own guilt, in his own shortcomings. Realisation washed over him—he owed her an apology.

  Kit made a strange noise up ahead and broke off into a run. Alexander didn’t wait for the others, he leapt off the ground and followed.

  The fox turned a corner between two buildings, the pavement turned to cobblestones and became a narrow alley. Up ahead, Alexander could make out the blue flicker of a spirit. It was the young man who had just died. Alexander caught up with Kit, who sat behind a dumpster. The fox barked quietly and flicked his head towards the spirit. Another joined it, a child that passed through the brick wall beside them. And then an old woman, and another man. Within moments there were more than ten spirits pouring into the building at the end of the alley.

  Paint flaked off the heavy metal door, and the windows looked as if they had been boarded up years ago. The crumbling old brick was covered in places with torn posters too tattered and faded to read.

  Jo and Halvar caught up with them, and Alexander stepped out from the cover of the dumpster to investigate. Kit let out a peculiar sound, not unlike the word “wow”, and then again until Alexander stopped to look at him.

  “What? We need to find out why they’re here,” Alexander said.

  Kit merely flicked his nose upwards, bared his teeth, and then ran back out the alley, before pausing at the corner in expectation.

  “Stay or go?” Jo asked, looking from Alexander to Kit.

  “It would not be wise to stay without knowledge of who is inside. The witches have talismans that can trap us. We’ll need Hazel’s help—and we’ll need weapons,” Alexander said. “Let’s go.”

  They followed Kit down streets, past people walking, women pushing children in small carts, past joggers. Large red vehicles whizzed by and smaller colourful ones. The city was too crowded, and if Alexander had been alone he’d have taken to the skies instantly. Eventually, Kit stopped at the closed restaurant they’d met Hazel at before.

  “It would have been easier if you’d just carried a note.” Jo stopped to catch her breath. “I could have called us a taxi.”

  “Quickly, inside, all of you.” Hazel opened the door and ushered them in. The lights were off, and she led them through to the back room. Incense hung heavily in the air. “Did you find any open windows?” She pushed aside emerald and magenta cushions to make space for them all, sitting behind a table overflowing with items as she did so. The room had no windows, and Hazel had placed candles around the walls—carefully positioned, Alexander noted, so that none would come in contact with their wings.

  “No windows and no angels,” Alexander replied. “But there’s something else. A man died, and he had a peculiar marking on his neck—four interlinking circles with a strange symbol in the centre across them all, it looked like a vertical line with horizontal lines across it, but it was too rough to count how many. And then Kit led us to him and to other spirits who were entering a building together—I’ve never known spirits to behave this way. We need to investigate, but we’ll need your help, Hazel. Have you anything to ward off their talismans?”

  Hazel absentmindedly rubbed behind Kit’s ear, candlelight dancing in the fox’s eyes. “I’ll need some time to come up with something. Our magic is drawn from other sources.” She made a note on a piece of paper in front of her, brushing aside a bundle of sage and a handful of rough black crystals. In her free hand she rolled a lilac crystal between her fingertips.

  “But why would the witches do such a thing? What is the symbol they drew on the man’s neck?” Alexander was pacing, running over ideas and options they might take.

  “It’s a rune, one that calls the spirits to that building you saw them enter just now. I bet they have the angels in there too.” Hazel looked up at him, her long hair framing her face. She seemed too young to have a daughter close to Fia’s age. How had the witch become a messenger of Ohinyan? He tucked the thought away for another time.

  Kit tilted his head back and made a pained sound.

  “What need have the Earth witches for spirits, Hazel?” Alexander didn’t like where this was going, and the sense of dread that had been creeping up his spine since they saw the spirits wandering aimlessly into the building wrapped its way around his neck.

  “Only necromancers can control spirits in this way—and the witches only do Erebus’s bidding.” Hazel fluffed a cushion and Kit promptly curled up against it.

  “But why?” Jo asked. She’d seated herself between Kit and Halvar, close enough that the angel’s feathers brushed her shoulder, but neither of them acknowledged it.

  “Because Erebus wants an army, and the Eternal Dusk are creating one for him—an army made of spirits—or ghosts to you and I.” Hazel placed her hands in her lap, and Alexander couldn’t help but wonder if it was to keep her worries in check.

  An army of ghosts at Erebus’s command. It was almost unthinkable. “We’re going to need to free the angels, and we’ll need wards. Weapons too,” he began, pulling together all the threads of his plan.

  Erebus might be putting together an army, but Alexander wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  Chapter Seven

  Erebus

  A cloak of darkness swarmed around Erebus as flames burst from his fingertips. Heat flowed through him, and he flicked his wrists to test the power of his inferno. An angel ran screaming as another flick set a pair of wings on fire.

  His own wings were protected. No ordinary flame could consume his feathers, his flesh and bone. He wouldn’t let the other angels see him anyway. Not yet. Now was not the time to show himself, as much as he would love to wipe the smug smiles from their perfect faces.

  Instead, he passed through the largest and grandest building at the centre of Alythia in his shadow form—nothing but a swarm of darkness for any who looked upon him. Pathetic angels. When he was finished, all of Ohinyan would know how useless they truly were. They weren’t protectors. They were nothing more than hypocrites with wings.

  “Gnossaan!” Erebus called out. The frail old scholar had proved useful. Erebus’s imprisonment, tedious though it was, had borne some fruit. He’d swayed many a creature to his side, many of the people of Ohinyan too. But his greatest achievement was the old angel, their wise sage, their greatest scholar, Gnossaan.

  “Sire.” Gnossaan bowed as Erebus entered the library. Marble columns stretched up around them, flickers of flames from the city beyond waved shadows across the marble floor. No other angels were around, they had already fled. Good. There would be no witnesses. Erebus loved an air of mystery.

  “Have you done as I have asked?” Erebus barely raised his gaze to Gnossaan, instead he experimented with rolling flames along the length of his arm and off his fingertips, firing orange orbs at rows of ancient texts.

  The old angel cleared his throat, hovering as close as he would dare. “Why yes, sire. I have destroyed everything that speaks of the creation of our world, of your imprisonment, and of the dying sun. There is nothing left—the other scholars are none the wiser.” He ran a hand absentmindedly along the length of his unkempt beard, grey with flecks of black, like his wings.

  The stench of burning feathers drifted through the open door of the library. Such a pity his father had made him in their image. Erebus clicked his tongue in disgust. “And Alexander?”
>
  “Alexander suspects nothing, sire, as you commanded.” Gnossaan fluttered backwards as Erebus took a step closer.

  “There’s no need to fear me, Gnossaan,” Erebus said, pulsing his wings to close the distance between them and allowing the cloak of darkness to fall away. “You see, we are alike.” He thrust his wings wide as he hovered inches away from Gnossaan, fascinated by his reflection in the old man’s eyes. Silver hair and dark grey wings. The face of a young man—the man he had been when they’d taken Terah away from him. When they’d tricked him.

  “I-I don’t fear you.” Gnossaan swallowed. “Sire.”

  “Good.” With another flick of his wrist, Erebus released a jet of flames directly into the old angel’s chest. It set alight his beard and his hair, and within moments his wings. The old man screamed and fell to his knees. Erebus released another burst of flames until the old angel’s body was engulfed and feathers gave way to sinew, flesh gave way to bone. “Because fear will not protect you. Nothing will.” He grabbed Gnossaan by the wrist and dragged him towards the bookcase in the centre of the library. He let go, and the smouldering corpse fell to the polished marble with a crack.

  Erebus brushed the muck from his hands and considered his options. Before he had time to make a decision, his head jerked towards the doorway. She was here—in Ehnalia. He couldn’t risk bringing down the entire structure with her in it.

  He let his cloak of darkness engulf him once more and gestured a hand toward what remained of Gnossaan. His darkness flowed through him, and it pinned the charred body against the bookcase, skeletal wings outstretched. His darkness found books and ink and left a message, a word to a page above the angel’s head. It was sloppy, but it would do. He had no intention of leaving without at least having a little fun.

  She was coming. Could he chance a look? One look upon her face through his true eyes, to see the way her hair fell, the way she dressed.

  Hooves echoed against marble. Arion. Of course she would be with him. Such a beacon of morality. Erebus clicked his tongue again. The winged horse was as distasteful as the pitiful angels.