by Kelly Gay
Loving the smell of books and leather, I inhaled deeply as Aaron walked to a section protected by leaded glass. His body blocked the case from my view. All I could see were his wide shoulders encased in the green silk and his dark head, which bowed in concentration. He spoke a series of incantations in a low hum of a voice. A thrill went through me as I responded to the energy, the magic in the room. I was waking up to a whole other world that existed in tandem with the one I knew so well. I had so much to learn, and the realization left me a little overwhelmed and highly impatient.
Two clicks sounded as the latches to the case released. Aaron turned his body slightly, and I watched him carefully remove a burnished, ancient-looking scroll tied with leather strings. He took it to the map table and unrolled it with surgical precision, and then I helped to weigh the corners down with cold brass paperweights forged to look like dragons.
A musty scent mushroomed into the air, but it wasn’t like the smell of old paper or books. “Ugh. What is that?” I fanned the air over the scroll.
“Skin.”
“Skin!”
If it bothered him, he didn’t let on. Instead, he peered at the ancient wedge-shaped lines pressed into the skin with black ink, which looked very similar to the cuneiform writing of the ancient Sumerians.
He didn’t elaborate. And I didn’t ask. In fact, I didn’t breathe for the next twenty seconds, giving the scent of ancient skin time to disperse. The thought of drawing that into my lungs made my stomach turn. I stepped back. “What does it say?”
“It’s in Charbydon. From the House of Astarot. About ten thousand years ago, it was stolen by the House of Abaddon, and then, much later, stolen by another.”
The smug tone in his voice drew my attention, and I saw his mouth give one faint twitch. “You?”
He didn’t return my look, just shrugged and surveyed the library. “We have a nice collection.”
Interesting. Aaron was much more than a Magnus. He was an art thief.
“The scroll details the calling of darkness,” he said, “which can only be done in a place other than Charbydon.”
While I didn’t know exactly what the calling of darkness entailed, its purpose made sense. Charbydon existed in darkness, so they wouldn’t need to call it there. “So what does this have to do with me?”
“Charbydon is dying, Charlie. In order to be free of sunlight and live as they are accustomed, they must have a new home. They must call the darkness to cover another place.”
Goose bumps sprouted on my arms. “Atlanta.”
“Yes, I believe so. Eventually, the darkness will spread, very slowly, and in, oh, I don’t know, a hundred years or two, it will cover the planet.”
The weight of his words sent me plopping into the nearest chair. Air hissed from the leather cushion as it molded around my body. “So Mynogan’s talk about saving their world …”
“There’s no way to save a dying moon. At least not that I know of.”
But Carreg believed. He was trying to find a way. Wasn’t he?
I drew my legs in and propped my elbow on the arm of the chair. “And me?” I couldn’t wait for this part. It was sure to be a doozy.
“The only being capable of calling the darkness is one who possesses the power of all three worlds in their blood. This scroll is a myth that goes back as far as anyone can remember. No one, no Elysian or Charbydon, has been able to do this. At first, around the time of cohabitation in your world, the House of Abaddon thought they could breed the perfect being, a Nephilim, to call the darkness over the Earth, to create their own realm and be free of joint rule with the House of Astarot. They’ve wanted this for millennia. Now, instead of looking for a way to live with what they’ve wrought in Charbydon, they’ll steal this land.”
I rested my chin on the teepee of my fingers. “That’s all well and good if I could call the darkness. As it stands, Mynogan will fail simply because I have no clue how to call anything.”
Aaron’s entire being stilled. The emerald-green of his eyes dimmed just a little, and his lips drew into a grim line. The hairs on the back of my neck started to rise. “You don’t have to do anything, Charlie, except spill your blood on unconsecrated ground. Every last drop. Once this blood of three worlds seeps into the soil, darkness will rise, clouding out the sun and overtaking everything.” He cleared his throat and straightened. “According to the scroll.”
Right. Of course. Just a typical day in the life of Charlie Madigan, I thought sourly. “It doesn’t explain why he didn’t just kill me after injecting me with the DNA. Why wait until now?”
“Perhaps the timing wasn’t yet right.” He scanned the scroll again, but shook his head when he didn’t find the answer he was looking for. “There is nothing here about when to begin the ritual. But timing and astrological alignments are everything in crafting. Mynogan must have had a good reason for waiting until now. Whether the myth is true or not, he believes in it. So, we must be prepared.” He turned his back on the scroll, leaning his hip on the table and fixing me with a frank look. “You, my dear, need to learn how to fight fire with fire.”
My cell rang. With some effort, I removed myself from the plush leather chair and then pulled my cell from the clip. It was Bryn. “Did you find her?”
“All we can get is a general area. It’s somewhere around Morningside and Ansley Park.”
Quickly, I turned away from Aaron, not wanting him to see my emotions and wishing I’d left my hair down to cover my face instead of up in the ponytail. My throat closed before I could ask the question that haunted my mind. But Bryn knew me, and she answered the silence over the phone. “I felt her. I didn’t sense any pain” —I swallowed a sob; tears clouded my vision—“or true fright. Just a lot of worry, irritation, and anger.”
I nodded. It was the only thing I could do without crying. My face was going to be the last fucking thing Mynogan ever saw. I managed to say okay and then close the cell, drawing in a deep breath before having to face Aaron. When I did, compassion shone in his gaze. “Don’t look at me like that,” I snapped. “Once we get a location, can you flash yourself in, grab her, and get out?”
“Mynogan isn’t a fool. He’ll have put a ward around her.”
“You have a mansion full of mages, powerful ones.”
“Not as powerful as an Abaddon elder. We don’t exactly have the upper hand here.”
“But you’ll try.” It was a command more than a request. If I had to ask, to beg or plead, I wouldn’t be able to keep my despair in check and the tears at bay.
His dark head dipped. “I will. If not, then we’ll find another way in. Chances are Mynogan will let you walk right through the door. You’re what he wants, after all.”
Every part of me wanted to start walking and not stop until I was in front of that bastard. But I knew I had to have a plan if I wanted to save Em first. I had a feeling if I just turned myself over, Emma would not be set free after my blood soaked the ground. No, she had to be free first. And I wasn’t about to trust Mynogan to simply trade her for me.
I sat on the edge of the seat and put my head in my hands, feeling utterly defeated, feeling the sting rise behind my eyelids as I pressed them with my palms. “I can’t do this. I need Emma.” Her name repeated in my mind, echoing and bouncing around, tearing my heart in two. This wasn’t right. I couldn’t just wait. It wasn’t in my nature. I wanted to scream, to fight and at the same time to curl into a fetal position on the floor. I’d lost my child. I should have been with her, should have known …
Emotions spun inside me, growing bigger and stronger and louder, gathering all that I had, all my fears and hurts and hopes, and turning them into a bloated monster that was bursting at the seams.
A strong hand landed on my shoulder. Spices filled the air. Aaron squeezed gently, the pressure as soft and sure as his voice. “First lesson. Learn how to control your emotions. You won’t get anywhere with Mynogan if you’re at war inside. You can’t fight yourself and him.”
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nbsp; No shit, I wanted to shout, but I stayed silent, trying to calm the storm, knowing that everything would depend on my ability to overcome the powers and control them. I needed to be like Aaron. Calm. Confident. Insightful. After a few deep breaths, I narrowed my eyes on him. “You know, you don’t look like a wise man.” But he sure as hell sounded like one.
“An apprentice could see your turmoil right now. Auras reflect emotion and balance.” He stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest. “What does mine tell you?”
He knew that focusing on something would pull me out of my tailspin. Aaron was astute whether he joked about it or not. I straightened, placed both hands on my knees, and stared hard at him. When I saw his aura earlier at Bryn’s, it had been spontaneous, but trying to do it on purpose was another matter.
“Not so hard,” he said. “Just relax and let it come naturally.”
I drew in a deep breath and tried again. Relax. See him as he is. Slowly, the library faded, everything around Aaron dropping away until it was just his form filling my view. A hazy cloud began to take shape around his head and shoulders. But it wasn’t enough. I concentrated harder. Something clicked inside, and I knew then that I was the problem. I was holding back, afraid to open myself up and accept the power. To be in control, I had to lose control of my inhibitions and fears.
My fists unclenched. My muscles relaxed and my arms hung loose at my sides. I was open, accepting.
Vibrant shades of green, emerald, fern, jade, and moss, all blossomed through the haze, overtaking it and becoming a living extension of the being in front of me. Power and emotion tickled my senses and in those colors, Aaron was revealed. Intelligence. Creativity. Valor. Anger on behalf of Emma and me. Worry for Bryn. Determination to succeed. And something else, too, a desire to thwart Mynogan, or perhaps it was the entire House of Abaddon. I sensed a history here. One I couldn’t quite see in an aura alone. I probed deeper, and suddenly hit an invisible brick wall.
“Second lesson,” Aaron said, “learn how to block those that can see inside of you.” Amusement and a splash of ego flickered in his eyes. “Nice try, though.”
Now that I understood I had to let go in order to use what was inside of me, I was surprised at how easy it was to tap into the power. Of course, it was simple doing it here in this peaceful library with a teacher who knew what he was doing. If he hadn’t been blocked, I could have seen into his heart. But outside, in the real world, where emotions ruled me and my daughter was at risk …
“You’ll have plenty of raw power to draw upon. For you, the challenge will be identifying which one to use. You have Adonai power, and with it the common power all Elysians are naturally born with. Same for the Charbydon side of you. You also have your human strengths and the gifts that have been passed down through the blood of your family.”
“Okay, so how do I know which ones to use?” I was well enough versed in Elysian and Charbydon to know what kind of powers were probably passed along to me, but I wasn’t sure how to pick and choose them at will.
“It’s simple, really. They don’t blend well, obviously, or else Mynogan would have been successful at this a long time ago. They clash, correct?” I nodded and he continued. “Makes them easy to identify. The darkness and the light. Elysia and Charbydon. Neither one is essentially good or bad—they are just types of energy, power—it’s how they are manipulated that turns them into good and evil. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it’s like wealth. The actual money isn’t good or evil—it doesn’t care either way—it’s what you do with it.”
“Exactly,” he said, impressed. “So, just like you decide which weapon to use, you decide which power will deliver the most … bang for your effort. The powers will never blend, Charlie. They’ll always be at odds.”
“Great, so, I’m cursed.”
“In a manner, yes. Honestly, you’re lucky you’re not dead yet.”
I was about to throw out some general retort when I paused. “What do you mean, yet?”
It didn’t take a genius to see he hadn’t meant to spill that little kernel of information. “It means that you can’t live forever with opposing powers. One day, it will kill you.”
Just like the others before me.
But one day wasn’t now, and that was all I needed to know. After Emma was safe, I’d figure it out. “So, how do I fight?”
“With your mind. Someone like Mynogan manipulates. He will use whatever fears you have to win. He took Emma from you, took Hank’s power away. He fights dirty. Whatever you send at him, he sends back double.”
I remembered back in the lab when I sent out a bolt of power; Mynogan had absorbed it and then sent it flying back to me. “He takes the energy I send, adds his own, and sends it back.”
“And you can do that, too. You have all his power; his entire genetic code is now in you, Charlie. Abaddons are masters at coercion, mind control, and calling on dark forces to work for them. They can steal your breath with an invisible hand. But, so can you. The trick is to be calm in the heat of battle, to control the power and be the master. You don’t need to learn chants or spells—for specific things, yes, but not for fighting. Fighting comes from within, and you own that.”
His words stirred my confidence. Mynogan thought he could control me. But he was forgetting one important thing. I was as powerful as he was. He was just banking on the fact that I didn’t know how to use it. “What about the Adonai priestess? Her DNA is in me, too.”
“This is where it gets good,” he said. “Besides all the auras, heightened intuition, and being able to heal and manipulate matter and energy, Adonai can control the elements. They could sink an island, bring fire to the land by lightning, destroy or create. Theoretically, you should be able to strangle Mynogan from ten yards, manifest his greatest fear, and zap his ass with a lightning bolt.”
Despite the dire situation, a laugh escaped me. A disbelieving laugh. I stood, stretching my legs and arms. He made it sound so easy, and maybe one day it would be. Unless it killed me first.
“It’s all theory, of course. You’re an anomaly, a lone wolf, Charlie. It has taken thousands of years in the evolution of your family and what Mynogan has done to make you what you are now. I can’t say for certain what powers you hold or what you will become. I’m guessing here.” Aaron rolled up the scroll. A shiver of revulsion went through me to see him touch what was once a person’s or being’s skin. After he secured it in the case, whispering his enchantment over the lock, we exited the library.
“So what does ash have to do with all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s all connected somehow. Ash is made from a Charbydon flower called a Bleeding Soul.”
“Sangurne N’ashu. It’s a—”
“A myth, I know. But it is real and the extract is being used to make the drug.”
He paused at the bottom of the staircase, and I realized I’d actually stumped him. “They’re two separate myths, calling the darkness and the myth of the Bleeding Souls.” He shoved his hands in his pocket and let out a quizzical huff. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, that makes two of us.”
We went silently up the stairs, back to the room we had appeared in earlier.
“So how much, exactly, do you like my sister?” I asked as we stepped inside the pentagram.
A curtain fell over his features. His green eyes became hooded and unreadable, and his mouth stretched into a grim line. Sore subject obviously, but what I’d seen earlier in his aura didn’t lie. “Enough,” he finally said in a flat, even voice, giving nothing away.
I frowned. “Does that mean enough you don’t want to talk about it, or enough as in you like her enough, as in you like her, like her?”
Apparently, I wasn’t getting anything out of him because he chose that moment to grab my hand. “Wait!” I needed a second to prepare, just to take a deep breath. Then a thought occurred to me. “Can I do this, too?”
“You want to try?”
“For now,” he said, closing his eyes, and then whoosh.
We were dispersed into thin air, reappearing on the landing at Bryn’s flat.
CHAPTER 15
I despised the way blinking in and out of reality made me feel, as though my body weighed significantly more than it did. It was like that moment when a downward elevator stops and your body feels like it keeps going for a second or two. Yeah. This was a hundred times worse than that. But, on the brighter side, the sensation went away after ten seconds or so.
Aaron adjusted his silk shirt, swiped his long fingers through his ebony hair, and then rang the doorbell.
The door opened and there was Will, standing there looking down at me. Same handsome face, same stormy blue eyes, same sun-kissed brown hair … Except, I realized, as my eyes soaked him in, that Will’s crooked smile always came out of affection and happiness, not the crooked smile of the eternally sarcastic.
Rex.
Disappointment blew through me like a desert wind.
“Lesson one,” Aaron softly reminded me from behind.
Control your emotions. I squared my shoulders and walked by Rex, my heart firmly back in check.
Bryn sat at the kitchen table, one foot tucked under her rear, leaning over a map and biting her lip in concentration. Her hair was pulled back into a messy twist, and the long bangs were tucked behind her ear. She glanced over and gave me a hopeful smile that laid me wide open. Her aura sprang forth, so beautiful it stole my breath. Lush, vibrant green shot with ribbons of Caribbean blue.