Dark Awakened (The Devil's Assistant Book 2)

by HD Smith

  Ronin looked off to the side and closed his eyes, as if he were listening to something.

  “What is it?” I asked when he opened his eyes.

  “Mab has called me. I must go.”

  “Wait, I need your help. I need a way to control the power. I have to learn how to use it, or Raven isn’t going to be the biggest problem.”

  “I can’t just tell you to control it, lass. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Okay, but what about a tutor? Someone that can help me learn how to control it?”

  Ronin thought for a minute. “There’s a man who might help you, but he’s very difficult to find. Many have tried over the years, but most are never seen again.”

  “That doesn’t sound promising.”

  “Of course, I have also been described that way,” he said, “yet here you are.”

  “Considering our bond, I’m not sure that’s a factor, but I’m willing to try. Who is he?”

  “Jayne’s advisor...well, ex-advisor. She banished him before the fall, but he was her most trusted servant for a long time. She made no decisions without his advice.”

  Banished—one of the prophecies from Omar’s book which had no obvious meaning before. But like everything else it had been filed away in my steel trap of a brain. The prophecy stated:

  10: BANISHMENT – A loyal servant must hide with the lost truth, or the beginning of time will cease.

  Oh, good, I wouldn’t want his role to be insignificant. “Where can I find him?”

  “You can’t find him unless he wants to be found, but advisors are often like seers—he may know you’re coming. He would have sensed the change in the fourth realm. He will know that you’re the one who changed it. He may help you.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Ronin shrugged. “You’ll have to fight her either way.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Leland Kane,” he said, then added, “remember that most have not returned from a quest for Jayne’s advisor, so don’t let your guard down if you find him.”

  I nodded.

  “I have to go now,” Ronin said, “or Mab will be suspicious.”

  “I understand, and don’t forget—”

  “I know what to do, lass, now be safe,” he said, but it wasn’t a command. Ronin disappeared, leaving me there to contact a man I had absolutely no connection to.

  Chapter 35

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on finding a connection. Ronin had said advisors were like seers, and if Kane wanted me to find him I would. I had no direct connection to him, but he’d been Jayne’s advisor and I had Jayne’s blood. I was sure she could have linked to him instantly. I focused my power and thought of Leland Kane.

  A faint line appeared in my mind’s eye, but before I could investigate my body was pulled along and slipped through to the other side.

  I opened my eyes to find myself nose to nose with a double barrel shotgun.

  Cautiously I said, “Mr. Kane?”

  He didn’t move.

  A wave of power started to build. The wisps of energy wrapped around my wrists, gathering in balls of hellfire. I tightly closed each fist to tamp down the threat.

  I heard a click, and stopped breathing. Instantly wisps of energy covered me.

  In slow motion I felt the pulse of the buckshot as it exited the barrel. Instinctively I pushed my hands forward, funneling the hellfire and scattering the particles like dust on the wind.

  The force of the backlash had me sprawled on the ground, and my ears ringing. I jumped to my feet, startled by the bleached bones that surrounded me.

  My heart pounded as I looked around. The gun—and the mechanical dummy holding it—lay broken on the ground in the center of the clearing. Like the rays of a misshapen sun, the bones of the dead radiated outward. In horror, I realized it was all that remained of those who’d sought the advisor.

  I took a step. The gun clicked again. I dove for the edge of the circle as the shot echoed across the valley. Birds cawed as they took flight, beating a fast retreat.

  I rolled to my back, clutching the pendant in my hand as I waited for my heartbeat to slow. The pendant felt warm here, just as it had in the fourth realm. I’d forgotten that until now, but I wasn’t sure what it meant. Was this place part of the fourth realm? Or was the pendant just drawn to it? Either way did that mean this pendant was Jayne’s and not Mab’s? The voice of the Jayne in my head from last spring had been fixated on the pendant. If it were Jayne’s, and the voice was indeed part of her, then it would make sense if the pendant reacted to places connected to the fourth realm. I took several deep breaths, trying to calm down.

  After a few minutes the urge to flatten everything in sight passed. I got to my feet and looked around.

  The death trap was in the middle of a grassy knoll about the size of two city blocks. It was at the base of a steep hill, bordered on three sides by an uninviting forest dense with trees.

  An overgrown path curved out of sight at the base of the hill. It didn’t look any more inviting than the forest, but at least someone had traveled this way before. I followed it through a narrow line of trees. From this side I could see the roof of a small cottage ahead.

  I made my way through the thicket of brush to a clearing that surrounded the little house—a weathered cape cod with cracked and peeling paint on every inch of its wooden exterior.

  Sensing a threshold, I cautiously extended my hand.

  “Mr. Kane,” I called. No answer.

  I glanced at my wrist, making note of the countdown, but now wasn’t the time to be cautious. I stepped across the invisible line. Nothing happened until I tried to take another step. I couldn’t move.

  Thorny vines sprouted from the earth to twine around my legs. They were moving fast. The one on my left leg was already halfway up my calf.

  A voice yelled from behind the house, “I would sort that out quickly, if I were you.”

  Kane? It must be.

  “How?” I yelled back.

  Laughter. “That’s right, this is your first visit. I would recommend you jump.”

  “What?”

  “You know, jump into the air.”

  “I can’t move my legs.”

  “Well then, you’d better hurry, before the force you need is too great and you wind up separating your legs from your body,” he intoned in a dry humorless voice.

  I took a deep breath and jumped, but nothing happened. “I don’t understand,” I said as the vines continued their crawl. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Jump,” he said again, and I wanted to scream. “Direct your will toward the ground, and pray to whomever it is that you pray to that the force will pull you free. I would hurry, if I were you.”

  Ugh! This was crazy, but it might work. Releasing the hold on my energy, I aimed my hands at the ground. Hellfire swirled in my palms. I focused the power down at the ground, and jumped, the added force pulling me free of the vines.

  I flew into the air, realizing too late I wasn’t really prepared to fall. Hitting the ground harder than expected, I fell forward onto my knees. Luckily I didn’t break anything.

  “Quickly now,” he said, “come around back before it starts again.”

  I jumped to my feet and ran, not stopping until I’d reached the back side of the cottage. The backyard was surrounded by a waist-high white picket fence, with a slatted entrance near the house.

  I started for the gated entrance.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said the old gray-haired man tending his potted plants. “Don’t come in. You aren’t staying.”

  “I need your help, sir. Many lives depend on it.”

  He chuckled. “Do you even know who I am?”

  “I...I hope you’re Leland Kane.”

  “The notorious advisor to the Fall Queen? I’m not sure anyone would want to be him.”

  “I need your help. I must figure out how to use and control my power, or Raven—the Name Caller —will
win and we’ll all die.”

  He looked up from his plants. Green glimmered faintly across his eyes. “Well then, you shouldn’t have let her out.”

  “It was an accident—wait, how do you know that?”

  “How much time is left?”

  “What?”

  “How much time do we have?” He pointed to my wrist.

  I looked down. I was almost on the second line. “Eight hours.”

  “Well then, you’d better hurry.” He turned back to his plants. “You don’t have much time.”

  Ugh! “Obviously you know things,” I said, clutching the pendant and striving for patience, “so you must know that without your help, I’ll fail.”

  “You’ve already received my help, child,” he said in that annoyingly cryptic tone.

  “When?” I asked, finally getting somewhere.

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “That’s when you’ll help me?”

  He nodded.

  “Why not now?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “There’s no time now,” he said, looking at my wrist. “You are too worried about that. You can’t focus.” He shrugged. “At least that’s what you told me the first time we met.”

  That made sense. I was worried about the deadline, but...If I can go back two weeks, why can’t I just warn myself not to step into that elevator? I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t thought of that before. I had jumped back to when I was in the Deeps. I could stop everything. I could go back to when I was born, I could...

  I looked up at the advisor, sure there was a reason this wouldn’t work. “If I can go back two weeks, why can’t I just warn myself not to get on the elevator? Or maybe even stop it all at the beginning?”

  “Aside from possibly blinking yourself out of existence, just know that you cannot.”

  “But...”

  He held out his hand, stopping me.

  He shook his head, then looked away into the distance. “I told you not to take it,” he said, but he wasn’t talking to me. “I told you it was dangerous, that you would destroy yourself with it, but you wouldn’t listen. And now you’re dead,” he muttered.

  “Do you mean Jayne?” I asked.

  He slammed his trowel against the potting table, breaking the pot he’d been filling. “Never speak of her to me.”

  “I’m sorry. I just want to understand why I can travel through time but I can’t seem to use it to fix things—to save myself.”

  He glared at me. “What exactly would you be fixing? You have no idea what would happen if you changed events. What has happened must happen. There are consequences if they don’t.”

  “Consequences?”

  “You must avoid changing events at all cost. You will die if you don’t. Now go,” he said, turning back to his pots.

  I started to say something else.

  “Go,” he said, cutting me off, “and don’t forget to duck.”

  I closed my eyes and slid into the past. Unfortunately, I didn’t arrive at the cottage. His words echoed in my ears as I reappeared in the circle of bones.

  I ducked, just as the gun fired.

  I lay there on the ground breathing heavy, heart thumping from the adrenaline. I sat up, snapping a twig under my hand. “Shit,” I said as the gun sighted me again.

  A millisecond later a man appeared directly across from me in the circle. The double-barrel spun around and fired. At the same time, I pushed to my feet and dove for the outer periphery.

  Like so many others, the man had fallen where he stood. I watched in horror and amazement as his body decomposed in front of my eyes. Within seconds his flesh melted away, his clothes turned to dust, and only the bones remained.

  I got to my feet. I breathed a sigh of relief when the gun ignored me. I raised my hand to destroy it, then stopped. I couldn’t destroy it. I’d already destroyed it. Kane’s warning not to change anything echoed in my ears.

  I left the clearing and followed the path back to the cottage. I didn’t stop at the threshold this time, but the vines still attacked.

  I jumped, pushing my will at the ground.

  I made my way to the back of the cottage, forgetting I wasn’t expected.

  “Hey,” I yelled, as a dagger headed straight for me.

  Instinctively my power flared around me, deflecting the dagger before it made contact. My heart was racing at the near miss, and the energy roiling at my core wasn’t letting up. I watched as it lapped out at the gate, crackling as it hit an invisible dome barrier that covered the entire fenced in area behind the cottage. I clutched the pendant to quell the beast within.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Kane said, manifesting another dagger.

  “Wait,” I said, clumsily trying to direct my will toward the oncoming blade.

  The energy left me, hitting the shield and rolling over it, missing the dagger completely. I yelped as it clipped my cheek, and dove for the side of the house. A surge of power started building.

  “Please,” I yelled. “I need to speak with you.”

  I heard another dagger as it snicked through the shield. Defensively I threw my hands up, but instead of knocking away the blade, I unleashed a torrent of hellfire out of my palms.

  It vaporized the blade and cut down several trees in its wake.

  “I need to talk to you,” I yelled. “I’m not like the others. I mean you no harm.”

  He remained within the fence, but I could sense that he was closer.

  “Jayne,” he asked, “is that you?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, not sure why he’d consider it an option.

  I heard a sigh. “You are one of the attempts,” he said. “How disappointing.”

  “Yes, I’m one of the attempts,” I parroted back sarcastically.

  “I suppose you believe you’re the girl?” he asked, with the same dull tone. “You have come here to see if I’ll help you. You shouldn’t have wasted your time. You’re not the girl.”

  “Good, tell the others.”

  He laughed.

  “Girl from the prophecy or not I need your help to use and control the power.”

  He was silent. Clutching the pendant, I quelled the energy within. Standing, I faced him.

  He prepared another dagger.

  “Enough,” I said, palms out. “You told me to come.”

  He narrowed his eyes, focusing on the ruby at my neck. “How did you get her jewel?”

  “Mab, gave it to me.”

  He made an annoyed chuff. Clearly, he wasn’t a fan of Mab’s either. “I sent you? How?”

  I explained our first meeting, including my suspicion that he’d allowed me to find him. I told him of Raven and Thanos, and how we were all doomed if I couldn’t learn to use and control my power so that I could stop her.

  Studying me, he said skeptically, “I’m to believe you’ve walked through time?”

  “How else would I be here?” I asked.

  He laughed and returned to his pots. “There are others. I suspect this Raven is one. If you fail, another will succeed.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  He snorted, shaking his head. “Ah, the hubris of the self important.”

  “Raven can and will destroy all the realms. You have to understand that.”

  “That seems unlikely,” he droned.

  “How do you know? You’ve been stuck here for, what, thousands of years?”

  He turned to stare at me.

  “Look, I don’t know how much you know about the prophecies, but as far as I can tell she isn’t the one that’s supposed to win. I mean, not if you actually want The Harbinger prophecy completed.”

  Kane’s lips flattened into a straight line. “What is her gift?”

  “She knows everything’s name, which has a seriously negative side effect for magic-users.”

  He smiled, as if he were impressed by something.

  “What?”

  “You say she is just now coming of age?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “
She’s been trapped in the Great Museum for five hundred years.”

  “Ah, that would explain it.” He turned back to his pots.

  Explain what? Ronin had said advisors were like seers. Perhaps he got glimpses of what was to come? Had he foreseen of a contender with these gifts? I considered questioning him further, but ultimately it didn’t matter. I had to learn to use and control the power, not understand exactly how the advisor saw the world.

  Before I could beg for his assistance, he continued, “She will do. You are not required.”

  Furious, I said, “The Name Caller—Raven—will not do anything she doesn’t want to do,” I snapped. “And if she ever found what was lost, she sure as hell wouldn’t give it back. I know there are others, and I may not be the girl that wins, but she won’t do anything that doesn’t benefit her. You’re betting on the wrong horse if you think otherwise.”

  His head snapped around, eyes wide. “The Name Caller—wrong horse you say?”

  I nodded, the red horse painting flashing across my mind.

  “How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “Horses?”

  I rolled my eyes, sure now he meant the contenders—as if the four of us were the four horsemen of the apocalypse. “Four,” I said, and that got his attention.

  His lips quirked up in a smile. Without hesitation, he said, “You must kill her.”

  “Why?” Although it wasn’t the first time I’d been told this, I wanted to hear his take.

  “One of the four cannot be destroyed by anyone else.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “If you don’t help me, I’ll be the one getting killed,” I said. “The pagans protecting her are powerful. They’re all deadly on their own, but together—”

  “I wasn’t able to kill you,” he said, smiling. “And you survived the protections of this place.”

  I glanced back at the charred remains of the felled trees. “Yeah, I survived, but not much else did.”

  He glanced over my shoulder, as if seeing it for the first time. “That’s new, and it’ll get the job done.”

  “I’ll die if I kill the ones protecting her.” I lifted my sleeve, assuming he could see Gizelle’s mark as Ronin had. “So it isn’t as simple as going there and destroying everything—which is the only thing I seem to be good at right now.”