The Knife in the Dark (The Seven Signs Book 2)

by D. W. Hawkins

  He started to sob and make pitiful noises. Bethany could hear the spittle in his voice, could hear it start to break as he began to cry. Something about the sound made tears well up in her eyes, too, as if that one little noise had broken the floodgate that was holding them back. Her fire crept closer and closer to him, and she could feel him getting weaker.

  “No!” he screamed, the sound terrifying her. “No! PLEASE!”

  She turned and fled from him, running back down the hallway into the dark, her eyes blurry from the tears that ran down her face.

  She heard his wild, frantic screams as the fire took him.

  **

  The first thing that D’Jenn saw as he rushed into the room was Dormael, crouched with fingers of unspent electricity flickering over his naked skin. The remains of a Greater Circle lay around him, broken in the front by something that had blown the sand outward. Upon the wall to his right was another Circle, though D’Jenn didn’t recognize any of the glyphs that were scrawled around it. It had been broken as well, and there was some sort of black substance crawling into the cracks of the stone as the magic inside of the Circle dissipated.

  He froze as he saw who was rising from the ground across from him.

  D’Jenn had never seen anything like this girl before him, this remnant of the girl he’d met. The way she’d been cut upon, weaving strange designs into her skin, was something alien and abhorrent. Her hair had somehow been leached of all its color, leaving it a stark, bone-white. She was a shadow of the Inera that he’d met all those years ago, but it was her. There was no mistaking it.

  Her eyes met his, bloodshot and filled with terrible anger. She was wearing some sort of tattered dress, and a girdle around her midsection. It gave D’Jenn the impression of an old burial shroud, decaying from years left in the ground. There was a song ringing out from her that could only be her Kai, but it was interlaced with something else, some other power that felt greasy and black.

  Inera snarled, startling him by lancing out with a torrent of fire. She sent it spiraling toward his face, hungry flames reaching for his skin. D’Jenn reacted with instinct, pulling the water from the sewage trench in the room, and pulling it up before him to block the flames. Steam burst from the point of contact, filling the room with its hissing vapor. D’Jenn backed away, keeping the burning steam away from his skin.

  Gritting his teeth, D’Jenn split his concentration in two. He sent the other half of his magic whirling through the room like a wind that couldn’t be felt, picking up every piece of errant debris that was lying around. The sand, the dust, the pieces of the door, and anything light enough to be picked up by his magic was gathered into a whirling globe, blurring with the speed of its movement. He moved that toward Inera, engulfing her in the flying debris while still fending off the lance of fire she was throwing at him.

  Inera had gotten better, or had received training from somewhere. The last time D’Jenn had seen her, she would have been incapable of fending off his attacks. Her magic had been a humble gift, and one that she had never used in violence. That was not so any longer. She held out a hand, and the whirlpool of flying detritus was pushed outward from her. It wavered as their magic warred against each other, but the globe was pushed steadily away as she bent her strength against him.

  D’Jenn could see the strain on her face, though. Each wizard had different gifts, and each was better at different things. Dormael, for instance, could toss around enough power to cause an avalanche, break city walls, or burn stone to molten lava, and do it the hard way—but his concentration was a little on the weak side, and he could barely manage to do two or three things at once. D’Jenn, on the other hand, though a little weaker than Dormael in the raw power aspect, could divide his concentration multiple times, and manage more complex spells in different ways.

  It looked to D’Jenn that Inera’s ability with magic was limited. She was barely managing to hold the spinning cloud at bay while maintaining her lance of fire, and she was growing weaker by the second. The only thing that worried D’Jenn was the other power she was tapped into, that greasy black feeling that permeated her Kai like oil poured over water. She closed her eyes, and D’Jenn could feel her trying to stabilize her power through weakening concentration. He pushed harder, moving his shield forward and moving toward her step by step. He wouldn’t have to do much to defeat her.

  In his mind, she had already lost.

  The steam hissed and billowed around him. He redoubled his efforts, pouring more magic into the whirling cloud, pushing harder against Inera’s will. Her fire wavered, but D’Jenn saw her school her expression into something focused, and the cloud moved outward again. He took another step forward, dividing his mind into yet another partition, and began to leach the heat away from her fire.

  The lance of flame began to waver at the edges, sputtering as the water started to win the struggle. The fire disappeared, and D’Jenn pushed his barrier of water into the whirling cloud, combining the two spells with all the power left in that part of his concentration. His mind slid back into one focused purpose with ease, and he pushed the whirlwind of sewage and debris at Inera with all the strength he could muster. Such a thing should have ripped her apart.

  Since she’d abandoned her attack, however, Inera was able to concentrate on keeping the detritus away from her body, and her shield stabilized around her. Once again, the two of them were locked in a struggle of pure magical strength, and were almost evenly matched. D’Jenn was a bit stronger than Inera, and he was able to gain a little ground, but her defense was simpler than his attack, and he had to expend more effort than she did. She grimaced at him, and he felt her bend more of her will into the spell. His cloud thinned and widened, pushed away from her body. D’Jenn returned her stare and poured his magic into the spell, but could gain no more ground against her.

  She snarled a word in a guttural language, and tossed her hand upwards.

  Blood sprayed up from her palm, whirling into the cloud of water and debris. A black smoke-like substance congealed into the cloud, whirling into his spell and obscuring D’Jenn’s view of her. He felt the spell begin to come apart, as if it were being eaten from the inside, corroded by that same greasy power he’d felt her using before. D’Jenn cursed and abandoned his attack, and the debris evaporated into black smoke.

  The cloud roiled up from Inera, gathering above her like an angry thunderhead. She was smiling now, holding her bleeding hand above her head, the smoke leaking from her wound as if her own blood were the source of the dark, misty substance. D’Jenn tensed himself for another attack, but he’d never seen this before, and wasn’t sure what to expect.

  She snarled again, and multiple tentacles whipped out from the cloud, flying at D’Jenn faster than he would have thought possible. He fended them off with flashes of his magic, but every time he forced one of them aside, another whipped at him from a different direction. He danced over the floor, slick with blood and sewage, trying to gain an advantage by finding a more defensible position. The cloud floated after him, chasing him around the room.

  Inera cackled, and disappeared through the doorway. D’Jenn cursed in frustration, but he was pinned down by the reaching tentacles. Inera’s laughter echoed through the tunnel beyond.

  “Dormael!” he shouted.

  Dormael’s magic rang out, slicing into the cloud as D’Jenn fended off the tentacles. The strange mass of oily darkness fought them, but it was no match for both of them. Even as D’Jenn sliced the tentacles to pieces, Dormael brought his magic to bear against the cloud itself. With a combined effort, the two of the crushed the thing out of existence. The destruction of the spell left an odd shriek sounding through the ether, like the echo of a dissonant chord.

  In the wake of the fight, all was quiet. D’Jenn could hear his own labored breathing in his ears, his heart beating against his ribs. Dormael stood beside him, his visage covered in blood.

  All three of the guards were dead. Two of them had been killed and lay on the gr
ound, pools of blood spreading out beneath them. The third hung four hands off the floor, pinned to the wall by swords driven through his shoulders. His innards were spilled onto the floor, grayish, slimy ropes that cascaded from a jagged rent in the man’s stomach. There were multiple stab wounds in him, but some of them appeared to have been made from the inside, rather than from outside—as if something had crawled into the man’s gut and then back out again from another place. Atop the pile of gore sat a single jagged knife.

  D’Jenn had to bite back the bile that had risen to his throat at the sight. Allen and Dormael both were ignoring the body. Dormael turned and spat blood to the side, but D’Jenn didn’t know if it was from a wound, or if it had simply run into his mouth. The man was covered in it.

  “Do you see my clothes anywhere?” Dormael asked, looking around the gore-riddled room.

  Allen snapped his fingers and stepped into the antechamber. In a few moments, he returned with a pile of clothing. He nodded to his brother as he handed them over.

  “Saw them in the corner, before we came in here,” Allen said. “Are you alright, brother? You look like the Six Hells came over and had you for dinner.” He adopted a jocular posture, but D’Jenn could hear the relief in his voice.

  Dormael looked down at his shackles, appearing to realize that his wrists were still held by them. He frowned, and D’Jenn felt his song murmur as the metal snapped and fell to the stone. Dormael brushed his hands together, taking the clothes and beginning to dress.

  “Coz, you might want to clean up a bit,” D’Jenn said, indicating Dormael’s blood-spattered skin.

  “Oh, right,” Dormael murmured. He closed his eyes, and D’Jenn felt his magic move again. The blood lifted from his skin and flaked away into the air, until Dormael no longer looked like a vision out of some nightmare. His eyes, though, remained haunted.

  “Inera got away?” Dormael asked, looking at D’Jenn. D’Jenn nodded back. He noticed Dormael’s avoidance of Allen’s question—are you alright?—but declined to say anything. Allen caught his eyes and relayed a meaningful look. D’Jenn gave the barest hint of a nod in response, acknowledging that he saw it, too.

  “Eindor’s bloody eye,” Dormael cursed. “She’s working with that…with that gods-damned vilth. She’s one of them.”

  “Gods,” Allen said. “You mean a necromancer, like the one in the mountains?”

  “Worse,” Dormael said. “She’s more powerful than Jureus was by far.”

  D’Jenn nodded. “I remember what her gift was like before. It’s changed—it’s broader, stronger, and infused with that energy, whatever it was.”

  “Don’t they eat dead bodies, kill people right and left, that sort of thing?” Allen asked.

  “All of those things, and worse, I suspect,” D’Jenn said. “The Conclave doesn’t know much about them. They have a strict kill-them-wherever-you-find-them policy. Most of what we know comes from eyewitness accounts of past vilthinum activities, and some of it is…questionable. I’m surprised to see her alive.”

  “Imagine how I feel,” Dormael muttered. “Besides, I’m not sure she is totally alive.”

  “Who is she?” Allen asked.

  “An old friend,” D’Jenn answered, unsure if Dormael would have wanted him to reveal anything.

  “I was in love with her once,” Dormael said, as if he were announcing it to himself as much as his brother. “She was…different, then.”

  “One would hope,” Allen said. Dormael gave him an evil look, which Allen ignored.

  “I’m glad you’re alright, though. D’Jenn was worried about you,” Allen said.

  D’Jenn just gave a derisive snort in reply.

  “Good to see I’m so loved,” Dormael smiled.

  “What was she doing here?” D’Jenn asked. He walked over the scene, surveying the ruins of the Greater Circle on the ground, and that of the Circle on the wall. “These markings—I’ve never seen their like.”

  “She was…she was torturing me for information. She wanted the armlet. She wanted Shawna,” Dormael said, his shoulders slumping beneath the weight of the admission. “When I refused her, she summoned up a demon that would have worn my skin and taken my identity—at least, I think it was a demon. She mentioned her master. There can be no question. She’s one of them, through and through.” Dormael’s eyes grew darker with each word, until he was staring at the remains of her mysterious Circle as if he wanted to smash it.

  “How do you know that—the thing about the demon taking your identity?” D’Jenn asked, suddenly interested. Little was known about the denizens of the outside planes. Where had Dormael learned about them? He loved his cousin, but if D’Jenn hadn’t read about it, then Dormael certainly hadn’t.

  Unless one could read it from the thighs of a laughing girl, or the bottom of a cup.

  “It’s not important,” Dormael said. He’d spoken a little too quickly, moving to pull his shirt over his head. He was hiding something, but D’Jenn had no idea why.

  It must be the day for fucking secrets. Everyone is keeping something from me.

  D’Jenn almost said something, but decided to let the matter lie. After all, Dormael had just been tortured—and from the amount of blood, D’Jenn was surprised the man could even stand, much less anything else. For all the gore that had covered him—and what covered the spot under which he had hung—he should have been bleeding from a thousand cuts. Instead, he looked whole.

  Too whole, he realized as his eyes caught something that almost floored him.

  “Dormael, wait,” D’Jenn said, reaching out a hand to forestall him from pulling the shirt over his head. “That bruise you had—it’s gone!”

  “I know,” Dormael sighed. “She used her powers on me, D’Jenn. She…healed me somehow. Do you see that jar on the table?”

  D’Jenn looked to where his cousin was pointing, eyes alighting on a glass jar with a thick cork in the top. Lights swirled around inside of it, revolving in an endless parade around the edge of the glass. D’Jenn had never seen anything like it.

  Allen walked over to the bottle and picked it up off the table, gazing into the water at the lights. He shook the bottle, causing both Dormael and D’Jenn to start back in surprise. One just didn’t go about shaking magical things—some of them blew up! D’Jenn relaxed when nothing happened, and shook his head as Allen walked over to them.

  “The little sparks didn’t get shaken with the rest of the water,” Allen said as he walked up. “Watch.”

  And again, as Dormael and D’Jenn both made protesting, fearful noises, Allen swirled the bottle in a circle, causing the water to spin. The lights continued their slow revolutions of the glass, as if the water wasn’t even there. Dormael and D’Jenn both gave Allen meaningful scowls, but Allen only answered with a smile.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” D’Jenn said. “Just that shaking that thing around might have killed us all. Nothing to worry about.”

  Allen smiled.

  “Like this?” he asked, shaking the bottle again.

  “Give me that!” Dormael said, snatching the bottle from Allen’s hands as his brother laughed. Dormael handed the bottle over to D’Jenn and went back to straightening his clothing. D’Jenn raised the bottle to his eyes.

  He gazed into the water, watching the sparks of light revolve around the bottle in contented circles. It was sort of beautiful, if you didn’t take into account that it had been used by a vilth, and was most likely made with necromancy. Their hypnotic spin was pleasant to look upon, but the gods only knew how the things had been created. For all D’Jenn knew, they were the souls of suffering children.

  Shawna would like that one—he’d have to make sure and tell her.

  “What did she do with it?” D’Jenn asked, still gazing into the bottle.

  “She fed the lights to me,” Dormael replied, his expression becoming uncomfortable. “There were more of them before—I think they are expended with each use. When I swallowed them, they…well
, they healed me. Stitched my cuts together like they’d never happened. I had no idea that vilthinum were capable of such things.”

  “Why in the Six Hells did she heal you?” Allen asked.

  “Because,” Dormael said, “I was close to death. She did it multiple times.”

  The casual way that Dormael said it gave D’Jenn the chills. Allen’s jaw worked again, his expression becoming angry. The room was silent for a tense, uncomfortable moment.

  “Let’s get back to the surface,” Dormael said, his tone grim. “We need to get back to the Conclave as quickly as we can.”

  “Indeed,” D’Jenn nodded. “The reason we knew you were missing is that I needed to find you. Some new information has come to light.”

  “No kidding,” Allen said, gesturing around at the carnage.

  “What new information?” Dormael asked.

  “It’s about Victus,” D’Jenn sighed, the words tasting like bile even as he said them. “He’s been using us. He’s been using everyone.”

  Dormael looked as if he wanted to object, wanted to argue. Something in his eyes, though, told D’Jenn that maybe he’d seen so much horror today that one more thing was just a rock on top of a mountain. Dormael sighed, and nodded his head as his shoulders slumped again.

  “Of course he has,” was all he said.

  “We need to get back, get you looked at,” D’Jenn said.

  “No,” Dormael grunted, shaking his head. “If Victus is using us, as you say, then whom can we trust? You and I both know that the only reason we came here was for his help.”

  “I don’t know,” D’Jenn said. “I just…don’t know. Something will present itself, though. We’re only stuck if we let ourselves be stuck.”

  Dormael narrowed his eyes.

  “Victus used to tell me that,” he said.

  “Where do you think I got it?”

  “Regardless,” Dormael said, “Inera wanted Shawna, wanted the armlet. If I can be taken off the streets of Ishamael, wounded or not, then what else are they capable of doing? What plans are they hatching? We need to get back to the Conclave, find Bethany and Shawna, and figure out our next move.”