by Carmen Caine
Expelling an aggravated breath, Lucian rose to his feet and announced, “I’m done here. Come, Cassidy. We’ve other loose ends to explore.”
“No,” True intercepted quickly, before I even had a chance to respond. As Lucian cocked a brow his way, he offered a smiling explanation, “Cassidy should stay. I must teach her how to control her specter spirit. It won’t take long. An hour, maybe two. She must learn before we have more unwanted visitors coming from the Nether Reaches and beyond.”
That bothered me. Unwanted visitors? I wasn’t too keen myself on having anymore Fallen Ones show up myself. If only I could join the realm of regular humans where ‘unwanted visitors’ just meant rats or irritating relatives.
“I’m game,” I said with a shrug. Besides, maybe I could pry a few answers out of True.
Lucian didn’t say anything, he simply stood there, dark and withdrawn, and with the way his silver-blue gaze had locked on some unseen horizon, I wasn’t sure he even heard a word we’d said.
Raising a puzzled brow, I reached over and poked his chest. “Lucian?”
He started and then, adjusting his leather glove, murmured a distracted, “Very well, I’ll be back in a few”. He strode away then, disappearing into the surrounding darkness without a backwards glance.
Odd.
As the sound of his footsteps receded, I turned to True. “Is he ok? Is Anya’s curse—”
“Still spelling him?” True finished, waving me out of the chamber with a long, bony hand. “No. That curse was indisputably broken. There is nothing to fear. Lucian is not in any danger this time, little one.”
“Then what’s up with his hand?” I asked, curious.
True angled his head, enough for me to see the wide smile pulling his lips into what some would think a gruesome grimace, but I knew he was genuinely pleased. “It can’t help but be revealed soon. It’s virtually complete. He was very close to begin with, so the journey was merely a short one. Such a thing could only be possible if the seed was sown in fertile ground, ripe and ready. It will change… everything.”
“And that makes sense in what world?” I snorted. “What is it with all the riddles today?”
The Night Terror didn’t answer. Instead, he swept down a narrow corridor lit only by the occasional torch hissing on the wall. I followed, at times losing him, but whenever I faltered, his voice slid hauntingly beautiful in the darkness around me.
“Just keep walking, Cassidy. Forward.”
After a few minutes, he appeared out of the darkness at my side, moving with that Night Terror gait, an unnaturally even step, giving the impression he floated rather than walked. It was funny. He was a Night Terror, pale and pasty-skinned. Literally, the stuff of nightmares. But the more time I spent with him, the more I saw him as a friendly uncle—alright, to be truthful, a really ugly friendly uncle, but friendly all the same.
He stopped so suddenly in front of a door that I ran right into him.
“I have something of yours, little one,” he said, smiling down at me. “And then, a few much-needed answers.”
“Well, I can’t complain about that,” I muttered, trailing into the room after him.
This chamber proved very different than the others. It was vast, appearing to be some kind of vault. Dark, walnut-stained cubbies lined the walls from the floor to a very high, cavernous ceiling. They overflowed with gold ingots and vials of mana—the mana being the more precious of the two. It glowed in the glass vials like large glowworms but faded into the distance like a myriad of stars twinkling in the night sky.
“How can anyone trust Night Terrors?” I asked, my voice echoing eerily as I stared, amazed at the wealth on display before me. “Isn’t this proof that your loyalty can be bought by the highest bidder?”
True gave a deep laugh. As it echoed around me like some bad movie villain’s, he dropped his voice into a whisper. “We are loyal to the specter kindred first, little one.” His eyes brightened into two brilliant pinpoints of light, reminding me of the jaggers floating in the Nether Reach mists. “But let us talk about you. You are astonishing, Cassidy. You could become the first Night Specter. You can make the non-specter kind see their worst fears and then reap their mana to the very spark of life itself. A spark that even the Chosen Ones carry.”
“Yeah,” I responded in acid, hushed tones. “Just what every girl wants to be when she grows up: a vampire-killing Night Specter.”
He brushed my disdain aside. “As Night Terrors, we gain control over humans only on ‘the brink’, the moment they wake from sleep but before they attain full consciousness. Only then are the chakras open to us, allowing us to retrieve a mere sip. But you, Cassidy, you do not have that limitation.”
I’d heard bits and pieces of this before. “Yeah, I know. I get it,” I said, shrugging and wandering over to inspect one of the mana vials pulsating in a cubby. The container was smell-proof. A shame. I couldn’t catch a whiff of what was inside. “I could be the real deal. The first Night Specter ever to exist. Yada, yada, yada. Sorry. Not interested. I’m not for sale.”
“As I suspected,” he said then, his shoulders deflating but his voice sounding … relieved?
I turned and arched a brow at him, immediately suspicious. “Was that some kind of test?”
He nodded, sagely. “In spite of the power you harbor, your jagger soul is strong enough to resist the lure of fear. Your kind are happier floating in the mists. They do not thrive on screams of terror.”
Ok. That was disturbing. “And Night Terrors do?” I asked.
“There is a dark side to all sentient beings bound to this world,” he replied unapologetically.
He glided to a cubby about ten feet away and pulled out a large, wooden crate. Floating back, he surprised me by tossing it into my arms.
I braced myself to catch it, but it was light. Surprisingly so. “What’s in here?” I asked. “Helium?”
“It is time you opened what is yours,” he said, watching me set the crate on the floor.
I’m not one for surprises, and in spite of his promise for answers, he’d only succeeded in sowing more questions. Stifling my growing irritation, I unsheathed a blade and pried the top off the crate.
I don’t know what I expected to see. I can say for sure, though, that I didn’t expect to find the Hell Stone resting there, a two-foot pillar of stone cushioned on a bed of Styrofoam peanuts. I squinted at the intricate Celtic circles carved into its rough surface. While not identical, they were similar enough to the Mindbreaker’s symbol that I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.
I pushed it back, not wanting to hear the horrendous screams I’d heard issuing from it before and almost wincing, raised my eyes to meet True’s golden ones.
Did I really want to know this answer?
Bracing myself mentally this time, I forged ahead. “Thanks, but it doesn’t match my kitchen décor.” I didn’t want the thing anywhere near my apartment. It gave me the creeps without even knowing its name. “And anyway, isn’t its real owner gonna get a wee upset if you give it away?”
“It is yours,” True said, crouching down beside me.
For the first time, I caught a glimpse of his toes peeking out from under his robes. So, he did have feet, and he wasn’t missing his bottom half like the jaggers. Strangely, it made me feel a bit more comfortable with him.
But then he had to ruin my chummy feeling by shocking me with his next statement.
“The Hell Stone belongs to you, Cassidy,” he said. “Because you are just as much a Mindbreaker as your father. Maybe even more so.”
More than Enough Truth for a Lifetime
I suppose the majority—maybe—of kids don’t mind hearing they take after their father. I did. But then, my father was a war criminal who’d obliterated more than one Charmed species and hobnobbed with Fallen Ones.
Leaping to my feet, I shoved the crate back with my heel. Hard. It skidded across the floor before tipping, but that only allowed the Hell Stone to fall out and roll ba
ck in my direction. Crud. Was it attached to me somehow?
Unnerved, I rounded on True. “No!” I stressed the word. “I’m nothing like him.”
“Is that so?” True murmured, lifting his gaunt body to hover over me. “You saw the truth in the perimancer pool, not even an hour ago.”
“The truth?” I challenged. “I was a baby. That thing put some kind of mana ball on my lips. That doesn’t make me a Mindbreaker—whatever the heck that is.”
“Mana ball?” True repeated in dry amusement. Stooping to gather the Hell Stone in his arms, he left the vault and led me a short distance away to a much smaller version of it, one that didn’t cause our voices to echo incessantly. “You are everything your father strove for and more. And you’re a natural.”
“Charming,” I spat caustically.
“What does the Mindbreaker lack that he so desperately needs?” True asked in a philosophical tone, setting the Hell Stone down on the floor.
“Beats me,” I snapped, irritated. “A conscience?” But then remembering the guy supposedly lived over a thousand years ago, I added, “Metamucil?”
True just carried on. “He desperately needs his power to become whole again. He needs the fragments he gave to the seven Fallen Ones for safekeeping, Fallen Ones banished to the Nether Reaches. Once he recovers it all, he’ll resume his reign of terror. Once again, he’ll control and break minds by preying upon his victims’ fears. And this time, he may be unstoppable.”
How do you really respond to something like that? I was flabbergasted.
Unperturbed, True forged ahead. “We must be careful with you, Cassidy,” he said. “Are you an accident? Or are you by design? That is the question we must answer.”
All right. That was a curveball. “And the difference?” I probed, bracing myself for more bad news.
“Does the Mindbreaker know you exist?” True answered with questions of his own. “Does he know you consumed a fragment of his power? Does he hope to pull it out of you? Can he? Is he using you to retrieve it for him, and when he’s done, will he reap it?”
For a moment, I stopped breathing. So that glowing Ping-Pong ball was a fragment of my twisted father’s powers? It explained why we shared the same mana signature. A new thought rose unbidden. Had my latest visit to the Nether Reaches been of a strategic nature?
“Emilio,” I croaked. “He tossed me off a building.”
“Emilio is not the Mindbreaker,” the Night Terror replied with absolute conviction, answering my question before I could even frame it. “He couldn’t have fathered you, Cassidy. The dead cannot give life.”
Yeah. Emilio was just sadistic. And delusional. Still, I couldn’t shake the thought. “He sure fancies himself my father,” I muttered.
“Emilio is unhinged. He encountered the Mindbreaker centuries ago, when he briefly resurged and we discovered the truth of the Ring,” True offered, pressing his wide, ghastly lips into a thin line. “Emilio changed after that, became obsessed. That is all.”
Unhinged? Understatement. “So, his mind is broken?” And then what he’d said belatedly caught my attention. “The Ring? That Ring we just found?” The one Emilio had drawn—quite obsessively—in his book? The one I’d sat on? The one he wanted Lucian to deliver to his penthouse?
“Emilio is of little consequence here,” True said, brushing talk of the vampire aside and ignoring my questions. “It is you we must concern ourselves with, little one. We must find your father. If he doesn’t know already, he will soon discover your existence. You can help him beyond his wildest dreams. No one can stop you from accessing the Nether Reaches, not even a Keeper of the Gates. Your jagger soul can summon the mists and create gates where none existed before, allowing you to access what is hidden from human sight. You can call the Fallen Ones to Earth on your own. And for you, fear is merely a harp string to be plucked.”
This was only getting worse. Mired in answers, I struggled to make sense of it all. “Harp strings?” I repeated, frowning.
A sudden sense of clarity flashed through me. Spaghetti and harp strings. Holy crud. Ricky was right. I’d just eaten the perimancer’s mana probes—long, pale strings of mana. I could see the analogy, though grotesque. I’d felt mana before, in Anya’s townhouse. It had felt delicate, like spider silk. And now, fear … could I see fear in mana form, touch it as though it were a harp string to be played?
I winced, knowing in my heart I’d already done it. I’d lost control in the warehouse. Instinct had taken over. I was more of a monster than I knew.
Wanting to vomit, I met True’s glowing, gold eyes. “I’m not sure I want to hear anymore.”
“Shall I tell you a tale, little one?” he asked instead.
“That’s a perverted response,” I accused. “And it’s going to be more Silence of the Lambs than some warm, fuzzy rendition of Cinderella, right?”
“It’s a tale of revenge,” the Night Terror surprised me by saying.
Revenge? I froze. That struck a chord.
Knowing he’d snagged my full attention, he sat down, cross-legged on the floor and placed his long bony fingers on his knees. “Your father was a powerful Nether Reach keeper of the Gates, and he had enemies. I shall not go into the specifics, but suffice it to say that after a long-lasting confrontation, one of them murdered your father’s wife and child. Your father exacted justice, but he didn’t stop there. He let revenge consume every shred of morality in his soul. And with each death, he broadened his definition of revenge all the more and cast his net even wider. He struck unholy alliances with the Dark Reaches, and unleashed a horror upon the Charmed that stands above all other dark periods in our history.”
“Nice. Can’t wait to read that on Ancestory.com,” I replied, but the venom I tried to project fell flat. Feeling weak, I sank to my knees in front of him.
“Do you know how the Charmed overcame the Mindbreaker the first time?” he asked then.
Of course I didn’t. Why do people ask useless questions?
The Night Terror tapped the Hell Stone sitting at his side. “It was a Night Terror,” he informed me with a glimmer of pride. “The screams of those inside attracted him to its location.”
“Yeah?” I arched a brow. Alright, I really wasn’t liking that thing. And even though I knew I’d hate his answer, I couldn’t stop my lips from forming the question. “Screams?” Yeah, I’d heard them myself in Venice, but I hadn’t thought them to be real. Surely, they were akin to the sounds of the sea you hear when you put a conch shell to your ear—an auditory illusion.
“They are the broken minds of your father’s victims,” came his soft answer.
Crud. I was right. I hated his answer. “And you think I’d want this thing?” I gaped at him, downright nauseated. “Here’s a childhood memento, Cassidy. A container of your father’s victims?”
“The Mindbreaker eluded the trap they set for him,” True continued, ignoring my reaction. “They never found him. He vanished without a trace, even his powers disappeared, leaving no trail behind. Not one hint. The Night Terrors took his Hell Stone, but there was no way to open it, to release the minds of those trapped inside. And for almost seven hundred years, the Mindbreaker faded into history.”
He fell silent then, but with each passing moment, my curiosity only grew stronger. Finally, caught in some kind of morbid brand of curiosity in spite of myself, I attempted to goad him on by musing aloud, “But then he resurfaced, and Emilio became fascinated with him.”
He nodded.
A new thought struck me. “But why didn’t the Nether Reach keepers just go hunt down the Fallen Ones and destroy his power?” It sounded like something Strix would enjoy doing. “Why aren’t they doing that now?”
True nodded again, as if impressed with my ability to reason, but he chose to meander through history again, rather than provide a direct answer.
“We didn’t discover the truth until 1345,” he said. “When a young woman, gifted with the Second Sight, stumbled upon his unholy secre
t. Quite unwittingly, she allowed her lover to remove and deliver her life spark to the Mindbreaker. She witnessed the first retrieval. The Mindbreaker used the spark’s mana, imbued with the Second Sight, to activate the Ring and summon a Fallen One from its hiding place, the Nether Reaches. The Ring was seized, but once again, the Mindbreaker eluded capture, but not before he’d consumed his own power fragment.”
Again, too much information packed into so few words. My mind reeled with questions. “The Ring’s a gate? Like a dinkier version of that one in the movie Stargate?” I asked, seizing the most obvious first.
I’d sat on the thing thinking it was a swing.
“It is much more than a mere gate,” True admitted, lacing his long, knobby fingers over his chest. “It is central to the Mindbreaker’s power and indestructibility.”
But I wasn’t really paying attention. Something about his story struck me as odd and begged to be asked. “But this young woman … you said he used her life spark. How did she witness this whole thing? Wouldn’t she be dead?”
“Technically, yes,” True granted with a slow nod. “It was Gloria Ramsey, little one. It is the story of her turning.”
I choked. Ok. I hadn’t seen that curveball coming. Gloria? “The same ‘shall-we-see-how-many-times-we-can-kill-Cassidy’ Gloria that I know?” I gasped, surprised that I could still be surprised at this point.
“She only attempted your murder out of fear. She knew you were the Mindbreaker’s daughter,” True said in her defense. Just whose side was he on here? “I have asked her myself. She thought he would use you, or that you would carry on his work.”
“Enough,” I gasped, closing my eyes and taking a few, deep, clarifying breaths.
After a few minutes, I felt somewhat centered.
Time to use logic, Cassidy. Logic. All right, honestly, if I removed myself from the situation, I could kind of see Gloria’s warped, very evil and very twisted, point of view. I mean, it’s the age old question we always torture ourselves with. If you had reason to believe a baby would grow up to be a mass, genocidal maniac, would you kill it as a baby to save the lives of its umpteen million future victims?